Mystery of the Whale Tattoo Page 7

  “And once we got to Mystic,” Joe said, “we started running into seamen who are involved—Tim Varney and Whitey Meldrum. The gang Dad is after is made up of seamen. Wow! What a mess! Frank, I think we should get the police to arrest these guys right now.”

  “No good, Joe. There’s nothing they can be charged with—at the moment.”

  “Varney tried to smash you with that whale-bone!”

  “He could claim it was an accident, and we couldn’t prove otherwise.”

  “Well, I still think we should get them while we have the chance,” Joe said.

  “They’d only be set free ten minutes after the police brought them in,” Frank countered, “and besides, they’re not sure how much we know about them. We’d be tipping our hand. Come on. Let’s investigate this shack!”

  They walked in. Joe struck a match and lit the wick of the old-fashioned lamp.

  Two things instantly captured their attention—a woman’s blond wig and a souvenir cane from Solo’s Super Carnival!

  CHAPTER XII

  An Odd Messenger

  JOE picked up the wig and turned it over in his hands. “You know, when Chet said ‘That was no lady’ he didn’t know just how right he was!”

  “Baby Face in disguise,” Frank muttered. “He and I are going to have a few things to settle when we finally come face to face.”

  Joe set down the wig on the cane, which he twirled a moment like a baton. “This proves that at least one of them if not all three were at the carnival.”

  They went through the rest of the shack, but discovered no additional clues.

  “We still don’t know Beluga’s real name,” Frank said tersely.

  “Or what his game is,” Joe added.

  Frank’s brow wrinkled as he repeated the message Beluga had sent to Boko. “‘Getting hot. Getting hot.’ It could mean a couple of things. For instance, ‘We’re almost to our goal.’ Or, ‘The police are close on our trail.’ ”

  The boys pondered the possibilities. Finally Joe said, “I think we’ve done about as much as we can do here. What do you say we go back for Chet?”

  Frank glanced at his watch. “Okay. The hour’s just about up to meet Chet.” They hastened off. Reaching the drugstore, the Hardys saw nearly a dozen youths clustered around the soda counter, talking excitedly.

  “C’mon, boy. You can do it!”

  “Just take it slow and easy.”

  “No problem, fellow. Still plenty of room left.”

  “Go for broke, champ!”

  The Hardys made their way forward and discovered the object of everyone’s attention—Chet Morton! He grinned weakly when he saw his pals. “Hi, Frank. Hi, Joe.”

  “What are you doing, Chet?” Frank asked.

  “Competing in a marathon.” Chet made a sweeping gesture with his hand, taking in a row of empty soda glasses.

  Joe counted. “Five! You put down five sodas?”

  “You bet he did,” said a girl at Joe’s elbow. “And he’s far from finished!”

  “That’s right,” agreed a boy. “The big one’s still ahead of him.”

  “You see,” Chet said, “I’ve never encountered such scrumptious sodas in my life, and before I knew it—well, I knocked off five of them. And now, Charlie ... Oh, excuse me. Frank and Joe, I’d like you to meet Charlie, a soda-making genius!”

  The man behind the counter smiled. “Your friend here is a marvel. I’ve never seen anybody put’em away like him.”

  “That’s the problem,” Chet explained. “Charlie was so impressed that he offered me a King-Size Wonder—that’s his specialty—on the house. I’m not sure I can handle it, but I just can’t bring myself to turn it down!”

  As the crowd chattered encouragingly, Frank and Joe shook their heads in amazement. “How do you do it, Chet?” Frank asked. “How in the world do you do it?”

  “I have a natural talent,” Chet replied modestly.

  “Well, what’s it going to be?” Charlie asked cheerfully. “A King-Size Wonder or defeat?”

  Chet gnawed on his lower lip. A freckled red-head clapped him on the back. “Hey, buddy, I got an idea. Why don’t you take a couple of spins around the block. That’ll work off some of the sodas you’ve already had, and give you the room you need to take on the big baby.”

