The Apeman's Secret Read online

  4

  A Savage Surprise

  Frank and Joe were furious at the news.

  “What did you do?” Joe exclaimed, clenching his fists indignantly.

  “Hung up, of course,” his tall, sharp-nosed aunt retorted. “I hope you don’t think I had any intention of standing there and listening to such silly nonsense.”

  “Good for you, Aunt Gertrude!” Frank put in. He was tickled by the thought of any crooked caller being foolish enough to believe he could bully or overawe Miss Hardy with mere words.

  Nevertheless, it was plain to see that both she and his mother had been upset by the calls.

  “I meant what did you do about it?” Joe persisted. “Did you notify the police or try to get in touch with Dad?”

  “Well, yes, dear, I rang up Chief Collig after the fourth call,” Mrs. Hardy said. “But of course there wasn’t much he could do except promise to have the next one traced, if the caller stayed on the line long enough.”

  “How many calls were there?” Frank asked.

  The two women looked at each other.

  “Five, weren’t there, Laura?” his aunt questioned, then corrected herself, “No, six!”

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Hardy nodded. “There were two more after I phoned the police chief, but they were both short ones, mostly just those scary animal noises.”

  Frank punched his fist angrily into his palm. “I wish Joe and I had been here to answer, Mom, instead of that creep upsetting you and Aunt Gertrude!”

  “Never mind, dear.” His mother patted Frank’s hand as he came back down the steps to stand by her chair and try to comfort her. “It was probably just some crank. Dinner will be on the table soon, so you boys go on up and get ready now.”

  Frank and Joe looked at each other but said nothing within earshot of their mother and aunt. In their room, however, as they peeled off their soiled clothes, Joe turned to his brother. “You suppose the caller was the same guy who made those footprints last night?”

  “Definitely! What I’d like to know is whether he’s the one who gave us those flat tires and stuck the firecracker in our exhaust pipe.”

  “And how about those bald-headed Children of Noah setting us up in the warehouse for that spray-can blitz,” Joe reminded Frank. “Doesn’t it seem like quite a coincidence, the two things happening so close together?”

  “Sure does. But when we turned up at their street demonstration, the culties may have recognized us from seeing our pictures in the paper or somewhere,” Frank pointed out. “You know, in connection with one of the mysteries we’ve solved. That would explain the warehouse ambush. What it doesn’t explain is how they could have known beforehand that we intended to investigate their cult.”

  “Yes, I see what you mean.” Joe frowned. “That geek last night sure couldn’t have known—we didn’t know it ourselves till Dad phoned us this morning!”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “In the dark, right where we were to start with!”

  After dinner the Hardy boys dressed up in their costumes for the comic book party and set out in their yellow car to pick up their girlfriends. Frank, as the Silver Streak, was sleekly togged in a suit that Aunt Gertrude had helped him sew together out of a silvery metallic curtain fabric. Joe, wearing a horned cap with bells and carrying a short leather whip, was impishly costumed as the Whippersnapper.

  After picking up Frank’s blonde date, Callie Shaw, who was going to the party as Tiger Girl, they drove on to the Morton farm. Here they met two other high-school pals, Tony Prito and Biff Hooper, who had stopped by with their girls in Biff’s gaudily spray-painted van to give Chet a lift to the party.

  “Wow! It’s that dazzling defeater of evil, the Silver Streak!” Tony cried as Frank got out of the Hardys’ car.

  “And don’t forget his faithful henchman, the Whippersnapper!” exclaimed Joe with a crack of his whip.

  Tony was clad in a green reptilian costume as Lizard Man, while lanky Biff Hooper had shaved his head and touched it up with shiny shoe polish in order to go as a comic book villain named Cue Ball. Their dates were impersonating Serpentella and Lady Vampyra.

  Soon Chet came waddling out of the house to join them in his Doom Demon costume, clanging his bell and hooting on his horn, followed by his pixie-faced sister, Iola. She was going in a pointy headed green costume as the Martian Miss.

  “Hey, you look terrific!” Joe greeted her, and Iola blushed with pleasure.

