I am truly very sorry that I did not update this story over the course of my summer vacations, but life got in the way and time was not available! I apologize to all of my readers. To those of you who reviewed the previous chapter, I thank you very much. As far as this chapter is concerned, I beg you to READ and REVIEW. If there is something which you do not like, then please say so! Tell me where you want this story to go; it will help a lot!
Happy Reading!
DISCLAIMER: Had I owned the Hardy Boys, I would not have been publishing them here for free, instead, I would have been sitting beside a swimming pool – drinking a cocktail and counting my money.
CHAPTER III
The Limping Bird
IF YOU DON'T KEEP YOUR NOSY NOSES OUT OF OTHER PEOPLES' BUSINESSES, YOU'LL GET A 'BLAST FACIAL' THE NEXT TIME!
"NOW how do you like that?" Frank exclaimed angrily.
"He sure has a wry sense of humor!" Joe deduced.
"Right," Frank agreed, "and he is quite desperate, too!"
The boys went back to the living room; Aunt Gertrude had regained her composure and told the boys that she had been sitting at the kitchen table, in thought, when the bomb had been hurled in from the window. It had missed her head by inches before hitting the floor and exploding with a loud noise. The boys were enraged at the warning and at the stunt which had terrified their dear aunt.
"I told you boys!" Aunt Gertrude exclaimed, "No good ever comes of solving mysteries. You have not even started yet and your enemies are already hurling fake bombs at us! I hate to think what would have happened if the bomb had been real!"
"Calm down Aunty!" Joe requested, "Nobody can get past you without having his brains knocked out!" He laughed.
Miss Hardy walked towards Joe, put her face within a few inches of her nephew's and said, "You keep your jokes to yourself, young man! Or I'll be happy to knock your brains out!"
Now it was Frank's turn to laugh. "You'd be wasting your time, Aunty. He's got no brains, at least not any that we have to worry about!"
Gertrude Hardy did not reply. She turned on her heel and went upstairs. As soon as she left, Laura Hardy burst out laughing.
"Joe, I am quite sure that Gertrude will do as she says!" she said as Joe blushed with embarrassment.
"As I said, she'll be wasting her effort! And for the record, I'm gonna call you Einstein, Joe." Frank was still grinning as he messed up Joe's wavy blond hair.
"I love this nickname!" Mrs. Hardy kissed her sons goodnight and went up to her room.
Joe was quick to change the topic. "What do you say we see the CCTV recording? Maybe the cameras captured the intruder on film."
"Sure, Einstein." Frank replied. "Let's go and check."
Joe gave him a look that would have wilted a plant.
The boys went to their lab and turned on the display monitor, and then Frank rewound the DVR system to the past half hour. After about fifteen minutes, the screen went blank.
"Well I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Joe exploded. "That creep cut the camera cable so that we would not be able to see him!"
"It looks as if he was not working alone," Frank mused. "Also, that bomb that he threw was part of a planned harassing plan. He must have known beforehand that we have CCTV cameras installed around the house and so he crept up behind the camera's field of view and cut the cable"
"I'll go and fix the camera," Frank said, snatching a small toolkit and a walkie-talkie from a drawer. "You stay here and tell me on the walkie-talkie when the video is restored on the monitor."
"Okay," Joe replied.
Frank hurried out to the back grounds and to the kitchen door, where the camera was installed. He climbed on to a small stepladder that he had taken from the garage and saw the wire. It had been cut in a hurry. Frank could see the thin cores and fibers of unevenly cut wire. He quickly stripped the covering off the wires and added a small terminal block. After pushing the wires in it and tightening the screws, he taped it and the wires and said into the walkie-talkie. "I've joined the wires. Check the display."
"The video has been restored. Picture quality's fine." Joe reported.
Frank put the ladder in the garage and joined his brother in the lab.
"What do you say we check that note for fingerprints?" Joe asked.
"Good idea, Einstein!" Frank nodded. "And by the way, I'm impressed! You've given some pretty good suggestions tonight!"
"I try!" Joe winked and flexed his biceps.
Coming back to work, Joe brought the note while Frank set up the required apparatus. When Joe returned, Frank took the note from him and dusted it lightly with graphite powder. A few moments later a set of fine prints appeared on the paper. Frank lifted them with a special process. When he matched these prints, they turned out to be the prints of Frank and Joe, there was no trace of fingerprints which would belong to any other person.
