The Apeman's Secret (8 page)

Much to their relief, a lieutenant was waiting to receive them, and a launch was already warmed up and ready to shove off. “Your dad must have called some important people,” the officer told the Hardy boys. “We've had an urgent request from the FBI as well as official authorization from our own department!”

The launch cruised swiftly across the bay and soon had the Ark pinned squarely in the glare of its powerful searchlights. As they pulled alongside the converted cruise liner, the lieutenant called out through an electric bullhorn:

“Prepare to receive a boarding party!”

Frank and Joe were allowed to accompany him. Both boys enjoyed the dismayed, trapped expression on the captain's face as the Coast Guard lieutenant barked, “You realize you could be hauled up before a board of inquiry and perhaps have your license suspended for what you did to these boys tonight?”

“They had no business trespassing on my ship!” the captain blustered.

“Don't give me that bilge!” the officer snapped. “This is the twentieth century! We're not living back in the days of keelhauling, and you're not Captain Bligh! Now then, we're here because fears have been expressed about the safety of a young man named Buzz Barton. We'd like to see him, please.”

A white-robed man with a shaved head, who seemed somewhat older than most of the culties, spoke up. “We Children of Noah don't allow our brothers and sisters to be harassed by anyone, including the United States Coast Guard!”

The lieutenant stared at him coldly. “Nobody's interested in what you allow, mister, and we're not here to harass anybody. Well, Captain?”

“Do you have a search warrant?”

“No, because I'm not searching for anyone. I'm asking to speak to one of your passengers. And I might add that I'm doing so at the urgent request of the FBI. Now, do you want to cooperate or don't you?”

The captain hemmed and hawed and continued to bluster, but he was clearly uneasy over the Coast Guard's unexpected intervention.

In the end, he conducted the lieutenant and the Hardy boys to a cabin below deck, where Buzz Barton lay asleep on the bunk. When awakened, he seemed somewhat vague and confused, but there was no sign that he had been physically harmed.

“Are you aboard of your own free will?” the lieutenant asked.

“Y-Y-Yes, sir.”

“Do you wish to remain aboard, or would you rather go back ashore with your friends?”

Buzz hesitated, blinking. Frank and Joe were unable to read the expression in his eyes. “I prefer to stay aboard,” he mumbled at last.

The Noah cultie who had protested earlier now beamed triumphantly at the Hardys and the Coast Guard officer. Since there seemed to be no further reason to intervene, the boarding party returned to their launch.

Glumly the Hardy boys arrived at the Coast Guard station and cruised back to the Bayport marina in the
Sleuth.

After breakfast the next morning, Frank called Vern Kelso, the network executive at the Federated Broadcasting System whom Micky Rudd had mentioned. “We're investigating that vandal who's impersonating the Apeman,” Frank explained. “I wonder if you could spare time, sir, to talk to my brother and me?”

“You bet I can! We'll all be grateful for anything you fellows can do to find this pest and expose him.” Kelso said that Micky Rudd had already told him about calling in the Hardy boys, and added, “How about having lunch with me today? Say one o‘clock?”

“We'd like that! Thanks very much, Mr. Kelso. We'll be there.”

The Hardys phoned Chet to tell him to get ready to come with them. Half an hour later as they were going out the door, the telephone rang. Aunt Gertrude answered and called out, “Your father's on the line!”

“What's up, Dad?” Joe asked, taking the phone.

“My operatives have checked out those eight muscle men, son. Six of them have alibis, but two don3‘t, and neither does Zack Amboy himself.”

Joe checked off the names of the suspects who had no alibis for the times when the Apeman impostor had carried out his malicious raids.

“Thanks, Dad! We'll follow up on those two and Zack Amboy.”

“Right. And remember my warning, Son,” Fenton Hardy added, “about keeping your guard up.”

“We won't forget, Dad,” Joe promised.

