The House on the Cliff (2 page)

“I've never seen a powerful telescope in operation,” he remarked. “How far away can you see with this thing?”

“It all depends on weather conditions,” Frank replied. “On a clear day you can make out human figures at distances of twenty-four miles.”

“Wow!” Chet exclaimed. “We ought to be able to find those smugglers easily.”

“I wouldn't say so,” Biff spoke up. “Smugglers have the same kind of boats as everybody else. How close do you have to be to identify a person?”

“Oh, about two and a half miles,” Joe answered.

The motorcycles chugged along the shore road, with Frank watching his speedometer carefully. “We ought to be coming to the Pollitt place soon,” he said finally. “Keep your eyes open, fellows.”

The boys rode on in silence, but suddenly they all exclaimed together, “There it is!”

At the entrance to a driveway thickly lined with trees and bushes was a stone pillar, into which the name “Pollitt” had been chiseled. Frank and Joe turned into the driveway. The only part of the house they could see was the top of the roof. Finally, beyond a lawn overgrown with weeds, they came upon the tall, rambling building. It stood like a beacon high above the water. Pounding surf could be heard far below.

“This place sure looks neglected,” Biff remarked.

Dank, tall grass grew beneath the towering trees. Weeds and bushes threatened to engulf the whole building.

“Creepy, if you ask me,” Chet spoke up. “I don't know why anybody would want to live here.”

The house itself was in need of repair. Built of wood, it had several sagging shutters and the paint was flaking badly.

“Poor old Mr. Pollitt was probably too sick to take care of things,” Frank commented, as he looked at several weed-choked flower beds.

To the Hardys' disappointment, the sky had become overcast and they realized that visibility had been cut down considerably. Nevertheless, Frank unstrapped the carrying case and lugged it around to the front of the house.

He unfastened the locks and Joe helped his brother lift out the telescope and attached tripod, pulling up the eye-end section first.

Biff and Chet exclaimed in admiration.

“Boy, that's really neat!” Chet remarked.

He and Biff watched in fascination as Frank and Joe began to set up the telescope. First they unfastened the tape with which the tube and tripod legs were tied together. Joe turned the three legs down and pulled out the extensions to the desired height. Then Frank secured the tripod legs with a chain to keep them from spreading.

“What's next?” Biff asked.

“To get proper balance for the main telescope tube we slide it through this trunnion sleeve toward the eye end, like this.” After doing so, Frank tightened the wing nuts on the tripod lightly.

Joe picked up the balance weight from the carrying case and screwed it into the right side of the telescope tube about one third the distance from the eyepiece.

“This'll keep the whole thing from being top heavy,” he pointed out.

“And what's this little telescope alongside the big one for?” Chet queried.

The House on the Cliff grin. He squinted through the ends of both the large and the small telescopes. “I can't see a thing,” he complained.

Joe laughed. “And you won't until I insert one of the eyepieces into the adapter of the big telescope and put another eyepiece into the finder.”

In a few minutes the Hardys had the fascinating device working. By turning a small knob, Frank slowly swung the telescope from left to right, and each boy took a turn looking out across the water.

“Not a boat in sight!” said Chet, disappointed.

Frank had just taken his second turn squinting through the eyepiece when he called out excitedly, “I see something!”

He now began a running account of the scene he had just picked up. “It's not very clear ... but I see a boat ... must be at least six miles out.”

“What kind of boat?” Joe put in.

“Looks like a cruiser ... or a cutter.... It's not moving.... Want to take a look, Joe?”

Frank's brother changed places with him. “Say, fellows, a man's going over the side on a ladder ... and, hey! there's a smaller boat down below.... He's climbing into it.”

“Can you see a name or numbers on the big boat?” Frank asked excitedly.

“No. The boat's turned at a funny angle, so you can't see the lettering. You couldn't even if the weather was clearer.”

“Which way is the man in the small boat heading?” Biff asked.

“He seems to be going toward Barmet Bay.”

Joe gave up his position to Biff. “Suppose you keep your eye on him for a while, and also the big boat. Maybe it'll turn so you can catch the name or number on the box.”

Chet had been silent for several moments. Now he said, “Do you suppose they're the smugglers?”

“Could be,” Frank replied. “I think we'd better leave and report this to Dad from the first telephone we—”

He was interrupted by the sudden, terrifying scream of a man!

“Wh-where did that come from?” Chet asked with a frightened look.

“Sounded as if it came from inside,” Frank answered.

The boys stared at the house on the cliff. A moment later they heard a loud cry for help. It was followed by another scream.

“Somebody's in there and is in trouble!” Joe exclaimed. “We'd better find out what's going on!”

Leaving the telescope, the four boys ran to the front door and tried the knob. The door was locked.

“Let's scatter and see if we can find another door,” Frank suggested.

Frank and Joe took one side of the house, Biff and Chet the other. They met at the rear of the old home and together tried a door there. This, too, was locked.

“There's a broken window around the corner,” Biff announced. “Shall we climb in?”

“I guess we'd better,” Frank answered.

As the boys reached the window, which seemed to open into a library, they heard the scream again.

“Help! Hurry! Help!” came an agonized cry.

JOE was first to slide through the broken window. “Wait a moment, fellows,” he called out, “until I unlock this.”

