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thought the professor knew everything. Even today, he was sure of one thing — Professor Marschall knew more about paper than anyone else.
    The big cat climbed up Frank's leg, jumped briefly into his lap, climbed across his chest, and sat on his shoulder.
    Professor Marschall opened his eyes. "You shouldn't let Mehitabel take advantage of you, Frank," he advised. "Next thing you know, she'll be trying to sit on your head—and she's too old for that."
    "Too heavy, too," Frank muttered under his breath.
    The professor returned his attention to the sheet of paper that Frank and Joe had found near the Hickerson Mansion the night before.
    Frank gave the cat a couple of pushes. She dug her claws into his shoulder. He pushed a bit harder.
    Suddenly the fat cat fell off him, plummeting down to hit the rug with a furry thump.
    "Oh, no! I didn't mean to — "
    "She's not hurt. It's merely one of her stunts."
    The cat rolled over on its back, thrust all four paws upward, and began snoring.
    Professor Marschall grunted once, pushed away from the desk, and rolled back in his chair to a bookshelf. He tugged out a fat volume, brought the title up close to his face, shook his head, and jabbed the book back in place.
    Then he selected another book, grunted in triumph as he looked at the title, and brought it back to his desk. Brushing a stack of notes to the floor, he set the book down and opened it. "This is perhaps the most exhaustive book on paper samples," he said, leafing through pages. "It ought to be. I assembled it myself."
    Professor Marschall sucked his breath in through his teeth. "Yes, of course. I thought as much."
    Frank got up, avoided stepping on the sleeping cat, and went over to the desk. "Will this really tell you where this paper comes from?"
    The professor pointed to a sample of paper in the book. "You'll notice that this has the same exact watermark. Fortunately for you, it's a unique one — the letters E and B entwined with a leaping stag."
    Frank attempted to read the notes scrawled under the sample — not easy, given the professor's spidery, sloppy handwriting. "Buch-wilder?"
    "Bushmiller." He returned Frank's sheet of paper to him. "This stationery was made exclusively for the Bushmiller Academy here in Bayport."
    "You mean that old ruin up on Woodland Lane?"
    "It was not, much like myself, always a ruin, Frank, my boy. Bushmiller Academy was once a very fine private school — a sort of junior military academy." He grinned. "I believe it made most of its money handling young men who were a bit too devilish for a regular school situation."
    "But Bushmiller Academy hasn't been in operation for years."
    "Thirty-five years, to be exact," answered the professor. "A long and tangled family feud has kept the place empty all this time, and for at least the past ten there hasn't even been a watchman."
    "But there could still be a supply of this particular paper there?"
    Professor Marschall ran a thoughtful hand over his gray beard. "Perhaps," he finally said. "This is an excellent grade of paper. It could last that long, especially if it was in a protected environment — say, locked in a desk."
    Frank stared down at the paper sample on the desk. "Interesting. But it doesn't look like it's locked in a desk anymore. I wonder what else is going on up there?"
    Frank left the professor's house and headed down the rickety front steps and across the weedy, overgrown lawn. The house was on a steep hill on a quiet, side street. A low, lopsided picket fence encircled it.
    Stepping through the creaking white gate, Frank followed the road down to where he'd parked. He'd done Callie a favor that day and picked up her car from the body shop. The Hardys were good customers there — somehow, every one of their cases wound up with a car needing repair work. Frank had decided to use the extra set of wheels to get to Professor Marschall while Joe took the van to Kirkland.
    Frank slowed as he got close to the little green Nova. Something