The Giant Rat of Sumatra Page 10

  Before Frank and Joe could react, Hornby jumped back, slammed the door shut, and twisted the key in the lock. Frank and Joe were locked in. And Hornby was getting away.

  15 The Game’s Afoot

  * * *

  Frank ran to the door and jammed the key into the old-fashioned lock. It refused to go more than halfway in. Frank jiggled it, then tried twisting the knob. No good. Hornby must have left his key in the lock on the outside of the door. It was blocking Frank’s key from going in.

  “Hurry!” Joe said.

  Frank held up a hand for silence. He fished out his pocketknife from his hip pocket and opened a pointed blade meant for removing pebbles from a horse’s hoof. Getting down on one knee, he peered into the keyhole.

  The light from the corridor outlined the shape of the other key. Delicately, Frank inserted the blade and wedged the point next to the flat extension of the key. Taking a deep breath, he twisted the blade a fraction of an inch. The key clattered to the floor outside.

  “Piece of cake,” Frank said. He sprang to his feet and used his own key to unlock the door. “Now let’s get that guy!”

  They dashed out into the hallway. “He’ll be gone by now,” Joe said.

  Frank shook his head. “He thinks we’re still locked up. He won’t want to call attention to himself. I’m betting he’s somewhere backstage.” Hector intercepted them. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked. “I just ran into Hornby, and, man, is he acting weird.”

  “He’s the one who’s been pulling the dirty tricks,” Joe said quickly. “Where is he?”

  “I saw him a minute ago behind the set,” Hector said. “You want me to help?”

  “No,” Frank said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Stay here and watch for him, in case he gives us the slip.”

  Frank and Joe ran toward the rear of the stage. The warehouse set loomed above them, looking even spookier than usual in the faint glow of the work lights.

  Joe touched Frank on the shoulder and pointed. About fifteen feet away, Hornby was kneeling next to a flight of iron stairs that led to the upper level of the set. It looked as if he was tying something to the rod that supported the handrail.

  The Hardys started to creep up on Hornby, but he must have sensed something. He took one quick look over his shoulder, then jumped to his feet and started running up the stairs.

  Frank and Joe sprinted after him. Frank reached the stairs first. On the third step, something snagged his foot. He went flying forward. His knee banged into the edge of a stair. He threw his hands out just in time to keep his chin from smashing against another step.

  “Joe, watch out,” Frank called over his shoulder, as he pulled himself to his feet and started running up the stairs again. “It’s booby-trapped.”

  At the top of the stairs, Frank found himself at one end of a long narrow metal catwalk. Burlap-covered bales of merchandise were stacked high against the wall.

  Hornby was already near the far end of the catwalk. He looked back and saw Frank. His face twisted, and he reached over and grabbed a bale as big as a washing machine. He raised it high over his head. Then he heaved it down the catwalk at Frank.

  Frank dropped into a crouch. The bale sailed over his head. Too late, he remembered that Joe was right behind him. He turned, expecting to see Joe crushed under the weight of the bale.

  He was standing with the bale clasped in his arms. “Stage prop,” he said, with a quick grin. “It can’t weigh more than a pound or two.”

  Joe tossed the bale behind him and edged past Frank, then broke into a run, with Frank close behind. At the far end of the catwalk was another set of iron stairs. Hornby clattered down them three at a time, then ran toward the edge of the set.

  Joe and Frank raced after him. A moment later they were in the sitting room of Holmes’s flat at 221B Baker Street. From the other side of the painted canvas walls, Joe heard a chorus of police constables singing, “If you want to meet the reason that crime doesn’t pay . . .”

  Dodging the overstuffed furniture, Hornby ran across the room. Joe was only a few feet behind him and gaining. Desperate, Hornby dashed over to a door in the set wall, flung it open, and rushed through. Joe darted after him . . . and landed in the middle of a startled group of singing bobbies. A gasp went up from the audience.

  True pros, the singing police didn’t miss a note. They shifted their positions to screen Joe and Hornby from the auditorium. Joe did his best to block out the rows and rows of staring eyes in the audience. Grabbing Hornby, he got him in a hammerlock and hustled him offstage.

  “Joe, what—” O’Lunny exclaimed.

  “Here’s your trickster,” Joe panted.

  O’Lunny’s jaw dropped. “Gilbert? But why?” he demanded, as Frank hurried to join them.

  “He was planning to put Battenberg out of commission, then collect the million dollars in insurance,” Frank said. “We’ll tell you all about it later.”

  • • •

  After the final curtain, the cast crowded into the greenroom. Rumors had been flying around backstage since Joe’s spectacular capture of Hornby.

  O’Lunny climbed up onto a chair and said, “We’ve all been upset by the malicious incidents that have been happening the last few days. They had to stop, before they destroyed our play. So I asked Frank and Joe Hardy to go undercover and find the person responsible. And that’s just what they did. Frank, Joe?”