Quickly he turned the catch, raised the window, and the other three boys stepped inside the library. No one was there and they ran into the large center hall.

“Hello!” Frank shouted. “Where are you?”

There was no answer. “Maybe that person who was calling for help has passed out or is unconscious,” Joe suggested. “Let's look around.”

The boys dashed in various directions, and investigated the living room with its old-fashioned furnishings, the dining room with its heavily carved English oak set, the kitchen, and what had evidently been a maid's bedroom in days gone by. Now it was heaped high with empty boxes and crates. There was no one in any of the rooms and the Hardys and their two friends met again in the hall.

“The man must be upstairs,” Frank decided.

He started up the front stairway and the others followed. There were several bedrooms. Suddenly Chet hung back. He wanted to go with his pals but the eeriness of the house made him pause. Biff and the Hardys sped from one to another of the many rooms. Finally they investigated the last of them.

“Nobody here! What do you make of it?” Biff asked, puzzled.

Chet, who had rejoined the group, said worriedly, “M-maybe the place is haunted!”

Joe's eyes were searching for an entrance to the third floor. Seeing none, he opened three doors in the hall, hoping to find a stairway. He saw none.

“There must be an attic in this house,” he said. “I wonder how you get to it.”

“Maybe there's an entrance from one of the bedrooms,” Frank suggested. “Let's see.”

The boys separated to investigate. Suddenly Frank called out, “I've found it.”

The others ran to where he had discovered a door behind a man's shabby robe hanging inside a closet. This in turn revealed a stairway and the group hurriedly climbed it, Chet bringing up the rear.

The attic room was enormous. Old newspapers and magazines were strewn around among old-fashioned trunks and suitcases, but there was no human being in sight.

“I guess that cry for help didn't come from the house at all,” Biff suggested. “What'll we do now? Look outdoors?”

“I guess we'll have to,” Frank answered.

He started down the steep stairway. Reaching the foot, he turned the handle of the door which had swung shut. To his concern he was not able to open it.

“What's the matter?” asked Chet from the top of the stairway.

“Looks as if we're locked in,” Frank told him. “Locked in?” Chet wailed. “Oh, no!”

Frank tried pulling and pushing the door. It did not budge.

“That's funny,” he said. “I didn't see any lock on the outside.”

Suddenly the full import of the situation dawned on the four boys. Someone had deliberately locked them in! The cries for help had been a hoax to lure them into the house!

“You think somebody was playing a joke on us?” Biff asked.

“Pretty rotten kind of joke,” Chet sputtered.

Frank and Joe were inclined to think that there was more to it than a joke. Someone had seen a chance to steal a valuable telescope and two late-model motorcycles!

“We've got to get out of here!” Joe said. “Frank, put your shoulder to the door and I'll help.”

Fortunately, the door was not particularly sturdy and gave way easily. Frank glanced back a moment as he rushed through and saw two large hooks which he had not noticed before. They had evidently been slipped into the eyes and had been ripped from the framework by the crash on the door.

The other boys followed, running pell-mell through the hallway and clattering down the stairway. They dashed out the front door, leaving it open behind them. To their relief, the telescope still stood at the edge of the cliff, pointing seaward.

“Thank goodness!” said Joe. “I'd hate to have had to tell Dad the telescope was gone!”

Frank rushed over to take a quick look through the instrument. It had occurred to him that maybe some confederate of the smugglers had seen them spying. He might even have tricked them into the house during the very time that a smuggling operation would be within range of the telescope!

When Frank reached the edge of the cliff and tried to look through the instrument, he gasped in dismay. The eyepieces from both the finder and the telescope tube had been removed!

As he turned to tell the other boys of his discovery, he found that they were not behind him. But a moment later Joe came running around the corner of the house calling out:

“The motorcycles are safe! Nobody stole them!”

“Thank goodness for that,” said Frank.

Chet and Biff joined them and all flopped down on the grass to discuss the mysterious happenings and work out a plan of action.

“If that thief is hiding inside the house, I'm going to find him,” Joe declared finally.

“I'm with you,” said Frank, jumping up. “How about you, Biff, guarding the motorcycles and Chet taking charge of the telescope? That way, both the front and back doors will be covered, too, in case that thief comes out.”

“Okay,” the Hardys' friends agreed.

As Frank and Joe entered the front hall, Joe remarked, “There's a back stairway. If we don't find the person on the first floor, I'll take that to the second. You take the front.”

Frank nodded and the search began. Not only the first, but the second and attic floors were thoroughly investigated without results.

“There's only one place left,” said Frank. “The cellar.”

This area also proved to have no one hiding in it. “I guess our thief got away,” Frank stated.

“And probably on foot,” Joe added. “I didn't hear any car, did you?”

“No. Maybe he went down the cliff and made a getaway in a boat,” Frank suggested.

In complete disgust the Hardys reported their failure to Biff and Chet. Then they packed up the telescope and strapped it onto Frank's motorcycle.

“We may as well go home,” Joe said dolefully. “We'll have a pretty slim report for Dad.”

“Slim?” said Biff. “I haven't had so much excitement in six months.”

The boys climbed aboard the motorcycles. As the Hardys were about to start the motors, all four of them froze in the seats. From somewhere below the cliff came a demoniacal laugh. Involuntarily the boys shuddered.