  The two cars promptly started out for the Alfresco Disco. This was an open-air dance pavilion that had just been erected at Bayport Memorial Park to provide summer entertainment for teenagers and older citizens. The Hardys and their friends parked in a crowded lot near the disco and made their way into the pavilion.

  The scene was ablaze with psychedelic lights, and a rock group composed of local high-school talent had already begun playing. The disco area was enclosed by decorative sound baffles shaped like shells. They acted as reflectors and amplifiers on the inside but kept the loud music from disturbing other people outside the area.

  “Boy, look at all the costumes!” Biff exclaimed. “It’s like a comic book come to life!”

  A refreshment stand was selling soda, hot dogs, and hamburgers, and tables had been set up all around the pavilion. The master of ceremonies, dressed as a giant bug, was announcing the numbers and calling out wisecracks about the costumes.

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, “a new hit that’s just zoomed to the top of the charts, called ...”

  His voice was drowned out by a sudden loud bellow, followed by gasps and exclamations from the party goers. A burly figure had entered the disco area between two of the shell-shaped sound baffles.

  The newcomer was bulging with muscles and clad in a single furry garment. A dark shock of hair grew low over his craggy forehead, and his heavy jaw jutting out below gave him the look of a primitive humanoid creature.

  “Hey, it’s the Apeman!” Tony exclaimed.

  “Jumpin’ Jupiter! What a makeup job!” cried Biff. “Something tells me you just lost the costume prize, Chet! This guy’s perfect. He looks like the real Apeman!”

  Even as Biff spoke, the creature opened his mouth and emitted another frightening bellow. Then he scowled and began beating his chest with his fists. The audience and disco dancers burst out laughing and applauded loudly, but the Hardy boys exchanged startled looks.

  “Wait a minute!” said Frank, pushing away the table and springing to his feet. “That guy didn’t come to compete for the costume prize. I bet he’s that nut who terrorized the Shoreham theater last night!”

  Frank’s guess was immediately confirmed as the Apeman punched his huge fist through the nearest sound baffle! Next moment he was overturning tables, breaking up chairs, and smashing everything within reach! As he spread a trail of destruction through the Alfresco Disco, he bellowed and growled in savage fury.

  The party goers scattered in panic. The rock group, too, fled at his approach, two of them dropping their instruments as they ran. But the Hardys were simmering with anger. They had already been attacked by bullies earlier that day, and they were in no mood to submit tamely to a much worse outburst of vandalism.

  “Come on! Let’s go stop that creep!” Frank exclaimed.

  “You said it! I’m with you!” Joe agreed.

  “Hey, w-w-wait!” Chet Morton stuttered. “Are you g-guys out of your minds? That Apeman’ll break you up in little pieces!”

  “Like fun he will!” said Joe. “He may be strong, but he’s not strong enough to beat up all of us!”

  “Right! Let’s take him!” cried Tony Prito.

  “Okay, what’re we waiting for?” shouted Biff Hooper.

  “Are you—are you sure you know what you’re doing?” asked Callie Shaw anxiously, plucking at Frank’s sleeve.

  “Please be careful!” Iola begged.

  “We’ll be careful,” Frank promised. “You girls stay back out of the way!”r />
  Picking up pieces of broken chairs and any other makeshift weapons they could lay hands on, the Hardys and their pals headed straight toward the Apeman. Taking heart from their example, other youths plucked up courage and joined them.

  The Apeman tried to frighten them off with angry bellows and threatening gestures. Then, seeing their grimly determined faces, he hurled a table at them and went bounding off with apelike leaps.

  This time he made his way past the row of sound baffles, heading for the entrance at one end of the disco area. There was a brief wild scuffle among the guests unlucky enough to find themselves in his path. The Apeman hurled and flung them aside. Space cleared for his getaway as if by magic. An instant later he was dashing out of the enclosure.

  Seeing him go, some of the youths in the impromptu posse were only too happy to give up the chase. But the Hardys and their friends pressed a hot pursuit.

