The Dangerous Transmission (2 page)

“Who'd be a typical user?” Frank asked.

“There are lots of applications,” Jax said. “It could work for anyone who needs a steady flow of
information but doesn't want to mess with an earpiece or headphone.”

“Like television news readers, for instance,” Nick suggested. “I was a news anchor once in Brazil. I had to wear one of those earpieces so I could always be in touch with my producer and hear any late-breaking news that might come in. But the earpiece would fall out and roll down my neck.”

“The receiver could also be used to pick up foreign language instant translations,” Jax added.

“Another great idea,” Nick agreed. “I needed that in China for a while—and had the same problem with the earpiece. Your tooth would make it easy.”

“How about espionage?” Frank offered. “What would be a better way of communicating with a spy than through a device that requires no obvious wires?”

“I've got the perfect client,” Joe said. “Pro football teams. Players could get instant plays from the coaches.”

“I played football in university,” Nick said. “And the dental work wouldn't be much of a problem. Most players are missing teeth anyway!” He grinned as he took a bite out of a cookie. “So when does the world find out about this creation?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, I'm having a small press conference tomorrow afternoon at the flat. Just
reporters from a few scientific journals to start. After I test the reception from them, I'll branch out to the bigger guys, and—”

Jax's sentence was interrupted by the sound of footsteps moving rapidly up the hall toward Nick's quarters. The sudden pounding of a fist on the door made all four of them jump to their feet. Joe's chair tumbled over behind him.

Nick hurried to the door, and the others scrambled close behind.

“Fire, Mr. Rooney,” the guard yelled from the other side of the door. “Fire! In the Medieval Palace.”

2 A Shocking Welcome

“Fire!” Nick exclaimed, grabbing his jacket from the chair where he'd flung it earlier. “What happened?”

“We don't know, sir,” the guard said. “We just discovered it a few minutes ago. The fire crew has been summoned.”

Nick and the guard raced out into the hall without looking back. Frank was on their heels.

“We're right behind you,” Joe called as he and Jax took the steps two and three at a time.

They all raced across the Green, and by the time they appeared at the scene, firemen had arrived by both truck and boat. The Hardys, Jax, and Nick were allowed to stand near the Palace, but were ordered to keep a safe distance away. Frank could
feel the heat from the stone walls. The Palace had been turned into a barbecue pit.

“What do you suppose happened?” Joe asked. “We were over here just an hour ago, and everything was fine.”

“As soon as I can collar one of those firemen, I'm going to find out,” Nick said. “Somebody's head is going to roll. There's no excuse for an accident like this.”

“The building's probably going to be okay,” Jax pointed out. “It's seven hundred years old—it's not the first time it's been on fire, I'm sure.”

“The walls are made of really thick stone,” Frank added. “And the fire crew got here fast. So it's probably not going to spread.”

“But the stuff inside . . .” Joe said, saying what was on everyone's mind.

When the flames were finally extinguished, one of the members of the fire crew escorted Nick and a couple of security guards inside the building. When they emerged a few minutes later, all three had their hands over their mouths. “It's a real mess,” Nick told the Hardys and Jax. His eyes were watering, and his clothes smelled like burning candles. “The guard and I have to talk to the fire chief,” he sputtered between coughs. “I'll be right back.”

“I'll come with you,” Frank said. “I can help you describe what it was like when we left.”

“Good idea,” Jax said, nodding to Nick.

“Okay,” Nick agreed. “Come on.”

Frank, Nick, and a couple of Tower guards walked over to the Green, where the fire chief waited to interview them.

“I'm glad Frank volunteered to go with Nick,” Jax told Joe. “I was going to suggest it anyway—I'm eager to get the full story. And I haven't had a chance to tell Nick that you are detectives yet.”

“I'd like to get inside,” Joe said, watching the entrance to the Palace. A few guards stood in the doorway, talking. “Let's give it a try. They probably think we're employees anyway, since we're here so late.”

