The Apeman's Secret (13 page)

Frank and Joe looked at each other in chagrin and then at Sam Radley.

“I'll bet Noah and his stooges didn't have that made overnight,” said Frank. “It would take some time to make that good a copy, wouldn't it, Mr. Hacker?”

The art expert nodded. “Yes, I would say a few days, anyhow, although some forgers work pretty fast.”

“Which means they may have been planning to heist the original,” said Radley, “if that's what you're getting at, Frank.”

“Right, Sam. But that doesn't alter the fact that they sure fooled me and Joe. I'll bet the whole thing was a carefully planned setup, just to trick us into making a false accustion, and then later on, they could sue us for plenty!”

“I'm afraid you're right,” the operative agreed. “Not only that, but if your dad did bring other charges against them later on, a false arrest now would badly weaken his case.”

“Thank goodness Dad kept us from falling into their trap!” said Joe, trying to look at the bright side.

The Hardy boys drove Buzz Barton home to Shoreham, then headed back rather glumly to their own house in Bayport. A plump figure bounced down from the porch to greet them as they pulled into the driveway on Elm Street. It was Chet Morton.

“Guess what!” the chubby youth exclaimed.

“We gave up already,” said Joe, “so tell us. What's the big news?”

“Star Comix just bought my cartoon story!”

“Hey, that's great, Chet! Congratulations!” Joe cried, getting out of the car and greeting the fat boy with a hearty handshake. “When did you find out?”

“I just got a call from New York this afternoon!”

“Looks like you're on your way to fame and fortune!” said Frank, adding a congratulatory handshake of his own.

Both the Hardy boys were tickled over Chet's good luck. Besides being pleased for their friend's sake, the news helped to cheer them up after the somewhat discouraging outcome of their houseboat adventure.

“Say, I think this deserves a celebration!” Frank went on. He told Chet briefly about the flower-basket painting and explained that they had promised to take Biff Hooper to a steak-and-chips dinner and an early movie, in reward for his help in making it possible for the art expert to inspect the painting on the houseboat. “Why don't you come with us, Chet? The treat's on us!”

“In that case, how can I refuse?” chortled the budding cartoonist.

Because of his summer job as a milkman's helper, Biff had to be in bed promptly every evening. So it was only a few minutes after nine-thirty when the Hardy boys returned home that night.

Aunt Gertrude met them as they walked in the door. “You had two calls while you were out!”

“From whom, Aunt Gertrude?” Frank asked.

“One was from the director of the Comic Art Museum, and the other was from that fellow in the comic book business, Micky Rudd. They sounded urgent. I think you'd better call them back right now!”

Frank and Joe shot a quick glance at each other, both boys smothering grins as they did so. From Miss Hardy's somewhat nagging, peckish manner, they could tell that she was eaten up with curiosity over the cause of the unusual nighttime calls. As usual with their detective cases, she was keeping in close touch with their work on the Apeman mystery and the disappearance of Sue Linwood.

“Okay, Aunty,” Frank replied. “We'll call them back right now. Did you get their numbers?”

“Naturally!” From her severe tone of voice, the tall, bony woman sounded almost insulted at the very idea that she might be guilty of such an oversight.

Frank chuckled silently as he dialed the museum director's number on the telephone in the front hall. Both he and Joe were aware that their aunt was hovering close by, listening with sharp ears and keeping an eye on developments through her gold-rimmed spectacles.

“This is Frank Hardy, returning your call, Mr. Tappan,” said the elder Hardy boy as the director's voice came on the line.

“Oh, yes. I thought you fellows might be interested in something we discovered just before closing time this evening.”

“We certainly are, sir, if it has anything to do with this Apeman impostor.”

“I suspect it may. If you recall, you were inquiring about some work by an artist named Archie Frome, which was donated to the museum, and we found that some of it was missing.”

“Yes, sir,” Frank responded. “What about it?”

“Well, the damage caused by the vandal was cleaned up first thing this morning. But this evening we found a very odd drawing lying on the floor in the main display room.”

