The Apeman's Secret (9 page)

“No sweat,” Sam replied. “Actually, you made it sooner than I expected. Your aunt must have gotten in touch with you right away.”

As the boys already knew, their father made it a practice to circulate pictures of any suspects or wanted persons among whatever operatives were working for him at the time. One such person was Paul Linwood's missing daughter, Sue.

“I just spotted her,” Sam reported, “a few minutes before I phoned your home in Bayport.”

The Hardys were startled. Did this mean that the girl they were trying to find had not joined the Children of Noah cult?

“Are you sure it was Sue Linwood you saw, Sam?” Joe asked.

“Positive—or else it was her double. She delivered a package to that art dealer's shop. Then she left in a taxi. Luckily I got the number.”

“Great! Let me have it and I'll check it out.”

“You won't have to. I've already done that.” Radley explained that, while waiting for the Hardy boys to arrive from the restaurant, he had called the New York Police Department from a telephone booth down the street and had gotten a quick trace of the cab's owner-driver over the police computer system. “There's his name and address.”

Frank grinned as he took the slip of paper from the operative. “Sam, you're terrific!”

In the lobby of a nearby office building, the Hardys found directories for the various New York City boroughs and got the phone number of the driver, who lived in Brooklyn. His wife answered Frank's call.

“Vinnie isn't here,” she replied. “He's working days now. Try him after seven.”

“This is fairly urgent, ma‘am. Is there any way we could reach him?”

“Well, let's see. It's about a quarter after two. He usually eats between one and two, but sometimes if he's real busy, he won't have lunch till later. You might try the diner where he always goes. The counterman could tell you if Vinnie's been in yet.” She gave Frank the location of the diner on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

“Thanks a lot, ma‘am! We'll give it a try.”

The boys hailed a taxi and were driven to the diner. Its noontime rush of business was over, and only a single customer was seated at the counter, a chunky, dark-haired man in a red sport shirt and checkered slacks.

The proprietor asked the boys, “May I help you?”

When Frank inquired about the cab driver by name, he jerked a thumb toward the dark-haired man in the red shirt and grinned. “You're looking at him.”

“What a break!” Joe exclaimed. He and Frank promptly introduced themselves to Vinnie, who turned out to know all about the famous young sleuths. In fact, he had seen their recent interview on television.

“No kiddin‘! Are you two really the Hardy boys?” he blurted as they shook hands. “Well, I'll be! Come on, sit down and have a milkshake or something.”

When Frank explained why they had come, Vinnie was eager to help. “Sure, I know the fare you're talking about. Real pretty girl, about eighteen. I took her up on the East Side and picked up another fare downtown, and that's when I knocked off for lunch.”

“Do you remember the address you took her to?” Frank asked.

“No address. There was a car waiting for her. I saw her get into it as I drove off.”

“What kind of a car?”

“A red Mercedes sedan. But if you wanna know the license number, you're outa luck. I didn't even notice what ...” The chunky, dark-haired cab driver broke off suddenly and stuck his hand into his shirt pocket. “Hey, wait a second. Here's something that might interest you if you're trying to trace her. I almost forgot about it.”

He held out an amulet. On one side was an image of a flying bird with an olive branch in its mouth, exactly like the design on the amulet found at the park disco!

“I'll say this interests us!” Frank exclaimed. “Where'd it come from?”

“The fare I picked up in the next block noticed it as he got into my hack. I figured it mighta fallen out when the girl opened her purse to pay me.”

“Can we hang onto this for the time being? I'll give you a receipt for it, if you like.”

“Naw, don't bother. Just keep it and give it to her when you find her, with my compliments.”

“Thanks! We'll do that, Vinnie. You've helped us a lot!”

“My pleasure. Listen, my son Dino'll really be excited when I tell him I helped the Hardy boys on one of their mystery cases!”

Frank and Joe grinned and shook hands with the cabby, then left the diner.

