The Apeman's Secret Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - Huge Footprints

  Chapter 2 - Scraps of Evidence

  Chapter 3 - Sneak Attack

  Chapter 4 - A Savage Surprise

  Chapter 5 - Hot News

  Chapter 6 - A Sticky Shadow

  Chapter 7 - Muscle Men

  Chapter 8 - Sea Signal

  Chapter 9 - Deep-Sixed!

  Chapter 10 - An Urgent Message

  Chapter 11 - Another Amulet

  Chapter 12 - A Ghostly Figure

  Chapter 13 - The Face at the Window

  Chapter 14 - Stolen Secrets

  Chapter 15 - Code-Word Clues

  Chapter 16 - A Baited Trap

  Chapter 17 - Night Flight

  Chapter 18 - The Sleeping Ogre

  Chapter 19 - Hidden Duo

  Chapter 20 - A Screaming Finish

  FENTON Hardy asks his sons Frank and Joe to investigate the disappearance of an eighteen-year-old girl. He suspects that she has joined a sinister religious cult called the Children of Noah.

  A few days later the boys get an offbeat assignment from a New York comic book publisher. One of his characters, Apeman, is featured in a popular TV series. However, Apeman’s double, a real life gigantic brute with bulging muscles, has been turning up everywhere—at private parties, in people’s back-yards—causing considerable damage. Is this double a prankster, or is he involved in a more menacing plot?

  Frank and Joe tackle both cases and uncover an intricate scheme by a clever gang of crooks. The Hardy Boys match wits with these criminals in an exciting and action-filled confrontation.

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  Copyright © 1980 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in 2005 by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. THE HARDY BOYS® is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-07671-2

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  1

  Huge Footprints

  “We’re in luck, Frank!” grinned blond, seventeen-year-old Joe Hardy one evening. “Both easy chairs empty and the TV set all to ourselves!”

  “Great!” chuckled his brother. “Just in time to watch the Apeman go ape!”

  Frank, who was dark-haired and a year older than Joe, switched on the right channel and the boys settled themselves to watch the exciting weekly “Apeman” program.

  The hero of the show was a huge, muscular comic book character with a beetling brow and underslung jaw. Sole survivor of the Neanderthal race of cavemen, he was supposed to have been discovered by a scientist on a remote island and brought to America. Frank and Joe enjoyed the program, and tonight’s adventure promised to be a real thriller.

  Moments later, both boys looked up as they heard dull clanging sounds and a weird hooting outside.

  “What on earth is that?” Joe wondered aloud.

  “Can’t be a foghorn. We’re not that close to the water, even assuming it’s foggy offshore.”

  Joe, who was sitting closer to the television, turned down the volume, and the Hardys listened, mystified. The strange noises seemed to be coming from one side of the house.

  “Someone must be in the driveway!” Frank exclaimed. He leaped up and flung open the window. The boys peered out. Something moved in the shadows of the shrubbery at one side of the yard. As the boys strained their eyes to make out the cause, a figure took shape in the moonlit darkness.

  “Sufferin’ snakes! What’s that?” Joe gasped.

  The figure was clad in metal and had a skull face! A round, tubular horn like a hunting horn was slung over one shoulder. Occasionally the figure would pause long enough to blow a sinister hoot. From its left wrist hung a bell, which clanged mournfully as it swung to and fro.

  “Uh-oh! If I didn’t think I was seeing things,” Frank muttered, “I’d say that was the Doom Demon!”

  “You’re right!” his brother declared.

  They were referring to another character well known to comic book fans. But unlike the Apeman, the Doom Demon was a villain, who usually fought against the forces of justice led by Captain Star.

  The ghastly-looking figure was coming straight toward the Hardys. Suddenly it stopped short and thrust out the fingers of both hands, as if to zap them with lightning bolts of doom!

  Sparks of electricity crackled from its fingertips, and at the same moment the figure let out a yelp of pain!

  “Owwwww!” cried the Doom Demon, hopping up and down and flapping his hands loosely at the wrists as if he had just burned them on a hot stove.

  “Hey! There’s something familiar about that voice!” said Joe.

  “Just what I’m thinking,” Frank agreed. “Let’s go out and find out who’s putting us on!”

  “All right, all right! Calm down!” said the weird metal specter outside. “Can’t you take a joke?”

  The figure pulled off its skull mask, revealing the chubby-cheeked, double-chinned moonface of a youth their own age.

  “Chet Morton!” Joe burst out laughing as the Hardys recognized the masquerader. “We might’ve known!”

  “Go ahead and laugh, wise guy!” Chet retorted plaintively. I almost got my fingers fried just then—but you think it’s funnyl“

  “You want to come in for some first aid?” said Frank, “or shall we send out a stretcher?”

  “Who needs first aid?” Chet sniffed. “But I might go for some cookies or a piece of your Aunt Gertrude’s pie.”

  “Sorry, pal. Joe and I polished it all off at dinnertime. But come on in, anyhow!”

  Their stout friend waddled into the house, looking like a robot from a science fiction movie. His costume and helmet turned out to be made of cardboard covered with aluminum foil.

