The Sting of the Scorpion Page 11

  “What did the caller want?”

  “He threatened to expose me to Mr. Quinn and tell him who I really am, unless I agreed to—to do those things that happened Monday morning,” Terry ended lamely.

  “Better spell it all out,” Frank advised.

  “Well, he—he wanted me to loosen the muffling, so it would sound as if the Queen was having engine trouble, and then drop two items from the gondola as we sailed over Bayport.”

  “What two items?”

  “A smoke grenade and a tightly packed balloon in the shape of an elephant. The balloon was designed to inflate automatically in the air after it was released. Obviously it contained a small grenade or destruct charge in it, but he didn’t tell me that beforehand.”

  Joe gave Terry a scornful look. “Is that supposed to be an excuse?”

  “No, of course not.” Terry Embrow shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I realized what bad publicity all this might cause for the Quinn airship fleet, and I didn’t want that. I’m as eager as Mr. Quinn to see dirigibles come back. On the other hand, I had to weigh those bad effects against losing my job. I was sure he’d fire me once he found out I lied on my application and was really his ex-partner’s son.”

  “So you went along?”

  Terry nodded guiltily. “I had to—at least that’s what I told myself.”

  “How did your anonymous caller get the grenade and the balloon to you?”

  “They were dropped outside my apartment door the night before we took off. I found them the next morning. But whew! I was sweating icicles all during the flight to Africa and back, for fear I’d be caught. Then when I saw Mr. Quinn showing you around Monday afternoon, I figured the jig was up.”

  Joe said, “You knew who we were?”

  “Sure. I heard him introducing you to the crew chief. And I remember seeing your pictures in the paper a couple of times in connection with mysteries you’ve solved.”

  “Where have you been since then?” Frank inquired.

  Terry rubbed his hand over his forehead. “I panicked. I was sure you suspected me, but I had no idea how much you knew. Then I began to wonder whether I should give myself up. So I decided to think things over. I knew of an old cabin in the Ramapo Mountains where Hec and I used to go sometimes. That’s where I’ve been staying for the last couple of days—until this morning.”

  “And now what?” Joe pressed.

  Terry Embrow shrugged and swallowed hard. “I decided to talk to you and make a clean breast of everything.”

  There was an awkward silence. Then Frank said, “If you’re hoping we’ll intercede for you with Mr. Quinn, you’re out of luck. We don’t have any special influence with him, at least not as far as crew-hiring goes.”

  “I’m not asking you to do that. I’m not asking for anything,” Terry retorted proudly. “I came here to tell you the truth and that’s what I’ve done. If you want to turn me over to the police or report me to Quinn, that’s up to you.”

  After drawing Joe aside for a brief consultation, Frank returned to the young crewman and said, “We’re not going to do anything yet, Terry, until we’ve cleared up this whole mystery. In the meantime you’re free to do as you like about telling Quinn.”

  Terry Embrow heaved a deep sigh and rose to his feet. “Fair enough. And thanks for listening, both of you.” He shook hands with the boys and left.

  The Hardys immediately drove to their boathouse. Soon they were chugging across Barmet Bay in their sleek motorboat, the Sleuth. They talked little, each occupied with his own thoughts about the case.

  Finally Joe remarked, “You think Terry was telling the truth?”

  Frank gave a thoughtful nod. “Yes, I don’t believe he’d be a good enough liar to fake such a story. Besides, why would he?”

  “But how did the gang find out his real identity?”

  “That wasn’t hard. They probably checked out the whole crew, looking for a weak link. Once they started probing the background of ‘Hector Maris,’ they realized what was up.”

  “Guess you’re right,” said Joe. “And they took advantage of it. Well, at least we’ve solved part of the dirigible mystery.”

  “But we haven’t helped Dad capture the Scorpio gang yet,” Frank pointed out wryly.

  “Or unraveled the animal-park mystery, either,” Joe added.

