The Arctic Patrol Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon Page B

“Then you went to Syria, and finally back to Iceland, right?”
    â€œGood. I am glad you know the details,” Hallbjornsson said. “That will make it easier for me to collect. How much money do I get?”
    â€œFifty thousand dollars,” Frank replied.
    The man’s eyes bulged greedily. “Do you have it with you?”
    â€œNo, we don’t have any money with us,” Frank replied. “Naturally, we’ll have to make a report to the insurance company first. But if you’re the right man, you’ll get what you’re entitled to receive.”
    â€œJa, ja,” the man murmured. “Make it soon. You see how I am living here in this cheap room. And I am getting old.”
    The boys said good-by, stepped out into the hall, and made their way to the front of the house. They tried to find the landlady to question her about the other American, but she was nowhere in sight.
    It was pitch dark when they stepped out into the street. Then there was an explosion of light, and darkness again, as Frank and Joe crumpled under blows to their heads!
    They awakened to the pungent smell of fish. How much time had passed neither boy knew. Joe looked up, glassy-eyed, into the face of Biff Hooper, who was bending over them.
    â€œTake it easy,” Biff said. “Just a bad bump on the noggin—both of you!”
    Joe raised up on one elbow and winced. He had a splitting headache. Then he looked about. Both he and Frank were on a conveyor belt.
    â€œWhere—where are we?” asked Frank.
    â€œIn a fish factory. Don’t you smell it?” Biff replied. “Right across the street from Rex Hallbjornsson’s.”
    â€œThat faker!” Joe muttered. He swung into a sitting position and slid off the conveyor belt, rubbing his head gingerly.
    Frank followed suit. “For Pete’s sake,” he said, “tell us what happened, Biff! How did we get here, and where did you come from?”
    â€œLet’s get out of here first, and I’ll give you the whole story,” Biff suggested. Walking the Hardys to their hotel, he explained that he had become worried about their trip to Akureyri. “I had a feeling you might be dry-gulched there. So I got a regular flight this morning and followed you.”
    â€œYou must have left before our message arrived,” Frank said. “When you didn’t find us here, then what?”
    Biff had gone to Hallbjornsson’s address, but he was not in. “The landlady told me the guy had come there only recently,” he explained, “and she thought he was a foreigner.”
    Biff said he had wandered around town, watching the fishing boats and talking to American tourists. Then he had returned to Hallbjornsson’s in the evening.
    â€œI guess we arrived before you,” Joe put in.
    â€œRight. When I got here, I saw two men lurking in front of the house. I decided to play it by ear and stepped into an alley to see what would happen. A few minutes later you came out, and these fellows blackjacked you.”
    Frank gave a low whistle. “Now I know why Hallbjornsson got on the phone as soon as we came in!”
    â€œThen,” Biff continued, “a siren sounded, and you should have seen those fellows go to work. They dragged you into the fish factory. I was hoping it would be the police, but it was only an ambulance going past.”
    â€œSo you followed the guys?” Joe asked.
    Biff said that when the men did not come out of the building, he stole in to find the Hardys lying on the conveyor belt. “They must have scrammed out a side door,” he concluded. “Now tell me, what happened to you?”
    Frank gave him a brief report, and soon they reached the hotel. Frank and Joe got ice packs to apply to the lumps on their heads, and ordered a cot to be put in their room for Biff.
    Next morning after breakfast the trio caught a plane back to Reykjavik. When their taxi arrived at