The Secret of the Old Mill

Front matter

Hardy Boys Mystery Stories

THE SECRET

OF THE

Chapter I.

CHAPTER I

A Five Dollar Bill

The afternoon express from the north steamed into the Bayport station to the usual accompanying uproar of clanging bells from the lunch room, shouting redcaps, and a bellowing train announcer.

Among the jostling, hurrying crowd on the platform were two pleasant-featured youths who scanned the passing coaches expectantly.

"I don't see him," said Frank Hardy, the older of the pair, as he watched the passengers descending from one of the Pullman coaches.

"Perhaps he stopped at some other town and intends coming in on the local. It's only an hour later," suggested his brother Joe.

The boys waited. They had met the train expecting to greet their father, Fenton Hardy, the nationally famous detective, who had been away from home for the past two weeks on a murder case in New York. It appeared that they were to be disappointed. When the last of the Bayport passengers had left the train Fenton Hardy was not among them.

"We'll come back and meet the local," said Frank at last.

The brothers were about to turn away and retrace their steps down the platform when they saw a tall, well-dressed stranger swing himself down from the steps of the nearest coach. He was a man of about thirty, dark and clean-shaven, and he hastened over toward them.

"I want to pay a fellow a dollar out of this five," remarked the stranger, as he came up to the boys. "Can you change the bill?"

At the same time he produced a five dollar bill from his pocket and held it out inquiringly. He was a pleasant-spoken young man and he was evidently in a hurry.

"I could try the lunch room, I suppose, but there's such a crowd that I'll have trouble being waited on," he explained, the bill fluttering in his hands.

Frank looked at his brother and began feeling in his pockets.

"I've got three dollars, Joe. How about you?"

Joe dug up the loose change in his possession. There was a dollar bill, a fifty-cent piece and three quarters.

"Two dollars and a quarter," he announced. "I guess we can make it."

He handed over two dollars to Frank, who added it to the three dollars of his own and gave the money to the stranger, who gave Frank the five dollar bill in exchange.

"Thanks, ever so much," said the young man. "You've saved me a lot of trouble. My friend is getting off at this station and I wanted to give him the dollar before he left. Thanks."

"Don't mention it," replied Frank carelessly, putting the bill in his pocket. "We'll get it changed between us."

The young man nodded, smiled at them and hastened back up the steps of the coach, with a carefree wave of his hand.

"I'm glad we were able to help him out," observed Joe. "It was just by chance that I had that small change too. Mother gave me some money to buy some pie-plates."

"Pie-plates!" exclaimed Frank, with a grin. "There's nothing I'd rather see coming into the house than more pie-plates. More pie-plates mean more pie."

"We might as well go down and get them now, before I forget. There's a shop down the street and we can get the plates and get this five dollar bill changed. It'll help kill time before the local comes in."

The two lads went down the platform, out through the station to the main street of Bayport, basking in the summer sunlight. They were healthy, normal American boys of high school age. Frank, being a year older than his brother, was slightly taller. He was slim and dark, while his brother was somewhat stouter of build, with fair, curly hair. As they strolled down the street they received and returned many greetings, for both boys were well-known and popular in Bayport.

Before they reached the store they heard the shriek of the whistle and the clanging of the bell that indicated that the express was resuming its southward journey.

"Our friend can travel in peace," remarked Frank. "He got his five changed anyway."

"And the other fellow got his dollar. Everybody's happy."

They reached the store and paused outside the entrance to examine an assortment of baseball bats, discussing the relative merits and weights of each, then poked around in a tray of mitts, trying them on and agreeing that none equaled the worn and battered mitts they had at home. Finally they entered the shop, where they were greeted by the proprietor, a chubby and genial man named Moss. Mr. Moss was sitting on the counter reading a newspaper, for business was dull that afternoon, but he cast the sheet aside when they came in.

"Looking for clues?" he asked humorously, as they came in.

