The Apeman's Secret

by Franklin W. Dixon

  Surprised and a bit alarmed, Joe took the handset and said, “Hi, Aunty! Everything okay at home?”

  “Yes, indeed, your mother and I have everything under control! But have you heard the latest news bulletin?”

  “No. What’s up?”

  “That scoundrel who’s impersonating the Apeman has gone on another rampage!” Miss Hardy informed her nephew.

  Joe gasped. “Whereabouts, Aunty?”

  “At a place called the Comic Art Museum!”

  14

  Stolen Secrets

  Joe was more startled than ever to hear that the museum which the Hardy boys had just heard about for the first time that afternoon should be the scene of the weird vandal’s latest raid.

  After asking a few more questions, he said, “Thanks for the tip, Aunt Gertrude. This may be important!”

  “Indeed it is!” Miss Hardy snapped. “If I hadn’t thought so, I wouldn’t have called at this late hour. Mark my words, there were probably drawings of the Apeman at the museum, and the culprit went there to destroy them as part of a revenge plot against the Apeman and everything connected with him. My theory is the culprit’s gone loony, maybe from reading too many comic books!”

  “You could be right at that, Aunty,” Joe said, smothering a chuckle. Hanging up, he relayed the news to his two companions.

  Frank was keenly interested and wide awake on hearing of this development. “I sure wish we could get a look at the scene of the break-in,” he fretted. “We might turn up a really important clue!”

  “We can stop off at the place tomorrow,” Chet said sleepily. He had just finished peeling off his jeans and was settling himself comfortably in bed.

  “By that time they may have the damage all tidied up,” said Frank, “and the clues will be gone.” He glanced at his watch, then added, “It’s not much after ten-thirty. I wonder if the police would still be at the museum? There wouldn’t be much traffic on the road at this time of night. I bet we could drive there in half an hour!”

  “We could try calling the museum and see if anyone answers,” Joe suggested.

  “Good idea!” Frank strode to the phone and got an outside line, then dialed information and asked for the number of the Comic Art Museum.

  “Do you want the regular number or the after-hours number?” the operator inquired.

  “The after-hours number, if there’s one listed.”

  “Yes, there is.” She read it out.

  Frank tried the number and circled a thumb and forefinger at Joe when his ringing got a prompt response. The answering voice turned out to be that of the museum director, a Mr. Gerald Tappan. He sounded gratified at the Hardy boys’ interest in the night’s mysterious event and invited the famous young sleuths to come as soon as possible to look for clues.

  Chet preferred to stay settled for the night, but Frank and Joe started out immediately and reached their destination by eleven-twenty.

  The museum was located in a small converted factory building. The director and his wife lived in the former owner’s house just across the road. Tappan, who they learned was himself a cartoonist, greeted the Hardys cordially and unlocked the museum for their inspection.

  “How did you happen to discover the break-in?” Joe asked him.

  “Well, in summertime, you see, the museum is open till nine every weekday evening,” Tappan replied. “Tonight, soon after I closed up, my wife noticed a glimmer of light over here, as if someone might be shining a flashlight inside. Next thing we knew, there were noises, loud enough to be heard clear across the road. So I went over to see what was going on.”

  “Isn’t there any alarm system?” Frank put in.

  “Not yet. The museum just exists on donations, and so far we haven’t been able to afford one. Besides, this is a nice quiet area with a low crime rate. I thought perhaps some youngster had just broken in for a prank.”

  Instead, Tappan related, he had discovered the brutal figure of the Apeman, or the Apeman impostor, tearing down drawings from the walls and wrecking exhibits.

  “Did he try to attack you?” Joe asked.

  “You bet he did!” Tappan replied ruefully. “He snatched up a bench and looked as if he were ready to break it over my head! I ran back out the door and across the road to my house and phoned the police. Unfortunately, the nut was gone by the time they arrived.”

  The vandalism was evident in the smears defacing the walls, drawings scattered about the floor, and several three-dimensional exhibits, such as a collection of toys based on comic strip characters, smashed as if with a fist or stick.

