“I’m beginning to think it wasn’t a joke at all,” admitted Joe, on the way home. “Believe me, if it had been a trick played on us the fellow who did it wouldn’t have lost any time coming around to have the horselaugh.”
“It was a little too well done to be a joke. I think some one started this ghost rumor just to keep people away from the Polucca place.”
“If everybody gets the same reception we got, I don’t blame ’em for staying away. What with weird yells and shrieks, with walls falling in and tool boxes being robbed, it’s a mighty active ghost they have on the job.”
“I wonder—could it have anything to do with the smugglers, Joe?”
The Hardy boys looked at one another.
“There’s a thought!” exclaimed Joe. “We had two mighty strange things happen to us on the same day. Perhaps they have something to do with each other.”
“It might be only a coincidence. But when you come to think of it, that house on the cliff would be a mighty handy hang-out for smugglers if they could keep strangers away. And what better way than by starting a story that the place is haunted?”
“Gosh, I never thought of that! I wonder what dad thinks of it.”
“Perhaps he’s at home now. We’ll mention it to him.”
But when they returned home for lunch they found that Fenton Hardy had not come back. Neither was he at home when school closed for the day; and when the Hardy boys went to bed that night there had not been the slightest word from their father nor any indication of where he had gone. In spite of the fact that they were accustomed to these sudden absences, the lads felt vaguely uneasy.