The Secret of the Soldier's Gold (8 page)

“Don't worry, Isabel,” Frank said with a grin. “We'll give you a turn!”

“This ground is as hard as a rock,” Joe said after he had been digging for about fifteen minutes. “I should have brought some gloves. I don't know why I didn't think about that. I've already got a blister on one of my hands.”

“Let me dig for a while,” Isabel said.

Joe handed her the shovel. “Be my guest,” he said.

Isabel dug for another fifteen minutes, but they had moved only a few inches of soil.

“If I didn't know better,” Isabel said, “I'd think we were trying to dig through concrete.”

“Let me have a turn,” Frank said. He handed the flashlight to Joe.

After fifteen more minutes Frank had made a little progress, but they still weren't down far enough to reach a suitcase that had been buried years ago. “I think the ground's getting softer, though,” Frank said as he once again handed the shovel to Joe.

“How much time do you think we have before the dogs wake up?” Isabel asked.

“I don't know,” Frank said. “I didn't check the directions on the bottle, because I didn't think we'd have to worry about the lasting power of the pills.”

“We've been here for over an hour. We're getting close to the limit, I think,” Joe said. He put his left foot on the shovel and pushed it into the earth. “You're right, Frank! It's definitely softer now.”

Joe felt he was suddenly making progress, so he began shoveling as fast as he could.

After about ten minutes the shovel struck something hard. “I think we've found it!” Joe said. Using his hands, he brushed away some of the dirt. “It looks like the side of a metal suitcase.” He stood up and started shoveling the soil away from the edges of the suitcase. “It shouldn't be too much longer,” he whispered.

Frank suddenly felt movement behind him. When he shone the flashlight in that direction, it lit up Antonio de Feira's face. Within seconds Paulo and Rafael had joined him.

“Keep digging,” Antonio said. He was pointing a gun at them. “The hole needs to be big enough for the bodies of three young people!”

Now two more flashlights, held by Paulo and Rafael, were aimed at them.

“Shine them closer to the ground!” Antonio hissed. “If you don't, someone from Senhora Bragança's house will notice!”

“So what?” Paulo said. “We'll just tell them that we're checking on the plants.”

“That's a dumb excuse,” Joe said. “They'll never believe you.”

“Why not? It's our job,” Rafael said. “We work as Senhora Bragança's gardeners.”

“Not for long,” Antonio said angrily. “With this gold we'll finance the fascist revolution in Portugal, and people like Senhora Bragança will work for
us
!”

“We knew that something was up when we didn't
see the dogs,” Rafael said. “We wondered what had happened, so we looked for them and found them sound asleep.” He laughed. “We've used that trick before ourselves.”

Joe suddenly felt as if he were in the middle of some old war movie he had seen on television.

“You'll never get away with burying us alive,” Frank said. “People will come looking for us.”

“Really? Well, this suitcase has been buried for over sixty years!” Antonio said. “I think it might be another sixty years before anyone finds your skeletons.”

“My father is Inspector Manuel Oliveira of the Lisbon Police Department,” Isabel said. “You'll be in serious trouble if anything happens to us.”

Paulo snickered. “We'll be long gone before he finds you,” he said.

“Oh, really?” Isabel said. “Well, for your information, he knows where I am at this very minute. I told him at dinner, right before I came over here.” She looked at Frank and Joe. “I'm sorry, guys, but I just had to tell him. I could never do something like this without my father's approval.”

“I guess you did what you had to do,” Joe said.

Frank could see that Isabel's revelation had an effect on the de Feira brothers' plans.

While Antonio kept the gun aimed at the Hardy boys and Isabel, Paulo and Rafael whispered to each other. When they finished Paulo said, “Well,
that just may have saved your life—but I'm sure your father won't be coming to check on you for several hours. So I suggest that you keep digging.”

“We just have one shovel,” Frank said.

“You have hands, don't you?” Antonio said. “Do you think you're too good to dig with them?”

