Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Slipping and sliding, the boys scrambled up the embankment, grabbing onto rocks and shrubs for support. When they attained the path at the top, they turned and ran along the cliff in the deep snow huffing and grunting from their exertions. At length, Frank turned again and led the way down the path through the woods and out into the clearing by the burned down cabin.

But Callie and the boy were nowhere in sight!

"Callie! Callie!" Frank gaped around in consternation. "Where are you?"

"Good grief!" cried Joe. "I hope nothing has happened to her and Bobby!"

The boys traded feverish glances as they ran over to the spot on the edge of the clearing where they had last seen Callie and the child. They looked around frantically but could see nothing throughout the woods except the snow and trees. Joe checked the footprints in the snow, but there were so many in the area that he couldn't tell in which direction the two had gone.

"Callie! Callie!" Frank cried out, turning a complete circle again to check the view in all directions.

"Where are you?" Joe added, in a loud gruff call.

There was complete silence for a long moment. Frank and Joe stared at each other with fearful expressions. Then, from seemingly far away, they heard:

"Frank! Joe! I'm down by the boathouse!"

"It's her!" Frank cried in relief. "Let's go!"

It had been Callie, all right, but her voice sounded frightened and strained.

"We're coming!" Frank shouted, as they took off once again.

They ran with the long loping leaps of the antelope and were slipping and sliding down the hillside to the boathouse in a matter of minutes. Callie was sitting in the ice-boat at the end of the dock with little Bobby snuggled at her side.

"What happened? Why did you scream?"

Frank, in his excitement, ran out onto the dock so quickly that he began to slip and slide and lose his balance. His arms flailed wildly and his feet flew out from under him. He fell on his backside and slid down to the end of the dock where he came to a halt directly facing Callie in the boat.

Joe walked up behind him grinning. "I guess this means he's fallen for you, Callie."

Frank reddened with embarrassment. "Yuck! I feel like I just pulled a Chet Morton prank. But I was frantic, Callie. What happened?"

The pretty brown-eyed girl's face sobered from its smile at Frank's tumble. "We were waiting by the clearing when this ... this ... strange man came out of a clump of trees right toward us. Scared me to death! Bobby, too."

"Strange man?" Frank questioned, looking bewildered. "What do you mean? Why was he strange?"

"He was just so odd and scary looking...."

"He was a monster!" Bobby broke in, his eyes wide and frightened. "A big ugly monster!"

Frank and Joe could only gape at the two of them.

"Wow, this sure is queer," Joe declared.

"Queer is right," Callie agreed. "He was a tall man, and big, too, with sharp features and swarthy skin. And he was wearing dark robes, like a priest or bishop, and over them a long black cloak with weird designs on it in gold and silver. You know, like astrological ones - the stars and the zodiac. He was wearing a big fur hat, like they wear in Russia and those far northern countries."

"I screamed when I saw him," the girl went on. "He was just as frightened, too, not expecting to see us there. He gasped and turned and fled, and I began running with Bobby down here to the boat. Then we ran into him again not a minute later, and when I screamed again he ran off a second time. I was all ready to take off in the boat if he came anywhere near us again!"

Frank nodded his approval. He noticed that she had unhooked the boat's anchor rope from the dock.

"He looked like a wizard," Callie continued, in a speculative tone. "Or maybe a magician. But not a very nice one. More like one you might run into in a nightmare."

Joe had pulled the intricate silver and gold pin from his pocket. He showed it to Callie.

"He may have been looking for this. We found it on the other side of the island."

Callie picked up the weighty object and scrutinized it closely. "Gosh, it's beautiful, and probably valuable if these stones are real gems. It sure would go well with the rest of his strange outfit."

"Have you ever seen this pin, Bobby?" Frank asked the child.

"I don't think so," the little boy responded, screwing up his face as he looked at the glittering pin.

"Did your daddy wear a pin like this?" Joe questioned him further.

The boy shook his head adamantly. "Daddy doesn't wear stuff like that. He's a tough guy!"

