The Prime-Time Crime (6 page)

“Al and Fred said that there are a lot of old props stored here,” Joe said. “If we can't find a light switch, maybe we can find something else we can use.”

“Like the key to that door?” Frank asked. “I'll settle for that,” Joe said.

Frank groped around tentatively. “Ouch,” he said. “I banged into some kind of wire cage.”

“A cage?” Joe asked. “Are they keeping animals down here?”

“I doubt it,” Frank said. “That would be pretty cruel.”

“Here's some stuff,” Joe said. “Could be props for a TV show. There are some books and an old candleholder and— Hey, this feels like something useful.”

“What is it?” Frank asked. “A telephone to call out of here?”

“No,” Joe replied. “I think it's an oil lamp. Smells like it has oil in it, too. And—ah! Here's a book of matches.”

“Now if you can just find a refrigerator and some food,” Frank said, “we don't have to worry about getting out. We can just live down here for a few years.”

Joe struck one of the matches. The glow dimly illuminated his face and Frank's. He lifted the glass cover of the lamp and held the flame to the wick. After about ten seconds, the wick caught the flame and began to glow brightly enough so that Frank and Joe could see some details of the room around them.

The first thing they saw was the cage that Frank had bumped into. The cage was made of wire mesh that was set in a tall metal frame, and it blocked off a portion of the basement. There was a door set in the frame with a large padlock on it. Joe held the
lamp up to the cage, but the light wasn't strong enough to allow them to see what was inside.

Frank and Joe looked around the rest of the basement. The room seemed huge, and most of it was hidden in shadow, too far away to be illuminated by the weak glow of the lamp. All across the visible part of the room, the Hardys could see piles of old boxes and a variety of objects stacked from floor to ceiling. They could make out a collection of chairs and sofas, paintings and table lamps, television monitors and bookcases. A huge blue plush elephant stared out from between two plastic palm trees. A pink plastic flamingo hung upside down in the middle of a child's jungle gym.

“Wow,” Joe said. “Maybe you weren't kidding when you said we could move in here. You name it, it looks like they've got it in this place.”

“Let's just concentrate on getting out of here,” Frank said. “This isn't my idea of a comfortable living space.”

The brothers began to move cautiously around the room. Suddenly, Joe stopped in his tracks.

“Did you just make a funny noise?” he asked his brother.

“No,” Frank said. “I thought you did.”

“It sounded like someone whimpering,” Joe said quietly. “Listen. There it is again.”

The brothers listened carefully. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere among the vast piles of props.

The brothers stared at each other.

“Clarence!” they both cried at the same time.

Frank began rummaging through a pile of boxes. “Come on,” he said. “We've got to track down the source of that noise. Clarence must be in here somewhere.”

“It came from over here,” Joe said, pointing into the center of a pile of junk.

“No,” Frank said. “I think it was over here.” He pointed to a pile of half-crushed boxes stacked in a corner of the room.

The whimpering began again, louder this time.

“We're both wrong,” Joe said. “It came from right here.” He hurried over to a long black trunk lying on the floor. A thick gray padlock attached to one side of the lid held the trunk securely closed.

“There's somebody in the trunk,” Frank said, kneeling down. “But it's locked.”

“We'll break the lock,” Joe said, picking up a large hammer from a shelf full of tools and handing the lamp to Frank. “It looks pretty old. I bet I can shatter it with this hammer. Get out of the way.”

Joe swung the hammer at the lock and hit it so hard that the trunk shuddered. The muffled sound from inside became even louder, but the lock remained stubbornly in place.

“Hold on, Clarence!” Joe shouted urgently. “We'll get you out of there as fast as we can.”

Joe swung the hammer again, striking the lock even harder than before. The lock shook wildly, but did not break. The voice inside the trunk yelled something unintelligible.

“Old Clarence is going to have quite a headache when this is over,” Frank said.

“I'm sure he'd rather have a headache than be stuck inside that trunk,” Joe replied.

He smashed the hammer against the lock one more time. With a crumpling sound, the core dropped out of the lock and it sprung open with a snap. Joe dropped the hammer and removed the remains of the lock from the trunk.

