A Monster of a Mystery (7 page)

“Thanks, Mr. Roberts,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Joe added. “We've been trying to figure out who took the Spork.”

Mr. Roberts finally convinced the Morpho people to let the Hardys keep investigating to find out who'd really stolen the Spork.

“All right, but you'd better hurry,” Dave said at last. “Even though the Spork is back, we're not going on with the show until we've caught the thief.”

Jack checked his watch. “You still have until three o'clock.”

“Okay,” Joe said. “Come on, Frank. Let's go back out and look for clues in the alley.”

Soon the two of them were back at the Dumpster. Frank started looking on the ground for clues while Joe climbed the ladder again.

At first he didn't see anything inside the Dumpster except trash. Yuck! This Dumpster belonged to a restaurant, so the trash was filled with old food—and was pretty gross.

Then Joe spotted something sticking out from a pile of discarded rice. He reached over and grabbed it. When he pulled it out, he gasped.

“I found a Morpho mask!” he called to Frank.

He climbed down and handed the mask to his brother. Frank wiped off most of the rice, holding the mask carefully by its green-goo-covered nose.

“This makes me think about what those kids
told me,” he said. “They said they saw someone in a Morpho mask sneaking through the Employees Only door, remember?”

Joe nodded. “Whoever was wearing this mask probably grabbed the Spork out of the back room,” he guessed.

“Right,” Frank agreed. “Then they hid it in the Dumpster along with this mask, and sneaked back inside.”

“So all we have to do is figure out who's missing their Morpho mask,” Joe said.

Frank looked worried. “That won't be easy. There were at least ten or fifteen people with those masks here today. I'm not even sure I remember all of them.”

Joe shrugged. “At least it's a clue,” he said. “Come on, let's go back in.”

The two of them headed inside and started checking everyone they'd seen earlier with one of the masks. They'd checked several people already when Joe spotted Biff's cousin.

“Hey, Colin,” he said, hurrying over. “Where's your Morpho mask?”

Colin reached around and pulled out the mask sticking half out of his back pocket. “Right here,”
he said, twirling it around by its green-and-purple nose. “Why do you ask?”

“Um, no reason.” Joe didn't have time to explain right now. They still had more masks to check.

But before he and Frank could move on, they heard a shout of relief from somewhere nearby. “That sounded like Chet,” Frank said.

Joe looked toward the shout. He saw Chet coming through the Employees Only door, dragging Mimi with one hand and her friend Janie with the other.

“Where'd you find them?” Joe asked, hurrying over with Frank at his heels.

“We were hiding from the monsters!” Mimi informed him.

“They were hiding in the bathroom,” Chet said with a sigh. “Janie's sister just found them in there. She's calling her parents to let them know.”

“Whew!” Frank said. “That's a relief.”

“Yeah.” Chet dropped the little girls' hands. They ran off toward the nearest Giggle Girlzies display.

Then Chet reached into his jacket pocket. Pulling out a tissue, he mopped his face.

Joe's eyes widened as he noticed something. Namely, something that
wasn't
sticking out of Chet's pocket anymore.

“Hey, Chet,” he blurted out. “Where's your Morpho mask?”

Secret File #5: A Surprising Solution

C
het gasped. “Oh no!” he cried. “My mask!”

He searched his jacket pockets. Then he checked his jeans pockets. But the mask wasn't in any of them.

Frank noticed the Morpho people turning to look at them from nearby. Had they heard Chet just now? Would they figure out what was going on and accuse him of the crime?

Chet looked frantic as he searched his pockets again. “I can't believe I lost it!” he exclaimed.

“Where'd you have it last?” Joe sounded worried too.

“I know I had it when Morpho first came out.” Chet glanced toward the stage. “I put it on and roared with everyone else. But then I took it off so I could hear better.”

“Did you stick it back in your jacket pocket?” Frank asked.

“I think so.” Chet stuck his hand in his pocket one more time. “But maybe I dropped it over there. I'll go check.”

