The Bombay Boomerang (2 page)

“In other words,” Frank interpreted Chet's explanation, “a boomerang returns to the spot from which it was thrown. And there also are non-return boomerangs, aren't there?”

Chet gave a superior smile. “Of course, but they're the kind you use to bop an enemy or a kangaroo. But I'm more interested in the science of the return boomerang.”

Frank and Joe, for all their joshing, were interested in Chet's hobby. Who could tell? A boomerang might come in handy on a case!

“Here, let me have one,” Joe said.

They all tried a few throws. But it was not as easy as it seemed, and they began to get a bit discouraged.

Then Joe seized a boomerang in his hand, whooped loudly, and hurled it in a straight line toward the front gate. The weapon whirled through the air at terrific speed, curved to the left, and came back—heading directly for an antique lamp on a post in front of the house!

“Watch out!” yelled Callie.

“Duck!” called Iola.

Chet was terrified. “Do something!” he wailed.

Joe was too far away to do anything. But Frank leaped up and caught the boomerang with one hand just as it was about to crash into the lamp!

“Wow!” Chet said. “That was close. Thanks, Frank!”

“Bad shot,” Joe admitted. “Next time I throw a stick like that, it'll be down in the pasture!”

After lunch at the Mortons' Frank and Joe drove home. They were greeted by their Aunt Gertrude.

“Boomerangs!” sniffed the peppery spinster sister of Mr. Hardy when the boys spoke of Chet's latest hobby. “Boomerangs are for the Wild Man of Borneo!”

“Oh, Aunty, they're really a lot of fun,” Frank said.

“Fun!” His aunt shook her head. “I would expect you to find a more genteel hobby. Mark my words, no good will come of it. Just think of how Mrs. Morton would have felt if you'd broken her antique lamp!“

“Fortunately, we didn't,” Joe said contritely. “Anyhow, we'll soon be experts!”

“Humph!” was his aunt's reply.

Frank and Joe drove over to Phil Cohen's on Monday morning to help him with the preparations for the cookout.

Phil was a distinct contrast to Chet. A quiet boy, good with the books, he had an artistic nature. He was slender and agile, quick on the uptake, a useful fellow to have around in time of danger.

The trio went to work at once, setting up the barbecue and hanging party decorations. About noontime, as they finished arranging tables and chairs, Frank asked, “Can I use your phone, Phil? Joe and I promised to make a call for Dad.”

“Sure. Business before pleasure,” Phil replied with a grin. “Just put your dime in the little box next to it!”

The Hardys went into the house and Joe dialed the number his father had given them. Frank listened in with an ear close to the receiver.

The phone rang on the other end. There was the familiar clicking sound as someone picked it up. “Hello?” said a man's voice.

“Is this Mersex Iberia in New York?” Joe asked.

“No, it's a Washington, D. C. number,” the voice answered. “This is area code 202. You want 212.”

“Sorry.”

“Don't mention it. Happens all the time.”

Joe was about to hang up and re-dial when he and Frank heard the party on the other end give a hoarse shout. The words that followed were clearly audible.

“Help! They're after the Super S data! Help! Help!”

 

 

 

 

STARTLED by the shout, Frank and Joe froze. Their experience in crime detection told them to wait for some clue to the mysterious voice, which cut off suddenly.

There was silence for a moment at the other end of the connection.

“Must be a joke of some kind,” Joe muttered impatiently. He pulled the phone away from his ear, intending to hang up.

Frank grabbed his wrist with the whispered warning, “Hold on! If thugs have jumped that guy in Washington, we don't want to lose our communications. We might miss the one piece of evidence we need to get on their track!”

Muffled sounds came through the receiver. Drawers banged, locks snapped, and papers rustled as if an office were being ransacked. Men's voices could be heard in hurried conversation. The boys could not make out what they were saying until the very end when two words came through clearly:
Bombay Boomerang.
Then the line went dead.

Joe turned to Frank with a mystified expression. “Did you hear what I heard?”

Frank nodded emphatically. “Bombay Boomerang. But what on earth does it mean?”

Joe shrugged. “You don't think we may have imagined it?” he inquired doubtfully. “Maybe we've got boomerangs on the brain. If so, we can chalk off one illusion to old Chet and his identified flying objects.”

“Well, what about Bombay? I don't recall Chet ever mentioning the Indian city, although he's spouted about ten thousand words concerning Australia.”

“It's a puzzle, all right.”

Phil came into the house. “Finished?” he asked.

Joe shook his head. “Got the wrong area code.”

Phil chuckled. “Try again. Better get it right this time, though, or your father will begin having second thoughts about the reliabilty of his seconds-in-command.”

Joe picked up the phone again as Phil walked out to the porch.

“Two—one—two,” he counted aloud before dialing the number. A secretary in the Mersex shipping department confirmed without hesitation that cargo was due in from a Spanish port aboard a freighter. Of her own accord she provided the information that it was mercury.

“Okay,” Frank said after Joe had hung up. “Now to get through to the Baltimore hotel and let Dad know what we've learned. Perhaps he'll have a theory.”

Fenton Hardy was interested to hear about the Mersex cargo. But he became disturbed when Frank related the tale of the wrong-number phone call to Washington.

“This could be of vital importance to our national security,” he declared.

“Are you going to call Washington?” Frank asked.

“Yes. An old friend, Admiral Rodgers is one of the top men in missile research, and he's got an office in the Pentagon. I'll talk to him and get back to you later on.”

