The Apeman's Secret (5 page)
Read The Apeman's Secret Online
Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
Frank and Joe accepted the invitation and went inside with Chet and Iola.
Sure enough, the newscaster was just saying, “And now we have a late report from the Alfresco Disco at Bayport Memorial Park, which was raided tonight by the same vandal who's been posing as that television character, the Apeman!”
Not only were there shots of the disco party, in which the Hardys and Mortons recognized a number of their friends in costume, but Frank and Joe were shown close up being interviewed, along with Tony and Biff.
“My hero!” Iola giggled, seizing Joe's arm.
“Oh, it was nothinâ, ma'am,” he quipped. “Actually we were just after the Apeman's autograph. We didn't know he was a fake.”
More interesting to the Hardys than their own interview was the videotape sequence showing the weird vandal. The television news team had been sent to the disco to do a story on the comic book costume party. They had arrived just in time to film the Apeman impostor live, in the very act of carrying out one of his wrecking raids.
By using a telephoto lens, the cameraman had been able to get some remarkable close-up shots of the mysterious raider.
“Boy, he sure seems like the real McCoy,” Chet exclaimed.
“You said it!” Joe chimed in. “We just saw Apeman on TV last night, remember? This guy looks so much like him, I bet he could take over the same role in the show and no one would spot the difference.”
Almost as if the boys' conversation had been heard in the television studio, the newscaster went on, “By the way, in case any of you out there are harboring any suspicions about the TV character, one of our network reporters in California has just been in touch with him by telephone. He confirms that the real Apeman is, indeed, at his home near Hollywood.”
Nevertheless, with his shaggy mop of black hair growing low over his forehead, his brutal features and undershot jaw, the vandal on videotape might have been a twin brother of the character he was impersonating.
“It's an amazing resemblance, all right,” said Frank. “Somebody must have done an expert makeup job on him. And there's no way those big muscles could've been faked!”
“Talking about expert makeup jobs,” Joe put in, “it's too bad you didn't win anything tonight with your Doom Demon costume, Chet. It rated a prize.”
“I think so, too,” Iola sympathized. “In that costume, Chet looked a lot more convincing than the Space Sprite.”
“A lot more solid, anyhow,” Frank said with a twinkle.
“But not nearly as cute,” Joe teased. Then he grinned as Iola playfully stuck out her tongue at him.
“Aw, who cares,” said Chet, heaving himself up out of the rocking chair he had been occupying. “Cartooning's where the big money is! And that's what I'm going into from here on.”
“Don't tell us you're taking another mail-order course?” Frank inquired half jokingly.
“You bet! It's called
The Seven-Day Way to Fame and Fortune in Cartooning.
I'm only halfway through the book, and I've already dreamed up a terrific superhero for the comic books! Wait'll I show you.”
The Seven-Day Way to Fame and Fortune in Cartooning.
I'm only halfway through the book, and I've already dreamed up a terrific superhero for the comic books! Wait'll I show you.”
Chet bustled upstairs to his room and came back with a page of drawings and balloons laid out in cartoon panels. They portrayed a character called Muscle Man. The Hardys could see that Chet had worked hard on his creation, but privately they felt that he had a long way to go.
“I think you should call him
Muscle Head,”
Joe commented with a straight face.
Muscle Head,”
Joe commented with a straight face.
“Okay, wise guy,” Chet retorted good-natured ly, clamping a playful headlock on the younger Hardy boy. “Any more cracks and I'll muscle
your
head!”
your
head!”
“Never mind him, stick with it, Chet,” Frank said encouragingly. “Maybe you're onto something.”
On the way home from the Morton farm, Joe, who was at the wheel, noticed headlights steadily behind them in the rearview mirror. As he watched, they suddenly went off, as if the driver realized he had been observed.
“Think we have a shadow,” Joe muttered.
“Maybe the same one who tailed us to Shoreham this afternoon,” Frank suggested.
“Could be!”
Rounding a bend, Joe pulled off into a side road, hoping to take their follower by surprise as he passed. But no car appeared.
“Maybe I was imagining things,” he said, feeling slightly foolish.
