“How do we get into the vault?” Bud asked.
“Maybe there’s a secret entrance somewhere on the grounds,” Tom said.
“Let’s look around here first.”
The two boys made a circuit of the cellar, tapping the walls and inspecting the floor for signs of a trap door. Bud grew discouraged when they failed to find any sign of the vault.
“Looks hopeless to me-unless Vaxilis squirms into his vault through a drainpipe.”
As he spoke, Bud absent-mindedly toed a round drain plate in the floor. The next instant both boys gasped as a section of the wall swung open!
“You’ve found it!” Tom exclaimed, shining his beam into the opening. “That drain plate must conceal a pressure switch!”
Bud, eager and curious, started to plunge through the opening. But Tom restrained him. “Hold it! Let’s not walk into any traps!”
128 AQUATOMIC TRACKER
Tom flashed his light around the secret room. He saw rows of framed paintings neatly racked like film slides. A white sheet covered what appeared to be a statue. Tom could detect nothing sinister about the room. “Okay-but wait till I fix this door so it can’t swing shut.”
Tom got a chisel from the workbench and wedged the door open. The two boys entered the room. Tom lifted the sheet from the statue, then swept it off with a cry of excitement.
“Bud! It’s the Delian Apollo!”
“Roarin” rockets! We really hit the jackpot!”
“Keep a lookout,” Tom ordered, “while I look over some of these paintings.”
Before leaving Enterprises, Tom had had Miss Trent, the Swifts’ secretary, check with the Shop ton Museum and compile a list of famous paintings which had been stolen from European owners or galleries. Almost immediately Tom found two of them-a Frans Hals and a Matisse.