“If this amulet means anything,” Frank mused, “it looks like Mr. Linwood's hunch was right after all, I mean, about Sue joining the Children of Noah.”

“Sure does,” Joe agreed. “But if she has, then what's she doing delivering a package to a crooked art dealer?”

“Search me. I think we ought to call Dad about this.”

Mr. Hardy answered on the first ring when Frank dialed his number from a nearby phone booth. He was keenly interested to hear about the red Mercedes sedan that had picked up Sue Linwood.

“The head of the Children of Noah is a fellow called Noah Norvel,” the ace detective remarked.

“He's been in the news a good deal lately, on charges of brainwashing his young cult members and preventing them from seeing their parents. So the FBI has had their eye on him. He has a huge estate in Westchester County just north of New York City, where he keeps a whole fleet of personal cars. If I'm not mistaken, one of them is a red Mercedes.”

“If you're right, that may be another clue indicating Sue has joined his cult,” said Frank. “Do you think there's any chance she may be staying at his estate, Dad—I mean, assuming the red car does belong to Noah?”

“I think it's definitely worth checking out.” Fenton Hardy gave the boys directions for reaching Noah's estate.

Frank and Joe contacted Chet Morton over a pocket walkie-talkie, as arranged beforehand, and met their chum fifteen minutes later at the parking garage where they had left their car. As the Bayport trio drove up through the Bronx on their way out of the city, Chet proudly informed the Hardys that Micky Rudd had kept his cartoons so they could be looked over by other members of the Star Comix staff.

“Nice going, Chet!” Joe congratulated their pal. “We may now be traveling with a future famous cartoonist!”

In the hope of picking up a possible clue in the case of the fake Apeman, the Hardys decided to stop at the home of the late artist, Archie Frome. Hamp Huber had given them Frome's address in a suburb overlooking Long Island Sound.

It turned out that Frome had been a widower. His married daughter, a pleasant young woman named Mrs. Elver, was busy cleaning the house. She invited the boys to come in and sit down while she answered their questions but kept a tight grip on the collar of an enormous Irish wolfhound that pranced and growled eagerly at the sight of the visitors.

“Don't be afraid of Rory.” She smiled. “He's like a big puppy. The trouble is, he's apt to knock you down, trying to make you feel at home.”

Aside from a sofa and two chairs, the living room looked somewhat bare.

“I've already been through Dad's studio and donated a lot of his drawings and paintings to the Comic Art Museum,” Mrs. Elver said. “Now I'm disposing of most of the furniture.”

“What's the Comic Art Museum?” Chet asked.

The cartoonist's daughter said that many of the people involved in producing cartoon strips and comic books had purchased a building in a nearby town in Westchester and turned it into a museum for storing and displaying the artwork in their field.

“Oh, I'd like to see that place!” Chet exclaimed. Mrs. Elver told the boys its location.

Frank explained why they had come, then asked, “Do you have any idea why your father might have called Micky Rudd ‘a real crook'?”

The young woman shook her head. “I've been married for over seven years now, so I was sort of out of touch with Dad's work. I do know he got fed up with the comic book business, so these last few years he spent all his time illustrating children's books.”

Mrs. Elver frowned thoughtfully and added, “However, I do remember Dad mentioning there was a mysterious burglary here.”

The Hardy boys' detective instinct was immediately stirred upon hearing of the burglary.

“What was taken?” Joe asked.

“Nothing, that's the odd part about it. Yet there were valuables in plain sight, like an expensive camera and a new TV and a video cassette recorder in the living room, not to mention all the silverware in the dining room, or a cut-glass punchbowl that's worth several hundred dollars. But the robber passed it all up!”

“How did you find out about the burglary?” Frank inquired.

“Dad told me about it. It happened shortly before he died.”

“No, ma‘am, I mean how did
he
find out there had been a burglary if nothing was taken?”

