The Apeman's Secret (2 page)

“The prankster who's been masquerading as the Apeman has just made another appearance, this time in a local movie theater.”

“Hey, we've been there!” Chet exclaimed as the newscaster named a theater in the town of Shoreham, near Bayport.

“Patrons were terrorized,” the reporter continued, “and the theater furnishings, glass partitions, and candy counters were extensively damaged before the culprit fled through a rear exit.”

“Some prankster!” Joe said disgustedly.

“Witnesses say the impostor looked exactly like the real Apeman in the popular television show and seemed to have equally large muscles. But both the producers of the show and network officials deny any responsibility for such acts or any suggestion that the strong man who plays the TV role may be implicated in what they call ‘such lunatic behavior,”' the newscaster concluded.

“Boy! There's a mystery for you guys to...” Chet Morton's voice faded as a savage growl reached their ears, followed by deep-throated and angry bellows.

“Jumpin' Jupiter! What was that!” the chubby youth exclaimed, his eyes bugging and his jaw dropping open.

Frank leaped from his chair. “Must be the same thing I heard before, whatever
that
was!”

Joe followed as his brother hurried toward the front door and clicked on the porch light before dashing outside. Chet almost collided with the Hardys as they stopped short.

“Look!” Joe gasped, pointing downward.

“Whoever made these must've been standing in one of the flowerbeds!” Frank reasoned.

“Right! The ground's still wet there from the rain this afternoon,” Joe agreed. “His feet couldn't have gotten this muddy just from walking on grass!”

Frank darted back inside to get a flashlight. Then the boys hastily checked the flowerbeds and shrubbery around the house. Sure enough, there were similar huge footprints in the damp earth under the window that the Hardys had opened a short time earlier when they first saw Chet in his Doom Demon costume.

“This has to be a joke,” Joe said.

Frank nodded. “Maybe someone else in our gang is going to that comic book party and decided to give us a preview of his costume, like Chet did.”

As the boys started back around to the front of the house, a siren wailed in the distance. The shrill noise grew louder, and there was a sudden screech of wheels as the vehicle rounded a corner not far off.

“Hey! It's coming this way!” Joe exclaimed.

Seconds later, a police scout car drew up to the curb. Its front doors flew open, and two officers leaped out. One pointed his nightstick at Chet.

“There's the nut!” he cried, and both policemen rushed at the startled fat boy.

The officer seemed to expect that Chet would run away or resist arrest. But he was too surprised to do anything except stand there blinking at them with a flabbergasted expression.

“What's this all about?” Frank intervened.

“This joker's been scaring people around the neighborhood!” said one policeman.

His partner added, “Someone phoned headquarters about him—said he was heading over to Elm Street—a nut in a metal suit with a skull mask!”

The red-faced, roly-poly youth began stuttering nervously as he tried to explain his appearance. But the skull mask, which was now hanging loosely around his neck by its elastic cord, did nothing to help persuade the officers of his innocence.

“Wait a second!” Joe cut in. “Chet hasn't been scaring anyone! He's been sitting in our living room, watching TV for the last half-hour or so!”

One of the policemen was about to retort suspiciously. Then his expression changed. Instead of relying on the moonlight and the glow of the nearest street lamp, he pulled out his flashlight and shone it at Frank's and Joe's faces.

“Say! You two are Fenton Hardy's sons, aren't you?”

“That's right,” Frank said as they both nodded.

Mr. Hardy had once been an ace detective with the New York Police Department. He had retired to the seaside town of Bayport to operate his own agency and was now nationally famous as a private investigator. Frank and Joe seemed to have inherited their father's sleuthing ability and had solved many mysteries on their own.

“Sorry, fellows,” the policeman told the Hardys. “If we'd recognized you right off, it would have saved all this hassle.”

“I'd like to know what your friend's doing in that nutty getup,” his partner persisted.

“There's going to be a party at the Alfresco Disco tomorrow night,” Joe explained. “Everyone's supposed to go dressed up like a comic book character. Chet's going as the Doom Demon, so he came over to show us his costume.”

“Couldn't he show it to you in the house? How come you were out here in the dark with a flashlight?”

“Believe it or not, we heard some strange noises,” said Frank. “Only it wasn't a loony in a metal suit, it was a loony with big bare feet.”

“Are you kidding?” said the first policeman, giving the Hardys another suspicious scowl.

“Come on! See for yourself,” Frank offered.

The wail of the police siren had brought lights flashing on along the street, and several neighbors were peering out of their doorways to discover the cause. One of the officers went off to deal with the situation and quiet any feelings of alarm among the neighbors, while the other examined the footprints on the Hardys' front porch.

“They look phony to me,” he commented. “Nobody's
that
flatfooted!”

“I think he's right, Frank,” Joe agreed after a closer inspection.

The older Hardy boy nodded thoughtfully. “Even one of those Bigfoot critters out West would have
some
bulges on his feet and a
slight
arch. These look flat as a pancake!”

“I'll bet the same person who's responsible for these prints made that phone call to headquarters about Chet!” Joe exclaimed.

“That figures,” said the policeman. “The whole thing's probably a practical joke.”

The two officers soon drove off, and Chet started home to the Morton farm in his jalopy, which he had left parked down the street in order to take the Hardys by surprise.

Next morning the telephone rang while the boys were at the breakfast table. Frank answered and heard his father's voice come over the line.

“How's everything on Elm Street, Son?”

“Great, Dad! We had a little excitement last night, but I guess someone was just spoofing us.”

Frank briefly described the mysterious events. Mr. Hardy, too, was inclined to ascribe them to a practical joker. But he urged his son to take no chances and to keep the alarm system on at night, in case any criminal he had sent to jail might have been released recently and was looking for an opportunity for revenge.