Frank and Joe joined Phil on the porch. “I'm expecting all of you this evening,” their friend announced. “My strategy is elementary. The girls can make the hamburgers, the boys will eat them.”

“Chet Morton will like that,” Joe said, grinning. “Just include a few wedges of chocolate layer cake, some slices of pie, lots of ice cream and soda—”

“Say, I'm getting hungry,” Frank interrupted. “We're about due home for lunch. Aunt Gertrude will lecture us if we're late!”

“See you tonight,” Phil called as they pulled out of the driveway.

Later that afternoon the Hardys' front doorbell rang. “I'll get it,” Frank said to his mother and aunt, who were in the living room sewing.

Two men stood outside. They had a tough look about them, in spite of their fashionably-cut clothes. Frank sized them up. “Plenty of money,” he thought to himself, “but a couple of slippery characters all the same.”

“Won't you come in?” he said politely. Joe joined the group in the hall.

“We'd like to speak to Fenton Hardy,” declared the man in the trench coat and snap-brim hat.

“Yeah, important business,” said his partner in the windbreaker and beret.

The boys said their father was away from home. They did not volunteer any information as to his whereabouts.

“Since your father isn't here, maybe you can help us,” the first fellow declared in a gravelly voice.

“Not likely!” was the reply that occurred to Joe, but he held his tongue.

“Do you have a Mercury for sale? We were told you advertised a second-hand job. If the price is right, we just might be willing to take it off your hands.”

Frank and Joe answered that they had never advertised a second-hand car.

“Oh. Well, maybe we've got the wrong address.”

As the two men went out, Snap Brim turned around and mentioned the name of a hotel on the Bayport waterfront. “If you hear of anyone with a Mercury that's in shape for a long drive, let us know! We're in Room 203.”

The door shut behind them.

“What do you make of those guys?” Joe asked his brother.

“I don't like their looks,” Frank replied. “Where do types like that get enough money to patronize the best clothing stores? If they have money, why are they living in a waterfront hotel? And why would they be interested in a second-hand car?”

“Seems to me we should do a little investigating. Let's go to the hotel and call their bluff!”

Frank went along with that, but another thought occurred to him. “Wait a minute! Biff Hooper's uncle has an old Mercury. Could be he's in the market for a buyer.”

Joe put in a phone call and came back with the report. “Affirmative. The old heap is available for the first guy with ready cash who turns up. You know what this does? It gives us a good excuse to visit our new friends—I use that last term loosely.”

“New enemies might be more like it,” Frank concurred. “Still, we don't have much to go on, except appearances. It could be that the Mercury bit is merely a coincidence.”

Joe chuckled. “Will our faces be red if those fellows really want to buy a second-hand car!”

Deciding to take no chances, the Hardys asked their pals Biff Hooper and Tony Prito to accompany them to the waterfront. Both were ready, willing, and able.

Biff, a blond six-footer, knew how to use his fists, and dark-eyed, olive-skinned Tony could always be counted on in a dangerous mission.

The two roared up the driveway a little later in Biff's car. “What's the play?” Tony demanded, jumping out of the bucket seat before the vehicle jolted to a stop.

“How many desperadoes do we corral this time around?” Biff quipped.

“Don't crave too much action,” Frank advised. “You might get more than you bargained for!”

Quickly the Hardys filled them in, after which the four headed for the waterfront. Biff parked on a side street near the hotel, a dilapidated building with shingles askew on the roof, and paint peeling off the walls. The neon lights had half the letters missing.

The boys got out and advanced cautiously. The front door was open, revealing the small, dingy lobby. A sleazy clerk sprawled over the desk, reading a newspaper.

After one look, Biff gave his verdict. “My impression is that we're inspecting the place most likely to have a guest list made up of characters from the rogues' gallery.”

Tony bobbed his head up and down. “Certainly not the Waldorf-Astoria,” he said.

“I know,” Frank agreed. “That's why we asked you to come along. There's a slight chance that these fellows are on the up-and-up about the car. But we think there's something phony about them. And we want to know what it is.”

“No matter how you slice this salami, we've got to go in there,” Joe added.

“Since Joe and I can identify the guys we want to check, we'll go up to their room,” Frank continued. “If all we have to do is arrange a deal about a car, we should be back here in two shakes of a lamb's tail.”

“If you don't see us pretty quickly, you'll know something's gone wrong,” Joe added. “That'll be your clue to come busting in. Let's put a time limit of ten minutes on the operation.”

“Roger,” said Biff, and the four synchronized their watches. Then the Hardys entered the hotel.

The desk clerk raised his eyes from his paper and gave them a suspicious stare. When they told him the number of the room they wanted, he jerked a thumb toward the stairs and mumbled, “Second floor, third left.”

“Pleasant receptionist,” Joe observed sarcastically as they climbed the stairs.

They found the room and rapped on the door. It was opened by the man in the beret.

“Well, look who's here!” he said, sounding so threatening that Joe was reminded of the story about the spider and the fly. “Won't you come into my parlor—” he recited under his breath.

Frank and Joe went in. They immediately recognized Snap Brim standing at the window. He came toward them with a menacing scowl. Shaking his fist at them, he spoke with suppressed fury. “So you think we want a car, do you? I'll tell you what we want. Mercury!”

“Your old man is poking his fingers into a hot racket, and we don't like it!” Beret added.