"We're dealing with a professional criminal. He probably wore gloves or wiped the paper clean before tying it to the brick." Frank observed grimly.
Momentarily discouraged, the boys turned on the alarm system, turned off the video screen, locked the lab and went to the main house. There they said goodnight to their mother, and turned in for the night. Both slept soundly and were awakened in the morning by a series of thumps and clicks from the kitchen. They dressed and went downstairs. Aunt Gertrude had assembled the vacuum cleaner and was getting ready to clean all the rooms with her usual vigor.
"Frank, Joe, try to stay away from the rooms today. I don't want you going in and taking your shoes with you!" she commanded sternly.
"Yes, ma'am," Frank obliged, "In fact we are going out to Chet's."
"Good," Miss. Hardy concluded.
Forty minutes later, the yellow-colored, highly polished Hardy sports sedan turned into the driveway of the rambling Morton farmhouse on the outskirts of Bayport. Two pretty girls were sitting on the front porch steps, drinking from cans of soda. They jumped when they saw Frank and Joe. Blond, vivacious Callie Shaw was Frank's girlfriend, while Joe was in love with Vanessa Bender, a tall, slender girl with long ash-blonde hair and gray-blue eyes.
"Hi!" Callie exclaimed as the girls ran to greet the Hardys. "Imagine meeting you two here!"
"What brings the famous and genius super sleuths here?" Vanessa asked with a twinkle in her eyes as she slipped her arm through Joe's.
"Thanks for the compliment ma'am," Joe replied with mock seriousness.
"We decided it would be good to meet you before we start working," Frank answered with a grin.
"Again….," Joe added wryly.
"We know..," Callie said with a sigh.
"Who told you?" Joe asked with surprise.
"Who else would you expect?" a familiar voice boomed behind them.
The boys turned to see the big, burly form of Chet Morton.
"I should've known!" Joe grinned.
"Hi, guys," Chet said, "when do we leave?"
"No information," Joe told his chubby friend. "But we'll let you know soon, so don't worry, buddy!"
"I'm concerned about our food supply problem in the park," Chet confided.
"Don't worry, Chet," Joe reassured, "Campbell has a whole restaurant there."
"Besides," Frank said with a grin, "We aren't going on a pleasure trip; we have to solve a mystery there."
"Don't remind me of that!" Chet groaned.
The teenagers enjoyed the two hours they spent laughing and joking in the Morton's garden. As drank the last of the lemonade which Callie and Vanessa had served earlier, Mrs. Morton came out to the porch and called out:
"Frank! Joe! Your mother just called; she said that you are to meet your father at the airport in half an hour."
"Oh boy!" Frank exclaimed, "We totally forgot that Dad was coming back today! Thank you Mrs. Morton, we'll leave at once."
She smiled. "You're welcome, dear."
As the boys got up to leave, Mr. Morton came in. He was a tall, ruddy-faced man and had his son's complexion and build.
"Hello, boys!" he said, "Leaving so soon? Why?"
Frank told him as he accompanied them to the driveway.
"Goodbye, boys," he called out as the Hardys' sports sedan pulled away. "Say hello to your father for me!"
The Hardys waved goodbye and headed for Bayport Airport, to the north of town. After leaving their car in the parking lot, ten minutes later, they headed for the tarmac, since twenty minutes were left before Mr. Hardy's scheduled arrival. They saw many aircraft being serviced or repaired as they headed for Hangar B, in which Mr. Hardy kept his private plane, the Globe Trotter.
"Hey Frank!" Joe called his brother. "Take a look at this!"
"What?"
"The door to Jack's office is open!"
"Now that's funny," Frank mused. "I thought he kept it locked when he was away."
"He always does, and …..." Joe was interrupted by the loud wail of a siren. He gripped Frank's arm and said, "Come on! I think something's happened!"
The boys ran outside to find the airport buzzing in a dither of activity. Rescue vehicles roared by and came to a stop by the runway apron. Maintenance crews were also waiting. The boys found the airport emergency services manager who was standing amidst the throng, directing the rescue and maintenance crews.
"What seems to be the problem here?" Frank asked him.
He turned to face them. "You're the Hardy brothers aren't you?"
Joe was getting impatient. "Yes we are. So what?"
The manager looked uneasy. "Jack Wayne declared an emergency. The left landing gear of your father's plane has been damaged and won't open!"