As sons of Fenton Hardy, and as amateur detectives of some ability in their own right, the boys were frequently the butt of jesting remarks concerning their hobby, but they invariably took them in the spirit of good-natured raillery in which they were meant.

"No clues here," continued Mr. Moss. "You won't find a single, solitary clue in the place. I had a crate of awfully nice bank robbery clues in yesterday, but they've all been snapped up. I expect some nice murder clues in to-morrow morning, if you'd care to wait that long. Or perhaps you'd like me to order you a few kidnapping clues. Size eight and a half, guaranteed not to wear, tear or tarnish."

Mr. Moss rattled on, with an air of great gravity, burst into a roar of laughter at his own joke, then swung his feet against the side of the counter.

"Well, boys, what'll it be?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, as the two brothers grinned at him. "What can I do for you?"

"We want some pie-plates," said Joe. "Three."

"Small ones, I suppose," said Mr. Moss, then chuckled hugely as the boys looked at him in indignation.

"I should say not," returned Frank. "The biggest you've got."

Mr. Moss laughed very much at this also, and swung himself down from the counter and went in search of the pie-plates. He returned eventually with three that seemed to be of the required size and quality.

"Wrap 'em up," said Frank, throwing the five dollar bill on the counter.

Mr. Moss wrapped up the plates, then picked up the bill and went over to the cash register. He rang up the amount of the sale and was about to put the money in the till when he suddenly hesitated, then held the bill up to the light. Slowly, he came back to the counter, rubbing the bill between thumb and forefinger, feeling its texture and minutely examining the surface.

"Where did you get this bill, boys?" he asked seriously.

"We just changed it for a stranger on the train," answered Frank. "What's the matter with it?"

"Looks bad to me," replied Mr. Moss dubiously. "I'm afraid I can't take a chance on it."

He handed the bill back to Frank, then indicated the package on the counter.

"What are you going to do about the plates?" he asked. "Have you any other money besides that bill?"

"Not a nickel," said Joe. "At least, not enough to pay for the plates. But do you really think the bill is no good?"

"I've handled a lot of them. It doesn't look good to me. I tell you what you'd better do. Take it over to the bank across the street and ask the cashier what he thinks of it."

The boys looked at one another in dismay. It had never occurred to them that there might be anything wrong with the money. Now it dawned on them that there had been something suspicious about the affable stranger's request. Had they really been victimized?

"We'll do that," agreed Frank. "Come on, Joe. Keep those plates for us, Mr. Moss. If the bill is bad we'll be back with some real money later on."

They crossed the street to the bank and went up to the cashier's cage. They knew the cashier well and he smiled at them as Frank pushed the five dollar bill under the grating.

"Want it changed?" he asked.

"We want to know if it's good, first."

The cashier, a sharp-featured, elderly man with spectacles, then took a sharp glance at the bill. He pursed up his lips as he felt the tex- ture of the paper. Then he flicked the bill across to them again.

"Sorry," he said. "You've been stung, boys. It's counterfeit."

"Counterfeit!" exclaimed Frank.

"You aren't the first one who has been fooled. There's been a lot of counterfeit money going around the past few days. It's very cleverly done and it's apt to fool any one who isn't used to handling a lot of bills. Where did you get it?"

"A fellow got off the train and asked us to change it for him."

The cashier nodded.

"And by now he is miles away, probably getting ready to work the same trick at the next station. I guess you'll have to pocket your loss, boys. It's tough luck."

Chapter II.

CHAPTER II

Counterfeit Money

The Hardy boys left the bank, feeling at once foolish and wrathful.

"Stung!" declared Frank. "Stung by a counterfeit bill! Oh, if the fellows hear of this we'll never hear the end of it!"

"What a fine pair of greenhorns we must have looked to that slick stranger! I'd like to lay my hands on him for about five seconds. I'll bet he's been laughing to himself ever since about how easily we were fooled."

"I'll say we were easy. We hadn't a suspicion in the world."

