The London Deception Read online

  “Instead, we will become outlaws on the lam,” Lista said, “and you will become the only Innocent Victim they write about in the newspaper.”

  “This has gotten so out of hand,” Jeffries sighed. “I was just trying to sell a white elephant of a theater for a little profit.”

  “A giant profit, you mean,” Frank said, checking out of the corner of his eye for some means of escape.

  “Whatever the amount, you must admit it wasn’t worth what you’ve put us through,” Jeffries said. “Or what we are about to put you through.”

  Frank saw an arm, lying on the ground to his left. In one swift movement, he snatched it up and swung, catching Lista under the chin.

  The wax limb snapped in half, but it had done the trick. Lista backpedaled and slammed into the opposite wall.

  “Frank?” came a muffled call.

  “In here!” Frank shouted at the top of his lungs,

  Shah and Jeffries took off down the corridor and into the Chamber of Horrors. Dazed, Lista tried to follow, but Frank tackled him to the ground.

  A moment later Joe rushed in with Detective Inspector Ryan and another officer. Ryan immediately cuffed Lista’s hands.

  “Corey Lista?” Joe said surprised. “Where are Jeffries and Shah?”

  “I thought you would have passed them,” Frank said, jumping to his feet.

  “They must have gone on through the Chamber of Horrors,” Detective Inspector Ryan said, putting Lista into the other officer’s custody.

  “What’s beyond the Chamber of Horrors?” Frank asked Chris.

  “The gift shop and the exit,” Chris replied.

  The Hardys, Chris, and Detective Inspector Ryan raced after their quarry, passing through the gift shop and out to the street in time to see Neville Shah pulling away from the curb with Jeffries in his passenger seat.

  Detective Inspector Ryan ran to his own car, and Chris and the Hardys got in. “Here now, you can’t come with me.”

  “Hurry or you might lose them!” Frank exclaimed.

  “I’m dropping you off the first chance I get!” the detective protested, then floored it.

  They chased Shah’s car across London, around Big Ben, along the Thames, and past the Tower of London. Near St. Katharine’s Dock, Detective Ryan cut in front of Shah’s car and drove him into the curb.

  Shah and Jeffries fled the vehicle, with the theater owner still holding his briefcase of money.

  “The two suspects are on foot, headed toward St. Katharine’s Dock,” Detective Inspector Ryan radioed in.

  The passenger side of the detective’s car was jammed against Shah’s, so the boys scrambled out the back door.

  Jeffries and Shah split up. Jeffries continued toward the marina, while Shah headed for the Tower Bridge.

  “I’ll go after Shah!” Joe shouted. “You guys stay with Jeffries.”

  Jeffries was by far the slower runner, and Frank and Chris were within fifty yards of him when he reached the dock.

  As a river tour boat shoved off, Jeffries jumped, barely making it onboard. By the time Frank reached the edge of the dock, the boat had moved too far away.

  “Stop!” Frank yelled. But between the loud engine and the guide talking over the public address system, no one heeded his shouts. For the moment Jeffries had gotten away.

  • • •

  Neville Shah pushed aside the attendant at the entrance to the first tower. Joe Hardy’s eyes widened in disbelief as Shah jumped a rail and began climbing the steep, sloping spans leading to the top of the first tower of the Tower Bridge.

  Joe knew he couldn’t follow “Anacro, the Human Spider” that way, so he took the stairs inside the tower and raced up until he reached the glass enclosed walkway one hundred and forty-five feet above the Thames River.

  Joe spotted Shah scuttling along the top of the enclosed walkway looking much like a spider. Joe ran across, passing beneath Shah and reaching the second tower before he did.

  Joe unhooked a boundary rope and ran up some steps to an off-limits area at the very top of the tower. He unhooked and opened some shutters, giving Shah a way into the tower from the outside.

  Having set his trap, Joe waited, catching his breath and hoping he would be the spider and not the fly.

  Shah’s feet swung through the open window and he dropped to the floor. When Shah sprang to his feet, he was greeted by one of Joe Hardy’s powerful punches.

  The Human Spider’s head rocked back, his knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground, unconscious.

  “Guess the Human Spider had a glass jaw,” Joe said to himself.

  By the time Frank, Chris, and Detective Inspector Ryan reached Joe, the younger Hardy had bound Neville Shah with a rope used to keep tourists out of restricted areas of the tower.

