CHAPTER XI

THE CARONA IS RAISED

The older Hardy lad nodded and smiled. As Perry barked a series of bristling orders the dockhands milled around the heavy suit.

"Just sit tight, Frank," grinned the diver, noting his young friend's confusion. "We'll do your dressing for you."

The men struggled with the weighty apparel, and thirty minutes later Frank found himself encased in armor.

"Golly, I can't move an inch!" he laughed, trying to lift his foot aiid finding the maneuvre all but impossible.

"You look like somebody from the planet Mars," Joe smiled a bit enviously. "I wish you could see yourself in a mirror!''

Perry stepped up to give last-minute instructions.

"Bernember, you'll have two lines, a lifeline and an air hose. Pull the life-line three times when you're ready to come up, or just holler into the telephone mouthpiece in your helmet."

"Oh, I'm to have a telephone too!" exclaimed Frank.

84

The Carona Is Raised 85

The diver nodded. "Yes, but you may not feel much like talking on your first dive, for you'll be too busy making sure you can breathe. That's the experience most of us had on our initial trip."

Perry turned to a group of assistants fumbling with the helmet. '' All ready, boys. Bring over the lid!"

Suddenly Joe, who had been wandering about to inspect the strange looking headgear, burst from the knot of workmen and came running to the diver.

"Mr. Perry! The air hose is cut!" he called.

The man uttered an ejaculation and bounded over to the helmet. One quick look at the damaged apparatus showed him that Joe's statement was correct.

"Who did that I" he thundered. "Who cut that hose?"

The workmen were silent.

"Must've just happened," muttered an elderly helper, apparently the foreman. "I inspected it not ten minutes ago and it was all right then."

The diver glared from one to another of the assistants. Several gulped in embarrassment but none of them spoke.

Perry's eyes blazed. "Well, somebody here did it!" he exploded. "It didn't cut itself!" He picked up the hose disgustedly. "A nice, slick job, too," he muttered.

"Must have been a pretty sharp blade to

86 The Secret Warning

have done that," Joe observed. "The hose doesn't even gap open unless you bend it a certain way. I just happened to do that by chance a minute ago."

"It's mighty lucky you noticed it before your brother was down there breathing water instead of air," Perry replied.

"Say, what's going on over there!" came an impatient cry. Frank, unable to move in his heavy suit, had been sitting by himself on the opposite side of the pier.

Perry came over, scowling blackly, and explained what had happened.

"I'm afraid that spoils your dive for today," he said. Then he clenched his fists. "If I knew who did that-" Suddenly he stared at Frank, and the two burst out almost in the same breath, "Bock and Simon!"

"Or Kuntz," Perry amended a second later. "Still, I can't understand how they could have done it. I didn't see any strange faces around here this morning."

Catching the eye of the elderly dock foreman who was still gazing in bewilderment at the helmet, Perry summoned him.

"Tom, did you see anybody you didn't know around here this morning? Someone not in your gang?"

The foreman ran a finger across his stubbly chin.

"Well, now that you mention it, Mr. Perry, there was a couple of fellows hanging around

The Carona Is Raised 87

watching us a little while ago. I thought they belonged to the boathouse gang, for that's what they said when I asked 'em."

Frank returned the diver's significant look. "I think we've found the answer, or at least a good clue," he declared. "I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that those two loafers were Bock and Simon dressed up as boathouse laborers."

By this time Joe had joined the others.

"Personally," he observed, "I think Gus Kuntz is back of the whole thing."

"I believe you're right," agreed Perry. "I was thinking the same thing."

"Listen," said Frank suddenly, "isn't it high time for us to gather all the evidence we can find and pack Kuntz off to prison where he belongs?"

'' Good idea!" Joe burst forth. " If he is the character we think he is, we shouldn't hav» much trouble convincing the authorities about him."

"Easier said than done," Perry said dejectedly. "Kuntz is nobody's fool. He's a crafty fellow and takes precautions. He has engineered any number of shady deals against our company, we're sure, but we've never been able to get any evidence. I've not had a chance to prove that he has made attempts on my life, but he has, down on the ocean bottom where there was nobody around to witness it."

"I think we can do it!" Frank insisted.

The chums had ample time to speculate oa

88 The Secret Warning

the matter while Perry and his assistants discussed repairs to the damaged air hose. The man fretted at the delay.

"Is time important in raising the Corona, Mr. Perry?" Frank inquired.

