The Secret of Sigma Seven (11 page)

As they continued down the hallway, they spotted Linda Klein, who was waiting for an elevator.

“Do you guys have any news yet?” she asked, a desperate tone in her voice. “I can't hold off giving Devoreaux that note much longer. Every time I have him convinced that he shouldn't sue us, something else happens.”

“Relax,” Frank said. “We're tracking down a hot lead. In fact, we'd better get going right now, before it gets away.”

“Please,” Linda said, wringing her hands, “move fast. I need you to solve this case as soon as you can.”

After Linda Klein stepped into the elevator, Frank turned to Joe. “Now all we need is a hot lead,” he said, “and what we just told Linda won't be a lie.”

When they reached the lobby, Joe stopped short. “I see our hot lead now,” he said, staring through the front window and into the parking lot. “Look.”

Frank looked outside. In the parking lot he could see George Morwood, surrounded by several young men in leather jackets, one of whom was carrying a heavy-looking cardboard box.

“Who are those guys?” Frank asked.

“One of them is the guy I saw Morwood with
earlier,” Joe said. “Maybe they're dealers in bootleg videotapes.”

“They look more like a motorcycle gang to me,” Frank said.

Morwood and his companions walked to the other side of the parking lot, then disappeared into the woods next to the lot.

“Want to follow them?” Joe asked.

“You have to ask?” Frank said. “Come on, let's go.”

Frank and Joe left the motel and walked around the edge of the parking lot and into the woods. At the point where Morwood had entered the woods, Frank found a thin path that led between the trees and shrubs. The Hardys followed Morwood's trail, stepping lightly so that the leaves wouldn't make too much noise crunching underfoot.

When Frank saw Morwood and the group of men standing in a clearing, he held out a hand to Joe, signaling him to stop walking for a moment and observe what was happening. As they watched, one of the leather-jacketed men placed the box that he was carrying on the ground in front of Morwood. The video dealer bent down and picked up what looked to Frank like two unlabeled videotapes. Morwood glanced at them and then dropped them into the box. Then he pulled some money out of his pocket and handed it to one of the men in front of him.

“What do you suppose they're up to?” Frank asked in a low voice.

“I don't know,” Joe said. “But it sure doesn't look very legal.”

Suddenly Frank heard a crunching of leaves directly behind him. Before he could turn around, strong hands grabbed both of his arms. He struggled for a moment to get away, but he was being held in an iron grip. He craned his neck and saw that two of the men in leather jackets had come up behind him and grabbed him. Joe was also being held by two men.

“All right, you kids!” snapped the one at Frank's left elbow, a dark-haired man who looked as if he hadn't shaved in a week. “You better have a good story about what you're doing here, or this is the end of the line for you!”

Frank struggled to break free, but his assailants gripped his arm more tightly.

“Let us go!” Joe shouted. “You can't do this to us.”

“Look, you guys, we weren't doing anything wrong,” Frank said quietly. “We were just going for a walk in the woods.”

“That's right,” Joe said. “We were getting a little tired of the convention and wanted some fresh air.”

He saw George Morwood put down the box of videotapes he was examining and walk to the edge of the clearing to see what the commotion was about. “Oh, no,” he said when he saw Frank and Joe. “Not you kids again.”

“You know these kids?” one of the men asked from behind Frank's right ear.

“Yeah,” Morwood said. “They've been hanging around this convention all weekend investigating a crime. They seem to think I was involved in it somehow.”

The men laughed raucously. “Ha!” one of them said. “You wouldn't be involved with anything illegal, would you, Georgie-boy?”

“Knock it off,” Morwood said, looking irritated. “I keep telling you guys, if anything shady is going on here, I don't want to know about it.”

“Shady?” another of Morwood's companions said. “You know we'd never be involved with anything like that.”

This comment set off another round of laughter. Finally one of the voices behind Frank asked Morwood, “What should we do with these kids? It looks like they were spying on us.”

“Let them go,” Morwood said.