  “I haven’t even assessed the total damages yet,” Tappan concluded. “Frankly, I was so upset that when the police and a local reporter finished looking over the situation, I just locked up and went home.”

  “Did the police find out how the guy got in?”

  “Yes, through a rear window.”

  A broken pane and damage to the frame and sill indicated that the window had been levered open by the intruder.

  As Frank stood eyeing the broken window, a sudden thought flashed through his head. “Have you received some work by an artist who’s now dead, named Archie Frome?” he asked the museum director.

  Tappan looked puzzled at the question. “Why, yes. It arrived just a couple of days ago, a whole crateful of his work. I haven’t even had time to unpack it and go through it yet. Why?”

  “Is it still here?”

  Tappan’s expression changed from puzzled to startled. “I—I don’t know. I’ll go see!”

  He led the way to a storage room behind the museum office and went directly to a large crate. To his obvious dismay, the top of the crate had been pried off and the contents looked somewhat disordered, as though someone might have gone through them.

  “Good night!” Tappan exclaimed. “How did you know?”

  “Just a shot in the dark,” said Frank. “Is there any way of telling what’s been taken?”

  “I’m not sure. Let me see.”

  As the museum director examined the contents of the crate, it soon became obvious that the drawings and other artwork were arranged in large file folders, with each folder labeled according to the year in which the work had been done.

  “One whole year’s work is missing!” Tappan exclaimed.

  “What date?” Frank asked.

  “Six years ago.”

  The Hardys were thoughtful as they thanked the museum director and started back to the motel in their car a short time later.

  “Boy, what a weird case!” Joe remarked with a frown as they sped along the moonlit highway. “Do you suppose that artwork in the crate was the real motive for the break-in?”

  “I’d be willing to bet on it,” Frank said. “Whatever was in that missing folder may have been the same thing the thief who tried to rob Frome’s house was after. That time he was out of luck because Frome’s big wolfhound scared him off. But this time he found what he was looking for.”

  “So the damage to the museum exhibits was just a cover-up to mislead the cops!”

  “Maybe, but we can’t be sure of that, Joe. Remember, the faker who’s posing as the Apeman has vandalized other places, too, where there was no artwork involved, like that movie theater in Shoreham and the disco at Bayport.”

  “True.” Joe pinched his lower lip thoughtfully and continued frowning. “Speaking of the Alfresco Disco—do you suppose there’s any connection between this case and the Noah cult? Or was it just a coincidence, the amulet turning up at the disco after the fake-Apeman raid?”

  Frank shrugged and shook his head. “You’ve got me there.”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Joe snapped his fingers excitedly. “I just remembered something.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember that TV news show a couple of months ago that told about the Children of Noah? It was a whole hour-long program on religious cults that seem to cause trouble between young people and their parents.”

  Frank flashed his brother
a startled look. “Yes, I sure do, now that you mention it!”

  “If I’m not mistaken, that program was broadcast by the FBS network, and it really gave the Children of Noah cult a rough going-over. Do you suppose Noah wants revenge, and this Apeman thing is his way of getting even?”

  “You may be onto something there, Joe!”

  Next day, after the Hardy boys and Chet returned to Bayport from the motel where they had stayed overnight, Frank telephoned Vern Kelso in New York to ask his opinion of Joe’s theory.

  “I’d say it’s definitely possible,” the television executive replied. For the first time, Kelso sounded worried. But he could offer no helpful leads by which to verify the theory.

  “We’ll try to check it out,” Frank promised.

  Next, the two boys tried to contact their father by telephone. His number got no answer, but after transmitting his code call repeatedly, they finally got a response over the radio.

  “What’s up, Son?” Fenton Hardy inquired.

  “Dad, is there any connection between the stolen-art case that Sam Radley’s working on and the Children of Noah cult?” Joe spoke into the mike.

