The Jungle Pyramid (14 page)

“I was in a racing meet with some alligators,” Joe said and told them about his adventure.

Steve shook his head. “Please don't pull any more stunts like that! We haven't had any casualties so far, and we'd like to keep our record clean.”

When the group reached Palango, the Hardys showered and changed their clothes, then washed those they had worn and hung them up to dry in the late afternoon sun. Then they recounted their adventures to Chet, Biff, Tony, and Armstrong.

“Any news on this end?” Frank asked.

“Nothing,” Biff said. “Tony and I inspected the surroundings now and then, but spotted no one.”

Armstrong frowned. “I'm not surprised to hear that. I still think Calderón's guilty.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Frank asked.

“Let's go back to Mexico City and check with the authorities.”

Next morning the group thanked the people at the dig for their hospitality, then jeeped back to Mérida and took a plane to Mexico City. They found Mr. Hardy at the Montezuma Hotel, which he and John Armstrong had made their headquarters while staying in Mexico.

“Rumble Murphy has been indicted,” he reported, “and the police have arrested his Mexico City contact, a man by the name of Hank Corda. But there's no evidence that they were involved with the Wakefield heist. What did you find out in Palango?”

Frank described the incident with Carlos Calderón and the gold mask. He mentioned the suspicion that the young man had been hypnotized.

“That's possible,” Fenton Hardy mused. “Hypnosis has been used before in crimes.”

Armstrong stirred in his chair. “Calderón is our prime suspect! I want a thorough investigation of him. Take all the time you need. You've got to solve the Wakefield theft!”

The boys promised to get to work right away. First they went to the university and checked on Carlos. The administration confirmed that he was an archaeology student, top man in his class, and was doing work financed by the government. Carlos enjoyed the highest reputation in academic circles.

At police headquarters Frank and Joe were told that Carlos Calderón had no criminal record. The officer in charge made a call to the Department of Aviation to confirm that Calderón held a pilot's license.

“The story Carlos told us checks out,” Frank advised his buddies as they walked toward a shop to have soft drinks.

“Does anybody think Carlos was working with Rumble Murphy?” Joe asked. “Frank and I doubt it.”

Their friends agreed.

“What about Pedro Zemog?” Joe went on. “Zemog took a gold horse. Carlos took a gold mask. Is there a connection?”

“We don't know enough about this guy Zemog,” Biff commented.

Suddenly Frank sat up in his chair. He put his glass down so hastily that soda spilled over the rim onto the marble-topped table. “Zemog!” he exclaimed. “Ze-mog. I have an idea. Read it backwards!”

“G-o-m-e-z,” Tony ticked off the letters.

“That's a popular Mexican name,” Frank continued. “Maybe that's the real name of the man we're after. Come on, let's check the directory.”

The boys went to a phone booth and Frank flipped the pages of the telephone book. He ran his finger down a column of names.

“Boy, Gomez is like Smith back home,” he said. “And there are a lot of Pedros among them.”

“We'll have to split up and take the names one at a time,” Joe suggested.

Frank nodded and wrote two lists of names. He gave one to Biff, who would be accompanied by Chet and Tony. The Hardys took the second list.

They called on half a dozen men named Pedro Gomez. None was the person they were looking for. The seventh call took them to an apartment in the suburbs of Mexico City. Frank rang the bell. A man with gray hair opened the door. When he saw the Hardys, he tried to shut the door quickly, but Frank blocked it by placing his foot on the sill. “Pedro Gomez,” he said. sternly, “we want to talk to you. May we come in?”

Gomez opened the door. “All right. You might as well. I am tired of running.”

They went into the apartment. Apparently Gomez was alone. He was nervous and shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

“You will not find what you came to get,” he told them in an unfriendly tone.

Frank and Joe were startled by the words.

“You admit you had it?” Joe asked incredulously.

“Of course I had it. But I have it no longer. I sold it a few days ago.”

“You sold the Scythian figurine?” Frank exclaimed.