  “This was not my idea,” Shah pleaded, having regained consciousness. “Mr. Jeffries hired me,” he confessed to Detective Inspector Ryan.

  “Well, if you’re willing to tell me all about Mr. Jeffries and the Ghost of Quill Garden,” Detective Inspector Ryan said, “I’m certain we can offer you a lighter sentence.”

  “Where is Jeffries?” Joe wondered.

  “He escaped,” Frank said, frowning.

  “Hardly,” Detective Inspector Ryan said, stepping on to the scenic walkway and pointing down. “There’s his boat docking. And there’s half a dozen of my mates from Scotland Yard waiting to greet him.”

  The men looked like ants from the top of the Tower Bridge. But Joe smiled as he saw six ants converge on one ant as it tried to run from the crowd of ants getting off the tour boat.

  “It’s over, lads,” Chris said, patting his American friends on the shoulders. “Let’s get back to the theater.”

  • • •

  Mr. Paul sank into his third-row seat, stunned by the story the Hardys and his son had told him. “Incredible,” Dennis Paul remarked. “However, I’m afraid there’s one part of this mystery you haven’t solved. Where is Jennifer Mulhall and our light board?”

  Joe shook his head and frowned, concerned. He heard the faint tapping of the pipes from the heating system. Then it struck him what the tapping sounded like. “Shave and a haircut.”

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “The heating pipes are tapping out the cadence of ‘Shave and a haircut, two bits,’ ” Joe explained.

  Frank listened. “You’re right!”

  The Hardys followed the tapping until it got incrementally louder.

  “I got it!” Frank exclaimed, getting a hunch where it was coming from. “Mr. Paul, can I borrow your keys?”

  Frank took the keys and ran up to the light booth with Joe and Chris behind him. Taking the back stairs, he stopped at the first door the Hardys had come to when they explored the theater the night the lights had exploded.

  “Remember, Joe, Jennifer’s chain didn’t have a key that fit this lock,” Frank said. “I’m certain Mr. Paul won’t have this key either.”

  “Let’s try the old-fashioned way,” Joe said.

  Frank and his brother backed up and charged the door, slamming their bodies into it. On the third try, the lock broke and the door gave way.

  The Hardys found themselves in the old furnace room. Sitting on her knees, with her mouth and hands bound with electrical tape, was Jennifer.

  Joe pulled the tape away from her mouth. “Jennifer!” he said, giving her a hug.

  “It took ‘Shave and a haircut,’ did it?” Jennifer asked. “I’ve been tapping on that pipe all day!”

  “Here’s your light board,” Frank said to Chris, then he pulled a white satin sheet and something akin to a wedding veil from beneath it. “And here’s Lady Quill’s ghost, as played by Timothy Jeffries.”

  “Right. It was Jeffries you saw in the light booth that night,” Jennifer said. “That other door over there leads right into his office.”

  • • •

  Electricity was in the air five nights later as opening night of Innocent Victim drew to a close. Chris Paul
uttered his last line, Jennifer faded the lights down, and the audience erupted in applause.

  The Hardys stood, giving Emily Anderson and Chris a standing ovation.

  Frank turned to Schulander, seated next to him. “Didn’t you like it?”

  “I loved it,” Schulander said, “but I only stand for my own shows. On the other hand, it might be one of my shows someday. I’d like to talk to Dennis Paul about moving it to a bigger theater.”

  With that, Schulander rose to his feet to join in the standing ovation.

  “One thing still doesn’t make sense,” Joe spoke to Frank over the applause. “Jeffries owned Quill Garden for only five years, but people have been claiming to see the ghost of Lady Quill for more than a century.”

  Frank shrugged, continuing to clap. “That’s one of those mysteries of the theater.”

  Frank smiled, and Joe smiled back. The younger Hardy looked up at the private box where Dennis Paul sat beaming as he listened to the audience applaud his work. Through the red curtain at the rear of the box, Joe saw a figure in white watching the stage.

  “Frank,” he said, tapping his brother on the arm. “Look!”

  But when Joe turned back, the figure was gone.

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “Nothing,” Joe said. “Just another mystery of the theater.”

  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.

  A MINSTREL PAPERBACK Original

  A Minstrel Book published by

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1999 by Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Front cover illustration by Bill Schmidt

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-03496-0

  ISBN: 978-1-4424-9893-8 (ebook)

  First Minstrel Books printing September 1999

  HARDY BOYS MYSTERY STORIES is a trademark of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  HARDY BOYS, A MINSTREL BOOK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.