Hanging up, he relayed the news to his brother. Frank was interested to hear that Zack himself had no alibi. “He also has no alibi for the time you got conked outside the Olympic Gym,” the older Hardy boy pointed out.

“But that phone call was no fake,” Joe countered. “I mean, even though no one spoke when you answered, I take it there was someone on the other end of the line, right?”

“Sure, but that's no problem. All he'd have had to do would be to call a friend and ask him to dial the gym office number and keep the line open for a few minutes. Zack could easily have done that fast enough to chase after us and say there was a call for me. Then he gabbed with you for a bit and pretended to leave but actually sneaked back and slugged you when you weren't looking.”

Joe nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. But Zack sure didn't look like that kind of trickster!”

The Hardys drove out to the Morton farm to pick up Chet. Their stout chum had finished inking and coloring his Captain Muscles cartoons and was eager to show off his new hero at Star Comix.

“How much do you think they'll offer me if they decide to publish my story?” Chet asked eagerly.

“Maybe two bits, if you're lucky,” Joe said but couldn't keep a straight face.

“Okay, wise guy!” Chet flared. “Just wait'll it turns out to be a big hit! You'll be begging for my autograph!”

Frank grinned but kept silent as they headed for the turnpike, which would take them to New York.

One of the strong-man suspects was a bank guard named Olafsen, who lived and worked in a small town that lay directly on their route. The boys turned off at the nearest exit and, after asking directions, found the bank on Main Street and parked in the customers' lot.

Inside, they had no trouble finding the right man. Two guards were standing near opposite doors. One was a paunchy, middle-aged type who looked as if he might be a retired policeman. The other was a tall, blond young man with a huge muscular chest and shoulders that strained the buttons of his uniform. Frank and Joe went up to him and introduced themselves.

“Mr. Olafsen, we've been asked to investigate the vandal who's been impersonating the Apeman,” Frank said. “Probably you've heard about him in the news.”

“Sure, but what's that got to do with me?” Olafsen responded coldly.

“Part of the investigation involves checking up on all expert body builders in this part of the country who might be big enough and strong enough to fill the bill.”

“Look, fella! If you're trying to hang that rap on me, you've got another thing coming!”

“Nobody's trying to hang anything on you,” Joe said. “Actually we want to
clear
everyone who's innocent. So if you've got nothing to hide, what's wrong with answering a few questions?”

“I've already answered a few questions, buddy,” Olafsen grumbled. “Some private eye called me up last night and then barged around in person, asking me a lot of questions about where I was at such and such a time and a lot more baloney. Well, from now on I've got nothing more to say. What I do in my spare time is my own business and if you don't like it, tell the DA!”

The Hardy boys exchanged a few more remarks with the blond strong man. Their polite manner seemed to mollify him somewhat, but he remained unhelpful.

“What do you make of him, Frank?” Joe asked in a puzzled voice as they left the bank. “Think Olafsen could be the vandal?”

The older boy shrugged. “Maybe. He sure wasn't going out of his way to clear himself of suspicion. But let's not jump to any conclusions. Whatever Dad's operative said to him last night, something tells me he must've rubbed Olafsen the wrong way.”

“That's for sure.”

After parking their car in New York, Frank and Joe took Chet to the offices of Star Comix in Rockefeller Center and introduced him to Micky Rudd. Then they excused themselves and left to keep their luncheon appointment with Vern Kelso.

The headquarters and studios of the FBS network were located in a towering glass and steel skyscraper on the Avenue of the Americas. An express elevator whisked the Hardy boys to the executive suite on the twenty-fifth floor, where Kelso's attractive secretary greeted them and ushered them into his private office.

“So you're those famous young sleuths!” he said, jumping up to shake hands. “Can't tell you how delighted I am that you two are handling this case. Just bear with me, please, while I sign a few letters, and then we'll be off to lunch!”

Vern Kelso was a slim, expensively dressed man in his thirties, with curly brown hair and long side-burns. As he swiftly jotted his signature on a stack of letters, he kept up a brisk flow of conversation.