"After all," Joe remarked, "that bill might have fooled any one. You can't deny that it looks mighty like a real five."

They halted on the corner and again examined the money. Only an experienced eye could have detected any difference between the counterfeit bill and a genuine one. It was crisp and new and appeared in every respect identical with any bona-fide five dollar bill that had ever been legitimately issued by the Federal Government.

"If we were dishonest we could palm this off on almost any one, just as we had it palmed off on us," said Joe. "Oh, well—live and learn. I hate to think of that fellow laughing at us, though. It's a nice price to pay for a lesson not to be too trustful of strangers after this."

"It cost me more than it cost you," Frank pointed out. "It was just my luck that I had three dollars on me and you had only two."

This phase of the matter had not occurred to Joe before, so he felt considerably more cheerful in the thought that he had not, after all, been the chief loser.

They went back to the store and dolefully reported to Mr. Moss that he had been right in his surmise about the bill.

"It was bad, all right," Frank told him. "The cashier took one look at it, and that was enough."

Mr. Moss nodded sympathetically.

"Well, it's too bad you were stung," he said. "But I'd rather it was you than me. In business, we have to be careful. As a matter of fact, I think it would have fooled me, only the bank warned me this morning that there was some counterfeit money going around and that I'd better be on my guard against any new bills. The minute I saw your five was fresh and new I got suspicious. It's certainly a clever imitation. Whoever is putting the stuff out is a real artist at that game."

"We'll be back for the pie-plates later," promised Joe. "But we didn't want you to think we were trying to pass bad money on you."

Mr. Moss laughed at the idea.

"The Hardy boys pass counterfeit money!" he exclaimed. "I know you better than that, I hope. I'll keep the plates for you, or you can take them now and bring back the money later. Good money, though," he added, wagging his finger at them.

"We'll be back," they told him.

They went toward the station to wait for the local train on which they expected their father to arrive, and while they waited, sitting on a platform bench, they gloomily discussed the imposition of which they had been the victims.

"It isn't so much losing my three dollars," declared Frank. "It's the thought of being fooled by such a simple trick. We should have known that the fellow had plenty of time to get his money changed at the lunch counter or at the cigar stand, or even the ticket office. Instead of that we dug into our pockets like lambs—"

"Lambs don't have pockets," Joe pointed out.

"All the better for them. They're so innocent they'd be fleeced of everything they put in 'em, anyway. Just like us. We handed over all our money to a total stranger and let him give us a bad bill that we didn't even take the trouble to look at. I wish somebody would kick me all around the block."

While the Hardy boys are sitting on the bench, gloomily awaiting the arrival of their father and preparing to tell him of how they had been fooled by the stranger, it will not be out of place to introduce them still further to the readers of this volume.

As related in the first volume of this series, "The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure," Frank and Joe Hardy were the sons of Fenton Hardy, a private detective of international fame. Mr. Hardy, who had been for many years on the New York police force and who had later resigned to carry on a private detective practice, was a criminologist of note. He knew by sight and by reputation most of the notorious criminals of his day, and his mastery over all the branches of his profession was such as to place him at the very forefront of American detectives. So great had been the demand for his services in solving the mysteries of crimes that had baffled the detective forces of other cities that he had found it much more lucrative to carry on a practice of his own than to remain attached to the service in any one city, even such a city as the great American metropolis.

Fenton Hardy, with his wife, Laura Hardy, and their two sons, Frank and Joe, had accordingly moved to Bayport, a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants, situated on Barmet Bay, on the Atlantic Ocean. There Frank and Joe had gone to school until now they were in the Bayport high school. Both boys were fully conscious of the fame of their father and were eager to follow in his footsteps, although their mother had expressed a desire that they fit themselves for some less hazardous and more conventional profession.