“Oh, because Rory chased the robber away. He'd been snoozing alongside Dad's bed, the way he always did, but I guess he finally heard some noises and woke up and went galumphing downstairs to see what was going on. Then his growls and the commotion woke Dad. Apparently the robber just had time to make it out the front door before Rory took off an arm or a leg.”

“Maybe the thief had no time to steal anything,” Joe suggested.

Mrs. Elver looked doubtful. “I don't know. Dad said there were signs that he must've been searching the downstairs rooms quite thoroughly before Rory got after him. There was even Dad's gold wristwatch lying out in plain view on the drawing board in his studio. The thief could have slipped that in his pocket, but he didn't.”

The Hardys could offer no solution to the mysterious burglary. But they promised to let Mrs. Elver know if it proved to have any connection with the Apeman case.

When the boys returned to their car, Joe studied a road map briefly. “Look,” he pointed out, “the place where that other muscle-man suspect works is about ten miles from here. Why don't we detour there and talk to him?”

“Suits me,” said Frank, and Chet made no objection.

The man in question was a mechanic named Vic Cardiff. He was employed at a highway gas station and proved to be a sullen-looking, belligerent type with beetling black brows and a heavy jaw.

“I know all about you guys,” Cardiff said, brushing aside Frank's attempted introduction. “You're those two punks who think they're smart detectives just because their old man's a private eye. Right now you're mixed up with this nut who goes around posing as the Apeman and smashing things up.”

“We're not mixed up with him,” Joe said. “We're trying to find out who he is.”

“And you think maybe I'm the guy, huh?”

“I didn't say that.”

“It's what you meant, though,” the muscular mechanic growled. “Why else would you be looking me up? Well, you're barking up the wrong tree, so beat it!”

“All we want to do is ask you a few questions,” said Frank, standing his ground. “If you've got nothing to hide, what's wrong with talking to us?”

“You heard me! I've got nothing to say to you guys, so scram outa here! I got work to do.” Without another word, Cardiff turned away and went back to greasing a car that was up on a hoist.

“Nice guy,” Chet muttered as the boys climbed back into the Hardys' sporty car.

“Like they say, it takes all kinds,” Frank said, starting the vehicle and turning out into the stream of highway traffic.

“Yes, and it takes all kinds of clues to solve a mystery,” Joe added wryly. “Only we didn't get any free ones from him!”

It was late afternoon when the Bayporters reached their destination. They had to ask directions at another gas station in order to find Noah's mansion. It was located several miles from the nearest town on a narrow wooded road that was little more than a country lane.

The imposing stone house was well screened from the road by trees. There was no wall or fence enclosing the grounds, but the boys glimpsed at least two armed guards on patrol as they drove past, and also a series of huge, white-painted boulders, which apparently marked the boundaries of the estate.

“Got any plan?” Joe asked his brother. “Or do we just walk up and ring the doorbell?”

Frank shook his head. “Not yet. That would only put Noah on guard, and we might not learn anything. I think our best bet is to keep watch on the place, say for twenty-four hours anyhow, and see if we can spot Sue Linwood going in or out.”

After driving a little farther, Frank pulled off the road. The boys got out of the car and walked through the woods back toward Noah's mansion. Scouting around cautiously, they found a low-branched tree that afforded a clear view of the house and attached garage.

“That should do for a stakeout,” Joe said, and his two companions agreed.

Only two cars were visible on the drive, neither of them a red Mercedes, but the Hardys realized there might be other cars behind the closed doors of the garage.

After checking in at a nearby motel and phoning their homes in Bayport, the three boys ate a hasty supper of hamburgers and french fries, then they drew straws to see who would stand the first lookout. Joe picked the shortest one, giving him the first watch from six to nine. Chet would get the next, from nine to midnight.

“If either of you sees anything interesting, give a buzz on the walkie-talkie,” Frank instructed.

“Right,” said Chet. “Better get some munchies to keep me awake.” As they paid at the cashier's counter, the stout boy bought a bag of peanuts, some grape-flavored gum, and two candy bars.