The Sting of the Scorpion (9 page)

“That mole next to the boy's left eye.”

Frank stopped short with a gasp. “Now I get it! Just like that Quinn air crewman you photographed who was giving us the once-over!”

“Check. I snapped a shot of Embrow's desk photo, too, with my pocket camera.”

“Good work!”

As soon as the boys arrived in Bayport, Joe developed his roll of film. Then he enlarged the picture of the youth in the desk photo and compared it with his shot of the air crewman.

“Hmm. The mole's in the same place,” Frank mused, “and their faces are similar, but I'd hate to bet they're the same person.”

“Ditto,” Joe agreed. “Besides, there's at least five or six years' difference in ages, and neither one of these blowups is ideal for identification purposes. Also, the name stenciled on the crewman's coveralls isn't Embrow. It's H. Maris.”

“Which could be phony,” Frank pointed out. “He'd hardly apply for a job under his own name if there were enmity between his father and Quinn, especially if he were planning to sabotage the
Safari Queen.”

“True, but it's not that easy to get the kind of fake ID he'd need, like a social-security number and maybe a birth certificate and so on. Unless—wait a minute!” Joe snapped his fingers. “Do you suppose there might have been someone else filling in yesterday, doing some temporary maintenance work, and wearing Maris's coveralls?”

“Let's find out.” Frank picked up the phone, dialed the Quinn Air Fleet number, and was soon talking to Lloyd Quinn himself. But the air-fleet owner said no temporary help was ever employed, partly for security reasons and partly because of the high degree of specialized training needed for dirigible work.

“I had a call this morning from that pipeline company,” Quinn added glumly. “The one my next airship was supposed to haul supplies for. Needless to say, they heard about the midair explosions yesterday, and the way they're talking now, they may cancel our contract, just as I feared.”

“At least it hasn't happened yet,” Frank said, refusing to be discouraged. “We'll do our best to crack the case before it does happen.”

He hung up without mentioning his family's fears for his father's safety.

Meanwhile, Joe was studying the computer printout data on the crew.

“Look. It says here Maris attended Ardvor College,” he remarked after listening to Frank's report. “Why don't we drop over there tomorrow and see what we can find out about the guy?”

“Good idea.”

Just then the phone rang. Frank picked up the handset and answered. His face burst into a happy smile as he heard the voice at the other end of the line.

“Dad! We've been worried about you. Are you all right?”

“Yes, son. I'm calling from Cleveland. Sorry I had to end our last conversation so abruptly.”

“What happened, Dad?” Joe put in. He had realized that Frank was speaking to their father and now he eagerly crowded close to the receiver.

“I discovered I was being watched,” Mr. Hardy replied.

“By whom?”

“A known terrorist. At least that's who he looked like. I was calling on an airport phone. When he saw I'd spotted him, he snatched a traveler's bag and hurled it at me, and then got away in the confusion.”

“You think the guy's a member of the Scorpio gang?”

“It's possible. The odd thing is, he was reported to have fled this country over a year ago. He's a Hindu named Jemal Raman, and at that time I was investigating him for acts of terrorism against his own government's embassies over here.”

Fenton Hardy explained that he had gathered enough evidence against Raman so that the U. S. Immigration Service was preparing to deport him. But before a hearing could be held, the Hindu escaped aboard a freighter, evidently fearing arrest.

After listening to the boys' report of their own activities, the detective advised them to keep an eye out for Raman. “He could be vengeful and dangerous. Better check him out in my files.”

“Will do, Dad,” Frank promised. After hanging up, he got Jemal Raman's dossier from the crime file in his father's office so he and Joe could study its contents. These included three long-range telephotos, snapped without the subject's awareness. They showed Raman to be dark-skinned, with a drooping mustache.

“Do you suppose this could be the snoop we spotted at our boathouse this morning?” Frank asked, with a glance at his brother.

