CHAPTER XV

A Disturbing Report

frank and Joe stayed away from the house until they were sure Miss Johnson, the nurse, had left. Then they started for home.

"No more baby stuff!" Joe grinned.

"I'm so full of ice cream I could burst," Frank said with a sigh.

Joe thumped his stomach. "I feel like Chet Morton looks. If-Oh!"

From down the street a woman's scream pierced the air. Frank and Joe galloped toward the spot. A moment later they heard a car speed away.

"What do you think that was?" Frank asked.

Joe shook his head. "I sure can't figure it out. Hope nobody's in trouble."

There was no evidence to indicate that anything was wrong in the neighborhood, so the boys turned into their own walk and entered the house. They had just reached the hall when there came a shriek from their father's den.

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"Aunt Gertrude!" shouted Frank, and dashed forward.

He and Joe expected to see their relative prostrate, the victim of some kind of attack. But they found her standing in the center of the floor, unharmed.

"What's the matter?" Frank asked her.

His aunt seemed speechless. She merely held up a key case and dangled it before her nephews' eyes. Finally she was able to stammer:

"They were on this table!"

Frank and Joe looked at the table blankly, then back at their aunt. Their questioning gaze brought a sharp retort from Miss Hardy.

"Don't you understand these are my keys, my stolen keys? How did they get here?"

The brothers suddenly understood what Miss Hardy was trying to say. "Those are the keys you thought you'd lost?" Joe asked.

Aunt Gertrude glared at the boy. "I never thought I lost them. I told you that before. What's the matter with your memory? Those keys were stolen from me on the bus."

"Oh!" chorused her two nephews.

The boys had been quite sure Aunt Gertrude had been wrong all along; that in some way she had misplaced her key case or had lost it. Now they could see that they were mistaken.

"Well, say something!" their aunt demanded. "You claim to be detectives. How did these keys get here?"

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Frank and Joe admitted they did not have the slightest idea, but on a hunch Frank went to his father's desk. It was locked.

"The filing cabinet!" cried Joe, understanding.

The brothers had jumped to the same conclusion. A burglar!

Together the boys pulled out drawer after drawer. Although not familiar with everything in the cabinet, they immediately noticed that the sheaf of papers containing fingerprint records of the museum thieves was gone. They had seen their father put away the data in that very drawer.

"They're gone!" cried Frank. "We've been robbed!"

"Now you boys are using your heads," stated Aunt Gertrude. "I could have told you all along that a burglar stole my keys on the bus, and used them to get into this house."

She went on to scold her nephews for not having been at home to nab the mysterious stranger, but they hardly paid attention to her words. Slowly an idea was evolving in their minds.

"Well, who was it?" Aunt Gertrude demanded, bringing them out of their daydreaming.

"Mike Matton," said Frank suddenly.

At once his relative demanded an explanation. Her nephew told her how Ben Whittaker's assistant had been tampering with their back-door lock a few days before.

"Matton said he was changing the lock, but we

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think he was trying to get in," Frank said. "Since he didn't succeed, maybe he stole your keys and used them here tonight."

"So you admit they were stolen?" Aunt Gertrude said, eying her nephews triumphantly.

The boys had to admit this probably was the case. They wormed the information out of her that she had told the woman next to her on the bus she was Fenton Hardy's sister.

Suddenly Joe had an idea. "I wonder if that woman's scream had anything to do with the fellow who was in here," he said.

"You mean when he left the house he frightened her?" his brother asked.

Joe dashed to the window. The screen was dangling loose. "The crook went out this way," the boy reported. "When he ran from the side of the house, he probably scared some passer-by."

Frank turned to his aunt. "When did Miss Johnson leave here?" he cried quickly.

"A few minutes ago. Why?" Then she added, "What has that got to do with the stolen keys?"

"Didn't you hear a scream outside?"

"No."

Frank told her about the mysterious cry they had heard. Aunt Gertrude had not noticed it, because a moment after the nurse had left Mrs. Hardy had turned on the radio. The boys' mother herself now appeared in the doorway. She had not heard the scream outside nor Aunt Gertrude's shriek in the

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house. When she was told the whole story, Mrs. Hardy became quite concerned.

"That fellow must have sneaked right past us," she said with a slight shiver. "Oh, it frightens me to think of a thief being in the house."

"It's positively wicked," stated Aunt Gertrude. "If I had seen that fellow I would have------"

What Aunt Gertrude might have done never became known, for Frank interrupted her, asking excitedly, "Where does Miss Johnson live?"

"She's staying at Mrs. Brown's Guest House."

Learning that it was not far away, and that Miss Johnson had said she was going directly home, Frank requested his mother to telephone the place at once to see if the nurse had returned. Mrs. Brown, who answered the call, said her guest had not come back yet.

"When she does, will you please ask her to telephone Mrs. Hardy?" the boys' mother requested.

An hour went by, but no call came. The boys, uneasy, telephoned again. Still Miss Johnson had not returned. Frank and Joe had hoped not to worry their mother with an idea they had, but she wormed the information out of them. They were afraid Miss Johnson had been kidnaped by the thief in order to take care of Lenny Stryker!

In the morning they telephoned again to Mrs. Brown's Guest House. The nurse had not come back.

"Oh, dear, this is dreadful!" cried Mrs. Hardy.

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"I'm sure your theory is right, boys. No telling what has happened to Martha. What can we do?"

Her sons could think of nothing at the moment, but by the time breakfast was over they had formulated a plan of action. They would investigate thoroughly the section of Bayport which they had looked over casually the night before last. Perhaps daylight would reveal some clue to the gang's hide-out.

"I think we ought to go down and talk to Ben Whittaker too," said Frank. "He may have heard from Mike Matton."

"Or perhaps the police can tell us something," Joe suggested.

Frank also thought they should go out once more to the Mead estate and dive under the boathouse door to see if Chet's stolen dory had been taken there.

"It sounds like a full morning," said Mrs. Hardy, "but please lay everything aside and try to find Martha Johnson."

"We certainly will, Mother."

Suddenly from the Hardy kitchen came sounds of a news broadcast. The laundress, who had arrived for work, was eating her breakfast and had turned on the kitchen radio. It was very loud, and the words were plainly audible in the dining room.

"-A local item of great interest," stated the announcer, "is about another baffling robbery."

Frank and Joe sat up straight in their chairs. They listened attentively as the newscaster went on:

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"Thieves broke into the Cornish Museum last night. Many small valuable items were stolen. The police are completely baffled. No one was seen to enter the place, and a detective inside was found injured and taken to the hospital."

Frank and Joe looked at each other. Their hearts stood still.

Was the victim their father?