  Chet contemplated this a moment, then smiled and stood up. “Ordinarily,” he said, “I shun physical exercise. But this is a worthy cause and I feel that a sacrifice is in order.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Charlie said.

  Chet walked out of the drugstore. He stood on the sidewalk, hitched up his pants, and rubbed his hands together. A determined look settled over his face, then he jogged down the block. The freckle-faced boy and another fan went with him.

  Ten minutes and two laps later, Chet returned to his stool in front of the counter. Charlie had the King-Size Wonder waiting. It was a huge soda, made with four flavors of ice cream and enhanced with a great variety of nuts and fruits. A large mound of whipped cream topped it and a bright-red cherry sat at the peak of the whipped cream. The audience murmured appreciatively.

  Chet picked up his spoon, looked around like a matador, then tackled the soda. His fans cheered as he ate with a slow, steady rhythm. When he reached the halfway mark, the spectators began to applaud. The sound of their clapping hands grew progressively louder as the tubby boy neared the end, then broke into a wild crescendo when Chet scooped out the last bit of ice cream.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it,” Frank said.

  Chet’s admirers followed the boys out of the store, congratulating him heartily. A block and a half later the last of the fans fell away. Chet sighed and patted his stomach. “A truly inspiring experience,” he said.

  Frank and Joe could do nothing but express their awe. Then the subject turned to what had happened at the shack. “So that cute blonde of yours,” Frank finished, “was none other than Baby Face!”

  “Oh, no!” Chet exclaimed. Then he said quickly, “I almost forgot. I have some news for you, too.”

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “Knocker Felsen’s in Mystic. He’s looking for you.”

  “You’re kidding!” Joe exploded.

  “No I’m not.”

  “What’s he want?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. But I told him he could find us at Mrs. Snow’s house.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” Joe said. “Didn’t you stop to think that Felsen may be a member of the gang we’re after?”

  Chet looked embarrassed. Apparently this possibility had not occurred to him. “I’m sorry, fellows. Since he came looking for you right out in the open...” He held his hands up helplessly.

  “What’s done is done,” Frank remarked. “I think we should play it cool and approach Mrs. Snow’s place indirectly, in case Felsen is up to something sneaky.”

  Three blocks from Mrs. Snow’s house the boys took to back yards and advanced stealthily. Reaching Mrs. Snow’s property, they split up to reconnoiter, agreeing to meet again behind a large clump of lilac bushes.

  Joe was the first to spot Felsen. He was hiding behind a tree close to Mrs. Snow’s back porch. The three boys knelt at the base of the lilac bushes. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Frank whispered. “Joe and I will circle around and come at him from both sides. Chet, you stay out of the action. If Joe and I run into more than we can handle, you pitch in.”

  The boys moved out and began creeping toward their positions. When they were set, Frank whistled shrilly and rushed forward. He and Joe reached Felsen at the same moment and the three went down with a thud.

  Felsen recovered from the surprise attack quickly and jammed an elbow into Frank’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He threw Joe off and made a rush toward a neighbor’s yard. Joe was after him in a flash, bringing the burly carny to earth with a flying tackle. Frank scrambled to his hands and knees, rested a moment until he got his breath back, then rushed into the fray
just as Felsen was struggling to his feet. Pow! A right to the chin flattened the big youth.

  “Okay, tough guy,” Frank said, pulling the groggy Felsen to his feet. “Let’s have some explanations.”

  Felsen pressed a handkerchief to his bleeding nose. “Look, you guys, I’m not your enemy, Why’d you jump me like that?”

  “Why were you skulking behind that tree?” Chet asked, stepping forward.

  “Mr. Solo sent me to give you a message. He told me you were on a tricky case and that I was supposed to be careful.”

  “Okay,” Joe said. “What’s the message?”

  “The carnival’s closing in Bayport. We made as much as we can there and we’re moving on to Newton.”

  Newton was a small town thirty-five miles from Bayport. Neither Frank, Joe, nor Chet could understand why Solo would send Felsen all the way to Mystic just to inform them of the move.

  “Was there anything else?” Joe asked.