  “Keep going!” Frank urged. “Let’s nail that nut while we’ve got the chance!”

  “We’re with you!” Tony promised.

  They could see the brutish figure disappearing into the darker reaches of the park. Frank, Joe, and their companions fanned out to cut off his escape but soon lost sight of him.

  Only a few people were using the park at this late hour, including several couples strolling arm in arm, a cripple on a bench, and an old man walking his dog. The Apeman was nowhere to be seen.

  “Guess we’ve lost him,” Joe said after a final look around.

  “Never mind, at least we gave him a good work-out,” said Frank. “Thanks a lot, fellows, for sticking with us.”

  Returning to the Alfresco Disco, they saw Chet, Iola, Callie, and several more of their friends huddled over a scattering of items on the ground near the entrance.

  “No luck?” Chet asked, glancing up as they approached.

  “He got away,” Joe reported. “What are you looking at?”

  “Stuff that got ripped or spilled out of somebody’s pocket during that getaway scuffle.”

  “What’s so interesting about it? Anything look valuable?”

  “Not exactly, but take a look at this.” Chet held up an odd-shaped metal amulet. “Ever seen anything like it before?”

  The amulet bore the image of a flying bird with something in its mouth.

  As the Hardys examined the object and shook their heads, Iola held up a scrap of paper. “And here’s something that should really interest you!” she said.

  Frank and Joe gasped in surprise as they saw what was written on the paper. It was the address of their house on Elm Street!

  5

  Hot News

  “You just found this lying on the ground?” Frank asked with a puzzled glance at Iola.

  “Chet found it,” she replied.

  The chubby youth explained that he had been running along with the posse but had stumbled in his awkward costume and seen the scrap of paper as he fell. “There was enough light over the entrance to see what was written on it. It was your address!”

  The paper looked as if it had been torn from an envelope, but no other writing or printing was visible on it.

  “If all this stuff was lying together, then it must have come out of the same person’s pocket,” Joe reasoned.

  Iola nodded. “Right! That’s what we figured, if it’s any help.”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” Frank replied, “but we’ll check it out.”

  The other items were commonplace objects, including six cents in change, a New York subway token, an ad book of matches, and half a roll of breath mints.

  Frank and Joe carefully slipped the objects into one of the small plastic bags they always carried with them for collecting evidence. As they rose to their feet, they heard clapping and several cheers.

  “Nice going, fellows!” a man called out.

  “Thank goodness someone had spunk enough to chase that dumdum away!” another exclaimed. “He would’ve wrecked the whole pavilion!”

  Much to the Hardy boys’ embarrassment, they realized they were being acclaimed as heroes. A TV camera, poised on a cameraman’s shoulder, was being trained on them, while an interviewer held out a microphone.

  “What made you brave enough to chase after such a terrifying monster as the Apeman?”

  “I doubt if he was the real Apeman,” Frank said mildly. “The person who plays that role in the TV show is probably in California where the television movies are produced.”

  “You may be right,” said the reporter, “but the one we just saw looked scary enough to me!”

  “He was strong,” Joe added, “but that doesn’t mean he’s superman. As soon as he realized that people were ready to put up a fight, he ran off.”

  “Can you tell us exactly what happened?”

  The Hardy boys took turns describing their chase. Tony and Biff also put in one or two remarks, and the interview finally ended.

  The comic book costume party resumed, but despite the excitement, some of the fun had gone out of the evening. Much to Chet’s disgust, a girl dressed as Space Sprite won the costume prize. By ten-thirty, Frank and Joe and their dates decided to leave the party, along with many of their friends.

  Privately, the Hardys were relieved at the prospect of going home early. Both boys were worried that the same frightening caller who had harassed their mother and aunt that afternoon might bother the two ladies again while they were alone in the house at night.

  After taking Callie home first, they drove Iola out to the Morton farm. Chet had already arrived and shucked his costume. Now he was sitting alone in the living room watching television, Mr. and Mrs. Morton having gone to bed.