“Help me open it,” he said, wrestling the trunk away from the surrounding boxes so that he could get a good grip on the lid. Frank set the lamp down on a box and moved to the other end of the trunk.

With a sharp yank from Frank and Joe, the lid popped open. Inside was a familiar black-haired figure tied up in thick rope with a rolled-up handkerchief in her mouth.

Joe and Frank looked down at the figure in astonishment.

“Debbie!” Joe shouted. “What are you doing in there?”

“Mmmphh!” declared Debbie through the handkerchief.

“Right,” Frank said, kneeling down beside the trunk. “Let's get her untied.”

“Maybe we can leave the gag in her mouth,” Joe suggested.

Frank gave Joe a sharp look.

“Okay, okay, I was only kidding,” Joe said, helping to remove the ropes that bound Debbie's
arms. Frank pulled the rolled-up handkerchief out of her mouth.

“What were you trying to do?” Debbie shrieked angrily. “Kill me? I feel like I've been rolling around inside a cement mixer.”

“I had to break the lock on the trunk,” Joe said defensively. “You did want to get out, didn't you?”

Debbie combed her hair back with her fingers, then pulled herself out of the trunk with the Hardys' help. “Well, I guess so,” she said, as she brushed the dust off her jacket and jeans. “But you could have at least given me a warning.”

“What happened?” Frank asked. “How did you end up in there?”

“Steve and I were looking around the basement, trying to find Clarence, when the lights suddenly went out,” Debbie explained. “We looked for the light switch, but we couldn't find it.”

“How long ago was that?” Frank asked.

“I'm not sure,” Debbie said, glancing at her watch. “I guess about twenty minutes ago.”

“What happened then?” Joe asked.

“Somebody must have hit me over the head,” Debbie said, “because the next thing I remember was finding myself tied up inside that trunk. I tried to call out, but I couldn't because I had the gag in my mouth. Then you started pounding really hard right next to my head.”

“Where's Steve?” Frank asked.

“How would I know?” Debbie said with a shrug. “And why should I care? Maybe he's the one who hit me over the head.”

“Oh, great,” Joe said. “Now we've got two missing persons, Steve and Clarence.”

A muffled voice suddenly came from another trunk.

“Well, I think we just found one of them,” Frank said.

“I vote for Clarence,” Joe said, picking up the hammer. “Here we go again.”

Joe whacked the lock on the side of the trunk until it popped apart. Then he and Frank pried the lid open.

Steve was inside, tied up and gagged just as Debbie had been. Joe untied the ropes while Frank removed the gag from Steve's mouth.

“Where've you guys been?” Steve said as soon as he caught his breath. “If you're such great detectives, why didn't you get me out of that trunk sooner?”

“We're detectives, not magicians,” Frank said.

“We can always tie you up again and find out how long it takes next time,” Joe suggested.

“Could take a month,” Frank said. “Assuming we get around to it at all.”

“That's too soon for me,” Debbie said, glaring down at Steve. “Some help you were when the lights went out. You couldn't even find the way back upstairs.”

“That's because I was following
you
,” Steve said. “You couldn't find your way out of a phone booth if you tried.”

“Knock it off, you two,” Joe said. “We still have to find our way out of this place, you know.”

“What?” Steve exclaimed. “I thought you were here to rescue us.”

“We've, ah, managed to get ourselves locked in,” Frank said.

“Oh, that's terrific,” Steve said. “Now we're all trapped down here.”

“Don't worry,” Joe said with more confidence than he felt. “We'll think of some way out.”

“By the way,” Frank said, “we heard that you two had a little conversation with Ted Whalen this morning. Would you mind telling us what happened?”

“I thought it would be a good idea to talk to the manager of the station about Clarence's disappearance,” Steve said.

“Exactly what did you say to Whalen?” Joe asked. “He was pretty angry by the time we got here.”

“We hardly got a chance to say anything at all,” Debbie replied. “He chased us out of his office almost immediately.”