Joe took out a notebook and pen and strode up the stone steps. When he reached the guards, he said, “We'll be in there only a few minutes,” he said, as if he belonged there. “We have to take a few notes for our report.” He gave the men a brief smile and brushed on past them. Jax followed. Joe heard the guards just a few steps behind, and he could feel their gazes. But they didn't stop him from entering the Palace.

While the guards watched, Joe and Jax stepped carefully around the charred wreckage and went into the throne room. Joe actually did take a few notes about what he found so he'd be able to fill Frank in on what he saw.

“I figured we'd find this,” Joe said when they
reached what had been the exhibit of kings and queens. The wax royals had melted into odd-looking shapes. Some were grotesque, and some just funny-looking. A few were still melting.

“There's my teeth,” Jax pointed out, reaching down toward a set of dentures floating on flesh-colored wax.

When a guard cleared his throat in a gentle warning, Joe stopped Jax's arm from reaching any farther. “Don't touch,” Joe warned his friend.

Joe continued to walk around the room. A fireman followed, asking Joe and Jax questions about the time before the fire.

Two guards entered the room with a tall ladder. They opened it in the middle of the floor, using it to prop up the massive chandelier which now drooped on one side. As they moved the ladder around the floor to get it in the right position, they pushed a pile of clothing that had been on one of the king figures.

When the cloth was moved aside, Joe spotted a knife with a long narrow blade. He crouched to get a better view. The antique handle was covered with wax, but he clearly saw two initials: J. B.

“Is this yours?” Joe motioned Jax over. One of the guards followed.

“Ummmm . . . yes, it is,” Jax said, a hint of surprise in his voice.

“It looks pretty valuable,” Joe said to the guard.
“Let him take it, okay? He must have dropped it when we were working here earlier. You won't get anything from it but his own prints—and maybe not even that, now that it's been in this fire.”

The guard nodded, and Jax put the knife in his pocket.

By the time Joe and Jax had finished looking around and had gone back outside, Frank was searching for them.

“So what did you find out?” Jax asked. “What caused the fire?”

“The fireman said it might have had something to do with one of the work lights,” Frank said. “One of them was lying on its side—it might have sparked off the fire when it fell. Or there could have been a short in the wiring. The investigators are going to work all night until they come up with something. Nick's staying too, to help.”

“You were in the Palace earlier with these two gentlemen?” One of the firemen was approaching Frank. “Please tell me what you remember,” the fireman said. As he had done with Joe and Jax, he questioned Frank about the time before the fire started and jotted notes in a small black book.

After forty-five minutes of interrogation the guard escorted the Hardys and Jax to the Tower gate. “There's the Tube,” Jax said, nodding to a sign. They walked across the street to the Tower
Hill station for the London subway, called the Underground by the British, and nicknamed the Tube. They each bought a Travelcard, which entitled them to unlimited Underground travel for one week.

Frank, Joe, and Jax walked down three long flights of steps, then took an escalator down two more. One final flight, and they were at last at the tracks for the London subway system.

“When they call this the Underground, they're not kidding,” Joe said, smiling as he scanned the handy map on the wall.

“A lot of the Underground stations were bomb shelters during World War II,” Jax said. “People needed to be far from the surface.”

The platform was a large open area, with several tracks for trains on the left and the right. Joe could also see a second set of tracks, which handled trains going in the opposite direction. People waited for those trains on the other side of the tracks.

On the ride back to Jax's flat, Jax showed the Hardys his father's knife.

“You had a funny look on your face when I found it,” Joe said. “Why?”

“I was surprised that I'd taken it to the Tower,” Jax replied. “I didn't use it for either the raven or the teeth. Frankly, I didn't realize it was even in my bag.”

The Hardys and Jax got off the train at the Knightsbridge station and walked the hundreds of steps back up to the surface. A four-block walk took them to Jax's winding lane. His neighborhood was very quiet, comprising mainly narrow buildings. Most of them had shops or offices on the street level and flats on the upper floors. Jax's medical suite and two-bedroom flat were on the second floor of a brown brick building.

