Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Shouts and screams echoed in the dark Inner Sanctum, lit now only by the two flaming vessels on the altar. The cult members had been frightened into a state of pandemonium when the lights went out and were now surging this way and that, trying to find an exit. In the confusion, they kept bumping into each other, some tripping and falling, many of them crying out in fright or frustration. Frank and Joe had plunged directly into the middle of the melee, their flashlights switched on, beams arcing wildly in the darkness as they sought out their father.

"It's the police!" someone shouted. "They turned off the power! They'll get us all for sure!"

"I have to get out of here!" a shrill woman's voice cried out. "My family name will be ruined if I'm arrested as one of the Mysterians!"

"Calm down! Calm down, I say!" Question Mark shouted above the din. "It's not the police. They don't know anything about us!"

Joe could feel the sneer on his lips as the people struggled to push their way through the now-opened doors of the auditorium.

"It most certainly is the police!" he cried out loudly, hoping to scare the wits out of everyone. "They found the man you had locked up on the third floor and they are now on their way up here to arrest you!"

Frank grabbed his arm as the crowd reacted with more anxious shouts and cries. "I hope you are right. The police should indeed be here by now."

"Frank! Joe! Is that you?" a familiar voice shouted behind them.

The boys whirled around, their flashlight beams illuminating their father's face. He had pulled off the black mask and was gaping at them in astonishment.

"What in the world are you boys doing here?" he demanded.

"Oh, Dad, it's a long story," Joe hastened to explain. "No time to get into it now. We rescued Bob Jefferson, little Bobby's father. He was locked up down on the third floor. He went to get the police, so they actually may be here!"

"Of course they are here," Fenton Hardy declared. "And stop shining those lights in my face! I arranged earlier with the police for them to come at exactly eleven-twenty. They planned to shut the main power feed outside to turn this get-together into chaos. All the exits are guarded and every one of these cult members will be arrested on their way out."

Frank slapped his dad on the back. "You're terrific, Dad. What a great plan!"

Fenton Hardy sighed wearily. "Did you boys think I would sneak into this den of thieves without any kind of back-up?"

Frank and Joe caught each other's eyes for a moment in the flickering light from the flaming vessels and began to chuckle.

"Well, we did," Joe admitted. "Guess we never thought how dangerous it could be."

Fenton Hardy shook his head in wonder. "You boys sure take unnecessary chances. It's a good thing luck is always on your side."

Frank grinned. "Heck, Dad. We saw you sneak into the building earlier. We knew you were inside. What better back-up could there be than you?"

Fenton Hardy gave both his sons a stern look. "Remind me that we need to discuss your being here at a fiendish cult's mystical rites in New York City in further detail tomorrow when we are back at home in Bayport. In fact, I may even have Aunt Gertrude act as the judge and jury!"

Frank and Joe looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"What is so darn funny?" their father asked.

"We already know what she'll have to say about it," Joe snickered. "'Well, I never! Well, I never!'"

Fenton Hardy laughed along with his sons. "I guess I've heard that, too, a million times or more!"

By this time the cult members had all pushed out of the auditorium, even Question Mark himself. Frank and Joe and their dad followed in the wake of the attendees and watched from behind as they pushed down the hallway and fumbled their way down the stairs to the exits in the darkness. One of them had grabbed one of the flaming vessels from the altar and was using it as a guiding light, but another member jostled him on the stairway and the vessel fell, spilling hot oil and flame all over the steps and adding more confusion and danger to the panic.

Fenton Hardy pulled his sons over to the side of the hall. "Let's just wait here until the stampede is over. The police will take care of everything downstairs."

He gave his gun to Frank to hold while he pulled off the crimson robe and tossed it and the black mask into a corner.

"Where did you get those?" Joe asked, after Frank had given the gun back to their dad.

"I had been trailing one of the cult members last week," Fenton Hardy told them. "He is a very prominent and politically-involved citizen. This morning I went to his office and told him what I knew. I also showed him the jeweled stick-pin as proof that I was on to the cult. That did it. He was terrified his name would end up in the headlines as being associated with the Mysterians."

"So you made a deal with him?" Frank asked.

Fenton Hardy nodded. "His name will be kept out of the papers and the judge will be lenient with him for helping the police, but he'll still have to pay in some way for his involvement with the cult's crimes. He told me about tonight's meeting here and gave me his robe and mask."

"That really was something when you tossed the stick-pin at Question Mark," Frank praised. "He was really flabbergasted."

Fenton Hardy chuckled shrewdly. "He should have taken a better look at it. That was just a cheap imitation the police had made up last week. The real one is safe at the precinct station and will be used as evidence in the case."

Joe told him that Question Mark had broken into the house last night and that they had followed him from Bayport to New York that morning, and then here to the warehouse. "He had probably hired someone to take him out to the island again so he could look for the stick-pin," he suggested.

"You boys were lucky to find it yesterday," their father told them. "It was an important clue and helped solve the case. What I didn't understand was why the Mysterians wanted Cabin Island so badly. I had no idea there was a pirate treasure hidden there until Question Mark spoke of it a few minutes ago."

The boys explained to him that Bob Jefferson had discovered the cache on the island when he was a boy, but kept it a secret until Question Mark drew it out of him recently in a mind control session.

"That's a pretty amazing secret to keep to one's self all those years, sons. Barmet Bay has always been a haven for pirates and smugglers, and it appears that Cabin Island was the favorite haunt of at least one pirate, if not several."

"It could have been that lady pirate Anne Bonney," Joe suggested. "In a book I was reading earlier today in the library reading room across the street, it said that she is believed to have left several caches of treasure along the East Coast, perhaps one in Barmet Bay."