  “Yeah. A note.” Felsen went through his pockets. A worried expression came over his face. “I must have lost it!” he exclaimed.

  The boys searched the ground, but found nothing. Then Knocker explained that he had planned to return to Bayport earlier that evening. “I can’t go now,” he said dejectedly. “It’s too late.”

  “Where will you sleep?” Chet asked him.

  “Don’t know. Could I stay with you guys?”

  Frank was suspicious and far from pleased at the prospect. Joe felt the same way. Chet, however, felt that Knocker was okay.

  “All right, you can stay with us,” Frank said finally. “But no funny business!”

  Felsen was given a cot and fell asleep quickly, and the Hardys and Chet followed suit shortly.

  At daybreak Frank suddenly snapped awake and glanced about. Felsen’s cot was empty! He leaped up and roused Chet and Joe. Neither of them had heard Felsen leave.

  Frank sat down on the cot. “I knew this would happen. Hey, what’s this?” He reached down and drew an object from within a fold in the covers. “Felsen’s wallet!”

  The three of them examined the wallet carefully and Frank located a cleverly concealed secret compartment. From it he drew out a folded piece of paper which he opened.

  It was a pencil drawing of a man’s fist. At the base of the thumb, and on the tip and the base of the index finger were three sections of a tattoo, which, when joined, formed a whale!

  CHAPTER XIII

  A Great Surprise

  “WHAT do you think of Knocker Felsen now, Chet?” Frank asked.

  “Can’t win ’em all,” Chet said apologetically.

  There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Joe called out.

  The door opened and there, out of breath, stood Knocker Felsen. The three boys regarded him in stunned silence.

  “Man,” said Felsen, “I was just getting on my bus when I discovered I’d lost my wallet. Did you see it laying around anywhere?”

  “Yes,” Frank answered. “And we also found this!” He confronted Felsen with the whale tattoo.

  “What’s that?” Felsen asked.

  “You tell us,” Frank replied. “We found it in your wallet. And say, why’d you sneak off like that?”

  “Didn’t want to disturb you,” Felsen said. He eyed the note. “Hey, that’s what Mr. Solo gave me to deliver to you. He found it near Rembrandt’s bunk and he thinks it might be a clue. Am I glad it wasn’t lost after all.”

  Frank eyed Felsen with distrust. “Well, thanks anyway. And say thanks to Mr. Solo, too.”

  Felsen took his wallet and left, grumbling all the way out. The boys waited until his voice faded before they spoke.

  “What do you think?” Joe asked.

  Frank sighed. “I don’t really know. He might be telling the truth and he might not. Too many unknowns to start drawing conclusions.”

  “I wonder if we might get anywhere trying to trace the Long Island whale that Murphy told us about,” Joe said.

  “I was thinking along that same line,” Frank remarked. “I suggest we look through the old newspaper files in the New York Public Library.”

  Both Hardys looked to Chet for confirmation. He shrugged his big shoulders. “It’s okay with me. I’m just the Indian. You guys are the chiefs.”

  They packed their bags and went downstairs. Mrs. Snow served them breakfast in the dining room. The boys ate, thanked her for her help and hospitality, settled their account and left.

  The drive to New York City was long and une ventful, and the boys took turns at the wheel. The arrived in the midafternoon, parked near Times Square, and walked the few blocks to the mair branch of the library. It was a huge, imposing building. The long flight of stairs that rose to its main entrance was guarded by two stone lions.

  The boys went directly to the section in which the microfilm copies of old newspapers were kept. They checked out the indexes of the various New York papers for the years 1919 through 1929. Frank, Joe, and Chet each took a third of the material to be perused, sat down, and began poring through the thick volumes.

  Other patrons of the library came and went, as the large clock on the wall silently marked the passage of time.

  Joe marked his place, looked up, and stretched. Suddenly he went rigid. Across the room and seated at a table pretending he was reading a newspaper was Baby Face! Without taking his eyes from the youth, Joe reached over and tapped his brother’s arm.