“Usually I have my car brought around to take me to lunch,” he remarked. “Saves time flagging a taxi. But I didn't bother today.”

“Our car's parked not far from here; we can take that, if you like,” Frank offered.

“No, no, thanks all the same. I just live over on Sutton Place, near the UN, so there'd be no problem getting my own car. But my houseman, who also acts as chauffeur, isn't feeling well, and besides, it's such a nice day, I thought we might enjoy walking, if you don't mind.”

“Fine with us.” Joe grinned.

The Hardys would, indeed, have enjoyed the stroll to the restaurant several blocks from the network building. But as they made their way in the bright sunshine through throngs of tourists and New Yorkers, the boys had the disturbing feeling that they were being shadowed again.

From their exchange of guarded glances, each guessed that the other was troubled by the same instinct. But despite their attempts to keep watch by means of shop-window reflections or cautious peeks over their shoulder, they could discover no one who seemed to be dogging their footsteps.

Kelso's secretary had reserved a table for them at the restaurant, which was crowded with gaily chattering, smartly dressed lunchers. The network executive explained that the place was patronized mostly by people in the television and fashion industries.

Privately Frank and Joe thought they could pick out the latter individuals by the far-out styles in which many of them were dressed.

Kelso regaled the boys with an entertaining if somewhat boastful account of how hard he had worked to sell “The Apeman” show to the Federated Broadcasting System.

“There's a lot of jealousy in this business,” he confided. “Sometimes it seems as if everybody has his knife in someone else's back. I really stuck my neck out to get ‘The Apeman' accepted. If the show had flopped, a lot of people at the network would have enjoyed seeing me take the blame. But it turned into a big hit, so now I'm having the last laugh!”

Kelso did not seem greatly worried over the unpleasant publicity caused by the vandal who had been impersonating the Apeman. Both Hardys had a sneaking hunch that he secretly enjoyed the publicity and felt that it attracted more viewers to the show.

Frank mentioned the list of suspects they had gotten from Zack Amboy and added, “Is there any chance some television actor might be doing the impersonating? Maybe someone who hoped to get the Apeman role himself, and then got sore because he lost out?”

Vern Kelso shook his head emphatically. “No way. Micky Rudd and I had our eye on Dante Mazzola right from the start, and he's the muscle man we finally picked. There was never any real competition for the part.”

The conversation was interrupted as a waiter brought a plug-in telephone to their table.

“Call from the network, Mr. Kelso!”

“Thanks.” Kelso picked up the receiver and answered, then glanced at the Hardy boys. “It's for you two, a call from home. My secretary's having it relayed here.”

He held out the handset toward Frank, who took it somewhat worriedly. “Hello?”

“G here,” said a sharp voice at the other end of the line. “You've just had a message from SR. He's in New York and wants to see you right away. He says it's urgent!”

Frank pulled out pencil and paper and hastily wrote down directions.

“Thanks, Aunt Gertrude. We'll go see him as soon as possible,” he said and hung up.

Turning to his brother, Frank said, “Something's come up, apparently urgent. Sam Radley wants to see us.”

Sam was Fenton Hardy's top operative and had often worked with the Hardy boys on previous cases.

Finishing their dessert hastily, the boys apologized to Vern Kelso for the untimely interruption, and after thanking him for the lunch, left the restaurant.

“Any idea what's up?” Joe asked as he and Frank headed east on foot.

“Not a clue. But I do know Sam's been working on that stolen art-goods case for Dad.”

In the case Frank was referring to, Mr. Hardy had been hired by an insurance company to help break up a traffic in stolen paintings and other art objects.

They found Sam Radley waiting unobtrusively in a doorway on East Fifty-ninth Street. The detective was on stakeout, keeping watch on the shop of a shady art dealer across the street.

“Sorry it took us so long to get here, Sam,” Frank apologized. “We figured walking would be quicker than trying to buck the crosstown traffic in a cab.”