“Let them go?” the voice said. “Are you crazy, George?”

“I don't think he sounds crazy at all,” Joe said.

“It sounds like a really good idea,” Frank agreed.

“These kids are harmless,” Morwood said. “They're looking for the guy who stole Simon Devoreaux's film. That has nothing to do with me or you.”

“Well, if you insist, George,” the voice said. The arms holding Frank and Joe relaxed, and the brothers found themselves free again. Frank turned around to look at his attackers. They were two large men in leather jackets much like those of their
companions. One had a broad, pudgy face, the other a chiseled profile. They glared at the Hardys with contempt.

Joe turned to George Morwood. “So what
is
going on here? It doesn't look very honest to me.”

“Better watch what you say,” the pudgy-faced man said menacingly. “We don't
have
to let you kids go.”

“I'm just buying blank videotapes,” Morwood said, gesturing toward the box at his feet. “I make videotapes of movies that aren't out in the stores.”

“Bootleg tapes?” Frank said.

“No,” Morwood said. “Perfectly legal tapes. I make deals with low-budget filmmakers to distribute their movies on video. I pay them a royalty on every copy sold. Some of these are films that never even get shown in the theater. Real small-time operations.”

“And this is where you buy your blank tapes?” Joe asked. “In the middle of the woods?”

“That's right,” Morwood said. “The profit margin on my business is very small. I can't afford to pay much for tapes. These gentlemen”—he indicated the men standing around him—“offer the lowest prices on blank tapes that I've been able to find.”

“What were you doing earlier in the building in back of the motel?” Joe asked.

“So you kids
have
been spying on me,” Morwood said. “I thought I noticed you snoozing outside the door when I came back out. I was just negotiating the deal before the tapes were delivered.”

“Stolen tapes?” Frank suggested.

“I thought I told you kids to watch your mouths,” the pudgy-faced man snarled, taking a step toward the Hardys.

“It's okay, Ron,” Morwood said quickly, turning back to the Hardys. “I don't know where these tapes came from, and I don't want to know. It's none of my business. But I can assure you that I had nothing to do with the theft of Simon Devoreaux's movie. I don't get involved with things like that.”

“Well,” Frank continued, “I don't suppose you have any idea who it was.”

Morwood shrugged. “I really don't. If that film is being bootlegged, I'll probably hear about it sooner or later. But I haven't heard a thing yet.”

“If you do, give us a ring,” Joe said.

“I'll do that,” Morwood said. “Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to finish my transaction with these gentlemen.”

Frank and Joe turned and walked past the men, who glared at them. When the Hardys reached the edge of the woods, they strode quickly across the parking lot back to the motel.

“That was a bad scene,” Joe said.

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I don't care much for Morwood's taste in business associates. You think those guys are honest businessmen?”

“Right,” Joe said with a laugh. “And I'm King Kong. There's no way those tapes weren't stolen. The real question is whether or not Morwood had anything to do with the theft of Devoreaux's film.”

“Well, he claims he didn't,” Frank said. “And his
story about producing videotapes of low-budget films explains why he had those hand-labeled tapes under his counter.”

“That still doesn't let him off the hook, though,” Joe said. “But we don't have any evidence on him, so maybe we'd better concentrate on somebody else for a while.”

“I still think we should talk with Devoreaux,” Frank said. “He's at the center of all of this, and we haven't been able to get near him. He might be able to give us some helpful information.”

“There's something else that's bothering me,” Joe said as they stepped back into the lobby of the motel.

“Yeah?” Frank asked. “What is it?”

“That elephant that tried to squash my skull earlier,” he said. “Who let it out of the tent?”

“I don't know,” Frank said. “But whoever did it was probably trying to get you off the case— permanently.”

“Whoever did it must have noticed me sleeping by the outbuilding,” Joe said, “then led the elephant around to where I was lying. He probably left in a hurry when I woke up. So the question is, who would have the key to unlock the chain that was holding the elephant in the tent?”

“I don't know,” said Frank. “I—”

“Hi, guys!” Brian Amchick said, coming out of the elevator. “How's the case going?”

