CHAPTER XV

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"what makes you so sure the man on the screen is not Vilnoff?" asked Mr. Hardy. "He certainly resembles him very closely."

"When we met Vilnoff at his house one night I noticed he had a peculiar mannerism," said Frank. "I saw it the afternoon he sat beside me at the football game, too. Whenever he spoke he would blink a lot. He also had a habit of holding up his right hand, opening and closing it nervously. The man on the screen isn't doing that."

"He's carrying a bag," objected Joe, "so how could he hold up his hand?"

"Yes, but he is holding it in his left hand. His right arm is free. You notice he has evidently said something to the cameraman or to somebody nearby and didn't even move his right arm when he spoke."

Fenton Hardy was interested.

"We'll run that film through once more," he said. "You may be right at that, Frank."

Again the picture flickered on the white screen, and the man who looked like Vilnoff came up the gangplank carrying a bag.

"You're right," admitted Joe. "He has it in his left hand."

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They watched closely as the fellow turned, saw the camera, spoke, wheeled away and hurried into the ship. His right hand had not moved, nor had he blinked.

"Very good observation, Frank," said Fenton Hardy approvingly. "I guess you are right in thinking that Vilnoff has a double."

"The man who boarded the Atlantis must have been the one who took the plane from Bayport that morning. That's why he didn't recognize us when he passed the Sleuth out in the bay."

"Can't you send a radiotelegram to the ship and have the fellow held when the Atlantis reaches port?" asked Joe.

Fenton Hardy shook his head.

"We have no proof as to his identity. We would have to find the real Vilnoff before we could prove that the other fellow is his double, if such a person exists. That's your problem now. Find the real Vilnoff."

Fenton Hardy had to be a witness in a court case that morning so the boys were left to their own resources. They told their father something of their activities in the Topnotch affair, but Mr. Hardy said he was so busy with other matters that he would be unable to do anything in the case of the missing racehorse just then. He advised his sons to follow up their own investigations.

"If I can get in touch with Mr. Prescott," said the detective, "I'll explain the situation to him and advise him to leave it in your hands for the present. You seem to have done very well without my help. In the meantime, I wish you would try to learn where Vilnoff is keeping himself."

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"You're not going to tell us yet why you want him?" asked Frank.

The detective smiled. "Professional secret, my boy. But the man must be located."

After Fenton Hardy left the house on his way to court, the boys happened to pick up the morning paper. On one of the sports pages they found an item that interested them. It was headed:

JOCKEY IVAN TO RIDE PRESCOTT STABLE ENTRY

The article stated that the Kentucky stables had secretly shipped one of its finest horses to a city in an adjacent state, where a race was to be held during the following week.

"Mr. Prescott is taking no more chances on losing a valuable horse-hence the secrecy in shipping the animal," the story ran. "No further trace of Topnotch, star performer of the Prescott stables, has been found since the animal disappeared while being transported to the Spurtown meet. Jockey Ivan, who has been there this week, will leave tonight, and has high hopes of riding the Prescott stable entry to victory in next week's race."

This news aroused the Hardy boys at once. If they expected to get any further information from Jockey Ivan they realized that they would have to see him before he should leave the state.

"We'd better drive over to Spurtown and look him up," said Frank.

The boys got into their roadster and drove over at

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once. At the race-track they sought news of the young rider, but learned that he had not been seen around the stables that morning. A friendly trainer, however, gave them Ivan's address, which was a lodging-house not far away.

The landlady, an elderly, capable-looking woman, regarded her callers shrewdly.

"I'll see if he's in," she said, and went puffing up the stairs. A moment later she called down from the landing, "Ye can come up. He says he'll sec yc."

Ivan was just packing his trunk.

"Hello, fellows!" he said cheerfully. "I'm glad to see you. Just getting ready to pull out of town."

"The newspaper account said you wouldn't be going until tonight," said Frank.

"I changed my mind. I'm leaving by an earlier train. Well, what's new? Any more information about Top-notch?"

Frank shrugged. "We haven't made much progress," he admitted. "We came over to ask you a question."

"Fire ahead!" invited the jockey. "Glad to give you any help I can."

"You were talking to a man by the name of Vilnoff at the track the other day. It was the afternoon the automobile broke loose, if you remember."

A shadow seemed to flit over the jockey's face when Frank mentioned Vilnoff's name.

"Yes?"

"He's a friend of yours, isn't he? What do you know about him?"