  There was a slight hesitation before Mr. Hardy’s voice responded over the loudspeaker. “Yes, there is. Since this transmission is scrambled, I daresay I can answer your question briefly over the air, providing we don’t go into details.”

  The famed detective explained that certain U.S. government security data, as well as stolen industrial trade secrets, were being sold to foreign agents overseas. The CIA had picked up various clues that seemed to point to Noah Norvel as the seller.

  “I was hired to check him out,” Mr. Hardy continued. “So far I’ve had no luck in getting the goods on him. But I did run across evidence indicating that Noah may be involved in another criminal racket, namely, the fencing of stolen jewelry and stolen paintings and other art objects.” In every instance, the detective added, a fake or forgery had been substituted for the authentic stolen item.

  “Then when Paul Linwood asked me to find his daughter,” Mr. Hardy went on, “I hoped that might open up another line of investigation into Noah’s criminal activities. But even that visit Sue paid to the shady art dealer, when Sam spotted her, doesn’t really give us any conclusive proof.”

  Soon after Frank and Joe signed off their radio conversation with their father, the telephone rang in the front hall. Frank answered and heard the voice of the Coast Guard lieutenant who had led the boarding party onto the Ark.

  “We’ve just had a radio call from the Ark,” he reported. “Apparently your friend Buzz Barton’s had a bellyful of the Noah cult. He wants to be picked up. Can you go and get him?”

  “Yes, sir, we’ll leave right now! Thanks for letting us know.”

  The Hardy boys hurried out to their car and sped off to their boathouse near the harbor. But to their dismay after climbing aboard the Sleuth, the engine failed to respond when Joe keyed the ignition.

  “Dead as a doornail!” he groaned.

  “Hang on,” said Frank. “Maybe just a loose connection somewhere.”

  Opening the engine compartment, he attempted to spot the cause. But the job of troubleshooting proved far more difficult than Frank had expected. Almost an hour of sweaty checking was performed by both boys before Frank exclaimed, “Here’s the trouble, Joe—and it’s no accident! Our starter relay has been sabotaged.”

  15

  Code-Word Clues

  Joe was furious but also puzzled by their failure to notice any sign that the boathouse lock had been tampered with.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Frank pointed out. “Any guy who’s smart enough mechanically to pick a lock can easily make it shut again.” He added a moment later, “Look—he didn’t even leave any scratches!”

  “But why worry about all that?” Joe asked. “If he’s going to sabotage our boat, what difference does it make whether we know he broke in or not?”

  “Just a nasty sense of humor, I guess. If we knew the boathouse had been broken into, we’d be prepared to find something wrong with the Sleuth. This way, we don’t discover the sabotage till we’re all set to shove off.”

  “Great!” said Joe, looking disgusted. “So how’re we going to pick up Buzz?”

  “Maybe we can get Tony Prito to take us in his boat,” Frank suggested.

  “Great idea! Let’s give him a call!”

  The Hardys tried Tony’s number from a nearby phone booth. Their high-school chum readily agreed to take them out to the Ark in his motorboat, the Napoli.

  While they were sitting at the boat landing, waiting for Tony to appear, Frank remarked to Joe,

  “You know, there could be another reason why our boathouse was broken into.”

  “Such as?”

  “The intruder might have been looking for something, maybe to see if we had any incriminating information in connection with one of the cases we’re working on.”

  “We haven’t used the Sleuth so far,” said Joe, “in investigating the Apeman mystery.”

  “No, but we did the night we spotted those flashing-light signals from Buzz and went aboard the Ark to find Sue,” Frank reminded his brother.

  “That’s right! So maybe the captain of the Ark or one of Noah’s stooges got worried that we might be watching their ship, maybe snapping pictures of everyone who goes aboard.”

  “Right—or even just keeping a log of how many people come and go. Perhaps they hoped to find something in the boathouse that would tip them off to what we’re up to, and sabotaging the Sleuth was just an afterthought.”

  “That would explain it, all right,” Joe agreed.

