Free The Clue in the Embers by Franklin W. Dixon

us.”
    â€œGreat,” Joe said. “I’d like to do nothing for a change.”
    â€œOh, you’ll have to do the barbecuing,” Iola replied. “And of course we’ll go on the rides and visit the House of Horrors!”
    â€œFine! We’ll pick up the other girls shortly after five,” Joe replied.
    â€œMeet us at the farm,” Iola said. “We’ve fixed up something special. ’By now!”
    About three o’clock Frank phoned Callie to tell her the plan. “Frank, a funny thing happened here a short while ago. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but now it worries me.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    Callie said she felt that unwittingly she had told a stranger about the picnic plans. A man had come to the Shaws’ selling novel kitchen gadgets.
    â€œI bought a couple of them,” Callie went on. “Then suddenly the man said, ‘You’re a friend of Frank Hardy’s, aren’t you? Nice guy.’”
    â€œI hope you agreed,” Frank said teasingly. Callie did not laugh. “I’m worried, Frank. He seemed so nice, but now I realize he asked me a lot of questions. He may be a spy—one of those men from the patriotic society Iola was telling me about.”
    Frank asked if the man spoke with a Spanish accent and had a mustache.
    â€œNo,” Callie said. “He was tall and blond, about thirty.”
    â€œWell, stop worrying,” said Frank. “Just concentrate on having a good time.”
    Callie promised to do so, then Frank put down the phone. Despite his lighthearted attitude about the incident, he was alarmed. There was no question in his mind that the kitchen-gadget salesman was a phony.
    â€œBut if he has any evil intentions, we’ll be safer at the amusement park—with so many people around—than at any other place,” Frank reasoned.
    After picking up the three girls and Tony Prito in their father’s car, the Hardys set off for the Morton farm at five o’clock. When they arrived, the group learned that Chet had piled hay into his father’s truck, so they could all go on an old-fashioned hayride to the amusement park.
    â€œLen is going to drive us,” Iola announced.
    A big cheer went up from the boys. Len Wharton, a good-natured former cowboy, had recently come to work at the Morton place.
    Len grinned. “Shucks, I figured that if I was seventeen I sure wouldn’t want to be stuck with the drivin’”
    Zigzagging through the back-country roads, Len stretched the trip to Elkin Park into an hour-long ride. As the picnickers got out, he said, “You just call me at the farm when you want to get on back.”
    The baskets of food were carried to the reserved fireplace, where the attendant stored them away.
    For an hour the four couples whirled about on the thrill rides, and laughed their way through the House of Horrors.
    â€œAnd now—the best for last,” Iola announced.
    â€œBefore we go back to the fireplace, let’s take a ride on the roller coaster.”
    The young people boarded the bright red cars and strapped themselves in.
    They reached the summit and rolled smoothly around the bend. Suddenly they snapped into the steep dive! Maria and Judy screamed as the cars streaked past the white uprights. Hitting the bottom of the run, they plunged into the blackness of a short tunnel, and emerged on a level center track that passed the ticket booth. As the coaster began another climb, Frank uttered a gasp.
    â€œJoe!” he exclaimed to his brother in the seat behind. “He’s here! Near the ticket booth!”
    â€œWho?” Callie asked.
    Not wanting to worry her, Frank merely said it was a man for whom he and Joe were looking. Through the rest of the breathtaking swoops and turns the Hardys could think of little else. The chances of spotting the blowgun suspect again in the crowd milling around the park were small,