The Yellow Feather Mystery (15 page)

But there might be a concealed one.

“Surely when the original stairway was removed,” he said, “some means of entrance must have been substituted.”

Every inch of the belfry wall was tapped. Frank even stood on Joe's shoulders to investigate in order not to miss any possibility.

“No go,” he said finally. “If there's an entrance, it's somewhere inside. Maybe in the attic where the bell tower joins the roof.”

For the first time the boys realized that the architecture of the school was a bit odd. The belfry was located where one wing joined the main part of the building.

“I think,” said Frank, “that once upon a time the tower extended up on the outside of the main building and the wing was constructed around it.”

“Then the thing to do is examine the tower where it passes through each floor,” Joe said.

The boys hurried to the basement, where the foundation of the circular structure was plainly visible. But the section where a door into it had once been was solidly bricked in with a lighter shade of mortar.

The boys went to the main floor and marveled at the clever way the architect had covered up any evidence of the former tower. A series of cabinets and shelves hid the old structure.

“No entrance here,” Frank muttered and started for the stairway.

The room adjoining the old tower shaft on the second floor was a large study hall, now vacant. The room was pine-paneled, whereas the other rooms had plastered walls.

“I'll bet there's a secret panel here!” Frank cried. “Keep watch in the hall, Joe, while I do some tapping.”

Inch by inch, Frank used his knuckles and fingertips on the wood. There were hollow and solid sounds but nothing moved or even vibrated. He tried pushing sideways against the trim that covered the seams between the pine boards.

Suddenly a section of the wall began to move!

“Joe!
S-s-st!”

His brother came on the run and had to stifle a shout of glee when he saw the opening. Frank said he was going inside. In the event that he could not get out, Joe was to open the door when Frank tapped on the panel.

“Give me ten minutes,” Frank suggested and closed himself in.

Joe ambled back to the hall. To his consternation, Greg and Kurt were coming up the nearest stairway together. Joe walked toward them, pretending to be on his way down.

With a bare nod, Kurt brushed past him.

Then, stiffly saying “Good-by” to Greg, the headmaster turned into the study hall.

Joe was aghast. He must get Kurt out of there at once! Frank might tap on the panel at any moment! He motioned to Greg to wait.

“Oh, Mr. Kurt,” he said, racing back, “my brother and I made an interesting discovery today. Won't you come down to the guest room? I'd like to show it to you.”

All this time Joe was trying to figure out just what to show Kurt which would keep the headmaster occupied while he returned to let Frank out. It would even be better if Greg went back to do it.

“I'm very busy,” said Kurt, “but I'll go.”

When the three reached the room, Joe had decided what to tell the headmaster. His back to Kurt, he noisily riffled some newspapers in the bureau drawer. But he also was scribbling a note to Greg on the top border of one of them.

“Where is that clipping?” he said aloud as he wrote:

After quickly tearing off the note and wadding it, Joe gave the newspapers a final rattle, then turned around.

“Mr. Kurt, I'm afraid your cleaning woman tidied up altogether too well. But,” he added, passing in front of Greg and pushing the note into his hand, “if you can spare a few more minutes, I'll tell you the gist of what we discovered.”

Greg arose. “Guess you two don't need me. I have to make a phone call,” he said.

When he had left, Joe said slowly and with great emphasis, “We saw a printed article that gave us an idea. There's a gold mine named the Yellow Feather!”

Kurt jumped out of the chair on which he had been waiting impatiently, his face ash white.

“You—you—Where did you see that?” he demanded. “A newspaper? Let me see it at once. Oh, you said the cleaning woman had thrown it out. I'll look in the trash. I'll—”

Still muttering incoherently, the headmaster made a beeline for the stairway and disappeared. Joe chuckled softly.

“I didn't say we saw the notice in a
newspaper,
you moneygrubber,” he murmured.

Meanwhile, Frank had made a startling discovery in the tower's second-floor room which was completely cut off from the lower section. Near the door lay the discarded desk top with the ominous carved words: REVENGE HARRIS D.

Using his pocket flashlight, Frank noticed similar messages on the underside. I HATE WOODSON. IT WILL SUFFER SOMEDAY. DILLEAU.

“I see why Kurt wanted to hide this desk top,” Frank thought as he beamed the light around the circular room.

There were various sorts of propulsion gadgets and other sinister-looking objects—no doubt inventions of Kurt. In the pulled-out drawers of an old-fashioned bureau lay a pile of small yellow feathers and a supply of wigs, false beards and mustaches.

Frank nearly laughed aloud. “I wonder if Kurt's goatee is real,” he thought.

A winding staircase led to the roof. Frank climbed it gingerly, but there was nothing at the top except a weatherproof ventilator. Frank spent the rest of the time looking for the will but did not find it. At the end of the ten-minute period he returned to the panel to wait for Joe to let him out. Though Frank was sure he could open it, he did not want to be discovered coming through the secret door.

As he waited, the door suddenly slid back, revealing Greg. “I'll explain everything in a minute,” he whispered as Frank stepped through and closed the panel. “Hurry!”

Frank followed and they met Joe in the hall.

“Where's Kurt?” Greg whispered.

“In the cellar. Let's go talk outdoors where he can't bother us.”