He rushed off toward the stage. Frank and Joe stared at each other.

“Do you think Chet could be the thief?” Frank asked.

“No way!” Joe said. “Chet wouldn't do something like that.”

Frank bit his lip. “I can't believe one of our
best friends could be a thief either,” he said slowly. “But the evidence . . .”

“The evidence is wrong,” Joe said firmly. “Chet didn't do it. It was probably Adam, like I thought all along.”

Frank wished he could be that certain. But every time he thought about their clues, they all pointed in one direction—straight at Chet.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked his brother. “Neither of us saw Chet during the whole time the Spork was missing. Then we found that mask at the scene of the crime. And now it looks like it's got to be Chet's. What else could it all mean? The answer is as plain as the nose on your face.”

Joe gasped. “That's it!” he cried.

“Huh?” Frank wasn't sure what his brother was talking about.

Joe looked excited. He spun around and waved
his arms at Dave, Jack, and Mr. Roberts. “I just figured it out!” he called to them. “I know who really took that Morph Spork!”

Frank felt worried. Was Joe going to blame Adam again? They didn't have any proof.

By now Joe had everyone's attention. “Who was it, Joe?” Mr. Roberts asked.

Joe smiled grimly. “It was . . .,” he began.

Then he spun around and pointed—right at Biff 's cousin Colin!

••••

“Are you sure you don't want to write up the case?” Frank asked. “You're the one who solved it.”

It was several hours later. Frank and Joe were in their tree house. Joe was lounging on the floor cushions while Frank stood in front of the whiteboard where they wrote up all their cases.

“No thanks,” Joe said. “You can do it.”

“Okay.” Frank jotted down a few notes. Then he glanced at Joe again. “I still can't believe you figured it out.”

Joe grinned modestly. “You helped,” he said. “It was what you said about the answer being as plain as the nose on my face. That reminded me of those masks.”

“That's when you remembered that the mask we found in the trash only had green ooze on its nose, right?” Frank said.

“Right.” Joe leaned back against the wall. “But
Chet's mask had green
and
purple ooze. So I knew that couldn't have been his mask. And then I remembered that when we asked Colin about his mask, he pulled out one with green and purple ooze. . . .”

Frank nodded, thinking back. “Even though we knew his mask only had the green ooze,” he finished. “I should have noticed that.”

“Me too,” Joe said with a shrug. “I guess that's why Dad is always telling us to keep our eyes open.”

“He's also always telling us to follow the evidence,” Frank said. “That's what you did today!”

Joe sat up. “I guess so,” he said. “But you were following the evidence too, and you were ready to blame Chet for the whole thing. It was only because my gut told me Chet wasn't the thief that I thought harder and remembered about the masks.”

“Maybe.” Frank shrugged. “I guess sometimes there's more to solving mysteries than just cold, hard facts.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “Anyway, I'm glad Colin confessed so we know how he did it.”

Frank wrote something else on the board. “Me too,” he said. “He really wanted that special Spork to add to his collection. When he noticed nobody was in the back room, he put on his mask, sneaked back there, and snatched that Spork. He realized he wouldn't be able to sneak it back through the store, so he tossed it in the Dumpster along with his mask. He figured he'd pick them both up later after things cooled off.”

“Yeah. But once he sneaked back inside and found out we were investigating, he got worried,” Joe went on. “Especially later, when he heard we'd found his mask.”

“So he saw that Chet was distracted and sneaked his mask out of his pocket so he'd have a mask alibi—not to mention the cool special-edition mask he wanted,” Frank finished. “Good
thing you figured out the ooze thing, or he might have gotten away with it!”

Joe sighed. “I feel bad for Biff. He was really upset when he found out what Colin did.”

“I feel kind of bad for Colin, too,” Frank said. “He didn't mean to hurt anyone.”

“Uh-huh,” Joe agreed. “He seemed nice otherwise. I hope he learns a lesson from this.”

Frank finished filling out the whiteboard, then stepped back to take a look.