CHAPTER X

Monkey on a String

THE latest threat from the Hardys’ enemies only served to stiffen the boys’ resolve. Frank and Joe quietly left the house and stealthily searched the grounds. But they discovered no clue to the missile hurler.

Frank stopped at the dangling nylon rope and yanked it hard. It was firmly fastened around the chimney.

“The fellow must be great with a lariat,” said Joe. “Wonder why he left it here.”

Frank had a theory. If the intruder had been surprised by Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude, he might have shinned down a drainpipe on the other side of the house.

“Without time to unfasten and take his rope,” Joe added.

“Right.”

The boys had a whispered conference.

“Okay!” Joe said. “Let’s try it!”

They confided their reasons for the Kentucky trip to their mother and Aunt Gertrude. The women, although apprehensive, did not oppose the idea.

“We found your father better this evening,” said Mrs. Hardy. “But he’s still not fully conscious. I suppose he would want you to take his place.”

Next, Joe phoned Radley, telling him of their plans. Sam approved heartily and wished the boys success.

“I’ll keep an eye on your dad and your house,” he promised. “Keep me posted.”

The boys then got out their suitcases, and as they packed, cut off all telltale labels from their clothing.

“Have you got the binoculars?” asked Frank.

“Roger. And our miniature radio transmitter.” They were about to shut their bags when Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Gertrude came into the room.

“Do you have your heavy sweaters?” Miss Hardy asked with an air of authority. “Kentucky isn’t Miami, you know.”

“But, Aunty, we’re not going to the North Pole!” Joe protested. “Besides, it’s summer.”

“Never mind. It still gets chilly in the woods at night,” she insisted.

“All right,” Frank agreed. He reached in the closet and pulled out two heavy wool sweaters which he and Joe hurriedly packed.

“And now, Mother,” Frank said, “will you drive us to the bus depot? We can catch the midnight bus.”

After receiving parting admonitions and a hug from their aunt, the boys and Mrs. Hardy got into the car and soon were at the terminal.

“This bus to Kentucky goes via Pittsburgh, Mom,” Frank said. “Good-by and don’t worry.”

He and Joe embraced their mother, then swung aboard. A few minutes later, with a roar of its diesel motor, the vehicle swung out onto the main street. But it had gone only four blocks when Frank tapped the driver on the shoulder.

“We’d like to get off here, please.”

“What? We’ve hardly started,” argued the driver. “This isn’t a local, y’know.”

“It’s very important,” Joe said solemnly.

“Okay, okay.”

The bus stopped at the next corner and the boys hopped off. They strode rapidly back home, approaching the house cautiously from the rear. Nimbly they hopped a fence into their backyard. Silent as shadows, the Hardys cached their suitcases behind the garage, then crept to a sheltering clump of rhododendrons. Tensely they waited, their eyes fixed on the chimney.

Joe whispered, “Do you really think someone will come back for the rope?”

“Sure.”

Earlier Frank had reasoned that their enemy was watching for his opportunity to return to the Hardy home undetected and retrieve the rope. Therefore, he would be more likely to do so if he thought the brothers had left town.

Half an hour passed. Forty-five minutes. Joe glanced into the starry sky and saw that Orion had moved some distance west in the velvety black sky. The boys’ muscles ached.

“Frank, I don’t think anybody will-“

Joe’s words were cut off by a nudge from his brother. The crouching boys peered through the shrub at a small figure creeping around the side of their house. Joe put his mouth to Frank’s ear, “The monkey man!”

“Sh!”

The prowler stopped, listened, then advanced toward the nylon rope. The Hardys were tense with excitement, but dared not move a muscle lest they scare off their enemy. They must capture him at any cost, if their trip to Kentucky were to bring results. Otherwise, the monkey man would be certain to give away the Hardys’ identity, and alert those mixed up in the bridge sabotage.

The intruder waited as if to make sure everyone was safely asleep in the darkened house. Then the man sprang to his full height, which was a scant five feet. Like a cat, he glided up to the rope, seized it, and began virtually walking up the side of the Hardy house.