“Sure, Dad,” Frank said. “How about your own case?”

“I can't tell you much about it over an open phone line,” the detective replied, “but it's part of a major government investigation. Looks like it may keep me on the move for quite a while yet. Meantime, a friend has consulted me about a case that I'm just too busy to handle. How would you and Joe like to take over?”

“You bet! Let me get him on the other phone so we can both hear the details.”

At an urgent signal from Frank, Joe hurried from the table to listen in on the upstairs extension.

“As you boys know, a lot of my investigative work is done for insurance companies,” Mr. Hardy began. “One of those companies is headed by a man named Paul Linwood.”

“We've heard you speak of him,” said Joe. “Lives in Shoreham, doesn't he?”

“That's right. He has a pretty young daughter named Sue. Unfortunately, a few nights ago there was a bitter family quarrel. The upshot was that Sue ran away from home.”

“Has Mr. Linwood heard from her since then?” Frank asked.

“Not a word. But he has a hunch she's joined this odd religious cult called the Children of Noah. Ever heard of it?”

“Sure! We've seen ‘em lots of times in Bayport and other towns around here,” said Joe. “They hold sidewalk demonstrations.”

“They wear white robes,” Frank added, “and the guys in the cult shave their heads.”

“That's the outfit,” Fenton Hardy confirmed. “The cult is primarily composed of young people. So I thought you and Joe might stand a better chance of getting a line on Sue than Sam Radley, my regular operative. Want to give it a whirl?”

“You bet, Dad!”

“Good! I suggest you contact Linwood either at his home or at the Argus Insurance Company, which is also in Shoreham. Call me tomorrow and let me know the score.”

Frank jotted down the telephone number at which the detective said he could be reached, then the boys returned to the breakfast table to finish their bacon and eggs. Afterward, they headed out to their laboratory over the garage to finish their costumes for the disco party that evening.

“Did one of you take that cardboard box off the back porch?” their Aunt Gertrude asked as the boys passed through the kitchen.

“No, Aunty,” said Joe.

“Well, it was there last night,” she said sharply. “I set it out there just before Laura and I went to our club meeting. Don't try to tell me that box got up and walked away by itself.”

“We wouldn't dare, Aunty!” Joe grinned.

“You'd better not, young man. And don't let me catch you being funny at my expense, either, not if you want any of the devil's food cake I'm making for dinner tonight!”

“You win. I'll be good!”

Miss Hardy, tall, thin, and tart-tongued, was Fenton Hardy's unmarried sister. Despite her scolding, tut-tutting manner, she was utterly devoted to her two nephews and was also, in Chet's expert opinion, the best pastry cook in Bayport.

“The box must be around somewhere,” Frank said helpfully. “We'll look for it.”

“I wish you would,” Aunt Gertrude said. “I was going to pack some things in it and put them up in the attic.”

The boys went outside and when they returned a minute or two later, Frank was holding the missing cardboard box.

“Is this it?”

“Well, I declare! You've found it!” Miss Hardy's pleased smile gave way to a cluck of annoyance as he handed her the box and she saw what had happened to it. “Drat! Someone's torn off the two main flaps. Now I can't close it properly!”

Seeing the slight frown on her nephew's face, she added, “Oh, don't think I'm blaming you, Frank! It was good of you to find it for me. Thank you, dear. Where was it, by the way?”

“Someone tossed it over the back fence. What puzzles me is what happened to those flaps.” Frank scratched his head, then exclaimed, “Wait just a minute!”

Turning on his heel, he strode down the porch steps and out to the garbage can, which was standing by the back fence. He took off the cover.

“What in the world ...” Joe started to say, then broke off as Frank fished two rectangular pieces of brown corrugated cardboard out from among the contents of the can. Both were stained and bent.

They were obviously the missing box flaps, and from each one, somebody had cut out a large piece in the shape of a semihuman footprint with the big toe protruding at an angle!

“Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!” Joe gasped. “So that's how our caller made those phony footprints last night!”

“Right.” He pressed the cutouts into the mud of the flowerbed and then used them while they were still muddy to print the tracks on the front porch.“

“Smart detective work! What gave you the idea?”

“It occurred to me all of a sudden that the flaps would be about the right size for making the footprints,” Frank replied. “But what I'd like to know is whether the guy who did it was trying to be funny or trying to scare us!”

The Hardy boys continued to discuss the mystery that morning as they worked on their party costumes. Frank was going as a champion of justice called the Silver Streak, and Joe as his sidekick known as the Whippersnapper.

Immediately after lunch, they set out for Shoreham in their sleek yellow car. The Argus Insurance Company was located in a large modernistic office building in the main business section of town. The Hardys found a parking spot on a nearby side street, entered the lobby, and gave their names to the receptionist.

Is Mr. Linwood expecting you?“ she asked.

“Yes, we phoned for an appointment,” Frank said.

Moments later they were escorted to his office. Paul Linwood proved to be a heavyset man with slightly graying hair and handsome features. He greeted the boys with a hearty smile and hand-shakes, but his gnawing grief became evident as he related the events that had led his daughter to run away from home.

“I'd give anything if I could take back the harsh words that passed during our family quarrel,” he confided, pacing back and forth. “I'm afraid I lost my temper, and so did Sue. Perhaps I've been too strict a parent, I don't know. She accused me of trying to run her life. The whole thing ended in a shouting match. Sue walked out and slammed the door, and that's the last we've seen of her.”

“Does she have her own car?” Frank inquired.

“Yes, but it's in the repair shop for a transmission overhaul, so she was driving one of our two family cars. The police found it yesterday, parked near a warehouse in the harbor area. There was a note under the windshield wiper, asking them to return it to me.”