  The plump youth came out on the porch after the Hardys’ car pulled up in front of the house. Just as Joe was about to see Iola up to the door, Chet waved excitedly. “Come on in!” he called. “They’re going to have something about the disco on the ‘Eleven O’Clock News‘!”

  Frank and Joe accepted the invitation and went inside with Chet and Iola.

  Sure enough, the newscaster was just saying, “And now we have a late report from the Alfresco Disco at Bayport Memorial Park, which was raided tonight by the same vandal who’s been posing as that television character, the Apeman!”

  Not only were there shots of the disco party, in which the Hardys and Mortons recognized a number of their friends in costume, but Frank and Joe were shown close up being interviewed, along with Tony and Biff.

  “My hero!” Iola giggled, seizing Joe’s arm.

  “Oh, it was nothin‘, ma’am,” he quipped. “Actually we were just after the Apeman’s autograph. We didn’t know he was a fake.”

  More interesting to the Hardys than their own interview was the videotape sequence showing the weird vandal. The television news team had been sent to the disco to do a story on the comic book costume party. They had arrived just in time to film the Apeman impostor live, in the very act of carrying out one of his wrecking raids.

  By using a telephoto lens, the cameraman had been able to get some remarkable close-up shots of the mysterious raider.

  “Boy, he sure seems like the real McCoy,” Chet exclaimed.

  “You said it!” Joe chimed in. “We just saw Apeman on TV last night, remember? This guy looks so much like him, I bet he could take over the same role in the show and no one would spot the difference.”

  Almost as if the boys’ conversation had been heard in the television studio, the newscaster went on, “By the way, in case any of you out there are harboring any suspicions about the TV character, one of our network reporters in California has just been in touch with him by telephone. He confirms that the real Apeman is, indeed, at his home near Hollywood.”

  Nevertheless, with his shaggy mop of black hair growing low over his forehead, his brutal features and undershot jaw, the vandal on videotape might have been a twin brother of the character he was impersonating.

  “It’s an amazing resemblance, all right,” said Frank. “Somebody must have done an expert makeup job on
him. And there’s no way those big muscles could’ve been faked!”

  “Talking about expert makeup jobs,” Joe put in, “it’s too bad you didn’t win anything tonight with your Doom Demon costume, Chet. It rated a prize.”

  “I think so, too,” Iola sympathized. “In that costume, Chet looked a lot more convincing than the Space Sprite.”

  “A lot more solid, anyhow,” Frank said with a twinkle.

  “But not nearly as cute,” Joe teased. Then he grinned as Iola playfully stuck out her tongue at him.

  “Aw, who cares,” said Chet, heaving himself up out of the rocking chair he had been occupying. “Cartooning’s where the big money is! And that’s what I’m going into from here on.”

  “Don’t tell us you’re taking another mail-order course?” Frank inquired half jokingly.

  “You bet! It’s called The Seven-Day Way to Fame and Fortune in Cartooning. I’m only halfway through the book, and I’ve already dreamed up a terrific superhero for the comic books! Wait’ll I show you.”

  Chet bustled upstairs to his room and came back with a page of drawings and balloons laid out in cartoon panels. They portrayed a character called Muscle Man. The Hardys could see that Chet had worked hard on his creation, but privately they felt that he had a long way to go.

  “I think you should call him Muscle Head,” Joe commented with a straight face.

  “Okay, wise guy,” Chet retorted good-natured ly, clamping a playful headlock on the younger Hardy boy. “Any more cracks and I’ll muscle your head!”

  “Never mind him, stick with it, Chet,” Frank said encouragingly. “Maybe you’re onto something.”

  On the way home from the Morton farm, Joe, who was at the wheel, noticed headlights steadily behind them in the rearview mirror. As he watched, they suddenly went off, as if the driver realized he had been observed.

  “Think we have a shadow,” Joe muttered.

  “Maybe the same one who tailed us to Shoreham this afternoon,” Frank suggested.

  “Could be!”

  Rounding a bend, Joe pulled off into a side road, hoping to take their follower by surprise as he passed. But no car appeared.