"Dixon, Franklin W - Hardy Boys 111 - Three-Ring Terror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dixon Franklin W)

From the hall, Frank heard his brother let out a loud yell.
"What is it?" Frank cried, rushing to the door of Joe's room.
Inside, he saw what had made Joe yell. The room was a shambles. Papers were strewn all over. The window was broken and glass was everywhere.
Then Frank looked down and gasped. His brother lay facedown on the floor in the middle of the room. A masked man in a black, hooded jumpsuit held Joe's arms behind his back. The man had Ralph Rosen's gem-studded juggler's ball in his hand and was about to knock Joe out cold with it!
Chapter 10
Trapeze Thief
Before Frank could react, the masked man let go of Joe and rushed to the window. Rosen's ball was in his left hand, and his right hand reached out the window for a piece of rope that was hanging by the frame.
"We've got to stop him," Joe called to his brother. Joe hurried to the window, but the masked man had already sailed through it, airborne, the rope carrying him to a tree ten feet away.
Joe leaned out the window, careful to avoid broken glass, and felt a blast of cold air. "He's climbing down the tree!" he cried. "He's getting away!"
"Not if I can help it," Frank said, running from the room. Joe followed him down the stairs, out the door, and into the cold. They rushed around to the side of the house and spotted the masked man running across the backyard.
Frank and Joe picked up their pace, determined not to let the man get away. They chased him through the backyard and through the neighbor's. Soon, they were on a street, and Joe saw the man running for a car.
"He's getting away!" Joe cried out to Frank.
Joe dashed across the street to where the masked man was getting into a blue sports car with Texas plates. Joe caught up with him just as the man had closed his door. The man started the car and put it into gear. Joe saw Rosen's ball lying on the seat next to him. It was their only lead— and it had been stolen right out from under them.
With a squeal of tires, the car turned sharply to the left, knocking Joe down. Then it sped off down the street.
Frank rushed over to where Joe lay on the pavement. "Are you okay?" he asked his brother, giving him a hand up.
Joe got up and dusted off his jeans. "I'm fine. I just wish that guy hadn't gotten away."
"Me, too," Frank said, following the speeding car with his eyes. "Come on," he urged. "Let's go back home and see what the damage is."
Back inside his room, Joe surveyed the scene. The ball was gone. His papers were all over the floor. The room was getting cold from the broken window. Joe went over to the window and looked at the rope that hung from the nearby tree.
"Whoever this robber was, he sure was pretty agile," Joe said as Frank stepped into the room with a dustpan and broom.
"Like someone in the circus," Frank offered.
"A trapeze artist, say?" Joe asked, suddenly thinking of Carl Nash's accident early that day.
"Exactly," Frank said. He started sweeping up the broken glass and putting it in a trash can. "The car had Texas plates. Didn't Carl Nash say he was from Texas?"
"That's right," Joe said. He began to pick up the papers on the floor. "What if Rosen and Nash are accomplices?"
"It's an idea," Frank admitted. "Except that we don't know why Rosen would have been passing that ball to Nash, or what Nash is helping Rosen do."
"Sabotage," Joe said, frustrated. "I've been trying to tell you that Rosen wants to foul things up at Circus U. because he got kicked out."
"Look, Joe," Frank said. "You keep assuming that Rosen's message has to do with the accidents, but according to Paul Turner, these accidents started in Florida six months ago. Where was Rosen all that time? And the Montero has only been on tour for a few weeks."
Joe had to admit his brother had a point. He picked up the trashcan, gave the broken window one last look, and sat down at his desk. "What if Rosen's been passing instructions to Nash in the balls all this time?" Joe asked finally. "What if this is just one in a series of messages?"
Frank shook his head slowly. "You really want to make your theory about the coded message work, don't you?" he said with a smile. "Assuming Rosen was hanging around Circus U., it still doesn't make sense that he would take the trouble to pass messages in a juggler's ball. Why not make a phone call? Why not meet Nash in secret?"
"I don't know," Joe said with a sigh, holding his head in his hands.
"And why would Nash's initials be on the list anyway, if he were Rosen's accomplice?" Frank continued.
"All right already," Joe said in an exasperated tone. "I give up. I can't answer any of those questions, and I'm even willing to admit my theory has some holes in it, but we're not getting anywhere on this mystery."
Frank sat down on the bed across from Joe. "I think we need to get back to the facts," he explained. "See what we can piece together from what we know."
"Instead of pulling things out of thin air, you mean," Joe said, lifting his head up. "Okay," he said grudgingly. "What are the facts?"
Frank counted off on his fingers. "One. It looks like Rosen meant to pass his ball to Carl Nash, and that Nash probably—"
"Oh, no, you don't," Joe interrupted. "No probablys. Just the facts."
"That someone who happens to be an acrobat broke in here and stole Rosen's ball," Frank finished.
"We also know that there are people at Circus U. who would benefit if Paul Turner lost his job because of these accidents," Joe offered.
"Georgianne Unger, for one," Frank said. "Even though Turner thinks she'd never get the job."
"And Bo Costello," Joe added. "Remember what Turner said about Bo being one of the people with the experience to do his job."
"Right," Frank said. "We shouldn't rule out Costello as a suspect."
"None of this explains how Rosen is related to the accidents, though," Joe said.
Frank pulled a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket. Joe leaned over and saw it was the coded message. "It's in here, somewhere," Frank said. "The clue to Rosen's connection has got to be in this message."
"Too bad we can't decode it," Joe said glumly. "But let's have another go at it, anyway."
He pulled his chair closer to the bed, and Frank unfolded the paper. Joe scratched his head, looking at the series of initials and numbers for what felt like the thousandth time: CN/1220; JL/103; GU/214.
For the next hour, Joe and Frank played with combinations, rearranging the letters, connecting them to different numbers, adding and subtracting the numbers, and rearranging the letters yet again. "What if these numbers are actually dates?" Joe finally suggested. "I mean, it's a long shot, but it's possible."
Frank looked over Joe's shoulder as Joe wrote them out. "See—twelve-twenty. That could be December twentieth, right?"
Frank nodded, and Joe went on. "And one-oh-three. That might mean January third."
"And two-fourteen could be February fourteenth," Frank said.
"Exactly." Joe checked his watch. He remembered they'd told Chet they would pick him up at six, and it was already ten till. Then the date on his watch caught his attention. It was December nineteenth—one day before the first date on the list.
"Hey, Frank," Joe said, slowly turning to his brother with a huge grin on his face. "Guess what day it is."