  Moonlight silvered the Atlantic rollers as the boys emerged from the bay and rounded southward down the coast. At Sandy Point, they beached the Sleuth quietly and began to reconnoiter the area. Frank pointed to an old weather-beaten cabin, visible among the pines. Its windows were partly boarded up or patched with cardboard, but a light gleamed from inside.

  “That shack could be the gang’s hideout,” Frank murmured in a low voice.

  “And someone’s there!” Joe said tensely.

  They approached cautiously. A beaten path led up to the cabin through the trees.

  “Wait!” Frank hissed suddenly. “We’d be smarter to close in from two directions. That’ll give us a better chance to see what’s going on inside.”

  They tossed a coin. It landed heads, which meant that Joe would approach from the front, while Frank would come through the trees on the left. They agreed on flashlight signals, then separated.

  Step by step, Joe moved closer, pausing from time to time to listen for sounds from within. He almost held his breath as he covered the last few yards. Suddenly a cry of alarm escaped his throat as he felt the ground giving way beneath him. Next instant he was plunging down into darkness!

  The boys beached the Sleuth quietly.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A Fast Fadeout

  FRANK heard his brother’s scream, and, glancing around in the moonlight, saw Joe being swallowed up by the earth.

  “A covered pitfall!” he realized.

  But there was no time to pull Joe out. When the trap was sprung, a buzzer sounded inside the cabin. An instant later a man rushed out, clutching a poker.

  “Got ya now, you punk!” he gloated.

  Apparently he intended either to finish Joe off or take him prisoner. Frank did not wait to find out which. He had picked up a hunk of wood that he had stumbled over earlier, and now dashed through the brush to his brother’s rescue.

  The man from the cabin was just raising his poker to strike. Frank hit him over the head from behind, and the man’s legs buckled!

  But he buffered the impact of his fall with his hands as he went down on all fours. Levering himself upright, the now-disarmed poker-wielder swung around and knocked the driftwood out of Frank’s hand. Then he launched himself with a bull-like rush and butted Frank in the stomach!

  This time Frank went down. Swinging his legs upright, he stopped his opponent’s rush with two well-placed shoe soles in the solar plexus. As the man staggered back, gasping, Frank surged to his feet and belted him in the jaw.

  By then Joe had managed to claw his way out of the deep pit. Without bothering to raise himself from his sprawling position, Joe grabbed his enemy’s left ankle, yanked his foot off the ground, and upended him!

  The man landed flat on his back, cursing. Before he could struggle up again, the Hardy boys were looming over him menacingly. Joe was now clutching the poker and Frank the hunk of driftwood.

  “One wrong move, mister,” Frank said coldly, “and you’ll be spitting out a mouthful of teeth.”

  “Hey!” Joe exclaimed. “This must be the knobby-nosed man that Aunt Gertrude described.”

  “Right. And also one of the guys who braced us in the woods. I can tell by his voice,” Frank added. Then he looked at their prisoner. “Roll over on your chest and hold your hands together in back of you.”

  “Try and make me!”

  “You want a broken nose?”

  The man obeyed. Frank and Joe ripped some tangled vines from the underbrush and bound his wrists.

  “You can get up now,” Frank ordered. “Then walk ahead of us into the cabin.”

  The shack contained a potbellied sto
ve, two bunks, a rickety table and chairs, and a shelf of canned goods. The only light came from a burning candle jammed into the mouth of an empty bottle. A few magazines and paperback novels were scattered about.

  “You want to talk to us,” Frank asked with an edge to his voice, “or the police?”

  “Talk about what?” the prisoner sneered. “You got nothing on me. All I did was dig a trap to protect myself against prowlers like you. No law against that!”

  Frank realized there was a measure of truth in the man’s bluster. Without having seen their ambushers’ faces, Joe and he could not prove that this fellow was one of the men who had waylaid them in the woods.

  The knobby-nosed crook seemed to sense Frank’s frustration and chuckled nastily. “You goofed all the way tonight. While you’re here at Sandy Point, wasting time on me, you’ll be missin’ the real show near Bayport!”

  “What kind of show?” Joe challenged.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know, sonny boy! All I can tell you is that there’s gonna be a lot going on tonight!”