Much to the Hardy boys' alarm, they found a police car stationed outside their house on Elm Street. “Just keeping an eye on things,” said one of the officers. “The ladies'll tell you about it.”
Rushing inside, Frank and Joe found their mother and Aunt Gertrude having tea in the living room in their bathrobes. Both were in a nervous state.
“What's happened?” Frank asked anxiously. “More calls?”
“Worse!” snapped Gertrude Hardy. “We heard bellowing outside. Then we saw this awful face at the window, like that Apeman on television!”
“I'm afraid I screamed,” Mrs. Hardy confessed. “Then he smashed his fist through the glass!”
6
A Sticky Shadow
“Did the nut try to climb in?” Joe asked his mother and Aunt Gertrude.
“No, thank heavens! But I admit I was terrified,” Mrs. Hardy replied. “Not Gertrude, though. She ran out to the kitchen and grabbed a rolling pin!”
“I'd have used it on him, too!” Miss Hardy asserted with a grim look in her eye.
“I'll bet you wouldâve,” Frank said admiringly. “But how about the fake Apeman? What was he doingâjust standing there, glaring in?”
“We really don't know,” the boys' mother admitted. “While Gertrude was going for the rolling pin, I was phoning the police.”
“By the time I got back from the kitchen, the brute was gone,” Miss Hardy took up the story. “When the police arrived, they couldn't find hide nor hair of him. I think he realized if he tried any more funny stuff, he was asking for real trouble!”
“If he didnât, he was no judge of character,” Joe agreed, repressing a smile. “Boy, when you go on the warpath with a deadly weapon like that rolling pin, Aunt Gertrude, you could sure flatten a lot more than a piecrust!”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, young man!” Miss Hardy retorted, but the stern look on her sharp-featured face was partly betrayed by the pleased twinkle in her eyes.
Both ladies looked somewhat calmer now that the boys were home and had heard the details of their frightening ordeal.
“Is the alarm system on?” Frank asked.
“It is now,” said his mother. “I turned it on right after I phoned the police. We should have switched it on as soon as you two left, but we neglected to do so. From now on, we'll know better! How was the party, by the way?”
“Exciting,” Frank said dryly.
“We got a look at the Apeman, too,” Joe added. “In fact we chased him!”
“For goodness' sake, what happened?” Mrs. Hardy inquired. Forgetting their own upsetting experience, the ladies now looked concerned over the boys' adventure that evening.
“Give us a full report,” said Gertrude Hardy, her detective instincts aroused.
Frank and Joe told how the mysterious wild man had suddenly appeared at the Alfresco Disco and threatened to smash up the dance pavilion, until they had driven him off with a counterattack.
“We even got interviewed on television,” Joe concluded. “We saw ourselves on the âEleven O'Clock News' out at Chet's place.”
“Oh, dear! I don't like that bit about our address turning up on the piece of paper your friends found on the ground,” Mrs. Hardy fretted.
“It may be nothing to worry about, Mom,” Frank tried to reassure her. “It could have fallen out of the pocket of somebody in our high-school crowd.”
“Sure, that's the likeliest answer,” Joe agreed. “Or maybe someone who intends to get in touch with us for detective work. The only really unusual thing is this coin or amulet.”
Holding the metal disk by its edges so as not to smear any possible fingerprints, Joe plucked it carefully from the plastic bag in which he and Frank had placed the various objects.
Gertrude Hardy frowned shrewdly at the picture stamped on the curious amulet. “That's a dove bearing an olive branch!” she declared.
Frank snapped his fingers. “Of course! From the Bible story of Noah's Ark!”
“Actually, in the Book of Genesis,” Miss Hardy corrected, “the dove flew back to the Ark carrying an olive leaf in its beak. But most folks call it an olive branch.”
“The important thing,” said Joe, “is the Noah angle.” He glanced at his brother. “Do you suppose there's any connection between the Children of Noah cult and this nut who's impersonating the Apeman?”
Frank shrugged, knitting his brows in a puzzled expression. “You've got me there. But it's an angle we should start looking into.”
Before turning in for the night, the Hardy boys took the plastic bag to their laboratory over the garage to check the assorted objects for fingerprints. But the dusting powder failed to bring out a single print that was clear enough for identification purposes.
