1930s-style fanfiction novelet sequel to the original 1929-text The Mystery of Cabin Island, everybody's favorite Hardy Boys winter adventure. More ice-boating on the bay, more mysterious happenings on Cabin Island, an unexpected thrilling ride to...
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The Hardy boys had inched back and were peering around the corner of the building that housed the diner, so as not to be seen. But as soon as the door had shut behind the cloaked figure, they hurried into the alley after the colored man who had started to walk away in the other direction.
"Wait a minute, sir!" Joe called, as they approached him.
The man turned and looked at them. The boys could see that he was still afraid. "Did you just come out of that building to bother me some more?" he asked in bewilderment. "I told your boss I was leaving."
"No, we haven't been inside the warehouse, mister," Frank replied. "But we'd like to ask you a couple questions about it."
"Right," Joe nodded his head eagerly in agreement. "We saw that crazy coot in the cloak and hat rough you up and throw you out. Are you okay?"
"I'm all right, son. Thanks for asking. He didn't hurt me, but he sure is a big fellow, eh?"
"I'll say," Frank agreed. "What the heck are they doing in that building?"
The man looked warily back up the alley, then said, "I sure don't want to talk about it here. Let's we go down to the next street, boys. I'm scared of them people in there!"
Frank and Joe agreed and walked with the man to the end of the alley. They turned onto the sidewalk and stopped in front of a storefront a little ways down from the warehouse. Frank could tell the man was frightened.
"Why was that fellow so mean to you?" he asked. "You sure don't look like the kind of person who would do anything wrong."
The man shook his head sadly. "I was just doing my job. They hired me a few days ago to do the cleaning. Then they started complaining right away that I was looking around too much while I was working. Well, I had to look things over first before I could clean up, no?"
"Why sure," Joe agreed. "Especially in a place that big. What do they have going on in there? Must be something fishy if they think you were snooping."
The elderly man nervously looked up at the top floors of the building. "Most of it isn't in use, boys, just the top two floors. There's a few offices, meeting rooms, and a big auditorium that looks something like a temple."
"A temple?" Frank repeated in surprise.
"Uh huh. They call it the Inner Sanctum and told me never to be telling anybody about it. Well, who am I going to tell, eh?" the man asked. "They practice some strange kind of religion, they do. But I don't think anybody'd care much about it. I'm just an old man who needs a job, not a tattler."
"We're sorry you lost your job," Joe remarked. "Did he pay you the wages he owed you?"
The man nodded his head. "Right, just before he threw me out. I'd heard a strange noise down on the third floor earlier, like a cry. I thought maybe some bats got in last night, or birds, 'cause there's a couple broken windows along the fire escapes. So I went down to look around. One of the other members found me down there and complained to the boss, who'd just come back from being away out of town. Acted like I was sneaking around or something. Ain't nothing but lots of empty old rooms in there."
