"Dixon, Franklin W - Hardy Boys 014 - The Hidden Harbor Mystery (original)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dixon Franklin W)

"That's right," agreed Frank. "The spot where slaves used to be smuggled in over a hundred years ago."
"You recall we were told that was how Hidden Harbor got its name," added Joe. "It is just the kind of a cove where a boat could sail in without being seen and unload something it wasn't supposed to."
"Sure. And I'll bet there were lots of secret doings that didn't get in the history books!"
"That may be the case today, too," suggested Joe. "Someone in Larchmont said there was a mystery mansion down there. Maybe it's Ruel Rand's home!"
"What's all this?" broke in the voice of Aunt Gertrude. "What's this about a mystery mansion? Whom is your letter from? Is there any mail for me?"
"No letters for you, I'm sorry to say," returned Frank. "But we've just had some very good news. We've been trying to trace the man whom we believe to be the real robber, and now we have his address."
Aunt Gertrude seemed to be in a better frame of mind this afternoon.
"You have his address !" she said, interested. "Then get busy and have him arrested at once."
"That's easier said than done," Joe told her. "We haven't any evidence against him."
"Humph! Just let me get my hands on the rascal for a minute and I'll get the evidence. I'll make him tell the truth. What's his name? Where does he live?"
Aunt Gertrude was as changeable as a weather-vane and no one could ever predict what she was going to do next. She seemed to have forgotten her conviction of the previous evening that the boys were guilty. Now she was equally firm in her belief that they were victims of injustice and that Ruel Rand was the one at fault.
Frank and Joe told her that evening the story of the voyage on the Resolute; about their encounter with Mr. Blackstone; of the discovery of the intruder in the stateroom; and of the subsequent fight and the wreck. The good lady was quite indignant.
"Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face!" she declared. "That scoundrel Rand is the thief. I know what I'd do if I were in your shoes. I'd go and tell the police about the rascal and have him thrown into jail."
At this moment there came a knock at the door and Chet Morton walked in, munching an apple.
"Good evening! Good evening! Good evening !" he chirped blithely. Then, when he recognized Aunt Gertrude, he swallowed hastily and turned pale. Chet had known the bitterness of the lady's tongue on several occasions.
"Young man," she said, "when I last saw you three months ago you were eating an apple, and now you're still eating an apple. Is it the same apple or does your father buy them for you by the barrel? Never in all my born days have I seen such a perpetual apple-eater. And if it isn't an apple, it's pie. And that reminds me, you stole an apple pie that I left on the kitchen table one afternoon on my last visit."
Chet gulped and blushed.
"I didn't really steal it," he said. "It looked lonesome, and it was such a good pie that it seemed a shame not to take a little bite. And when I had taken a little bite I knew it was the best pie I had ever tasted and before I knew it, why, the whole pie was gone."
Aunt Gertrude looked pleased.
"I do know how to make a good pie," she said, "even if I say so myself. It's all in being able to roll the crust properly."
"Will you make me a pie all for myself?" asked Chet, pursuing his advantage. "I don't know of anyone who can bake better pie than you can. Ever since you went away I've been hoping you'd come back soon so I could ask you to make me one of your special kind."
"Well, I'll see," replied Aunt Gertrude, immensely flattered. "Tomorrow afternoon, if I'm not too busy. But what's all this about Ruel Rand and the house at Hidden Harbor?"
The group went into the living room and the Hardy boys told Chet about the letter they had received from the license bureau. The stout lad also recalled some of the stories the boys had heard about the strange old mansion at the secluded spot.
"It seems," observed Frank, "that the original owner was pretty much of a rascal and that he ended up by being lynched for his misdeeds. Down in Larchmont I heard that the place had fallen into ruins, but that a half-witted son of the original owner still lives there. The story goes that he is haunted by his father's ghost."
"That can't be Ruel Rand," said Chet, who was making himself comfortable in a flimsy antique chair beside Aunt Gertrude. "Whatever we may think about him, I hardly believe he's half-witted."
"Perhaps the queer person is some other member of the household and not a relative," suggested Joe.
"That may be," agreed Frank. "Nevertheless, I can't see what connection there can be between old Mr. Blackstone, Ruel Rand, and this mysterious mansion said to be haunted by. the ghost of a man who was lynched many years ago."
"Lynching," declared Aunt Gertrude suddenly, "is a disgrace and an abomination. I can well remember a story your Great-grandfather Abner used to tell. It seems there was a lynching in a little town near the place where he lived. The mob took a prisoner from the jail and strung him up to an elm tree. Dreadful affair. Well, that night your Great-grandfather Abner was coming home. He hadn't been one of the lynching party but he had seen the whole affair and was feeling pretty nervous and shaken up about it, I can tell you. He was going along this lonesome lane in the dead of night, when all of a sudden there was a crackling of bushes
Chet's eyes were bulging.
"What was it?" he gasped.
"There was a crackling of bushes, and out into the road jumped a man with a pistol in his hand. 'Revenge!' he cried. 'You were one of those men who lynched my brother! Revenge!' And with that he pressed the pistol to your Great-grandfather Abner's forehead
Suddenly there was a splintering crash. It came with such abruptness that both Frank and Joe leaped out of their chairs. Interrupting as it did this thrilling part of the gruesome story, when everyone was hanging spellbound onto the words, it had the effect of a sensation. There was a thud, then a squawk of anguish.
Aunt Gertrude fainted.
Chet Morton lay sprawling on the floor in the ruins of the antique chair that had collapsed beneath the weight of his plump form just at the most exciting moment of the tale about Great-grandfather Abner.
Frank and Joe suppressed an impulse to laugh. They rushed over to their relative, who lay limp in her armchair. As for Chet, he picked himself up, greatly embarrassed.
"Get a glass of water!"
"Rub her hands!"
"Open the window!"
The Hardys busied themselves trying to revive Aunt Gertrude, and when she began to moan and show signs of returning consciousness, Frank said:
"You had better get out of here, Chet. I shouldn't want to be in your position for anything."
"Right you are," agreed the fat boy. "I don't care to be around when she comes to and finds out that I'm to blame for having scared her half to death."
Leaving Joe to continue his merciful ministrations by way of rubbing Aunt Gertrude's hands and holding a bottle of ammonia under her nose at intervals, Frank escorted his sheepish looking chum to the front entrance.
He opened the door, then leaped back with a yell of astonishment. A black, snakelike object writhed into the hall across the floor. It resembled a poisonous snake so closely that Chet uttered a whoop of terror and leaped for the staircase, where he clung to the banister.
The object made no further movement. On closer examination Frank saw that it was not a reptile but a thick length of black rope that been attached to the bottom of the door.
"What's the idea of that?" he exclaimed. Then, at the end of the coil, Frank spied a torn scrap of paper, which he picked up. On it, in crude lettering, was written:
"Keep out of the Rand-Blackstone Feud if you want to save your neck."
Frank took a deep breath.
"What does this mean?" he asked. Chet, relieved to find that he had to face nothing more dangerous than a rope, jumped from the banister. He took the note from Frank, read it, and whistled solemnly.
"Looks as if we've stepped into something big," remarked the fat boy.
There came a shout from Joe back in the living room.