Next morning, soon after breakfast, the telephone rang. Frank answered and heard a breezy, fast-talking voice.
“You one of the Hardy boys?”
“Yes, I'm Frank Hardy. Who's calling, please?”
“Micky Rudd. I'm the editor and publisher of Star Comix. Maybe you've seen some of our comic books.”
“I sure have. A lot of kids in Bayport read them,” Frank said with a slight chuckle. “What can I do for you, Mr. Rudd?”
“You and your brother open for any investigative work right now?”
“You bet! Just what would you like us to investigate?”
“I'd rather not talk about it over the phone. Could you come to my office in New York?”
“How soon?”
“What about todayâafter lunch?”
Frank caught his breath then grinned wryly and glanced at his watch. Micky Rudd was obviously a man who believed in wasting no time. “Yes, sir, I guess we could make it,” Frank agreed.
“Fine!” Rudd rattled off the address of the Star Comix editorial offices and added, “See you at one, buddy!”
Frank heard the receiver crash down at the other end of the line. He hung up and turned to Joe with a slightly dazed smile.
“Wow!”
“What was that all about?” the younger Hardy boy asked.
“We just got consulted by the publisher of Star Comix. He wants us to come to New York and tackle some kind of detective case.”
“Uh-oh!” Joe gave a low whistle. “Wonder if it has anything to do with this phony Apeman vandal?”
“Sounds like a good guess. The Apeman's a Star Comix character. Whatever's up, we're going to have to step on it. We're due in the publisher's office at one oâclock!”
Before leaving, the Hardy boys phoned their father to report developments. But they could get no answer at the number he had given them.
They also stopped in Shoreham to see Paul Linwood and tell him about their encounter with the Children of Noah the previous afternoon.
“You mentioned that Sue had a boyfriend,” Frank added.
“Yes, a chap named Buzz Barton.”
“Since the culties know our faces, we may need an operative they
don't
know. Do you suppose he'd help us?”
don't
know. Do you suppose he'd help us?”
“I'm sure he would!” the insurance company president declared. He promised to arrange a meeting when the Hardys returned from New York.
The weather was perfect for their trip, a cool, sunny summer day. Frank and Joe enjoyed the ride as their car whizzed along the turnpike. Then Joe noticed his brother watching the rearview mirror.
“What's the matter? Do we have company?”
“Could be. A brown station wagon's been on our tail ever since we got on the turnpike.”
“Did you notice it when we left Shoreham?”
“Nope. But to tell you the truth, I wasn't paying much attention.”
“Can you make out the driver?” Joe asked.
“Not very well. Let's see if I can nudge him out in the open.”
Frank tried slowing down, but the only result was a series of honks from impatient drivers. The brown station wagon continued to keep its distance. Traffic was heavy, and most of the time the driver managed to maneuver so that other cars screened him from the Hardys.
At last the Manhattan skyline came into view, dominated by the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the World Trade Center. When the boys entered the city, Frank drew over to the curb to watch for their shadow.
But the brown station wagon failed to appear. Either it had peeled off from the flow of traffic at an earlier exit or else had sneaked past unseen behind some larger vehicle, like one of the huge tractor trailers that thronged the turnpike.
“How do you like that? He gave us the slip!” Frank muttered in annoyance. “Oh well, maybe I was just imagining things.”
“That's what you said last night,” Joe pointed out wryly. “Do you imagine things that often, or is twice in twelve hours just a coincidence?”
“When you put it that way, anything's possible. Let's keep a sharp lookout at all times. If we
are
being tailed, that's the one way to trap our shadow.”
are
being tailed, that's the one way to trap our shadow.”
Though neither mentioned it, both boys recalled the blowouts their car had suffered yesterday in Shoreham and the firecracker that had been stuck in their exhaust pipe. That episode, too, seemed to indicate they were under surveillance. If so, their shadow was not only malicious but persistent.
After leaving their car in a midtown parking garage, Frank and Joe made their way to Star Comix's editorial offices in Rockefeller Center. Its walls were decorated with full-length color pictures of the company's various superhero characters: the Apeman, the Silver Streak, Serpentella, the Doom Demon, and others.
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