“What sort of drawing? And what's so odd about it?”

“For one thing, it's signed by Archie Frome, at least it bears the usual signature that appears on all his artwork. But I'm sure the drawing's a fake!”

“How come?”

“I know Frome's stuff very well,” Mr. Tappan said, “and this doesn't look like his work at all. It's nothing like his usual style.”

“What's it a drawing of?” Frank asked. “I mean, what sort of a sketch is it?”

“It's a drawing of the Apeman, just like the comic book Apeman or the character on TV. It shows him going into a cave.”

Joe, who was listening in on the conversation at Frank's elbow, gave a low whistle.

Frank, too, was keenly intrigued by the museum director's strange discovery. “That may be important, Mr. Tappan! Joe and I had better drive up and take a look at it tomorrow.”

“Fine! I'll expect you.”

“How's that for a weird twist,” Frank said as he hung up.

“How can I offer an opinion when I don't even know what you're talking about!” Miss Hardy cut in. Her rather sharply pointed nose seemed to be twitching with curiosity.

Frank grinned and relayed the odd news he had received from Mr. Tappan.

“Hmph! Sounds to me like a planted clue!” his aunt opined shrewdly.

Frank was startled and impressed. The thought, which had also flickered through his own mind, certainly fitted in with the fact that the damage from the vandal's raid had already been cleaned up. “You know, you could be right, at that, Aunt Gertrude,” he mused.

“Of course I could be right!” she snapped. “What's so unusual about that?”

“Er, nothing, Aunty.” He smiled. “I was just thinking.”

“Good! I'm glad to hear it. In my opinion, the secret of successful crime detection is
always
good, clear thinking.”

“Yes, ma‘am.”

Frank's next call was to Micky Rudd, who answered so promptly that he gave the impression he was sitting by the telephone, waiting for it to ring.

“What's up, Mr. Rudd?” Frank asked.

“Plenty! At least, that's my hunch!” As usual, the editor-publisher's voice sounded tense and excited, as though the call had caught him in the midst of a comic book crisis. As a matter of fact, Frank reflected, that might be exactly what the Apeman impostor was causing at Star Comix. “I've just been promised a tip,” Rudd went on, “as to where we can find the hideout of this nut who's been posing as the Apeman!”

“Who promised it?”

“How do I know? The tipster didn't give me his name! What I mean is,” Rudd explained, slowing down his machine-gun style of speaking, “I got this anonymous call shortly after dinnertime. The voice at the other end of the line said if I'd stay close to the phone tonight, he'd call back later and tell me where to find the fake Apeman's cave hideout. When I asked who was speaking, he just growled,
‘None of your business!'
and hung up!”

“Wait a minute!” Frank broke in, picking up some of Rudd's excitement. “When your caller promised this tip, did he use those exact two words—
cave hideout?”

“That's right. Why?”

“Well, sir, it may be just coincidence, but that ties in with something else that came up tonight.” Frank told him about the drawing found at the Comic Art Museum, which showed the Apeman going into a cave.

Micky Rudd was immediately excited. “Follow that up!” he exclaimed, like a general barking out orders to his troops. “You and your brother better get up there right away!”

“You mean
tonight?”
Frank gasped, lifting his eyebrows in a startled look at Joe and Aunt Gertrude.

“Sure, while the clue's fresh! If this anonymous call I got means anything, then there must be some connection! Maybe that drawing'll give some hint of where the cave's located. Once you get up there to the museum and take a look at it, give me another ring and I'll tell you if I've had any more news from the tipster!”

Neither Hardy boy was enthusiastic about starting out on such a lengthy trip at so late an hour. However, after checking a map, Joe phoned the Ace Air Service at Bayport airfield and arranged for a charter flight to the Westchester County Airport, which the map showed was not far from the Comic Art Museum. The Ace Air Service was operated by a pilot named Jack Wayne, who also acted as Mr. Hardy's personal pilot when the detective needed him on his investigations.