"Very!" the man returned. "The owner is impatient. When he finds out about the broken hose, which will set us back several days, I'm afraid he'll switch the job to Kuntz."

"And that's just what Kuntz is waiting for!” Joe exclaimed. "I see it all now! Trying to drown Frank was just a small part of his scheme. His real object is to have your company discredited because of the delay, thereby getting the contract for himself."

"Exactly," said Perry. "Now you have an idea as to just how Gus Kuntz operates."

Since there was nothing more for them to do at the moment the chums returned to their hotel, promising to be on hand early the next 'lay. Joe purchased a newspaper and took it to their room.

"Look!" he exclaimed suddenly, staring at a headline.

"What now?" queried Chet.

" 'Valuable Dog Found Dead in Forest,' it says!" the younger Hardy read aloud. "Why, I'll bet-" He scanned the column hurriedly. "Yes, it's the same one! Listen to this, fellows!"

He read a dispatch stating that a thoroughbred Irish wolfhound belonging to Mr. Eiggs,

The Carona Is Raised 89

wealthy owner of the sunken yacht Carona, had been found dead near the Old Mill early that morning. Tire marks on the ground alongside the carcass, the report said, indicated that the animal probably had been run down by a car.

"So that explains the situation!" Frank exclaimed. "I've been wondering all day how Bock and Kuntz managed to get away in time to advance Simon's bail this morning."

"One of them must have attracted the dog's attention while the other got to the car," was Joe's analysis. "Then he ran over the animal, killed it, and the rascals got away."

"Pretty fancy bit of driving, I call it," drawled Chet.

The sudden jangle of the telephone bell interrupted the conversation. Frank answered it.

"Hello? Oh, hello, Mr. Perry. What?"

It was obvious from the crackle in the receiver that the diver was highly agitated. Frank was frowning. When the man had hung up, the elder Hardy lad turned to his chums.

"Mr. Perry says Mr. Riggs, the Carona's owner, is up in the air about the delay with the hose and is breaking the contract to give it to Kuntz!" he said with a white face.

Joe's jaw was set. "The only thing that will save both Perry and the Crux Brothers now is to tell Mr. Biggs about the episode of the dog."

90 The Secret Warning

"Eight, Joe. Look tip the man's address in the phone book and we'll go right over!"

A butler in the large white mansion on the outskirts of town eyed the boys disapprovingly.

"You wish to see Mr. Eiggs?" he scowled. "Whom shall I sayf" he asked haughtily.

Frank told his name. When the servant heard it his manner changed abruptly to one of astonished respect.

"Come this way, Mr. Hardy," he purred. "Mr. Eiggs is in the library."

The boys found the millionaire at his desk, a portly, ruddy-faced man with a genial smile. To the chums' surprise he, too, seemed to be familiar with the name Hardy.

"Yes, yes!" he beamed. "I've read about you lads in the papers. Some firemen, aren't you?" he chuckled. "And of course I know of your father. Come and sit down. What can I do for you?"

Frank briefly stated the nature of their visit. At mention of the wolfhound the millionaire's face fell. Then he looked up, startled.

"What's that you say? You know who killed my dog?"

"We have reason to believe that a man by the name of Gus Kuntz ran over him, Mr. Eiggs," Frank stated quietly.

4' Kuntz ? The diver ?'' demanded the yachtsman, frowning.

Frank nodded. Without mentioning the Details which the boys naturally wished to keep

The Carona Is Raised 91

to themselves, he told briefly how the dog had treed Kuntz and a companion. He concluded by relating the suspicious circumstances surrounding the damaged air hose.

The millionaire's fist thundered on his desk when Frank had finished. "If I ever see that man Kuntz again-" he fairly shouted. Then he became calm again. "Pardon me, boys, I shouldn't have let myself go like that. But I prized that dog more than I can say. He was my best friend."

The chums waited in sympathetic silence as Eiggs gazed sorrowfully at a beautiful oil painting of the animal on the opposite wall. At length he arose and stretched out his hand.

"Thank you for telling me, boys," he said. "Ard-don't worry about the diving contract. I'll see that your friends keep it."

Exultantly the lads piled into their car an<| made off toward the hotel. Ten minutes later Perry, on the telephone, was exclaiming joy» ously over their good fortune, bidding them once again to be at the pier early the next morning.

The chums did not retire immediately, even though it was nearly midnight. Instead, they sat up working out another plan which Frank proposed, for they were well aware that Kuntz and his confederates would attempt something even more desperate, now that their first scheme had failed.