The others chuckled at the remark, and Frank said, "Well, I hope he's a really tough guy, Bobby. We couldn't find him. We think somebody abducted him and took him off the island on an ice-boat."

The little boy's eyes rounded again and he burst into tears, burying his head in the fluff of Callie's jacket.

"Don't fret, sweetie," she soothed him. "If Frank and Joe can't find your father, the police will."

"Right," Frank agreed. "Now we have to go back to Bayport and notify the police about this business. We'll take you to our house, Bobby. You'll like our mother. She's really sweet. And our Aunt Gertrude! Oh boy, she'll really have something to say about our bringing you home!"

Callie and Joe began to laugh.

"She'll blow her top," Frank predicted.

Joe nodded. "And after that, old General that she is, she'll take Bobby in hand and treat him like a puppy."

"A puppy?" The boy looked at them excitedly. "Do you have a puppy?"

Frank shook his head. "No way. Aunt Gertrude would never allow us to have a dog in the house. But she'll treat you like a cuddly little pet. You'll see."

A half hour later the Hardy boys were walking up the drive to their house on High Street back in Bayport. It was a stately brick home with a roomy garage in back where the boys parked their motorcycles and the old auto they had used to help them solve The Shore Road Mystery of the stolen automobiles. At the rear of the garage was a barn which had been fitted out as a gymnasium. The boys and their chums spent many happy hours there on rainy days when the outdoors was too damp and soggy to offer them adventure.

They had berthed the ice-boat in its spot next to their boathouse and then walked Callie home to her house, which was only a few blocks away from their own. Little Bobby walked between them, holding their hands, and the boys were telling him about all the wonderful foods their mother and Aunt Gertrude would cook for him.

"Will they bake me a cake?" Bobby asked. "I really like cake a whole lot."

Joe nodded, as Frank reached to pull open the side door of the house. "Aunt Gertrude loves to bake cakes. And even more, she loves to watch boys eat them!"

As they entered the hall they were immediately greeted by Aunt Gertrude who was standing in the kitchen, obviously eagerly awaiting their return to let them have it.

"Well, it's about time, I dare say," she tore right in at them. "Look at all that snow all over your clothes! At least stamp it off your boots. I just cleaned everything up. Goodness, it's a disgrace the way you boys go tramping all over that frozen bay and then attempt to bring half of it back into the house with you. Why, I never ..."

She abruptly stopped speaking as her flashing eyes rested on Bobby, who stood between the brothers looking at Aunt Gertrude like a scared little rabbit.

"Humphh!" she snorted, her expression softening. "And who, may I ask, is this little fellow?"

"His name is Bobby," Frank told her. "Or at least he thinks so. He doesn't really remember for sure."

"We found him on Cabin Island ," Joe took up the story. "There was a big fire there earlier and the cabin burned down. We found Bobby there alone. He'd gone out to the island with his father, but we couldn't find him. He's missing!"

"Why ...!" Aunt Gertrude stared at them with an astonished expression. "Why ... my goodness! Well, don't just stand there like two bumps on a log. Bring that little fellow in here. My word, he's awfully sooty from that fire! Joe, you make some hot chocolate right away. And Frank, go into the sewing room and get your mother. We'll cook up something wonderful for this lost little boy to eat."

The boys stooped over to pull off their boots.

"Come! Come!" Aunt Gertrude commanded. "Don't waste time!"

"But Aunty," Joe said, "our boots are full of snow."

"Snow shmoe! Who cares?" the peppery lady exclaimed. "We have to feed this lost hungry little boy. If you make a mess, you and Frank can clean it up later."

Grinning at each other, the brothers walked Bobby into the room and Aunt Gertrude immediately began to fuss and coo over him like a mother hen. She pulled off his cap.

"We must get him some clean clothes. Oh, I know just where your clothes are up in the attic, boys, from when you were his age. Why, my goodness gracious!" she tossled Bobby's hair with her bony fingers as he looked up at her with a curious grin. "With this curly blond hair he looks an awful lot like you did at his age, Joe."