Luckily, after landing in Westchester, the boys were able to obtain a car from a twenty-four-hour rental agency. They drove swiftly to the home of Gerald Tappan, whom they had alerted by a telephone call from Bayport and who had promised to wait up for their visit.

With keen interest, Frank and Joe studied the drawing he handed them. It was done in pen and ink on white paper.

“You're quite sure this is not Frome's work?” Frank asked the museum director.

“Positive! In fact, the more I look at it, the more I'm inclined to think that it was done by an amateur—or at least the inking was.”

“How come, sir?” Joe asked with a puzzled frown.

“It's a little hard to explain, but—well, the inked lines aren't quite true. They're not done with assurance, whereas the Apeman's figure itself seems to be drawn with professional skill.”

“You mean, a professional artist might have drawn the picture in pencil, and then it was inked over by an amateur?”

“Right.” Tappan explained that, in comic book work, the penciling and inking were often done by entirely different artists. “It may be,” he added, “that whoever did this picture
traced
the Apeman from a comic book and then inked the tracing.”

“H‘m, that's interesting. Another funny thing,” Frank mused aloud, “is that the face of the Apeman in this drawing seems to look like somebody I've seen. But I can't figure out who.”

“Same here!” Joe exclaimed. “He reminds me of somebody, too!”

After asking Mr. Tappan if he might use the phone, Frank called Micky Rudd in New York City. Rudd's voice was seething with excitement again as he answered the Hardy boy's query as to whether he had heard any more from the mysterious tipster.

“I sure did! He called back about ten minutes ago,” the comic book editor reported, “and this time he gave me exact directions on where to find that nut's cave hideout!”

“Let's have the directions he gave you, Mr. Rudd.” Whipping out a pencil, Frank jotted them down, then said, “Okay, we'll check out the tip right away, sir!”

Gerald Tappan was startled by the news, and Joe was almost as excited as Rudd himself had sounded on the telephone. The museum director read over the instructions on how to reach the cave, then brought out a road map and showed the boys that the location was only a ten- or fifteen-minute drive from his house.

Frank stood up. “Of course there is a chance that this is a trap,” he said. “If you don't hear from us within a couple of hours, Mr. Tappan, will you please notify the police?”

Tappan nodded. “Be careful, will you?”

The boys left and soon were whizzing along the highway through the nighttime darkness.

“Think there's any chance we'll find the guy who's been posing as the Apeman?” Joe asked, shooting a glance at his brother.

Frank, who was at the wheel, responded with a shrug. “Could be. Just from the timing of those calls to Rudd, I have a hunch the tipster knows there's something in that cave right now. Or someone!”

Both boys felt a twinge of nervousness at the prospect of facing the huge, savage brute who had tried to wreck the Alfresco Disco. He might be a fake as far as impersonating the Apeman was concerned, but there was no doubt about the size of his muscles! And this time there would be just the two of them, alone and unarmed, facing his fury!

Tappan had told them to watch for a certain highway intersection, followed by an expressway turnoff. About a mile and a half beyond this, the ground on the right of the road would rise in a steep hillside, and among a clump of trees near the top, according to Rudd's telephoned instructions, they would find the cave opening.

“Here we are!” Frank muttered presently. He slowed, turned off the road, and braked to a halt.

The boys got out and started up the hillside, each carrying a flashlight. No sounds of traffic reached their ears from the highway below. At this time of night the silence was intense, broken only by a faint, sleepy chirp of crickets and the scuff of their own footsteps trudging up the slope.

“There's the cave opening!” Joe whispered as his flashlight beam picked out a yawning recess in the ground just ahead.

Frank put out a hand to caution his brother. Silently they tiptoed to the mouth of the cave. Joe stifled a gasp as Frank shone his flashlight inside.

A huge figure lay sprawled just a few yards from the entrance. The man was clad in a brief fur garment and had his head resting on one crooked arm. His back was turned to the boys, and from the heavy snores issuing over his shoulder, he was obviously fast asleep.