The boys put their plan into action. Cautiously Joe moved from his hiding place, quietly unlocked the back door, and sped upstairs in the darkness. Frank, meanwhile, darted to the dangling rope and began to pull himself up hand over hand.

The jerk on the rope signaled Frank’s presence. The monkey man, now halfway to the roof, uttered a high-pitched cry. The lights in the house blazed on, and Joe stepped out of the attic window close to the rope. He, too, seized the nylon rope and began to slide down it.

The monkey man was caught between the Hardys!

He shrieked in rage and defiance. “You won’t get me!”

With that, he crashed through the screen oŁ an open second-floor window. Instantly Frank dropped to the ground. A moment later he heard a scream, a bang, and a thump coming from downstairs. He dashed inside to find the monkey man picking himself up from the hall floor at the bottom of the stairs. Aunt Gertrude stood nearby, brandishing an umbrella.

“Crashed right into me!” she gasped.

Frank made a dive for the intruder. Then Joe, halfway between the first and second floors, leaped from the stairway and landed on the monkey man’s back. As the trio rolled over and over, the trapped prowler, though small, fought with the fury of a wild animal. His arms and legs writhed like snakes as he tried to escape the Hardys’ steel grip.

Disheveled and bruised, the boys finally subdued the monkey man, and sat astride him. Mrs. Hardy had called the police and soon a squad car roared up. A lieutenant entered and snapped handcuffs on the prisoner.

Chief Collig arrived minutes later, having received word of the fracas at his home.

“Do you know this man, Chief?” asked Frank as the monkey man glowered at his captors.

“I’ll say. He’s on the wanted list. His name is Monk Smith, an ex-con.”

Frank and Joe told Collig of Smith’s trash-can assault on them in New York. “We figure,” Joe added in a low voice, “he fits in somewhere with the bridge mystery Dad was working on.”

The chief turned to the prisoner. “Who put you up to this caper, Monk?”

Smith only scowled, and would not reply to this question or to any others.

“Okay, take him down to the lockup,” Collig instructed finally. “Maybe he’ll sing there.”

The police chief said that the ex-con would be held without bail for a few days, in order to give the Hardys a better chance to work incognito in Kentucky.

After the police car had sped off, the boys took down the rope. “This might come in handy,” Joe said as he coiled the light nylon and put it in his suitcase.

In a short time the brothers said good-by again to their mother and Aunt Gertrude.

Joe grinned. “This time we’re really Kentucky-bound.”

He and Frank took a taxi to the bus terminal, and caught the next trip out. Settling back in the comfortable seats, the weary young sleuths soon fell fast asleep as the bus hummed along the dark highway.

The next day found the Hardys’ pals leaving Bayport as arranged, separately and at different times: first, Tony; next, Chet; third, Biff; and Phil was last to depart. Their arrival times were spaced so that over the weekend, each made his way independently to the construction shack of John Losi.

Mr. Prito’s trusted assistant was expecting them, and without delay assigned the four to their respective jobs. Monday, their first day at work, was a busy one. It was not until Tuesday morning that the Bayporters became worried about the delayed arrival of the Hardy boys. Chet rested on his shovel next to a pile of dirt alongside a section of freshly poured concrete.

“Where are Frank and Joe?” he wondered^ “They left before any of us did.” \

Among the swarms of workers in the densely wooded area Chet could make out his three cohorts. Tony, stripped to the waist in the hot sun, was repairing a tractor by the roadside. Biff was driving a concrete mixer, while Phil Cohen, busy writing on a clipboard, stood near an abutment of the bridge under construction.

A brusque voice at his elbow startled Chet.

“We’ll never build this road with you leaning on your shovel, buster.”

The newcomer, a sandy-haired, hard-eyed man, told Chet he was Bond Deemer, the regular hiring agent. “I just got back this morning before Losi left. When did you come on the job?”

