"Dixon, Franklin W - Hardy Boys 044 - The Haunted Fort (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dixon Franklin W)

CHAPTER III.

Inquisitive Student.

JOE sprinted across the slope and dived for the car. Hanging on, he reached through the window and wrenched at the wheel. The Queen swerved, missed the girls by inches, crushed the easels, and came to rest in a tangle of thick underbrush.

Then Joe ran up to the frightened students. "Are you all right?" he asked with concern.

Both girls nodded, trembling with relief. One said, "We owe you our lives!"

"And our paintings too," said her companion. Their two half-finished canvases had been knocked off the easels and lay intact, face up on the ground.

By now Frank, Chet, and Mr. Kenyon had rushed over. "Are you all right, Joe?"

"I'm fine, but I'd rather tackle a whole football team than a runaway car!"

The praises of the onlookers for his bravery embarrassed Joe. "Let's find out what happened to the Queen," he said.

The boys found the car undamaged. "Hey!" Chet cried out. "The emergency's off! I know you set it, Frank."

The jalopy was driven back to the parking area. This time it was left well away from the rim of the incline. Frank looked around.

"The car didn't just happen to roll. Somebody deliberately released the emergency brake."

Mr. Kenyon frowned. "What a terrible prank!"

"I don't believe it was a practical joke," Frank said. "What the motive was, though, I can't guess yet."

The boys took their luggage from the car, and then Mr. Kenyon led them toward a small, newly painted building. "I'm sorry you had to be welcomed to Millbrook in this manner," he said. "But we'll try to make up for it."

He took the visitors through a side door into a large, cluttered room, piled with dusty easels, rolls of canvas, and cardboard boxes filled with paint tubes. "This is our storage house," explained the art instructor.

The boys followed him down a narrow stairway into a small basement studio. The stone room smelled of oil paints. Several unframed modern paintings lay along one wall. Mr. Kenyon reached up with a pole to open the single window near the ceiling.

"This is my little garret-subterranean style," he explained. "Make yourselves comfortable. Since the thefts, I've been rooming upstairs where I have a better view of our art gallery across the way."

The boys set down their bags on three sturdy cots. Joe grinned. "I'm beginning to feel like an artist."

"So am I," Frank said. "This room is fine, Mr. Kenyon."

"Just call me Uncle Jim. How about supper? You must be hungry."

Chet beamed. "I could eat an easel!"

First, however, he eagerly recounted the scalp incident to his uncle, then the Hardys told of their experiences at the Bayport Museum and on the thruway. Mr. Kenyon agreed there likely was a connection with the Mill wood thefts.

"But the man you describe doesn't ring any bells with me," he continued. "Our summer session had been going along well until five days ago when I discovered a painting missing from our small gallery. The day before yesterday, a second was stolen during the night-both works of the Prisoner-Painter." He sighed. "We have to keep the building under lock and key now, even from our students."

"So tomorrow we'll start our sleuthing," said Joe.