However, the Hardy boys had inherited much of their father's ability and deductive talent. Already they had aided in solving two mysteries that had kept Bayport by the ears. As related in "The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure," they had solved the mystery of the theft of valuable jewels and bonds from Tower Mansion, after even Fenton Hardy himself had been unable to discover where the thief had hidden the loot. In the second volume of the series, "The Hardy Boys: The House on the Cliff," has been told how the Hardy boys discovered the haunt of a gang of smugglers who were operating in Barmet Bay. In this case they had received a substantial reward, as Federal agents had tried in vain to locate the smugglers' base of activities for many months.

Following the adventures at the house on the cliff an uneventful winter and spring had passed, the brothers devoting themselves to their studies and to an occasional winter holiday. Christmas had come with many presents, and now warm weather was once more at hand.

Because of the pride they took in their achievements as amateur detectives, the Hardy boys felt very keenly the ignominy of being so easily fooled by the stranger who had passed the counterfeit money upon them.

"Dad will have the laugh on us now," muttered Joe, as they heard the distant whistle of the approaching train.

"Well, we'll tell him about it, anyway. Who knows but what a big case might arise out of this?"

The afternoon local pulled into the station, and Fenton Hardy stepped down from the parlor car, bag in hand, light coat over one arm. He was a tall, dark-haired man of about forty years of age. He had a quick, pleasant smile for his sons and he shook hands with them warmly.

"How's mother?" he asked, after the first greetings.

"She's fine," replied Frank. "She said there'd be something special for supper to-night, seeing you're back."

"Good! And what have you two been doing? Kept out of mischief, I hope."

"Well, we've kept out of mischief," said Joe; "but we haven't kept out of trouble."

"What's the matter?"

"We just got fooled by a smart stranger who stepped off the express. It cost us five dollars."

"How did that happen?"

"He asked us to change a five dollar bill for him—"

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Fenton Hardy, raising his eyebrows. "And what then?"

"It was counterfeit."

Mr. Hardy looked grave.

"Have you got it with you?"

"Yes," answered Frank, producing the bill. "I don't think we can be blamed such an awful lot for being fooled. It certainly looks mighty like a good one."

Fenton Hardy put down his bag and examined the bill closely for a moment. Then he folded it up and put it in his waistcoat pocket.

"I'll take care of this, if you don't mind," he said, picking up his bag and beginning to walk toward the station exit. "As it happens, I know something about this money."

"What do you mean, dad?" asked Frank quickly.

"I don't mean that I know anything about this particular five dollar bill, but I know something about this counterfeit money in general. As a matter of fact, that is why this trip took me longer than I had thought it would. When I finished the case that originally took me away, the Government called me in on this counterfeit money case."

"Is there a lot of it going around?"

"Too much. Within the past few weeks the East has been flooded with it, and the circulation seems to be spreading. There seems to be a central counterfeiting plant somewhere, with experts in charge of it, and they are turning out imitation bills so clever that the average person can hardly detect them. The Federal authorities are worrying a great deal about it."

"And this is one of the bills?"

"It looks just like some of the others that have been turned in, although chiefly they have been dealing in tens and twenties. The man who stepped off the train was probably one of their agents, trying to convert as much of the counterfeit money into good cash as he could. When he saw that you were only boys he thought there would be a better chance of getting change for five dollars than ten. Then, of course, he may only have been some one who had been fooled by the counterfeit and decided to get rid of it by passing it on to some one else."

"I wish he had asked us to change one of his counterfeit tens, instead," mourned Joe. "We would have been five dollars to the good."

Chapter III.

CHAPTER III

The Hardy Boys at School

If the boys had any lingering hopes that their school chums would not hear of the manner in which they had been fooled, these hopes were quickly removed next morning.

Scarcely had Frank and Joe ascended the concrete steps of Bayport High than Chet Morton, a stout chubby boy of about sixteen, one of their closest friends, a lad with a passion for practical jokes, came solemnly toward them with a green tobacco coupon in his hand.