“Obviously he was trying to cover something up,” Steve said. “And we told him that, too. Why else wouldn't he talk to us?”

“Maybe he's got better things to do,” Joe suggested.
“And maybe you were being kind of pushy.”

“Well, maybe Debbie did come on a bit strong,” Steve said, “but I'm convinced that Whalen is involved with Clarence's disappearance somehow. The only problem is how to prove it.”

“I think we should follow Ted Whalen until he leads us to Clarence,” Debbie suggested.

“I think you two had better stay about five miles away from Ted Whalen,” Frank said. “If he so much as sees you in the station, he's going to throw us all out for good.”

“That's not our problem,” Steve said. “Our problem is finding Clarence. And getting—”

“Do you smell smoke?” Debbie asked, looking alarmed.

“Sure I smell smoke,” Steve said. “It's coming from the oil lamp.”

“No, it doesn't smell like that kind of smoke,” Debbie said. “It smells completely different.”

“I think maybe you should put your nose in the shop for repairs,” Steve said. “I don't smell any smoke at all.”

“I do,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “So do I.”

Frank picked up the oil lamp and held it over his head. “Look around. Can you see any smoke?”

“Yes!” Joe declared. “Over there.”

He pointed at a vent placed high in the wall over
a stack of boxes. A thick cloud of black smoke poured out of the vent.

“Now we've got an even bigger problem than finding Clarence,” Frank said.

“Right,” Joe said. “If that smoke keeps pouring out of there like that, none of us is going to be able to breathe!”

“Where's it coming from?” Debbie cried, looking at the thick black cloud near the vent.

“It looks like somebody's pumping it directly into the ventilation system, maybe from right outside the basement,” Frank said. “Somebody apparently wants to make sure we stop our investigation.”

“Everybody get down on the floor,” Joe said. “Smoke rises to the ceiling, so we'll be able to breathe longer near the ground.”

“We've got to think fast,” Frank said as he dropped to the floor with the others. “How can we get out of this basement?”

“Oh,” Debbie said. “Actually, that's no problem.” She held up a small key with a tag on it
marked Basement. “I took this from the receptionist's desk while she wasn't looking. I thought it might come in handy down here.”

“Why didn't you show us that key before?” Frank asked, exasperated.

“I just forgot I had it,” Debbie said.

“Forgot?” Joe said, as he took the key from Debbie. “We were all trapped down here. How could you forget that you had the key?”

“I was tied up unconscious in a trunk for twenty minutes,” Debbie retorted. “I don't do my best thinking under those conditions.”

“Okay, okay. I apologize,” Joe said.

“Let's get moving,” Frank said. “Cover your faces so you don't breathe any smoke. You two can use those handkerchiefs you were gagged with.”

Steve and Debbie buried their faces in the handkerchiefs while Frank and Joe pulled their shirts up over their noses. With Joe leading the way and Frank holding the lamp, the four teenagers hurried across the basement and up the stairs.

Joe plunged the key into the lock and rattled the doorknob. The door popped open.

“Thank goodness!” Debbie cried as she stumbled into the hallway. “That smoke made my eyes sting.”

“It would have done more damage than that if we'd been down there any longer,” Joe said, pocketing the key.

“Look at this,” Frank said, pointing at a closet door to his right. It was closed, but wisps of smoke
were coming out from underneath it. He pulled the door open. Inside the closet was a metal trash can. The can was covered tightly, and a wide rubber tube ran from a hole in the lid to an air vent set low in the closet wall.

Joe touched the side of the lid and immediately jerked back his hand. “It's hot! There's got to be a fire in there.”

Frank looked desperately up and down the hallway. Finally he spotted an emergency fire case about ten feet away. He broke the glass and pulled out the ax inside. A fire alarm began to ring.

“Somebody get the extinguisher!” he cried, rushing to the trash can and knocking the lid off with a clean swipe of the ax. Thick greasy smoke and bright tongues of flame leaped out of the can.

With the fire extinguisher in hand, Joe ran to the trash can and sprayed it until the flames began to sputter. After a few minutes the fire was out, but the hallway was filled with smoke.