“I guess not,” Frank said. He tried to give the shovel to Isabel so he and Joe would dig with their hands, but Isabel ignored him and said, “What are you going to do with us now after we finish digging?”

“Just be quiet and dig,” Rafael said angrily. “You'll find out soon enough.”

Isabel took the shovel from Frank and started tossing dirt out of the hole. Frank and Joe got down on their knees and used their hands to dig the soil away from the edges of the metal suitcase.

“What if we made a lot of noise?” Joe whispered to Frank, their voices covered by Isabel's digging. “Do you think that anyone in the house would hear us?”

“It doesn't matter, Joe,” Frank whispered back. “Antonio would probably shoot us before help could arrive.”

“Well, it looks like Isabel's father was wrong about the de Feira brothers' not being violent,” Joe said.

“That's for sure,” Frank said.

Joe could see that Isabel was getting tired, so he stood up and said, “Let me have the shovel. You dig with your hands.”

As Isabel handed the shovel to Joe, he leaned close enough to her to whisper, “Just pretend to dig. We're trying to come up with a plan.”

“Okay,” Isabel whispered back.

As if on cue, Frank said, “Hey, de Feiras! The dirt down here is like concrete. It'll take
forever
to get this suitcase out of here.”

Joe looked up to see the de Feiras' reaction and saw that Antonio was folding up a cell phone. “I just had a conversation with a friend of mine at the Lisbon Police Department,” he said. “Inspector Oliveira has been in Porto all day. There is no way you could have had dinner with your father before you came over here, Senorita Oliveira. You weren't telling the truth, were you?”

Isabel gave the de Feiras a hard look, then picked up some dirt and threw it at them. It fell short of reaching the brothers. “I'll not dig anymore!” she said.

“Don't antagonize them, Isabel,” Frank whispered. “We'll figure out some way to get out of here.”

Isabel knelt back down and started digging. “I'm sorry, I really am,” she said. “I thought if I lied to them about telling my father, they might let us go, but it didn't work.” She looked at Frank. “Do you think we can get out of here alive?” she whispered.

“We've always been able to find some way out of
every bad situation,” Joe said, “and we don't plan to give up now.”

Paulo and Rafael kept their flashlights aimed into the hole where the Hardy boys and Isabel were digging.

It took them almost thirty more minutes before Joe whispered, “I think I've reached the bottom of the suitcase on my side.”

“Me too. Let's see if we can get our fingers under it and move it,” Frank said. He looked up at Paulo and Rafael. “That light is causing my eyes to tear up, making it hard for me to dig. We're almost there, I think—so could you just shine it away for a while?”

Paulo and Rafael grunted but didn't argue. They shone the flashlights on the ground at the edge of the hole, leaving the Hardy boys and Isabel in darkness.

“Isabel, continue digging,” Frank whispered. “I want the de Feiras to think we still have a long way to go yet.”

While Isabel dug, Frank and Joe were able to get their fingers under the suitcase and move it.

“Okay, it's a little heavier than I thought it would be, but I think we can get it out now,” Frank said. “We have to figure out how to make sure this suitcase leaves with
us,
though, and
not
with the de Feira brothers.”

“Frank, you pick it up—then I'll jump out of the hole and take the suitcase from you,” Joe whispered.
“Once I have it, maybe I can say something like, ‘Tell me where you want me to take it.' Knowing how the de Feiras feel about being other people's servants, maybe they'll like it if somebody is doing the hard work for them.”

“Good thinking, Joe—but where is all of this going to end up?” Frank said. “You don't want to take the suitcase where they tell you to take it.”

“No, you're right. That's where Isabel's acting comes in,” Joe whispered. He leaned closer to Isabel. “Somewhere closer to the house, where we can be heard, I want you to fake some kind of an attack—like a stomachache or something. Roll around on the ground if you have to.”

“That'll be easy,” Isabel said. “I did that in a commercial once.”

At that moment Paulo and Rafael turned the flashlights back on them.

“We heard you whispering,” Paulo said. “What's going on?”

Joe stood up. “I'll tell you what's going on,” he said. “We're ready to move the suitcase.”