The three took a long walk where they could laugh without restraint at the trick Joe had played on Kurt. But finally they became serious, and after Frank reported that he had not found the missing will, the conversation got around to the various unsolved angles of the mystery.

“I have a hunch if we could figure out the meaning of that word
Manitoba
—
”
Joe said slowly.

But no new ideas occurred to the boys and they returned to the school just as the dinner bell rang.

During the meal the Hardys caught Kurt glancing suspiciously at them several times. Did he suspect their ruse?

“We'd better act pretty nonchalant until we shove off for bed,” Frank advised.

They remained with the students during the rest of the evening, then went to their room. When the dorm grew quiet and it was apparent that everyone else was asleep, the Hardys talked in whispers about the mysterious connection between Manitoba and the Yellow Feather case.

“If the mine isn't up there,” Joe said, “I don't understand why old Elias would have emphasized the word in that message.”

“Unless it was a connecting link to the next clue.” Frank sat up straight in his chair. “You don't suppose—the library! Come on, Joe!”

The boys grabbed their sweaters and Frank led the way on tiptoe down the dimly lighted corridor. Once inside the library he turned on his flashlight.

“We're going to look in every book with the word Manitoba in it!”

“Good hunch, Frank. Let's start with the encyclopedia.”

“It might be just a word that's circled, or something like that,” Frank suggested as they began.

Several editions of encyclopedias, however, failed to yield a single clue. Next, they started on the geographies.

Finishing one stack of books, Joe began to replace them while Frank looked for other possible resources.

“Funny, all these books certainly seemed to be lined up pretty evenly before,” Joe grunted as he put the last one back into the case, “but now some of them stick out. Oh, for Pete's sake! No wonder-there's another book behind them.”

Reaching in, he pulled out a much older volume, dusty and worn. He was about to shove it into place properly when its title caught his eye.

“Frank! Here's one—
Canada: Province by Province.”

Joe laid the old volume on the table and flashed the light directly on it as he flipped the book open. As if by magic the heading
Manitoba
stared at them.

With fingers shaking from excitement, Frank picked it out of the book. Joe held the flashlight close as his brother pulled back the unsealed flap. The legal document within was unfolded. The boys gasped.

“‘The Last Will and Testament,”'
read Joe in a husky whisper, “‘of
Elias Woodson!”'

“We've found it!” Frank whispered exultantly.

Placing the document on the table with the light close above it, they eagerly scanned the legal terminology.

“‘To my nephew, Gregory Woodson,”' Frank read, “‘I give and bequeath my full estate including the Woodson Academy, grounds, buildings, and institution, and the Yellow Feather Gold Mine in Colorado.' ”

“Greg gets it all!” Joe cheered as loud as he dared, while Frank checked quickly through the rest of the will.

Both boys were so excited about Greg Woodson's good fortune that neither of them heard the slight shifting of feet behind them. Without warning a voice hissed in their ears:

“Oh, no, he doesn't! But thanks for solving the mystery!”

As the boys spun around to confront the man they felt a fine spray cover their faces. The next instant, Frank and Joe sank to the floor!

Some time later, in total darkness, Frank struggled to regain consciousness. Suddenly, wide awake, he sat bolt upright to discover that he was lying on hard ground!

It was freezing cold. Shivering and chattering, Frank got to his feet. Now he remembered the voice in the library and the thin, fine spray that had hit him and Joe in the face.

“Joe!” he muttered weakly. “Where's Joe?”

As if in answer, his toe hit something soft. Kneeling in the blackness, he found a figure.

“Joe!”

“What happened?” Joe asked dazedly.

Tersely, Frank reminded him of the whispered threat in the library and the spray that apparently had knocked them both out.

“But where are we?” Joe asked weakly.

“I have no idea,” Frank replied. It was so black that he could not even see his brother's face.

When Joe had revived enough to stand, they began to feel their way around the place where they were confined. All they found was a rough, hard, cold wall enclosing them. A horrible realization began to dawn on Frank.

“We're sealed inside Kurt's ice fort!”

“WE'LL never escape!” Joe's cry echoed in the tomblike enclosure.

Because the boys had inspected the fort so carefully only that day, they knew it would be impossible to claw their way through those three-foot walls of solid ice. Kurt had done his evil work well.

Suddenly it occurred to Frank that there was one possible means of escape. “The entrance! It can't be frozen as hard as the rest of the wall—not yet, anyway!”

It was their only hope. On hands and knees the young detectives circled their small prison until they found an indentation indicating the doorway.

“Good thing he didn't pack this as thick as the rest of the wall,” Frank chattered.

With numbed hands, and using Joe's pocketknife they took turns digging at the rock-hard surface. It was torturous work.

They had dug part of a tiny tunnel, little wider than a fist, when the knife suddenly penetrated the last bit of outside wall.

“We're through!” Joe exulted. “And it's morning.”

Desperately Frank scraped until he had enlarged the small opening. A blast of fresh air came whistling through.

“We may freeze, but we won't suffocate,” Joe muttered.

“Maybe we can make a hole large enough to squeeze through,” Frank said hopefully.

Their joy was short-lived; for, just as Frank started to dig again, the pocketknife blade snapped in two! Its other blades were too small to be of any use.

“The only thing we can do now is shout, and hope someone hears us,” Frank declared.