“Not as well as we'd like,” Frank said. “We were wondering if there might be some way we could get
to talk with Simon Devoreaux. You wouldn't happen to know where he is, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, I saw him in the coffee shop a little while ago,” Brian said. “He might still be there.”

“This may be our chance,” Joe said. “Let's try to talk to him before he leaves.”

Frank led the way back to the coffee shop, where they had eaten breakfast earlier. It was lunchtime, and the restaurant was nearly full. Simon Devoreaux and his bodyguards were sitting at a large table near the window. Frank approached the table, Brian and Joe immediately behind him, but one of the bodyguards stood up and blocked their path.

“We'd like to talk with Mr. Devoreaux,” Frank said as the bodyguard turned a hostile gaze on him.

“So would a lot of people,” the bodyguard said, folding his arms across his massive chest. “But Mr. Devoreaux doesn't want company. So get lost.”

“It's about his stolen film,” Joe said. “We're the detectives Linda Klein hired to find it, and it would be useful if we could ask him a couple of questions.”

“Mr. Devoreaux has already spoken to the police about the missing film,” the bodyguard said. “He doesn't need to talk to any kids like you about it. So, like I said, get lost.”

Frank started to say something in reply, but suddenly there was a noise from the table where Devoreaux was speaking. Frank looked over to see the film director sit up halfway in his seat and make a
desperate, gasping noise, his hands around his neck. Then the director collapsed in his chair, his face falling forward into the salad plate in front of him.

“What's wrong with him?” Joe asked.

Frank looked alarmed. “It doesn't look good.”

Frank watched as the bodyguard seated next to Devoreaux lifted the director's face up and placed his hand against the unconscious man's neck. The bodyguard looked up with a troubled expression in his eyes.

“I think he's dead!” he cried.

“Dead?” Joe said in a shocked tone.

Just then he heard a voice from across the room shout, “I'm a doctor!” A man in a loose-fitting jogging suit hurried over to the director's table. He picked up Devoreaux's wrist and felt for his pulse.

“He's not dead,” the doctor said finally. “But his pulse is very weak. Somebody call an ambulance immediately!”

The doctor reached down and picked up Devoreaux's plate. He held it under his nose and sniffed gently.

“This smells odd,” he said. “It may have been poisoned. I'd recommend that nobody else eat anything until the food's been checked out.”

Joe heard at least a dozen forks clank down
simultaneously around the room after the doctor had spoken. “Let's hope this doesn't turn into an epidemic,” Joe whispered to his brother.

“This is terrible,” Brian said, coming up behind the Hardys. “The convention is going to have a bad reputation after this.”

“Let's just hope the ambulance gets here in time,” Frank said.

“Somebody's been trying to ruin Devoreaux's health all weekend. It looks as if they've finally succeeded.”

Within five minutes an emergency crew arrived. Joe watched as the paramedics examined Devoreaux for a moment, gave him an injection, and strapped him to a stretcher. Then they carried him out of the cafeteria. Joe caught a glimpse of Devoreaux's face as he left. It looked white and pasty.

“This has
not
been a good weekend,” Joe said with a sigh.

“We've still got a case to solve,” Frank said. He looked across the room to see Jack Gillis staring down at his salad plate. The Hardys walked over to say a few words to him.

“Excuse me, Mr. Gillis,” Frank said. “We just wanted to say how sorry we were that this had to happen to Mr. Devoreaux.”

“Hmmm?” Gillis looked up from his plate. “Oh, yes. You're the two boys who are investigating the theft. Thanks for the kind words. I'm pretty shaken up by what just happened to Simon.”

“I'd be careful if I were you, Mr. Gillis,” Joe said.
“Remember that somebody may be trying to harm you, too.”

Gillis looked down at his plate again. “Maybe I'd better not eat any more of this. Not after what happened to poor Simon.”

“Good idea,” Frank said. “In fact, you might want to eat canned food for the rest of the weekend.”