  Presently, Tony Prito’s Napoli pulled alongside the boat landing. Frank and Joe clambered into the cockpit with him, and the trio were soon knifing out across the sunlit waters of Barmet Bay.

  They could see a number of people, including white-robed culties, sailors, and at least one officer, watching them from the deck of the Ark as they approached the big converted cruise liner.

  Frank cupped his hands and shouted up, “We’ve come for Buzz Barton!”

  “Watch out, then!” the officer called back. “Here he comes!”

  He turned and gestured to someone behind him with a wave of his hand. The Hardys and Tony saw a struggling figure being dragged toward the rail.

  Next moment the prisoner was picked up bodily and hurled out over the side, hitting the water with a mighty splash not far from the Napoli!

  Luckily the husky, freckle-faced youth seemed unharmed by his dunking. He swam toward the Napoli with brisk, powerful strokes, and the three Bayporters helped him scramble into the boat.

  “What a bunch of yellow punks!” Tony exploded angrily, glaring up at the grinning faces on the deck of the Ark.

  “Don’t waste your breath on ‘em,” Buzz Barton advised. “The poor saps aren’t worth it.”

  On their way back to the harbor, Buzz related what had happened on the evening that he went aboard the cult ship. “They must’ve known beforehand that I was Sue Linwood’s boyfriend and maybe that I was working with you Hardys, too,” Buzz conjectured. “As soon as I went below, a couple of the culties grabbed me, and one of them jabbed me with a needle. After that, everything’s a blur!”

  “You were probably injected with something to make you talk,” said Joe, “like a hypnotic drug. That’s how they must have found out Frank and I were coming later and the signals to lure us aboard.”

  Buzz nodded. “That’s what I thought. I didn’t come to again till you fellows and that Coast Guard lieutenant woke me up in my bunk. By that time I figured the damage was done, so I might as well stay aboard and try to find out as much as I could.”

  “Any luck?” Frank inquired.

  “Not much. Right now the only thing I’m pretty sure of is that Sue’s not on the Ark.”

  “You’re right, she isn’t. As a matter of fact, she was seen yesterday in New York City.” Frank explained how one of his father’s operatives
had spotted the missing girl and how he and Joe had tried to find out if she was staying at Noah’s mansion.

  Buzz in turn told how, after finding out all he could, he had persuaded the captain of the Ark to let him go. “I acted as mean and troublesome as possible,” he chuckled, “picking fights with everyone and refusing to do any work. The skipper and the cultie in charge finally told me to scram and let me send a radio message to the Coast Guard!”

  Barmet Bay was busy with fishing boats and other harbor traffic, including a huge oil tanker that was being nudged into its berth by a tug. As Tony slowed the Napoli and steered toward the boat landing, the Hardys quizzed Sue’s boyfriend for further information on the cult.

  Buzz reported that while the Ark hovered offshore, a whole fleet of smaller craft plied back and forth between the mother ship and various coastal ports, such as Bayport.

  “In each town, there’s an agent who drums up work for the culties,” Buzz said. “You know, like painting or lawn work or jobs as temporary maids or houseboys. One thing I’ll say for the Children of Noah, that cult teaches the kids to work hard and be very polite. And people soon find that out, so they’re happy to be able to hire them.”

  “Which also makes a lot of money for the cult,” Joe remarked.

  “Right. The kids are told that it all goes into the cult treasury. But I’d be willing to bet that means Noah’s private bank accounts!”

  Buzz squinted out across the glittering sheet of spray furrowing aft from the bow. “I don’t know if it means anything,” he went on after a moment, “but I overheard a conversation on the Ark not long after you guys showed up.”

  “Who was talking?” Frank asked.

  “The guy who’s in charge of all the Children of Noah on the Ark, and one of the crew. I might not have paid any attention, except that they were skulking all by themselves up on the boat deck and talking kind of low, as if they didn’t want anyone to hear them. They didn’t seem to realize I was sprawled out on the deck right nearby, or maybe they thought I was asleep.”