me—!”
The thought was too much for him. He sank his head in his hands and groaned aloud.
Frank and Joe did not dare look at each other. They were finding it difficult enough to restrain their laughter without that.
“Yes, a thousand dollars,” went on Hurd Applegate. “I’ll write the checks now. Five hundred for each.”
With that he took out his fountain pen, reached in a drawer of the table for a check book, and soon the silence was broken by the scratching of pen on paper. Hurd Applegate wrote out two checks, each for five hundred dollars and these he handed to the boys. Frank and Joe accepted them with thanks, folded them up and put them in their pockets.
“And that, I think,” concluded Mr. Applegate, “finishes the mystery of the Tower robbery.”
“Thanks to the Hardy boys!” chimed in his sister. “Real detectives, both of them. I must ask them up for supper some night.”