“An alarm clock!” roared someone. “They thought an alarm clock was a bomb. Pouring water over an alarm clock!”

Chief Collig and Smuff returned to the police station with all the dignity they could muster under the circumstances. The crowd howled and whooped with laughter.

The Hardy boys went home smiling. The seven o’clock train had left half an hour before. Their father was making the trip to the city without the interference of the chief and his assistant, Smuff.

Fenton Hardy returned home late that night, and at the breakfast table next morning he was in high spirits.