"Just the fellows I'm looking for," he chirped. "My great-grandmother just died in Abyssinia and I'm trying to raise the railway fare to go to the funeral. How about changing this hundred?"

There was a roar of laughter from about a dozen boys who were standing about, for Chet had evidently acquainted them all with the affair of the previous day. How he had learned of it, Frank and Joe could not imagine. They grinned good-naturedly, although Joe blushed furiously.

"What's the matter?" asked Chet innocently. "Can't you change it? You don't mean to tell me you can't change my hundred dollar bill? Please, kind young gentlemen, please change my hundred dollar bill, for if you don't I'm sure nobody else will and then I won't be able to go to my great-grandmother's funeral in Abyssinia." He wiped away an imaginary tear.

"Sorry," said Frank gravely. "We're not in the money-changing business."

"You mean you're not in it any more," pointed out Chet. "You were in the business yesterday, I know. What's the matter—retire on your profits?"

"Yes, we quit."

"I don't blame you." Suddenly Chet struck an attitude of exaggerated surprise. "Why, bless my soul, I do believe this bill is bad!" He peered at the flimsy tobacco coupon very closely, then whipped a small magnifying glass from his pocket and squinted through it. At last he raised his head, with a sigh. "Yes, sir, it's bad. It's counterfeit. One of the cleverest counterfeits I ever saw. If it hadn't been for the fact that there is no hundred dollar mark on it and if it hadn't been that there is a picture of the president of the El Ropo Tobacco Company instead of George Washington, I'd have been completely fooled. Isn't it lucky that you boys didn't change it for me? Isn't it lucky? Congratulations, young sirs. Congratulations!"

He shook Frank and Joe warmly by the hand, in the meantime keeping a very solemn face, while the other lads surged about in a laughing group and joined in the "kidding."

They jested unmercifully about the incident of the counterfeit five dollars, but the Hardy boys took it all in good part. The news had leaked out through Mr. Moss, who had told Jerry Gilroy, one of the Hardy boys' chums, about the affair just a short while after they had left the store the previous afternoon. Jerry had lost no time acquainting Chet and the others with the details.

"If you keep on changing money for strangers you won't have much left out of those rewards," declared Phil Cohen, a diminutive, black-haired Jewish boy who was one of their friends. He was referring to the money the Hardy boys had received in rewards for their work in the Tower Mansion case and for helping run down the smugglers.

"Oh, I guess we still have a few dollars," replied Frank smilingly. "We have enough in the bank to buy a motorboat with, anyway."

"What's that?" asked Chet quickly. "Are you getting a motorboat?"

The Hardy boys nodded. Their chums were immediately interested.

"Put me down for one of the first passengers," shouted "Biff" Hooper, a tall, broad-shouldered boy who had just pushed his way through the circle.

"We're thinking of getting one like Tony Prito's," said Joe.

"I wish is was mine!" exclaimed Tony. His father, one of the most respected citizens in the Italian colony of Bayport, owned a speedy motorboat which had proved of great service to the Hardy boys in their conflict with the smugglers of Barmet Bay. "But if you're getting a boat at all you can't do any better than get one just like it."

"Dad told us last night we could get one as long as we stayed in the bay and along the coast with it. He was afraid we might get ambitious and try crossing the Atlantic."

"Well," remarked Jerry Gilroy, "I see where our summer baseball league is shot to pieces now."

"Why?"

"You'll be out in that boat every minute of your spare time. It was bad enough when you had the motorcycles. You were both always roaming around the country on them, but now we'll never be able to find you at all. There goes the best pitcher and shortstop of my team together."

Jerry looked very glum as he said this, for he was an ardent ball fan and he had been much in the forefront in organizing a league for the summer months. Frank Hardy was one of the best pitchers in the school, and Joe could cover short in a manner that was the envy of his companions, but in spite of their natural ability for the game, the Hardy boys had always shown a preference for outings instead of baseball.

"I'd rather go out for a whole day on a motorcycle or in a motorboat than play a dozen ball games," said Frank.