Now it was Gomez's turn to look startled. “The what?”

“The day you visited the museum in New York you stole the figurine of a rearing horse and ran off with it!” Frank reminded him.

“Oh, no! I did not steal the piece!”

Frank stared at the Mexican. “Come on, Mr. Gomez, we saw you running out of the place.”

“Of course I ran. I was afraid for my life!”

“Why don't you tell us your version of the event?” Joe suggested.

The man nodded. “Yes. But I think you will not believe me.”

“Try us.”

Gomez said he had seen a tall blond man open the display case and take out the horse. When the man realized that Gomez had observed him, he hit the Mexican on the head and knocked him against the wall.

“When I got up, the blond man had left the room,” Gomez said. “I ran out after him, but could not see him. Then I heard the guard shout and realized I would be the prime suspect. So I hurried out the door and luckily got a taxi right away.”

Frank and Joe looked at each other. “A tall blond man!” Frank said. “That jibes with the description of the guard.”

“But, Mr. Gomez,” Joe said, “why do you travel under an alias?”

“I am a salesman of rare stamps. I must take every precaution when I travel.”

“So that's what you had in your briefcase,” Joe marveled. “The bulge we thought was the Scythian horse was actually a package of stamps.”

Gomez nodded. “Unique Ruritanian issues, two hundred years old. Priceless! I thought you were trying to steal them from me. That is why I told you just now that I sold them. I did not know you were referring to the Scythian horse.”

“What about the letters A.P.?” Frank asked. “We found two telegrams addressed to Pedro Zemog, and signed with those initials.”

“They stand for Associated Philatelists,” Gomez explained. “I represent the company that sends me buyers' orders by telegram when I am on the road. The first one told me to take the Ruritanian consignment to Zurich, but the Swiss buyer backed out at the last minute. Then I was told to go to my hometown of Mexico City, where a deal went through.”

“You ran from us in Zurich because you thought we were after your stamps?” Joe asked.

Gomez nodded.

“And you used the name Jones at the hotel because you knew we had seen you on the plane?”

“Correct.”

“Incidentally, were you in Chapultepec Castile the other day?”

Gomez smiled. “Yes. I saw you, and I knew you saw me. So I left.”

“Have you ever been to Wakefield?”

“What?”

Joe described the gold heist at the mint.

“My friend,” Gomez protested, “you have suspected me of two crimes that I did not commit!”

“My apologies,” Joe said.

“Now then, who are you?” Gomez demanded.

“We're Americans from Bayport, Frank and Joe Hardy. We're investigating the thefts we told you about.”

While Joe was talking to Gomez, Frank tried to reconstruct the scene at the museum. The guard had said he saw the tall blond man emerge from the Animal Chamber and bury his cigarette in the sand bucket. Maybe the man had hidden the figurine instead!

“Mr. Gomez,” Frank said, “may I use your phone and call the Early Art Museum in New York? I'll pay you, of course.”

“Go ahead.”

Frank was connected with Orlov. Before he could say anything, the Russian curator gave a cry that Joe and Gomez could both hear.

“Finally you call!” he exclaimed. “Why have you not contacted me sooner?”

 

 

 

 

“WE didn't have news for you until now,” Frank said.

“News? I hope good news!”

“Yes. Look for the missing figurine in the sand bucket in the hallway.”

“What? But—” Orlov put down the phone in confusion. A few minutes later he came back on. “You were right! This is fantastic. How did you know?”

“We found Zemog.”

“Remarkable. He hid it there?”

“No. The tall blond man did. When he saw the guard, he put the horse in the sand bucket because he was afraid he'd be caught.”

“You mean Zemog is not the thief?”

“No. He was an innocent bystander who saw what happened. The blond man hit him and knocked him against the wall. That's why he ran out of the building.”

“Amazing, absolutely amazing! I am very happy about it. Thanks to you, good international relations have not been endangered, and I shall report on your good work to my government.”

