Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
Joe gripped the rope tightly, then swung himself upward. His feet hit the wall at an angle that caused him to veer wildly away from the building. As he swung back, he felt for the top rung with his right foot, intending to steady himself before making a second attempt to climb up.
His foot probed into empty space! The ladder was gone! Joe dangled at the end of the rope with nothing beneath him except a two-story drop to the ground!
Desperately he strained every muscle to keep his grip on the rope. Finally he managed to wedge both feet against the wall. Hand over hand, foot by foot, he climbed up until he was high enough for Frank to lean over and haul him onto the roof.
Joe lay there for a moment, gasping for breath.
“What happened to the ladder?” Frank asked.
“We'll have to ask brother Morton about that.”
“Come on. Let's take a good look at the ventilator,” Frank urged.
Cautiously they crept along the roof until they reached the equipment, which hummed softly. Through an opening they peered far down into a dimly lighted subcellar.
“Let's see if someone's down there,” Frank whispered. He removed the listening device from his jacket pocket and lowered the cord into the ventilator shaft. The bug descended and dropped through one of the chinks in a metal grate at the bottom.
Frank held up a hand to indicate that was far enough. He and Joe crouched over the earphones. Sounds came through clearly. A group of men were talking loudly!
“We got the dope on Radley,” said one. “He's a fuzz. Works for Fenton Hardy. We'll have to do him in before he sets the Feds on us.”
A second voice startled the eavesdroppers. It was San Marten's! “I told you to screen Radley before accepting him for treatment!” he hissed. “Arthritis! What a dodge! And you fell for it. This whole racket might hit the skids!”
“You weren't so quick on the uptake yourself,” accused a third voice. “Whose bright idea was it to lure the Hardys to Brazil? Who promised us they'd never come back? We should have knocked them off here in Granite City like I wanted.”
The first man spoke again. “Now they have
the evidence they need. If they spill what they know, we'll all do time in the pen.”
“Stop caterwauling,” San Marten commanded. “We can get out of this mess if we keep our heads. I'll devise a new plan.”
“I hope it works better than the old one,” came a surly reply.
“This one will be foolproof,” San Marten promised. “We'll finish off the Hardys and Radley, and get away with the loot. Break it up for now.”
Chairs scraped over the floor. The scuffling of feet indicated that the men were rising. Frank motioned Joe to draw the bug up.
“We've heard enough,” he whispered. “Let's get away from here and alert Chief Carton!”
“Right,” Joe said. “I sure hope Chet's got the ladder up again!” He grasped the cord and pulled on their listening device. It was stuck! He gave the cord a jerk. The bug banged against the metal grating.
“What's that?” San Marten exclaimed.
“Somebody must be spying in the ventilator shaft!”
“Alert Portner and his guards!” San Marten screamed. “And turn the signal lights on. Hurry!”
Lights began to flash on and off at the corners of the roof. Frank and Joe rushed to the parapet,
leaving the bug in the shaft. Frank beamed his pocket flashlight. No ladder!
“We'll have to find another way!” Frank ran to the other side of the roof. But there was no alternate escape route in sight!
Suddenly a trap door flew open. Three armed guards sprang out and seized the Hardys at gunpoint. They were hustled through the trap door and into an elevator for a rapid descent to the subcellar.
There the elevator stopped and the men hurled Frank and Joe out. The boys picked themselves off the floor and were confronted by five men with brutal, cruel, animal-like features.
The men were wearing monkey masks!
“Five oversized Diabos!” Frank said.
“So you know all about Diabo.” The speaker was San Marten. “You're about to meet him again!”
With those words he opened the door of a cage in the corner of the room. Diabo emerged, wearing his hideous mask. The beast looked more sinister than ever because in one paw he held a thin, razor-sharp dagger.
San Marten boomed, “Play your game, Diabo!”
T
HE
howler monkey obeyed the command and began a weird caper. He jigged madly around Frank and Joe, waving his arms and throwing his body into contortions. At the same time he rasped out a stream of eerie snarls and whines.