“Sure looks like him.” Joe was startled as he examined the photos closely. “Jumping catfish! Notice how his mustache curves down on each side of his mouth?”

“What about it?”

“With a black chin-beard, this guy might even fit Pop Carter's description of that elephant trainer, Kassim Bey!”

Before Frank could reply, a scream rang through the house!

 

 

 

 

“THAT'S mother!” Frank cried.

Joe dropped the photos and both boys dashed into the kitchen. They found their mother backing away from a huge scorpion!

The horrid-looking creature, now poised on the kitchen counter, was brown and hairy and about six inches long. Mrs. Hardy, pale, stared at it with a shocked expression, holding one hand over her mouth. In her other hand she held a wide-mouthed plastic container.

“Out of the way! I'll swat the nasty thing!” exclaimed Aunt Gertrude as she burst in from the dining room. Brandishing a fly swatter, she advanced on the scorpion with lethal intent.

“No. Don't kill it!” Frank protested. “It's an interesting specimen.”

“Interesting, my hat!” sniffed Aunt Gertrude. “That creature may be deadly!”

“I'm not so sure. Where did it come from?”

“Out of here,” Mrs. Hardy replied in a shaky voice, holding up the plastic container.

Frank and Joe examined the label, which bore the name
Vinegareen.
But no manufacturer's name or address was shown.

Joe glanced at his mother, puzzled. “Where'd you get this, Mom? At the supermarket?”

“Certainly not!” Aunt Gertrude cut in, in a scandalized voice. “I got it this morning from a door-to-door peddler.”

“Some phony!” said Joe angrily. “What did he tell you?”

“That he was handing out free samples of a new food product. Said it was highly condensed, and mixed with water, it would give a particularly rich, flavorful form of vinegar.”

The spinster paused to examine the plastic container. “Hmph. Empty, is it?”

“It is now,” Frank said drily.

“I might have known there was something wrong with such an offer. I thought at the time the fellow looked suspicious. ‘That man's got a criminal type of face,' I said to myself. ‘He'll come to no good end!”'

Miss Hardy seemed as annoyed about being cheated out of the expected free sample as she was about the sinister trick that had been played.

The boys smothered grins, then Frank turned anxiously back to their mother. “It didn't sting you, did it?”

“No, but it frightened me out of my wits.”

“I don't blame you. That thing really looks scary.”

With a shudder, Mrs. Hardy went on, “When I opened the container, it crawled out on my hand! I had to shake it off in the sink.”

“It's a wonder it didn't sting you,” Joe said.

“From what I read in the encyclopedia,” Frank said, “I've a hunch this is a whip scorpion called a vinegaroon, a kind that's found in the southwestern United States and Mexico. It's called that because it emits a vinegary odor when aroused, just as this one's doing. Many people think they're highly venomous, but the scientists who study scorpions say they are not.”

Aunt Gertrude described the peddler as a knobby-nosed man with sideburns, wearing a yellow knit sport shirt and checked summer slacks.

“Neat description,” Frank said approvingly. “You make a good witness, Aunty.” He added with a slight frown, “Funny thing is, the guy sounds familiar, somehow.”

Unfortunately, with no photographs of the Scorpio gang to go on, there was no way to identify the man as a member.

The boys managed to corral the scorpion back into the plastic container and delivered it to the home of Thomas “Cap” Bailey, their science teacher and track coach at Bayport High, with whom they had once searched for fossils out West in a place called Wildcat Swamp. Cap verified Frank's guess that the creature was a vinegaroon.

“It'll make a great specimen for our science collection,” he added. “Thanks, boys.”

“Too bad we didn't see those guys who ambushed us in the park yesterday,” Joe remarked as they drove home.

“Or those creeps on Rocky Isle last night,” Frank said. “Then we might know for sure whether Aunt Gertrude's phony peddler was one of the gang.”

“I'll bet anything he was,” Joe declared.

“Likewise. But definite evidence would be better. Which reminds me, Joe, speaking of the park, we still haven't checked out those two guys Pop Carter mentioned.”

