The Mystery of Cabin Island - Plot Summary (original Edition)

Plot Summary (original Edition)

While riding in their homemade iceboat on the frozen surface of Barmet Bay, Frank and Joe Hardy and Chet Morton discuss their plans for the upcoming Christmas holiday break, and decide to ask if they could rent out the namesake cabin on Cabin Island. However, a mysterious stranger chases them off the island, and on their return to shore, they nearly crash into an iceboat piloted by Ted Carson and Ike Nash, two reckless and obnoxious youths. The boys are later invited to the home of Elroy Jefferson, a man whose car they returned in The Shore Road Mystery, so he can reward them. They overhear an argument between Jefferson, the owner of Cabin Island, and a Mr. Hanleigh, who is constantly trying to buy the titular cabin for large sums of money. Mr. Jefferson initially tries to give them a monetary reward for returning his stolen Pierce Arrow (Jefferson was in Europe when the car was returned), but the boys ask if they can use his cabin for the holidays, which Mr. Jefferson grants them permission for. As time goes by on the island, the boys notice that strange things have been going on, most notably the disappearance of their supplies. Frank and Joe head to a village on the mainland to get more supplies, and end up talking to a storekeeper named Amos Grice. Grice tells the boys that Jefferson had once married a woman who would inherit the valuable Bender stamp collection from her father, and that rumor has it that Jefferson really married her for the stamps, which were turned over to Elroy when she did inherit them. Jefferson built the cabin years ago for his late wife and son to use in the summer, but while it was being constructed the stamp collection vanished along with their servant, John Sparewell, and Mrs. Jefferson died shortly thereafter. It is later revealed that after Sparewell was almost caught with the stamps, he went to Cabin Island to try to return the stamps in secret. However, he hid them in a gap in the chimney, intending to retrieve them the next day, but the gap was mortared up, sealing them up forever. Before Sparewell died, he willed the box of stamps to his nephew, Mr. Hanleigh, with the instructions to return it to Jefferson. Hanleigh had been trying to buy the island and prowl around it to recover the stamps, but never intended to give them back to Jefferson. Neither Hanleigh nor the boys were able to find the stamps, but when a violent storm tears the cabin apart, the box of stamps is miraculously recovered.