“That's the voodoo dance of the macumba witch doctors!” Frank gasped. “The same as we saw in Belem!”
Diabo circled closer, flailing the stiletto. Another step, and the ferocious simian would be near enough to stab the boys.
Over the monkey's shoulder, Frank and Joe saw a door open. A sixth man slipped into the room. He, too, was wearing a monkey mask. Just as Diabo poised for a thrust at the boys, the sixth man pulled a gun from his pocket.
“Stop!” he shouted.
Startled by the sound, the monkey turned his
head. Frank jumped forward and seized the paw that held the dagger. Joe gripped Diabo by the other arm. While the newcomer held the men in check with his gun, Frank and Joe hustled the animal over to the cage, forced him in, and slammed the door.
“Thanks,” Frank said to their rescuer. “You got here just in time.”
“It's a pleasure,” came a familiar voice behind the mask.
Sam Radley!
Sam pulled off his mask. As he did, one of the gang members picked up a small chair and hurled it at him, knocking the gun from his hand. Two men jumped the detective, while the other three went after Frank and Joe.
Frank met the first attacker with a stiff right-hand punch that put him down for the count. Joe felled the second with a karate chop. They wrestled the third to the floor, and subdued him after a violent struggle.
Radley took care of his two opponents by grabbing their shirt collars and cracking their heads together. He picked up his gun, and as the gangsters recovered, ordered them to line up along the wall. Sullenly they obeyed.
Then the door opened again. Fenton Hardy rushed in, followed by Chief Carton and a contingent of police. Chet Morton was at their heels.
“Dad!” Frank and Joe cried out in surprise. “How did you get here?”
“I had a late appointment with Chief Carton. A man was caught with a falsified passport in New York, and he spilled the beans regarding the Olympic Health Club. While I was talking to the chief, Chet rushed in and gave us the word.”
“Right after you went up on the roof, I heard someone coming so I took the ladder and ducked,” Chet said. “Then, before I could set it up again, those lights went on. I was worried plenty, but I see you have the situation here well in hand.”
“Sam gets the credit for that,” Joe said, and quickly explained to his father what had happened.
“So that's it,” Mr. Hardy said. “I was wondering how he got in on this caper. You did a great job, Sam.”
“You mean your sons did, Fenton,” Radley replied. He walked over to the prisoners and began to remove their monkey masks.
“Belkin!” Joe exclaimed as the first face became visible. “The guy who wanted to carve me up with his switchblade knife!”
Radley jerked off the second mask.
“Moreno, our Brazilian buddy's other strong-arm man,” Frank told his father.
The third man to be unmasked was San Marten. “No surprise,” Joe commented. “We recognized his voice.”
When Radley ripped off the fourth mask, the Hardy boys were startled. “Buru!” Frank exclaimed. “What's a Belem witch doctor doing in Granite City? But you're really an American criminal posing as a witch doctor, aren't you?”
Bum's guilty look confirmed Frank's deduction.
Radley reached the end of the line. Putting his fingers under the chin part of the last mask, he wrenched it off. Everyone gasped in amazement.
J. G. Retson!
“Caught red-handed!” Fenton Hardy declared. “You've got a lot of explaining to do, Mr. Retson.”
“Wait a minute,” said Sam. “There's somebody waiting outside who should be in on this.” He went to the door and beckoned. A young man entered. He wore long hair and spectacles that gave him an owlish look. His face was pale.
“Meet Graham Retson,” Sam Radley introduced the youth. “He's ready to provide some answers to the questions in this case.”
“Wow!” Joe said, shaking hands with the youth. “We tramped all over Brazil looking for you!”
“Believe me, I wish you had found me sooner,” Graham said. “As it was, Sam was just in time to rescue me from the sauna room before I passed out. They locked me in there and turned up the temperature!”
Frank looked at Sam Radley and his father. “How about letting us in on all the details?”
“To begin with,” Mr. Hardy explained, “San Marten and his gang have been running a Change-Your-Identity operation here at the Olympic Health Club. Criminals were outfitted with new faces, personalities, and passports, which were in ample supply from the post office heist. Of course, the documents were doctored to fit their new owners.”