  The Hardys took turns explaining what Hornby had done and why.

  “The poor advance sales convinced him that Rat was going to be a flop,” Joe said. “That made the insurance money very tempting.”

  “The rat,” Hector said. “Oops, sorry—I mean, the skunk! But if his real target was Charles, why did he mess up the complimentary tickets and put ammonia in the fog machine and all?”

  “Smoke screen,” Frank replied. “If the insurance company investigated, he must have hoped that they’d see Battenberg’s injury as part of a general run of bad luck and incompetence.”

  Susanna asked, “What happens now?”

  O’Lunny cleared his throat. “That’s up to our lawyer and the local police,” he said. “Needless to say, Gilbert Hornby is no longer connected to this production in any way.”

  “What I really meant,” Susanna said, “was, what happens to the show?”

  “Perhaps I can help answer that,” came a voice from the doorway.

  Frank looked around. Tertius Lestell was standing there, wearing a white suit, a raccoon coat, and a bowler hat. Li Wei was next to him.

  “I have heard about your troubles,” Lestell said. “I’d like to offer you whatever help I and my organization can give. Believe me, it’s not charity on my part. I’m convinced that, properly handled, you have a hit on your hands, and I want to be associated with it.”

  He looked over at Frank and Joe. “For a start, think of the headlines,” he said with a sly smile. “ ‘Teen Sleuths Capture Crook Onstage During Sherlock Musical.’ That alone will boost ticket sales fifteen percent.”

  Battenberg was over near the wall. He stepped forward and said, “Tertius, I’m delighted that you’re joining us. I should tell you that I’ve had grave suspicions of Gilbert Hornby for some time now.”

  “Really?” Gordean drawled. “Then why did you make that ridiculous and very public accusation against Frank Hardy?”

  Battenberg gave him a superior smile. “A ruse, my dear fellow,” he said. “By seeming to suspect my young colleague here, I hoped to lull Gilbert into making a careless mistake. And it worked.”

  Straining to keep a straight face, Frank looked over at Hector and Susanna. They were both working hard not to break down into laughter.

  Mila rushed in. “Hey, everybody,” she said loudly. “I just caught the eleven o’clock news on Channel Six. Their theater critic was at tonight’s performance, and he loved it. He said the show’s guaranteed to be a hit!”

  The room broke out in cheers. Joe let out an ear-piercing whistle. When the noise died down, L
estell said, “Congratulations. In celebration, I’d like you all to be my guests for a late supper at a restaurant near here, Au Vieux Port. There’ll be cars outside the theater in fifteen minutes.”

  • • •

  “So all those incidents were Hornby’s work?” asked Susanna, who was sitting next to Frank at a long table covered in white linen.

  Frank looked up from his crabmeat and cala-mari cocktail. Before answering, he glanced around the elegant dining room. The restaurant was built on an old fishing wharf, on Herricks Cove. Through the broad windows, Frank could see a broad ribbon of moonlight on the water.

  Frank shook his head. “I think he must have had help,” he said. “For one thing, after I was knocked out, it would have been pretty hard for Hornby to carry me to the stage by himself.”

  Joe, sitting on Susanna’s left, said, “There’s that program in BASIC, don’t forget—the one that messed up the complimentary tickets. Does Hornby have the skills to write something like that?”

  Frank noticed Hector’s eyes narrow. “That skunk!” Hector exclaimed.

  “Which skunk?” Joe asked.

  “Max Joyner,” Hector replied. “I first met him last year, when we were both between gigs and working as programmers. I’m the one who introduced him to Hornby, as a matter of fact. I noticed they got really tight, but I didn’t think much about it. But tonight, right after the show, Max told me he was leaving the cast, immediately. He wouldn’t say why. But I can guess. He must have been Hornby’s accomplice.”

  Frank nodded slowly. He remembered Max’s attacking him after he found the ammonia bottle. Had Max been the one who put the ammonia in the fog machine? And the voice that Frank had heard earlier that evening, promising that the show would never reach Broadway? Now that he thought of it, it hadn’t sounded like Hornby. Max again?

  “We’ll have to check it out,” Frank told Hector. “But it sounds like a real possibility. If so, it would tie up a few loose ends.”

  Joe picked up his spoon and lightly tapped his water glass. The others at the table fell silent.

  “I’d like to make an announcement,” Joe said, smiling. “I’ve loved being a Baker Street Irregular, but I’m quitting the cast as of tonight. I’ve decided that I’m better at detective work than at acting.”

  “Here, here,” Hector said with a wide grin.

  “And I’m a better detective than administrator,” Frank said. “So I’m quitting, too.”

  O’Lunny smiled. “Joe, Frank,” he said, “I have to go along with your decisions. But I expect both of you to be my personal guests at the triumphant Broadway opening of The Giant Rat of Sumatra.”

  “No problem,” Joe said. “As long as the crimes only take place onstage.”

  Frank agreed, and the room rang with applause.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Aladdin

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