Jockey Ivan did not seem disposed to answer any questions about the fellow, and became evasive. A suspicion

Il6 THE SINISTER SIGN POST

meanwhile had been forming in Frank's mind. If Vilnoff was involved in the theft of the race-horse, perhaps Jockey Ivan was mixed up in the affair as well, since he and Vilnoff were friends.

"I know him, yes. Can't tell you much about him. Lives in Bayport, I believe," offered Ivan, and stopped. This was all they could get out of him on the subject of the man.

"What would you say if we were to tell you that he stole Topnotch?" asked Joe suddenly. The jockey looked at them strangely. Then he flushed.

"I'd say it was a lie," he answered quickly.

Ivan seemed positive in this opinion. Before the boys could question him further, they heard the doorbell ring. Then the landlady came panting up the stairs once more.

"There's some gentlemen here to take ye to the station, Mr. Ivan," she said, fanning herself with her apron. "From the Racin' Association, they say they be. Waitin' out there in a fine big car."

"From the Racing Association!" exclaimed the jockey. "That's swell. I'll be right down, Mrs. Clancy."

"My poor husband-may he rest in peace," said the woman, "was one of the finest jockeys that ever booted a three-year-old under the wire, but never did he have people from the Racin' Association comin' around to take him for a drive. Ye're a lucky boy, Mr. Ivan, to have those grand people showin' such an interest in yc."

She left the room, still fanning herself. Ivan closed his trunk and locked it.

Shaking hands with the Hardy boys, he said, "I'm

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sorry I have to rush away like this, but maybe we'll see each other again."

"Let's hope so," returned Frank.

They went downstairs with the jockey, who said good-bye to his landlady. Then the three stepped outside.

A big closed car was standing at the kerb. As Ivan entered it, Frank and Joe caught a glimpse of a man huddled in the back seat. He attracted their attention because of a black patch that covered one of his eyes. The boys did not have a chance to observe the other occupants, for as soon as the door closed behind the jockey the auto pulled ahead and shot swiftly out of sight around the corner.

"Frank," exclaimed Joe excitedly, "did you get a good view of that man with the patch over his eye8?" F

"I couldn't see him very clearly," Frank admitted.

"I could. And he was Vilnoff!"

Frank was startled.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Then let us hustle down to the railway station at once."

The Hardy boys jumped into their roadster and drove to the corner. The other car was not in sight, so they asked directions to the railway station. In a few minutes they reached it, jumped out, and hurried down the platform.

Of Jockey Ivan and Vilnoff they could find no trace. The car that had called at the rider's lodging house was not in evidence anywhere.

Il8 THE SINISTER SIGN POST

When the train arrived ten minutes later and Ivan still had failed to appear, the boys were puzzled. All their inquiries were fruitless.

"The landlady distinctly said that the men from the Racing Association were waiting to drive him to the station!" declared Joe.

"I'm sure Vilnoff doesn't belong to any Racing Association!" said Frank. "There's something queer about this affair. I hope Ivan hasn't stepped into a trap. He's a nice fellow."

"Yes," agreed his brother. "But he seemed to know more about Vilnoff than he cared to tell I"

The Hardy boys questioned several people in Spur-town that afternoon, even going back to the jockey's lodging house. The landlady said the young man's trunk had been picked up shortly before the train-time. She had heard nothing from him since his departure.

Finally they put in a long distance call to the racing stables where Ivan was to have reported that afternoon. The replies to their inquiries only served to deepen the mystery.

"Jockey Ivan?" said the official who answered the telephone. "No, he hasn't arrived here; in fact, we've received word that he has changed his mind and isn't going to come after all."

"Did Ivan himself give you that message?"

"No, someone telephoned and told us."

Frank was greatly perplexed. Even though Vilnoff might Jbe back of some underhanded schemes, the Hardy boy was almost certain that the jockey had no part in them. But it began to look as if the two had something to do with the disappearance of Topnotch.

,1

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"By the way," he asked the landlady, "what is Ivan's last name?"

"Why, it's Evans," she answered. "But I always call him Mr. Ivan."

The boys left the lodging house and drove toward Bayport, still discussing the day's events.

"Ivan is a foreign name," commented Frank. "Do you suppose Evans is an assumed American one?"

"Don't know," replied Joe. "What I do know is that I like the fellow, and I don't like Vilnoff. And

)»

"Yes?"

"I believe Ivan's honest. What's more, I think he's been kidnapped!"

"I'm inclined to agree with you, Joe. It's up to us to rescue him!"