Joe pulled open a cupboard to get the powdered hot chocolate. He winked at Frank and they made thumbs-up signs at each other. They had known Aunt Gertrude's motherly instincts would rise to the top. They well-remembered how nice and fussy she'd been to them when they were little.

Frank pulled his boots off and left them in the kitchen before he ventured through the carpeted dining room to find his mother. Joe mixed the powder with the milk to boil on the stove as Aunt Gertrude helped Bobby take off his coat and leggings.

"Yes indeed, Bobby. You look a lot like Joe did when he was a little boy," the woman rambled on. "He and Frank were real cutie-pies just like you are. But then they grew up! Humphh! Boys their age are nothing but a nuisance, always messing things up, always in your hair. They should have just stayed cute little boys like you, in my opinion. But I suppose someday you'll grow up, too ..."

Aunt Gertrude kept up this kind of inane banter for the next twenty minutes or so while she and Mrs. Hardy, who was surprised but also happy to meet the lost little orphan of the fire, prepared an early dinner for him and everyone else.

Fenton Hardy had been in the library when the boys arrived home and, after hearing their story, he himself called Chief Collig at the Bayport Police Department to make a report of the fire on Cabin Island and the lost little boy.

"The Chief already got most of the story about the fire from Chet Morton," Fenton Hardy told his sons after hanging up. "He suggests that we let Bobby rest tonight. Perhaps tomorrow he'll remember things better and we'll be able to pose some questions to him. For now, his father will be considered to be a missing person."

Next he called Doctor Andersen, who agreed to come over later in the evening to take a look at Bobby. After Frank and Joe had brought some of their old clothes down from the attic for Bobby to change into and Aunt Gertrude had happily announced that she was baking a chocolate cake at Bobby's request, Fenton Hardy asked his boys to join him in the library.

"Now tell me," he said to his sons, a crooked little grin on his handsome face, "what information about this incident haven't you told me about yet?"

Frank and Joe exchanged surprised expressions.

"How do you know there's more?" Frank blurted out.

Fenton Hardy chuckled. "It's written all over your faces that there is more to the story than you've related so far."

Joe reached into his pocket. "Gosh, Dad, no wonder you're such a great detective. You can read people's minds."

"Maybe yours and Frank's, at times," Fenton Hardy admitted with a smile. "What is it you have there, son?"

Joe had pulled out the gold and silver jeweled stick-pin they'd found at Cabin Island . He handed it to his father.

"We didn't show it to you before because there wasn't time, with all the commotion about Bobby and everything. But we found it on the shore right by the spot where it looked like someone had taken off in an ice-boat. It may have belonged to that strange character Callie and Bobby saw."

Fenton Hardy's expression suddenly turned to one of great interest as he looked the stick-pin over.

"Boys, this object could be an important clue in a case I've been working on," he said at length.

"What do you mean, Dad?" Frank asked eagerly.

"I've been on the trail of an unusually unscrupulous band of criminals who operate a real estate scam under the guise of a mysterious cult."

"A cult?" Joe repeated, as both boys leaned forward with curiosity.

Fenton Hardy nodded his head. "Yes, they lure people into their web with promises of great psychic power and control over other men. They achieve a kind of mass hypnosis over these followers and then induce them to sign over their properties, supposedly to be used for the good of the group."

"But how could such a cult be involved with Cabin Island ?" Joe wanted to know.

"Good question, but it undoubtedly is." Fenton Hardy held the pin up so they could see it clearly. "Can you see the question mark symbol embedded in these jewels?"

Frank and Joe both nodded in assent.

"We noticed it immediately," Joe told him.

"I have only seen photographs of pins like this," their father went on, "but I'm certain this is one of them. They are worn by the members of the cult known as the Mysterians. This one in particular with the question mark is worn by the Grand Master himself, perhaps that wizard-looking fellow seen by Callie and the boy on Cabin Island ."

"You mean the leader of the cult?" Frank asked.

"Yes, boys, His Highness himself. And he is known to all only by the name 'Question Mark'!"

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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.