“You mean the ones who've been trying to buy him out?”

“Yes.”

“Let's call them as soon as we get home,” Joe suggested.

After phoning, the boys made an appointment for an interview the following morning with Clyde Bohm at his real-estate office. The animal park magnate, Arthur Bixby, agreed to see them Thursday.

After dinner that evening, the Hardys decided to find out whether or not there was anything in Joe's notion that the mustached terrorist, Jemal Raman, might actually be the fired elephant trainer, Kassim Bey, who was believed to be dead.

“I know it sounds far out,” Joe admitted, “but there must be some connection between these two cases we're working on—the Scorpio gang causing the dirigible explosions and Pop's trouble at Wild World. Take that pair who ambushed us in the woods. They warned us to keep out of the
Safari Queen
mystery, but the ambush happened at the park.”

“Check. And that's also where the hollow-tree code message was planted, along with the first scorpion,” Frank added. “And don't forget the gang member who was hiding out on Rocky Isle. He was reading up on elephants!”

“Right. Plus the fact that those green-light signals being flashed toward Rocky Isle came from the Ferris wheel at Wild World.”

“I agree, Joe, there must be some connection; otherwise we're up against too many coincidences. It won't hurt to check out your hunch with Pop Carter.”

As they drove down Elm Street, away from their house, Frank, who was at the wheel, suddenly muttered, “Oh-oh!”

“What's the matter?” Joe asked.

“That parked car we just passed back there on the left. The guy in it had a mustache like Raman's!”

“Jumping catfish! You mean he's got our house staked out?”

“Could be. He's not just sitting there for his health. But I didn't want to slow down for a closer look. It might put him on guard, and then he'd take off before the police got here.”

“Circle around the next block,” Joe proposed, “and come back on the same side he's parked on.”

“I intend to,” Frank said. “You give him a good once-over as we go by.”

Much to the boys' frustration, the car was gone by the time they returned.

“He must have realized you spotted him,” Joe grumbled.

When the Hardys arrived at Wild World, they were surprised to see Tony Prito and Phil Cohen on duty near the gate in the green-jacketed uniform of park attendants.

“What are you fellows doing here?” Frank asked.

“Three guesses.” Phil grinned.

“We all got calls this morning,” Tony said.

“What do you mean, ‘we all?' ” Joe inquired.

“Chet, Biff, Phil, and I, all four of us.”

“Chet and Biff are here, too?” Joe asked, gazing around.

Phil shook his head. “Not now. They work in the afternoon, while Tony and I have the evening shift. We each put in four hours a day.”

“Nice going. Congratulations!” Frank said.

“What about you?” Tony asked. “What brings you here? Just out for fun?”

“Nope.”

“I didn't think so. What cooks?”

Frank took out the photographs of Jemal Raman and explained Joe's idea. “Even if Joe's wrong, the guy might turn up in Bayport. In fact, he may be here already, so watch out for him. Dad spotted him in St. Louis and thinks there's an outside chance he may be working with the Scorpio gang.”

“We'll keep our eyes peeled,” Phil promised.

Pop Carter was glad to see the Hardy boys, but after glancing at Raman's picture, he shook his head. “No. This fellow looks nothing at all like Kassim Bey.”

The elderly park owner sighed and fingered his thinning white hair. “Anyhow, I'm sure Kassim's dead.”

Nevertheless, he thanked Frank and Joe for their efforts and was glad to hear that they would be checking on Clyde Bohm and Arthur Bixby.

Next morning the boys went to keep their appointment at Bohm's real-estate office. Joe backed the car out of the garage and started down the drive. But as he was turning into the street, Frank suddenly exclaimed, “Hey, hold it!”

“What's the matter?”

“Look at those white marks on the front door!”

Joe frowned. “Somebody scribbled something in chalk.” He stopped at the curb, and both boys hurried up the porch steps to inspect the strange marks.