Frank shook his head in wonder. "And to think we stayed there on Cabin Island just last week," he said musingly. "We tromped all over it! But we didn't have the foggiest notion that there was a zillion dollar treasure right there just waiting to be found."

"Tell a fellow about it!" Joe said with a huff. "That cave must really be hidden. I can't believe we never found it in all our explorations on Cabin Island!"

**************** ******************

It was the following afternoon, a cold sunny and breezy New Year's Day on frozen Barmet Bay. The Hardy boys sat in their ice-boat, accompanied by Bob Jefferson, as the staunch and streamlined craft sped over the gleaming surface of the ice.

Frank was at the tiller, enjoying the wind on his face as he watched the colorful billowing sail and tacked this way and that to get the best of the strong Atlantic breezes. They were on their way past the high cliffs of the mainland with its many tiny coves where ice skaters were whirling and twirling with obvious abandon and glee.

Joe pointed at one of the groups. "That looks like our chums," he called to Frank. "I bet it's Chet and Iola and Callie and Biff. Looks like Biff's ice-boat anchored near them."

"Perhaps we'll stop on the way back," Frank declared. He looked over at Bob Jefferson with a smile. "We just can't let them in on this. It has to remain a secret."

Joe nodded sagely, but he wished their chums could come with them, too, out to Cabin Island where Bob Jefferson was going to show them the secret cave and its hidden pirate treasure trove. The man had been reunited with his son Bobby earlier that morning, and also with his father, Elroy Jefferson. It had been a touching reunion, and one with a bright and happy future. Bob and his father had decided to keep the treasure on Cabin Island a secret, lest onlookers, thrill seekers, and thieves start to visit the island in search of it.

However, the two Jefferson men wanted Frank and Joe to see the treasure because of all the boys had done for them.

Bob Jefferson had rushed to the police station the night before, after being rescued from captivity by the boys in the warehouse. Squad cars and wagons were leaving, according to Fenton Hardy's instructions, at the same time Bob arrived and poured out his story, so he hopped into one and accompanied them back to the warehouse. After the electricity had been cut off by men from the power company, all the cult members had been rounded up as they tried to leave the building, including Question Mark, the evil leader of the cult. They had all been carted off to jail.

"Thank goodness I'll be free of them at last!" Bob Jefferson had said, as the wagons pulled away bearing the nefarious Mysterians.

By that time it was midnight and all of New York was celebrating the New Year in boisterous revelry. But Frank and Joe, exhausted from the long exciting day, returned to their hotel for a good night's sleep. Their father went to the police station to wrap up his investigation, then on to his hotel, and Bob Jefferson returned to his apartment on Houston Street for the night. They all met early in the morning for breakfast, then took a holiday Flying Express back to Bayport.

As soon as little Bobby saw his father, all his memories instantly returned. When he later met his grandfather, Elroy Jefferson, for the first time, he was thrilled to have a 'grandpa', and very excited to see the big old mansion on the Shore Road of Barmet Bay where he and his dad would soon be residing.

"Wow, grandpa!" little Bobby had exclaimed. "I'd sure rather live here in this big house than in our little apartment in New York!"

Elroy Jefferson could scarcely believe the good fortune that his missing son Robert was alive and well and back in his life again. He accepted his son's explanation of how the cult had gained control of his mind with no question or probing, and both father and son promised never to let anything come between them again.

When Aunt Gertrude heard the story of the previous day and night's activity, she huffed and puffed and declared that Frank and Joe should not have been involved in such proceedings, and said, 'Well, I never!' at least ten times. But she was so happy that the boys had rescued little Bobby's father and reunited the man with his own father, that she immediately began to bake Frank and Joe a chocolate cake.

Now, in their ice-boat out on the gleaming wintry bay, the brothers knew a big holiday meal with all the trimmings was awaiting them at home when they returned, and it would be more special than ever because the three Jeffersons would be joining them.

"Go around the other side of the island to the boathouse," Bob Jefferson told Frank, as they sailed into Cabin Cove and approached Cabin Island.

The cove was locked in ice, inhospitable and deserted, as usual. Joe looked around, remembering the book he'd been reading yesterday. Yes indeed, this really was a remote spot, he thought, perfect for clandestine activity and keeping secrets that could last throughout the ages.

"Even now, hardly anyone ever comes out here," he said, as they rounded the island. "No wonder the pirate was able to stash his treasure here and no one ever found it. Except you, Bob."

"What will you do with it now?" Frank wanted to know.

The man shrugged, smiling happily. "I suppose my dad and I will convert some of it to cash. But we plan to give most of it to the museums here in Bayport and New York. Some of the artifacts are priceless objects of art, probably stolen from the castles of royalty centuries ago."

Frank nodded in eager agreement. "Treasure like that sure does belong in museums, I'll say. That way everyone can enjoy it!"

He guided the ice-boat into the little bay by the boathouse and its sail began to flap idly as it came to a halt at the dock. The boys and Bob Jefferson clambered out, then anchored the boat and made it secure. Then they took off up the hillside in the deep and drifted snow filled with the footprints from all the activity of two days ago.

"Are you ready for a real treat?" Bob Jefferson asked Frank and Joe as they reached the woods at the top of the hill.

"You bet!" the boys replied.

"Remember, we have to keep it a secret until the treasure can properly be portioned out."

"No problem," Frank laughed, and Joe nodded in agreement. "This particular secret of Cabin Island will be as safe as a secret can be with the Hardy boys. You can bet your life on it!"

THE END

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.