"There's Lester."
"Lester?"
"The boy we saved from drowning. We have him on our side anyway, I think. If we haven't, he must be a very ungrateful beggar. I'd just like to ask him a few questions about this patent breakfast food yarn."
"That's a good idea!" cried Joe. "If he tells us any kind of story at all we can soon tell if he's lying or not. But, somehow, I don't think he would lie to us. He seemed to me to be a pretty decent sort of boy."
"That's what I thought of him too. Chances are, if these men are counterfeiters, they're keeping him there as a prisoner. He might be only too glad to tell what he knows, if given a chance."
"And if it turns out that those men really are scientists and that the mill is really being used for this breakfast food stunt, we won't be making ourselves foolish by poking around and perhaps getting into all sorts of trouble for suspecting they were counterfeiters."
Frank nodded.
"That was my idea in suggesting Lester. We have to work pretty carefully, for it wouldn't do to start a hue-and-cry and find out that those fellows really are scientists after all. But what do you say to taking the motorcycles to-morrow morning and going up to the old mill to see if we can get to talking to the boy?"
"I'm game. To-morrow's Saturday. Even if the men at the mill do see us they'll think we're just out on a holiday outing. There's no law against going near the old mill, even if they don't want strangers around."
So the arrangement was made, and the Hardy boys laid their plans for a visit to the old mill on the following day. Each felt that there was something suspicious about the place, some mystery that was not entirely nor satisfactorily solved by the breakfast food explanation. If they could only talk to Lester, who was already under obligation to them for having saved his life, they felt that they would go a long way toward verifying or dispelling their suspicions regarding the three men who were the present occupants of the mill.