“There you are,” Mr. Applegate announced. “Search all you want to. But you won’t find anything-of that I’m certain.”
With this parting remark he turned and hobbled back along the corridor, the sheet of stamps still in his gnarled hand.
The Hardy boys looked at each other. “Not very encouraging, is he?” Joe remarked.
“He doesn’t deserve to get his stuff back,” Frank declared flatly, then shrugged. “Let’s get up into the tower and start the search.”
Frank and Joe first examined the dusty stairs carefully for footprints, but none were to be seen.
“That seems queer,” Frank remarked. “If Jackley was here recently you’d think his footprints would still show. Judging by this dust, there hasn’t been anyone in the tower for at least a year.”
“Perhaps the dust collects more quickly than we think,” Joe countered. “Or the wind may get in here and blow it around.”
An inspection of the first floor of the old tower revealed that there was no place where the loot could have been hidden except under the stairs. But they found nothing there.
The boys ascended to the next floor, and entered the room to the left of the stair well. It was as drab and bare as the one they had just left. Here again the dust lay thick and the murky windows were almost obscured with cobwebs. There was an atmosphere of age and decay about the entire place, as if it had been abandoned for years.
“Nothing here,” said Frank after a quick glance around. “On we go.”