This was rank heresy to Jerry, who could not bear any reflections on his beloved game.

"Gosh, I don't know what's to become of you two! Can't I count on you for any games at all?"

"Sure you can," promised Frank. "We're not going to live in the motorboat."

"If you go fooling around Barmet Reefs on a stormy day in the old tub you'll die in it, though," snickered Chet.

"That'll be about enough from you," warned Frank, giving him a friendly dig in the ribs. Then, turning to Jerry, he went on: "We'll play on your team, but we won't spend all our time outside of meal-hours in practising."

"Well, I suppose I should be satisfied. We can't have everything. But I'd imagine you'd like to practise."

"They don't need to," declared Chet. "That's why you have to spend all your spare time learning how to catch. Even now you're not much good at it." He winked at Tony Prito, who was standing behind Jerry. "Why, I'll bet you can't catch a measly little fly—like this—look—"

He took a baseball out of his pocket and threw it lightly into the air. It did not go very high and it was a ridiculously easy catch for any one. As for Jerry Gilroy, who was really a star outfielder, it was scarcely worth the effort. He had but to step back a pace and the ball was his.

"Can't I?" he said, somewhat nettled by Chet's words. The ball arched through the air and descended directly toward him. He stepped back, prepared to make the easy catch.

But Tony Prito had caught Chet's wink and knew what it meant, for they had carefully rehearsed the trick between them. As soon as Chet had thrown the ball, Tony knelt on his hands and knees on the grass immediately behind Jerry. For all his seeming carelessness, Chet had thrown the ball just far enough so that Jerry would have to step back to make the catch.

Jerry collided with the recumbent figure behind him, he staggered, lost his balance and tumbled over Tony Prito, while the baseball thumped into the grass. The other boys, who had seen the joke from the start, laughed uproariously as Jerry picked himself up and betook himself in pursuit of the already fleeing Tony, while Chet, with an air of vast satisfaction, picked up the baseball.

"I knew he couldn't catch it," he said, with all the airy disdain of a minor prophet.

Just then the gong in the main hall of Bayport High began to clang, summoning the students to their classes, and the boys crowded through the wide doorway.

Chapter IV.

CHAPTER IV

Another Victim

When he took his place in class that morning, Frank Hardy glanced over at the desk, two aisles away, where Callie Shaw was sitting.

Callie, a brown-haired, brown-eyed miss with a quick, vivacious manner, was one of the prettiest girls attending Bayport high school. She was Frank's favorite of all the girls in the city, and each morning he glanced over at her desk and never failed to receive a bright and fleeting smile that somehow made the dusty classroom seem a trifle less drab and monotonous, and when she was not there it always seemed that the day had gotten away to a bad start.

She was there this morning, but she was gazing soberly at her books and she failed to return Frank's glance with her usual smile. This was something so utterly extraordinary that Frank gazed at her, open-mouthed, for a second or so until, recollecting himself, he turned to his own books and proceeded to spend much of the time until recess in a state of helpless wonderment. Like the average boy under such circumstances, he racked his brains trying to recollect what he could have done that might have offended Callie. But there seemed to be no solution to the mystery.

Perhaps she had heard of how he had been fooled by the stranger yesterday. Perhaps she felt contempt for him because he had been so easily outwitted. This was one of his wild surmises, but he rejected it because it was not like Callie to be angry about anything unless there was good reason for her displeasure. At last he gave it up and tried to dismiss the matter from his mind, but several times during the morning he cast covert glances in her direction.

But Callie was plainly worried and downcast. She seldom raised her eyes from her books, she answered the teacher's questions in a most abstracted manner, and altogether it appeared that there was something on her mind beyond schoolwork.

When recess came she walked slowly out of the room, not mingling with the other girls. Frank saw her go outside toward the campus, where she sat down on the grass by herself, watching an impromptu basketball game and declining all requests to join in the fun.