  At that moment Baby Face looked up. Joe noticed two things in the split second that followed. First, the man’s shocked look of panic at having been recognized—and second, a black circular mole just above the bridge of his nose and directly between his eyes.

  Baby Face was the first to move. He leaped from his chair and bolted out of the room. Frank and Joe were after him in a flash. They hesitated when they reached the hall. Including the up and the down stairwells, there were five possible directions in which Baby Face could have gone.

  A guard came up to them. “Here, here! You can’t run through the library making a racket like this!”

  “We’re chasing a criminal,” Joe explained. “A young man, short and slightly built, with sandy hair. Did you see him?”

  “No. I just came out of the manuscript room.”

  Frank’s shoulders slumped. “I’m afraid we’re out of luck, Joe. There are too many directions he could have taken. We’d never find him.”

  Frank and Joe apologized for the disturbance and returned to the newspaper section. Chet looked up when they approached. “Where did you guys go? You took off like rockets before I even knew what was happening.”

  The Hardys told him about Baby Face spying on them and of how they were unable to catch him.

  “Well, it’s not a total loss,” Chet said. “While you were gone I found this.” He turned the index in his hands around so that they could read it and pointed to a specific entry:WHALE. Discovered off Montauk Point.

  May 14,1924. Section III, p. 15, col. A

  “Good work, Chet,” Frank said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  They requested the appropriate roll of microfilm and put it into the viewing machine. Frank worked the crank handle until he located the page they wanted. Chet and Joe pressed in on either side of him. It was not a very long story, but it did confirm that the stranded giant was indeed a Blue Whale and that it had been sold to Ralph Zelemeyer—owner of Zelemeyer’s Circus—who intended to have it stuffed and to use it as a side-show attraction.

  The boys returned the microfilm to the librarian. They decided to sit in the park behind the library a while, have an ice-cream bar, and discuss what they had learned. New York City’s businesses were closing and the park was crowded. The boys strolled through it, seeking an unoccupied bench.

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Montauk whale is the same one Biff and Tony discovered,” Frank said. “The next step is to locate Zelemeyer’s Circus.”

  “As long as we’re in New York,” Joe suggested, “why don’t we skip the circus a whil
e and try to run down Whitey Meldrum?”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Frank agreed.

  “Hey, fellows,” Chet said, “I hate to spoil a good ice-cream bar, but there are some not-too-friendly friends of ours over there.”

  Frank and Joe looked in the direction Chet indicated. Near a water fountain they saw Baby Face talking to Tim Varney.

  Frank flung his ice cream into a trash basket and sprinted forward. “Let’s go!”

  Chet and Joe were right behind him. Their dash was like running an army obstacle course. They had to thread their way through knots of people and careen around others. Baby Face and Tim Varney spotted them coming.

  “It’s the brats!” Varney yelled. “We gotta scram!”

  The criminals ran out of the park and plunged into a subway entrance. Frank, Joe, and Chet followed them, but three minutes of search in the jammed labyrinth were futile. They emerged disappointed.

  “Let’s hope we have better luck with Meldrum,” Joe said.

  After Frank had consulted his notebook for the addresses of three homes for old seamen that Captain Flint had given them, the boys were lucky enough to find a taxi in the rush-hour traffic.

  Frank gave the driver the first address. Half an hour later they pulled up in front of a three-story brick building with white shutters and wrought-iron grillwork.

  A plaque set into the cornerstone identified it as Seamen’s Haven.

  The boys entered the building and went to the clerk’s desk. “Excuse me,” said Frank. “We’re looking for an old merchant sailor by the name of Whitey Meldrum. Does he live here by any chance?”

  “He used to,” the clerk replied. “Took off ’bout a week ago. Don’t know when he’s comin’ back—if ever!”

  “Boy, what a sense of timing we have,” Joe said. “Say, would you have a guest here by the name of Spike Marlin?”

  “Matter of fact, we do. Checked in a couple of days after Meldrum left. Friend of Meldrum’s. What do you want with him?”

  “We—er—have some mutual acquaintances. We promised them we’d look old Spike up.”