  “What brought this on?” Joe asked, as the Hardys looked Chet over in amused astonishment.

  “It’s my costume for the comic book party at the Alfresco Disco tomorrow night. Don’t tell me you guys have forgotten?”

  “Hey, that’s right!” Joe snapped his fingers and shot a glance at his brother. “We’d better get cooking on our costumes, Frank!”

  “How do I look?” said Chet, slipping on his skull mask again and turning around proudly to show himself off from all angles. The horn on which he blew his blasts of doom was made of flexible metal conduit, with a funnel stuck in one end to serve as the bell of the horn.

  “The Doom Demon, eh?” said Frank, eyeing the masquerader with a twinkle. “I’d say the measurements are a little broad, but otherwise not bad.”

  “What do you mean not bad?” Chet complained. “It’s a work of genius! I expect to win a prize with this costume!”

  “What about those sparks from your fingers, when you went to zap us?” Joe put in. “What’s your secret?”

  “Aw, it’s some battery-powered gadget I bought from a mail-order magic supply company.” Chet doffed his mask again and pulled back one sleeve of his costume to show the device strapped to his wrist. “But don’t ask me how it works. The thing shocked me silly!”

  “You can say that again!” Joe chuckled, causing the fat boy to flush peevishly.

  “Better watch it,” Frank warned. “Instead of zapping someone, you could wind up elect
rocuting yourself!”

  With his usual good nature, Chet Morton ended by joining in the merriment at his own expense. “Say, what show have you got on?” he added suddenly as his eyes fell on the TV set.

  “‘The Apeman,”’ said Joe. “It’s pretty good, too. Come on, pull up a chair!”

  “Thanks. I love the show.”

  The three quickly clued in to the action on screen and were soon absorbed watching the program.

  According to the story, the scientist who found the Apeman treated him with special drugs to make him look more human. He became so docile and attached to the scientist and his other friends that people often mistook him for an ordinary, timid, and rather backward person of no account.

  But the Apeman hated cruelty of any kind. Whenever he saw crooks or villains do something nasty to a helpless victim, he would fly into a rage. This would change his body chemistry and cause him to revert to the savage state. Then, with bulging muscles and fearsome growls, he would beat up the villains and wreck their criminal plot, much to the delight of the audience. Viewers loved to watch him mop the floor with the “bad guys,” and the show had become an overnight hit.

  “Uh-oh. Here it comes!” Chet muttered. “Those crooks are really asking for it!”

  “And now they’re going to get it!” Joe added.

  On the screen, the Apeman had just taken a gun away from one crook and squeezed it into scrap metal by clenching his fist. Then he proceeded to toss the villains about like beanbags and wreck the evil masterminds’ laboratory before ripping open the manacles that held their two prisoners.

  “Hey! Did you hear something outside just then?” Frank murmured to his brother.

  Joe shook his head. “What did it sound like?”

  “More of the Apeman’s growls, but I guess it was just part of the sound effects.”

  The TV show ended and was followed by a brief “News Update” just before ten o‘clock. First there were two or three quick headline reports about the international situation and events in Washington. Then the newscaster went on:

  “The prankster who’s been masquerading as the Apeman has just made another appearance, this time in a local movie theater.”

  “Hey, we’ve been there!” Chet exclaimed as the newscaster named a theater in the town of Shoreham, near Bayport.

  “Patrons were terrorized,” the reporter continued, “and the theater furnishings, glass partitions, and candy counters were extensively damaged before the culprit fled through a rear exit.”

  “Some prankster!” Joe said disgustedly.

  “Witnesses say the impostor looked exactly like the real Apeman in the popular television show and seemed to have equally large muscles. But both the producers of the show and network officials deny any responsibility for such acts or any suggestion that the strong man who plays the TV role may be implicated in what they call ‘such lunatic behavior,”’ the newscaster concluded.

  “Boy! There’s a mystery for you guys to...” Chet Morton’s voice faded as a savage growl reached their ears, followed by deep-throated and angry bellows.

  “Jumpin’ Jupiter! What was that!” the chubby youth exclaimed, his eyes bugging and his jaw dropping open.

  Frank leaped from his chair. “Must be the same thing I heard before, whatever that was!”

  Joe followed as his brother hurried toward the front door and clicked on the porch light before dashing outside. Chet almost collided with the Hardys as they stopped short.

  “Look!” Joe gasped, pointing downward.

  There were huge, bare, muddy footprints on the porch! The prints looked semihuman, with the big toes sticking out at an angle to the smaller toes!

  “Whoever made these must’ve been standing in one of the flowerbeds!” Frank reasoned.

  “Right! The ground’s still wet there from the rain this afternoon,” Joe agreed. “His feet couldn’t have gotten this muddy just from walking on grass!”

  Frank darted back inside to get a flashlight. Then the boys hastily checked the flowerbeds and shrubbery around the house. Sure enough, there were similar huge footprints in the damp earth under the window that the Hardys had opened a short time earlier when they first saw Chet in his Doom Demon costume.