  Frank turned away in disgust. “Watch him, Joe. I’ll look around and see if the gang left any clues.”

  The prisoner kept teasing and making fun of the boys as Frank searched. Joe boiled and was barely able to control his hot temper. Finally he averted his glance to avoid giving the crook the satisfaction of watching the effect of his mockery.

  “Hey, look at this!” Frank exclaimed suddenly.

  “What is it?” Joe moved toward his brother.

  Frank had picked up a battered paperback bearing the title Elephant Boy. The colorful picture on its cover showed an Indian mahout driving his elephant through the jungle, with a snarling leopard poised to spring on him from a tree branch.

  “True story or a novel?” Joe inquired, looking over his brother’s shoulder.

  “True, I guess,” Frank said, flipping through the pages. “It probably tells about how elephants behave, just like the book we found in th—”

  He broke off suddenly and whirled around to check on their prisoner. “Joe! He’s gone!”

  The man had sneaked through the open door while the boys were occupied with Frank’s find!

  Groaning and berating themselves for their carelessness, the Hardys dashed outside in pursuit. The man was nowhere in sight and the young sleuths realized that he could easily lose himself in the surrounding brush, with the darkness for added cover. Carefully they probed among the shadowy trees. Then a disturbing thought hit Joe. “Frank, our boat!”

  “You’re right!” Frank muttered angrily. “Come on, let’s see if that’s where he’s gone.”

  The boys hurried toward the beach. Clouds partially veiled the moon, but far ahead, at the water’s edge, the Hardys could see the figure of the fugitive. He was crouching in the cockpit of the Sleuth!

  “Trying to hotwire the ignition!” Frank blurted.

  “He must have had a knife in his pocket to cut himself free!” Joe fumed. “We should’ve frisked him!”

  Their voices carried and the man in the Sleuth straightened up. Next moment he snatched what looked like a hammer from their tool kit and swung a hard blow at the instrument panel. Then he leaped out of the cockpit, ran a few paces out into the water, and dived from view!

  The Hardys’ pulses were pounding with anger and exertion as they reached the scene. “He’s smashed our radio!” Joe cried, then peered into the darkness. “Can you spot him, Frank?”

  “Don’t even waste time looking. He could swim underwater along the point and sneak ashore anywhere among the reeds.”

  “But he’ll get away! There’s a highway back inland. He may have a car stashed there.”

  “Probably does. He tried to swipe our boat and leave us stranded. We’ve got to get back fast!”

  “You think those remarks he made meant something?”

  “I’m sure of it.” Frank worried. “He said ‘near Bayport.’ That sounds as if the gang may be planning a raid on Wild World!”

  “Leaping lizards! And we haven’t even got a radio to warn Pop!” Joe realized.

  “Exactly, so come on!” Frank urged. “Let’s get the Sleuth out in the water and shove off!”

  Planing up a bow wave, they sped north along the coast to Barmet Bay, then headed inland to the boat harbor. When they finally berthed the Sleuth in her boathouse, more than an hour had elapsed since their departure from Sandy Point.

  Frank ran to a phone booth on the wharf, inserted a coin, and dialed the animal-park number.

  “No answer!” he reported after lengthy ringing.

  “Call Chet!” Joe suggested. “Tell him to rouse the gang and meet us at Wild World!”

  “Roger!”

  Minutes later, their car was speeding toward the animal park. All seemed peaceful as they drove to the entrance. The boys leaped out, gazing through the moonlight at Pop Carter’s bungalow, which was dimly visible in the distance beyond the amusement area.

  “No sign of troub—” Joe started to say, but his voice broke off as the frame building suddenly exploded into white-hot geysers of flame!

  “It’s a fire bomb!” Frank cried.

  CHAPTER XIX

  A Fiery Trick

  THE Hardys were frantic with worry for Pop Carter’s safety. “He may be in there, unconscious!” Joe exclaimed. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t answer the phone!”