Orlov hung up. Frank told Gomez and Joe about the discovery of the Scythian figurine.

“That is a relief to me,” Gomez said. “It proves once and for all that I am not the thief!”

“It sure does, Mr. Gomez,” Frank agreed.

“If we ever need rare stamps,” Joe said, “we'll give you a buzz.”

The Hardys went back to the Montezuma Hotel and waited in the lobby for their pals. Chet, Biff, and Tony straggled in, looking worn out. Chet flopped down into an easy chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “I'm bushed!” he said.

“I'm disappointed,” Tony stated. “Every Pedro Gomez we talked to was a false lead.”

“Don't worry,” Frank said. “We found the right one!”

After telling his friends about the rare-stamp salesman, Frank led the way to the room where Fenton Hardy and John Armstrong were discussing strategy.

“Carlos Calderón is clean,” Frank said. “We also found Zemog. His real name is Gomez and he sells stamps. And—the gold horse never left the museum in New York.”

“What!” Mr. Hardy exclaimed in surprise. “Tell us all about it.”

When the boys had finished their account, Mr. Hardy smiled. “Good detective work, boys. As far as the Mexican angle is concerned, I think we've exhausted it. We've been in touch with every conceivable agent dealing in gold, and nothing has turned up. I've also spoken with Johann Jung on the telephone just now, and he says the gold has not surfaced in Switzerland.”

Armstrong put his head between his hands. “We're up against a stone wall!” he said in despair. “No leads whatsoever. But I still feel the solution lies here in Mexico.”

“John, you can't go by a hunch. I vote we return to Wakefield and start from scratch.”

Armstrong threw up his hands and sighed. “All right. At this point, I don't know what to do.”

The group caught a jet for New York the next day. Chet, Biff, and Tony went back to Bayport, while the other four reached Wakefield in the evening. The Hardys checked into a motel, and Armstrong went home.

“I can't get this hypnosis business out of my mind,” Joe confessed. “Who hypnotized Carlos? We know Murphy was in custody, and Gomez is on the level. Too bad Carlos couldn't remember anything.”

Frank had an idea. “Wait a minute! That's what the guards at the mint said. They couldn't remember anything about the gold heist the night they were on duty. Maybe they were hypnotized, too!”

Mr. Hardy nodded. “Good thinking, Frank. That would explain how they passed the lie-detector test. They could have let the thieves into the vault. And they could be telling the truth when they say they don't know a thing about it.”

Frank and Joe were electrified by the theory.

“Who could have hypnotized the guards?” Joe asked.

“The same guy who hypnotized Carlos,” Frank replied. “We were shadowed all the way from Wakefield to Palango. Look! The gang leader used hypnosis to steal the gold. If he came down to the dig, he could have worked on Carlos, too!”

“That's an involved theory,” Fenton Hardy said. “And if you're right, chances are the man followed us back to Wakefield. We'll keep the mint under surveillance all day tomorrow and see what happens. Now let's get some sleep!”

The private investigator and his sons roomed together, but had separate beds. Mr. Hardy was next to the window and Frank near the door, with Joe in between. Exhausted from their long journey, they fell asleep at once.

Frank woke suddenly in the middle of the night. He had an uncanny feeling that something was wrong. “Probably a nightmare,” he thought. Then he heard a scuffing noise and raised his head.

A ghostly figure glided across the room through the darkness, opened the door, and went out. The door clicked shut.

Frank noticed a slight sickish-sweet odor in the room. It grew rapidly stronger. His head began to swim. His detective training warned him what was happening. He leaped out of bed, and opened the door wide. Joe, awakened by Frank's shout, threw all the windows up. Mr. Hardy lay still.

Coughing and choking, the boys pulled their father from his bed and propped him up with his head out one of the windows. They leaned over the other one, gasping for fresh air. Mr. Hardy began to breathe regularly again.

By the time he revived, the gas had dissipated. They all sat down on their beds and talked over their close call.