Somewhat taken off guard, Chet stammered, “Well, ah, we-I-got here late Saturday, when Mr. Losi hired me.”

“What’s your name?”

Chet gulped. “Chet Ball.”

“Okay,” said Deemer. “I expect a full day’s work. Understand?”

Deemer strode off and Chet resumed shoveling. The hefty boy glanced up now and then at his strange surroundings. Across from the road site, set among the pine trees, were five trailers. Four were used as bunkhouses and the fifth, much larger, contained the kitchen and commissary.

Despite his gloomy mood, Chet felt hunger pangs. “Wish it was chow time,” he thought. The nearest town, Boonton, was too far away for a quick hop to obtain a sack of hamburgers.

Chet’s eyes roved to the wide, gushing stream and the bridge, built halfway across. This was the one, he knew, that twice had collapsed, and now the crew was busy pushing its construction for the third time.

Almost unconsciously, Chet again paused in his work. How could they do any sleuthing without Frank and Joe? he asked himself disconsolately.

“Hey, Ball!” A lantern-jawed man hopped off the cement mixer and strolled toward Chet.

“Wh-who, me?”

“Your name is Ball, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Mr. Angan,” Chet replied hastily.

It hadn’t taken the newcomers long to learn that Robert Angan was the foreman, and a rough taskmaster at that!

“Look, Ball, you’re not paid to stand there like the Statue of Liberty! Get to work!”

Embarrassed, Chet dug his shovel deep into the loose dirt. “That’s right,” Angan needled. “Act like you’re alive!”

A few minutes later Chet straightened up to ease his aching back. Across from him he spied two sturdy youths in dungarees hauling a large log on their shoulders. Chet bravely restrained a whoop of joy. Frank and Joe Hardy!

Frank, in the lead, gave a slight nod of recognition as he and Joe proceeded toward the bridge. Chet started to whistle, and dirt flew furiously from his shovel.

“Hey, Ball, that’s more like it!” yelled Angan.

A shrill blast from a steam whistle signaled the noon hour. Trucks and construction vehicles ground to a halt, and all the workmen headed toward the commissary. Meals were eaten on long, rough-hewn tables inside the trailer. Many of the old-timers sat together, talking and joking as they ate.

Frank, Joe, and their friends managed to find seats near one another, but chattered casually as if they had just met. Across from the Hardys sat a tall hillbilly youth. He had large hands and a long neck, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed.

“My name is Jensen-Joe Jensen,” Joe Hardy said, extending a hand.

The youth looked up shyly from under a shock of brown hair. “Mine’s Willy Teeple.”

“Live around here?” asked Joe.

“Yup.”

The Hardys could see that Willy was not one for conversation. The sentences he spoke were barely longer than one or two words. The foreman, Angan, who happened to be at the boys’ table, seemed to take great delight in riding the workmen.

“See here, Gonzales,” he said to Tony. “If you don’t get that tractor fixed pretty soon, you’ll be heading back south of the border!”

“Yes, sir!” Tony replied.

“Don’t sir me!” Angan shot back. “Just do what you’re hired for.”

“Yes, Mr. Angan.”

“As for you, Jensen, you dumb Swede”-Angan turned to Joe-“I noticed you bothering the guys with questions. What are you? A reporter?”

With difficulty Joe held back a retort and mumbled, “Sorry.”

Chet, ravenous, reached for a third piece of bread. He changed his mind abruptly as Angan stared at him.

“We don’t like heavyweights on our crew!” the foreman said pointedly.

Having finished, Chet rose to leave. As he neared the end of the bench where Angan sat, Chet accidentally jostled the man’s elbow, and the cup of coffee he held spilled over the table.

“Dummy!” roared Angan, jumping up. With one hand he grasped the front of Chet’s work shirt and twisted it until the buttons nearly popped. His other fist cocked back. “For two cents I’d-“

Without warning, Willy Teeple’s big hands grasped the foreman’s wrist in a viselike grip.

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Angan,” Willy said softly.