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Frank
Hardy has discovered girls, annoying younger brother Joe, who is
bored and longing for another mystery to solve. While Frank chats
endlessly on the phone, Joe is forced by Aunt Gertrude to accompany
the perpetually hopeful Iola Morton to a dairy farm just outside
Bayport. After retrieving some goat's milk needed for her baby
sister, Iola and Joe have an accident, spilling the milk and
wrecking Joe's bicycle. Joe spots a nearby farm with a goat, but
when he and Iola go there, they discover the place is abandoned,
though it still shelters several animals. Joe suspects someone is
around, but hiding. Frightened, Iola rides off, only to encounter
insurance man Mr. Binks, who warns her away from the farm.
Summoned by Iola, Frank Hardy rides out to the farm. He is accosted
by a farmer named Sam, who also warns him away from "that spooky
old farm", formerly owned by Old Lacey, dead for a month now. Frank
enters the farmhouse, and hears a noise he thinks must be Joe.
Going upstairs to locate him, Frank is surprised to hear Joe
downstairs. The boys panic and race outside. While they try to
collect themselves, a young man drives up and hails them. Eric
Pierson claims to be the nephew and heir of old Lacey, who recently
died in a forest fire. Lacey had inherited the farm himself, from
his brother Billy, but couldn't pay the property taxes. After
hearing the boys' story, Eric searches the house but finds nothing.
He offers to drive the boys home, but when the bikes are put into
the trunk, Joe's has been mysteriously repaired. Eric hires the
Hardy Boys to "investigate" the mystery.
Returning later, the boys set a trap for the mysterious person
hiding at the farm, only to have the trap sprung on them. The
mystery fellow turns out to be a frail elderly gent, who
nevertheless is spry enough to hang from window ledges and climb
around the roof. He tells them to just call him a ghost, and
explains he was a friend of Lacey and old Uncle Billy. He's now
taking care of the animals, but doesn't want anyone to know about
him. Eric again drives up, having seen a light at the farm. The
"Ghost" vanishes, and the boys don't tell Eric about him. After
Eric leaves, the Ghost reappears, and hands Lacey's will to the
boys. He explains that Lacey's life insurance money should pay for
the upkeep of the farm animals, as directed by the will.
The boys give the will to their father and Mr. Binks, who submits
it to the court for validation. Joe realizes that the will was
written in purple ink, the same as was in a fountain pen he lost at
the farmhouse. Going back to the farm, the boys corner the Ghost
and accuse him of writing the will. But when they phone Mr Binks to
alert him, they learn the handwriting on the will really was
Lacey's. The Ghost confesses he is Lacey, that he allowed people to
think he was dead, so his insurance could take care of the
animals.
The boys learn from zookeeper Mr. Bray that a court order was to
have the farm animals hauled away by a man named Fred. The finding
of the will was supposed to have stopped that, but someone told
Fred to take the animals anyway. When the animals break out of the
truck and scatter through Bayport, the boys and Eric try to recover
them. At the zoo, they try to catch the billy goat, only to find
the zoo's lion has escaped. The lion corners Eric, while Frank
forces him to confess that he told Fred to take the animals. Mr.
Bray appears and reveals the lion is harmless, a fact already known
to Frank. The boys find a key hidden in the billy goat's bell that
opens a safe deposit box containing Liberty Bonds left by Uncle
Billy. They now belong to Lacey, who uses them to save the farm
animals.
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