  “I know,” Frank said tersely. “Come on, there’s no time to find the watchmen. We’ll have to go in over the gate.”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when a loud boom shattered the night. The ground reverberated beneath their feet. As the echoes died away, a cloud of smoke could be seen billowing on their right.

  “Part of the fence is down!” Frank cried.

  Rather than waste time running along the park boundary to the section of wrecked fence, the boys scaled the gate as Frank had originally proposed. Dropping down on the other side, they raced across the grounds toward Mr. Carter’s bungalow.

  The crackling sound of the flames grew louder as they neared the building. Its walls were ablaze and tongues of flame licked toward the sky from every window.

  “Hold it! Someone’s coming!” Joe told his brother.

  A running figure emerged from the darkness. It was Pop Carter, his wispy hair flying in all directions. Apparently he had pulled on trousers and suspenders over his pajamas.

  “Thank goodness!” said Frank. “Are you okay, sir?”

  “Yes, yes! But how did this blaze start?”

  “Magnesium firebomb, from the way it looked.” Frank hastily related the circumstances that had brought the Hardy boys rushing to the park. “We tried to call and warn you but got no answer,” he added.

  Pop explained that he had been roused from sleep by a call from one of the park’s two night watchmen, who reported glimpsing an intruder inside the grounds. Pop and the other watchman had hurriedly joined the one who called. Then all three had spread out to search the area.

  “Soon as I saw the glow from the flames, I came back to see what had happened. This is terrible!”

  The heat from the blaze was intense, adding to Frank’s suspicion that it was a magnesium fire bomb. “Another bomb exploded right after your bungalow ignited,” he told the park owner. “It wrecked part of the fence.”

  Both bombs, Frank speculated, could easily have been planted during the day or evening by one of the visitors, with timing devices to make them go off during the night hours.

  “What about that prowler the watchman sighted?” Joe put in. “Wouldn’t he have touched off an alarm when he broke into the park?”

  “He should have,” Pop Carter replied, shaking his head in puzzlement. “As I told you fellows the other day, the fence is wired. I can’t figure out how he sneaked in!”

  “Well, never mind now, sir,” Frank said, sympathetically putting a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “The first thing is to fight this fire. You’re outside the Bayport city limits, so you’ll have to rely on the loc
al volunteer fire brigade till they put through an official call for assistance. What about your two watchmen?”

  “They should be along soon,” Pop said anxiously. “Wherever they are, I’m sure they can see the fire by now!”

  “Good! And our gang’s coming to pitch in. Why don’t you go to the nearest phone and call for help, while Joe and I open the front gate for our friends.”

  Pop agreed gratefully and gave the Hardys a key before hurrying off. Chet’s jalopy was already rumbling up to the entrance by the time Frank and Joe got the gate open. Phil and Biff were with Chet. Tony Prito’s pickup arrived moments later, with Leroy Mitchell in the cab beside the driver.

  Luckily, hydrants had been installed when the park’s water system was put in, along with a water tower to maintain adequate pressure. One of the hydrants was located halfway between Pop’s bungalow and a nearby cluster of buildings, which included supply sheds, a veterinary clinic, and half-completed winter quarters for the tropical animals.

  The boys quickly unreeled a fire hose, and soon were spraying a lively stream of water over the blaze. They also used buckets to dampen the surrounding brush to keep the flames from spreading.

  “Hey!” Joe exclaimed as the Hardys refilled their buckets. “Do you hear that?”

  Frank paused and caught the distant sound of an elephant trumpeting. “It’s Sinbad!”

  “Do you suppose he’s just excited by the fire?”

  “He’s pretty far away to get that excited!” A look of dismay came over Frank’s face. “Joe, I think we’ve been tricked!”

  “How come?”

  “That second bomb, the one that wrecked the fence! It would also knock out the alarm circuit!”

  Joe gasped as he caught on. “Which means someone else could have broken into the park. Maybe near the elephant compound!”

  “Right! And the whole purpose of the fire bomb,” Frank went on tensely, “was to divert everyone’s attention to this area, while the crooks carried out their real raid unnoticed!”