They walked past the two stores beneath Jax's flat. One was a jeweler's store, and the other was Jax's father's taxidermy shop. The third floor of the building was empty. Jax and the jeweler used it for storage.

“Let's go into Dad's shop,” Jax said. “I'll always think of it as his, even though I own it now.”

The inside of the store held a fascinating assortment of common and uncommon objects. Dozens of animals, birds, and fish hung on walls, perched on tables, and rested in display cases. Jax described the variety of animal shapes and parts that he was working on.

“Here's one made from papier mâché,” he pointed out, “and one from burlap and plaster, like the head Nick made of himself. This one's made from dental compound. And some are formed from acrylic or fiberglass.”

He pulled out some drawers with trays in them. “You can't preserve lips, tongues, ears, noses, or
eyes,” he said. “So you either make fake ones yourself or buy them ready-made.”

In the back of the store was his studio. Leaves, branches, moss, rocks, and other objects to help the mounts look real sat on shelves. Tools, wire, brushes, surgical implements, and measuring instruments were scattered on tables.

Jax walked over to a large cabinet and opened the door to reveal bottles and cans of paints, dyes, and cleaning fluids. “Some of the hides have a lot of fat in them,” he said, “so we use gasoline to dissolve it. Dad used arsenic to kill bugs in the furs, but most of us use borax now.”

He led the Hardys to a wooden cupboard that was mounted on the wall like a medicine cabinet. Inside was a large knife rack with a cubbyhole full of sharpening stones. He pulled the knife that Joe had found from his pocket, picked off the dollops of melted wax, and slipped the blade down into the empty slot.

“The weird thing is that I never use any of the knives in this case,” Jax said. “I have my own set. Taxidermists are funny about using their own knives. Dad's are pretty special to me, and I wouldn't want anything to happen to them, so I don't take them out. But I must have. I'd really hate to lose one—which I almost did. Thanks, Joe.”

“This is a really unusual studio,” Joe said, “but cool.”

“Most of my jobs have been fun. I especially enjoy building an animal from scratch—making a form, and then fitting the hide over it. I did a really good dog for the Sherlock Holmes house. We'll go see it sometime while you're here.”

Jax turned out the lights and led the Hardys out the back door of the shop and into an alley behind the building.

“You have your key, right?” Jax asked. “Go on up. I want to get the mail.” While Jax continued on to the lane and toward a jumble of old-fashioned mailboxes, Frank and Joe walked to the iron stairway on the side of the building that led up to Jax's second-floor flat.

Long snakes of fog swirled through the air, alternately hiding and exposing the moon. A damp breeze riffled through Frank's open jacket. Chilled, he reached in his pants pocket for the key Jax had given him when the Hardys had arrived the day before.

Frank stood on the landing in front of the door and pushed the key into the lock. He turned it, but the key wouldn't budge.

Frank looked at his brother standing halfway down the stairs. “I think Jax gave us the wrong key,” he told Joe. “This one won't—”

Wham!
Frank couldn't finish his sentence before the wind was knocked out of him. The door opened behind him and slammed hard into his back.

He stumbled to one knee, then felt himself being pulled up from behind. He heard Joe call his name, but the voice sounded so far away. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was the shocked look on Joe's face.

3 Off with His Head

Joe had just a few seconds to brace himself before his brother's body sailed into him. He stood his ground long enough to maintain some control over their inevitable fall. Then Frank's head butted into him and the two tumbled back down the steps.

“What happened?” Jax yelled, sprinting over to the steps.

“Make sure Frank's okay,” Joe ordered, scrambling to his feet. “Then call the police,” he called back as he raced along the walk to the lane. “Someone was in your house.”

When Joe got to the lane, he stopped for a minute. There was no one in sight in either direction. He strained to hear through the thick, hovering fog. He thought he heard the clicking of footsteps
in the distance toward the right.
The Underground!
he thought.
Of course!