  “This has to be a joke,” Joe said.

  Frank nodded. “Maybe someone else in our gang is going to that comic book party and decided to give us a preview of his costume, like Chet did.”

  As the boys started back around to the front of the house, a siren wailed in the distance. The shrill noise grew louder, and there was a sudden screech of wheels as the vehicle rounded a corner not far off.

  “Hey! It’s coming this way!” Joe exclaimed.

  Seconds later, a police scout car drew up to the curb. Its front doors flew open, and two officers leaped out. One pointed his nightstick at Chet.

  “There’s the nut!” he cried, and both policemen rushed at the startled fat boy.

  2

  Scraps of Evidence

  The officer seemed to expect that Chet would run away or resist arrest. But he was too surprised to do anything except stand there blinking at them with a flabbergasted expression.

  “What’s this all about?” Frank intervened.

  “This joker’s been scaring people around the neighborhood!” said one policeman.

  His partner added, “Someone phoned headquarters about him—said he was heading over to Elm Street—a nut in a metal suit with a skull mask!”

  The red-faced, roly-poly youth began stuttering nervously as he tried to explain his appearance. But the skull mask, which was now hanging loosely around his neck by its elastic cord, did nothing to help persuade the officers of his innocence.

  “Wait a second!” Joe cut in. “Chet hasn’t been scaring anyone! He’s been sitting in our living room, watching TV for the last half-hour or so!”

  One of the policemen was about to retort suspiciously. Then his expression changed. Instead of relying on the moonlight and the glow of the nearest street lamp, he pulled out his flashlight and shone it at Frank’s and Joe’s faces.

  “Say! You two are Fenton Hardy’s sons, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said as they both nodded.

  Mr. Hardy had once been an ace detective with the New York Police Department. He had retired to the seaside town of Bayport to operate his own agency and was now nationally famous as a private investigator. Frank and Joe seemed to have inherited their father’s sleuthing ability and had solved many mysteries on their own.

  “Sorry, fellows,” the policeman told the Hardys. “If we’d recognized you right off, it would have saved all this hassle.”

  “I’d like to know what your friend’s doing in that nutty getup,” his partner persisted.

  “There’s going to be a party at the Alfresco Disco tomorrow night,” Joe explained. “Everyone’s supposed to go dressed up like a comic book character. Chet’s going as the Doom Demon, so he came over to show us his costume.”

  “Couldn’t he show it to you in the house? How come you were out here in the dark with a flashlight?”

  “Believe it or not, we heard some strange noises,” said Frank. “Only it wasn’t a loony in a metal suit, it was a loony with big bare feet.”

  “Are you kidding?” said the first policeman, giving the Hardys another suspicious scowl.

  “Come on! See for yourself,” Frank offered.

  The wail of the police siren had brought lights flashing on along the street, and several neighbors were peering out of their doorways to discover the cause. One of the officers went off to deal with the situation and quiet any feelings of alarm among the neighbors, while the other examined the footprints on the Hardys’ front porch.

  “They look phony to me,” he commented. “Nobody’s that flatfooted!”

  “I think he’s right, Frank,” Joe agreed after a closer inspection.

  The older Hardy boy nodded thoughtfully. “Even one of those Bigfoot critters out West would have some bulg
es on his feet and a slight arch. These look flat as a pancake!”

  “I’ll bet the same person who’s responsible for these prints made that phone call to headquarters about Chet!” Joe exclaimed.

  “That figures,” said the policeman. “The whole thing’s probably a practical joke.”

  The two officers soon drove off, and Chet started home to the Morton farm in his jalopy, which he had left parked down the street in order to take the Hardys by surprise.

  Next morning the telephone rang while the boys were at the breakfast table. Frank answered and heard his father’s voice come over the line.

  “How’s everything on Elm Street, Son?”

  “Great, Dad! We had a little excitement last night, but I guess someone was just spoofing us.”

  Frank briefly described the mysterious events. Mr. Hardy, too, was inclined to ascribe them to a practical joker. But he urged his son to take no chances and to keep the alarm system on at night, in case any criminal he had sent to jail might have been released recently and was looking for an opportunity for revenge.

  “Sure, Dad,” Frank said. “How about your own case?”

  “I can’t tell you much about it over an open phone line,” the detective replied, “but it’s part of a major government investigation. Looks like it may keep me on the move for quite a while yet. Meantime, a friend has consulted me about a case that I’m just too busy to handle. How would you and Joe like to take over?”

  “You bet! Let me get him on the other phone so we can both hear the details.”

  At an urgent signal from Frank, Joe hurried from the table to listen in on the upstairs extension.

  “As you boys know, a lot of my investigative work is done for insurance companies,” Mr. Hardy began. “One of those companies is headed by a man named Paul Linwood.”

  “We’ve heard you speak of him,” said Joe. “Lives in Shoreham, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s right. He has a pretty young daughter named Sue. Unfortunately, a few nights ago there was a bitter family quarrel. The upshot was that Sue ran away from home.”