That caused excitement among the de Feira brothers. Joe was able to climb out of the hole and say, “Hand it to me, Frank. I'll carry it wherever the de Feiras want me to.”

Frank struggled to lift the suitcase out of the hole, but he finally managed it. Joe grabbed the
handle, but it immediately pulled away. The leather had rotted. The suitcase tumbled over on its side.

“Open it!” Antonio said. “I want to see that gold for myself.”

Joe reached down and tried to unfasten the catches on the suitcase, but they were rusted shut. “I'm going to need some tools,” he said.

“We don't have time for this,” Rafael said. “We'll open it after we get it back to headquarters.”

“Pick it up,” Paulo said to Joe.

Frank came to the rescue with, “Let me help you, Joe. It looks as though you'll need another hand. I'll grab one end and you grab the other.”

Almost before the de Feiras realized what was happening, Frank and Joe had started to carry the heavy metal suitcase in the direction of Senhora Bragança's house. Isabel was right behind them.

Suddenly Paulo grabbed Frank around the throat. “Where do you think you're going?” he hissed.

“We're carrying the suitcase out for you,” Joe said. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

“We're not going that way. We've got our truck parked behind the rear gate,” Antonio said. “The servants' entrance,” he added with a snarl. “That's where we want you to carry it.”

Oh, no!
Joe thought.
We'll be getting farther and farther away from people who might be able to help us.

Initially Frank thought that he and Joe might be able to make a run for it, even with the heavy suitcase. When Antonio brandished his gun, though, Frank knew that he and Joe would have to follow the men's orders.

Joe suddenly reminded himself of the de Feira brothers' original plan: to bury the three of them in the pit where the suitcase had been. He realized that they might still have that plan in mind.

With Paulo and Rafael leading the way with their flashlights, Frank and Joe carried the metal suitcase farther and farther toward the rear of Senhora Bragança's backyard.

Antonio had the gate open and was standing beside an old truck. “Put it in the back,” he commanded.

Frank and Joe heaved the suitcase onto the bed of the old truck.

“I hope you're happy now,” Isabel said. She started to walk away, heading back toward Senhora Bragança's house as if that was the most normal thing in the world to do. Paulo grabbed her by the arm, though. “Nice try,” he said, “but we have other plans for the three of you.”

“What?” Frank demanded.

“Weren't you listening earlier?” Rafael said.

“Yeah!” Antonio said. “If that suitcase can stay buried for over sixty years, there's no reason why
the three of you can't stay buried just as long.”

“I don't care what that person told you,” Isabel protested. “I had dinner with my father and told him where I was going.”

“Start walking back to the pit,” Antonio said.

It was useless to try anything in the alley, Frank decided, because they were too far away from the house. The area where the suitcase had been buried still wasn't very close, but at least it was on the grounds. They had to hope for a miracle.

For almost the first time in his life Joe could think of no way out of their current predicament. He couldn't imagine what lay ahead of them. He would have to submit to either being buried alive or, if he cried out, being shot by one of the de Feira brothers. These seemed to be his only alternatives.

But just as they reached the rosebushes Isabel fell down and started screaming, “My stomach! My stomach! Oh, please help me. It hurts so much!”

Frank and Joe took up the cry. “You've got to do something. This has happened to her before. It's her appendix!”

It was obvious that the de Feira brothers were totally unprepared for something like this.

At that moment Isabel let out a blood-curdling scream so loud that it caused both Frank and Joe to wince.

Suddenly lights flicked on at the back of Senhora
Bragança's house and voices cried out in Portuguese.

Isabel screamed again, this time even louder—and Frank thought that would have been impossible.

“Let's get out of here!” Antonio said.

He started running back toward the rear of the yard. Paulo and Rafael were right behind him.

Isabel jumped up. “How was that?” she said.

Frank looked at her. “Very convincing,” he managed to say. “Are you sure you're okay?”

“Perfectly,” Isabel said. “But I don't want to be caught trespassing. Come on!”