The Lazarus Plot Read Free Page A

his shoulder to the two men as he followed his brother.
    "Looks like we're on some kind of abandoned trail or road," said Joe as he jogged along at Frank's side.
    "A road to nowhere," commented Frank. "It hasn't been used in years."
    "Yes, it has-by that girl," said Joe, keeping up a fast pace until he halted abruptly. He picked a scrap of torn blue woolen material from the branch of a sapling where it had snagged. "I'd know this blue anywhere. It's the same color as the sweater Iola was wearing when I saw her before-and the last time I saw her, when. . ." Joe trailed off, wincing at the memory. Then his voice grew urgent. "Let's speed it up! We're on her trail."
    "But we're coming to a dead end," said Frank, peering ahead.
    A hundred yards down the overgrown road was a tall wire fence topped by barbed wire. On a gate in the fence was a large sign. The Hardy boys were too far away to read the lettering, but they could make out the picture on it. A skull. The universal symbol of death.
    When they reached the fence, Frank read: "Warning. Electrified fence. Property patrolled by armed guards and attack dogs. Trespassers will be shot on sight."
    Joe refused to let that stop him. "Iola must have gotten through this fence-or been taken through it-somehow. The only other place to go is deeper in the woods and I don't see why she'd do that. We've got to get in there." He reached for the gate latch.
    Frank grabbed his arm. "Careful. The electric current might be on. And even if it isn't, you can bet it's locked."
    "We have to get through it," said Joe, peering through the wire mesh. On the other side was what had once been a handsome lawn and garden, but had become a jungle of high green grass, tall weeds, and a rainbow of flowers gone wild.
    "Well," said Frank reluctantly, "I see three options for getting in. We could get a ladder and go over it, but getting past the barbed wire on top would be tricky, and we would be sitting ducks if any guard spotted us. We could cut through the fence, but that would be hard with the current on, and any disturbance in it might set off alarms. That leaves one other way."
    "Going under it," said Joe. "We could get a couple of shovels and tunnel through and have good cover at the same time."
    "Tonight. When we have the cover of darkness," said Frank firmly. "But this is ridiculous, Joe."
    "I hate to wait that long. Something might happen to Iola by then," said Joe.
    "See any other choice?" asked Frank.
    "You and your logic," replied Joe, shaking his head. "Once, just once, I'd like to see you go with gut feeling and not brains."
    "I'd rather use my head and save our necks," said Frank. "Anyway, there aren't many other places in this forest to go. If someone went in side, they're still there. Come on." Frank sighed.
    "Let's get to the general store in the village and buy a couple of shovels. Big ones. We'll have to do some heavy digging tonight. And while we're at the store, we can do some digging there. We can find out if anyone knows anything about this property."
    Two hours later, after a jog back to the station wagon and a drive to the village, the Hardy boys had gotten both the shovels and some information.
    The storekeeper was a tall, lanky, gray-haired man, who was as close-mouthed as most of the citizens of Maine that the Hardy boys had met. But the sight of the money that Frank and Joe laid out for a pair of high-priced shovels' warmed him enough to loosen his tongue when they asked him about the fence in the forest.
    "Figure that must be the old Lazarus place," he said, counting the money twice, then ringing it up on his antique cash register.
    "The Lazarus place?” Frank repeated. "Fact is, they called it the Lazarus Clinic," said the storekeeper. "Folks around here, though, got a different name for it. Lazarus Loony Bin. Some fancy New York doctor opened it and had a lot of rich patients for a while until the folks paying the bills got tired of seeing no results, and the place went out of