“How did they ever get away with it?” Joe asked. “This health club is a big place, and to keep an operation like this secretâ”
“They had everything set up in this subcellar,” Radley put in. “It is cleverly concealed from the rest of the building. No one who worked here knew about it, except Portner, Grimsel, and the three musclemen who acted as the ground patrol. Every time those signal lights on the roof flashed on, they checked the premises for unwanted intruders.”
With a sidelong glance at San Marten, who stood in silent rage, Carton said, “We've arrested those four already. Grimsel, incidentally, was never really fired. That was just an act Portner put on to underline his âno trespassers allowed' policy.”
“Sam, how did you ever find out about the subcellar?” Frank asked. “We've been here with the
police searching the whole place and came up with nothing!”
“It took me a while. It is only accessible by a hidden elevator. See that cubicle over there? It's the operating room where the gang's doctorâBuru, incidentallyâperformed plastic surgery.”
“Wow! And we thought he was a witch doctor,” Frank said.
“What about personality changes?” Joe asked.
“They brainwashed people,” Sam said. “Mostly criminals. For an exorbitant fee they gave them psychiatric treatment, including hypnosis. Moreno here, who poses as a strong-arm man, is really a licensed psychiatrist. Exhibit AâSan Marten himself.”
Now Graham Retson spoke up. “I learned about their operation by accident. They made me a prisoner in the club.”
“You mean you never ran away from home?” Joe asked.
Graham shook his head. “I was going to leave after I found out my father was involved with that gang. I went to the bank and withdrew money, but the bank president notified my father immediately and he intercepted me on my way from the bank to the airport.”
Graham paced back and forth as he related the past events. “I tried to escape a few times, but I could never get far enough before they found out. Those lights flashing on and off were signals for
the guards to look for me. Once I got as far as Whisperwoodâ”
“Were you the one who threw a golf ball through the guesthouse window?” Joe interrupted.
“Yes. I thought Harris was there. I didn't know he had moved back into the main house. He was my friend, and I was trying to signal him. My father caught me that time. Another time I almost made it to the waterfall. I heard my mother call me. Then Grimsel and Moreno seemed to appear out of nowhere and Moreno clubbed me. I heard them talking later about Grimsel spotting you at the falls that night.”
“So he was the one who pushed me into the water,” Frank said.
“Graham,” Joe said, “how did your mother know that you were at the Olympic Health Club?”
“I don't think she actually knew for certain. It must have been terrible for her. It caused her breakdown, no doubt. Sam Radley told me about that.”
Graham looked at his father accusingly. J. G. Retson flushed.
“I owed money to their loan sharks and couldn't pay it back. So they forced me to work with them. I have many important contacts in industry and was able to launch many of their clients in various businesses. For that the gang
charged an extra fee. You discovered the scheme, Graham, so we had to hold you prisoner in the club. I worked out arrangements to send you abroad, however. You would have had your freedom and enough money to live on. Look, Grahamâ”
“Forget it,” Graham said disgustedly.
Frank spoke up. “Why did you insist that we investigate Graham's disappearance. Mr. Retson?”
“To make it look good. My wife was suspicious, and I had to convince her that I was eager to find the boy. I didn't want to hurt her, believe meâ”
“So you put that note in my jacket to throw suspicion on the butler,” Joe cut him short.
“Also,” Frank said, “you sent us on that wild-goose chase to Brazil. You had your nerve, complaining when we returned without Graham!”
Joe turned to Sam Radley. “How did you ever hit on that ventilator clue, Sam?”
“Well,” Radley replied, “I had found out about the sub-basement. But as a patient, I couldn't possibly get down there without being suspect. I figured the only way to investigate was through the ventilator shaft from the outside. I tried it once but almost got caught.”
“Not almost,” Frank said. “We heard them say that Radley was the fuzz. They knew, and were probably waiting for a good opportunity to get rid of you.”
“I guess that just about winds up the case,” Fenton Hardy remarked to Chief Carton.