“If there is any trace of him around the Polucca place we’ll find it,” declared Chet. “It will take a mighty lively ghost to scare us away this time.”
The three motorcycles went out of Bayport past the Tower Mansion, sped along the shore road. There was little talk among the boys. Each realized that this was not a pleasure outing but a serious mission and each recognized the importance of it. The Hardy boys had every confidence in their companions. Chet and Biff, they knew, would not be as easily frightened on this occasion, and as for Phil and Tony, they were noted at school for their fearless, at times even reckless, dispositions.
They passed the Kane farmhouse, nestling among the trees, and at last came in sight of the gloomy cliff that rose from Barmet Bay and at the summit of which perched the rambling stone house where the miser, Felix Polucca, had met his death.
“Lonely looking place, isn’t it?” remarked Phil, who was sharing Frank’s motorcycle.
“It was an ideal place for a murder. When Felix Polucca lived there, I doubt if he had more than two or three visitors in a year.”
“How did he get his food and supplies?”
“He used to drive into the city about once a week in a rattly old buggy, with a horse that must have come out of the Ark. The poor animal looked as if it hadn’t had a square meal in a lifetime. Polucca must have been a little bit crazy. How he lived alone up there all the time, nobody could understand. He worked hard enough and he made the farm pay. No one could drive a better bargain when it came to selling his hay and grain.”
Phil looked with interest at the old gray house that could be seen more clearly now that they were approaching it. When they were still some distance from the lane, however, Frank brought his motorcycle to a stop and signaled to the others to do likewise.
“What’s the idea?” Chet asked.
“We’d better sneak up on the place quietly. If we go any farther they’ll hear the motorcycles—that is, if there is any one at the place. We’ll leave them here under the trees and go ahead on foot.”