‘Okay, no-one do anything stupid,’ growled a voice that Joe immediately recognised as Jake’s. Biff backed away, his hands in the air.

‘Let her up!’ Jake snarled at the brothers. Frank and Joe let go of the arms and legs they had pinned beneath them and stared in the light of Biff’s torch at Greta Williams. The woman got up and brushed off her clothes.

‘You silly, silly boys!’ Greta told them. ‘If only you could have been satisfied with getting your brother back!’ she complained to Frank.

‘Greta, maybe you shouldn’t say anything,’ warned Jake gruffly.

‘Nonsense!’ replied Greta. ‘They may as well know hear everything now. We’ll just drug them to the extent that they won’t remember anything about finding us. Sit down gentlemen. Over there.’ Greta indicated the single mattress. The boys did as they were told, Joe in the middle.

‘Greta, we’ll have to kill them,’ argued Jake, his face nervous and agitated. Fenton Hardy will keep sniffing around if these three go missing then turn up again. Let me shoot them down here and I’ll dump them in the river. There’ll be no way he can pin it on us!’

‘No!’ screamed Greta, stamping her foot. ‘I will not have you harm these handsome boys! You will do as you’re told!’

Jake kept the gun trained on the boys but stopped speaking. He was definitely under her influence.

To Biff, Joe and Frank it was clear that Greta was clearly unbalanced but also their only lifeline at this moment! They needed to keep her talking.

‘Why couldn’t you just ask me if you could take my photograph?’ asked Joe. Greta laughed and ruffled his hair in a condescending fashion.

‘Oh Joseph, you gorgeous, naïve creature! Do you have any idea what male models charge these days? They want to be paid by the hour! And they are generally so tiresomely full of themselves! When I could take photographs of three such naturally stunning things as you, Joshua and Stephen, and not pay you a cent, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. The magazines fell over themselves to buy the photographs. You have helped make me a very rich woman.’

Frank looked scathingly at Greta.

‘What you did was cruel and immoral,’ he told Greta.

Greta’s self-satisfied smile faded.

‘I treated Joseph and the others with the utmost gentleness and respect,’ she stated evenly. ‘I would have liked to have kept your brother for at least a few more days, but I knew how upset you and Fenton were.’ Frank knew he had struck a sore point in this deranged woman’s thinking.

‘You made my family suffer for three days wondering where Joe was, filled his system with drugs, and left his imagination going wild about what you did to him while he was drugged out of his mind!’ accused Frank. ‘You call that treating him with respect?!’

Greta began to pace the floor and was clearly agitated. Joe could see that Frank was buying time but was also desperately curious about what else Greta would reveal.

‘How do I know that you didn’t take photo’s for other kinds of magazines?’ Joe asked.

‘Because I wouldn’t do something like that!’ yelled Greta. ‘I have standards. I don’t agree with exploitation of any kind,’ she added, clearly oblivious of the irony in her claim.

‘We need to drug them or kill them now, Greta!’ warned Jake, his gun poised.

‘Hold it right there!’ the voice of Chief Ezra Collig boomed from above. ‘Put that gun up where I can see it!’

As Jake complied, Collig, two officers and Fenton Hardy descended the stairs. As the uniformed officers cuffed an indignant Greta and sullen Jake, Fenton immediately strode over to his sons and Biff. After shaking Biff’s hand, Fenton put an arm around the shoulders of each of his sons.

‘How did you know we were here?’ asked Joe, leaning against his father, enjoying the feeling of relief. Fenton smiled.

‘Three reasons,’ he confessed. ‘I had arranged for Jake to be tailed over the last couple of days. Sources told me he has a history of dishonesty and menace. Also, when my sons are warned away from a case, I’m convinced they interpret that as an invitation to keep sticking their noses in. Thirdly, I received Frank’s message about going for a late night workout.’

Frank could feel some of the irritation he had felt towards his father over the last week melt away. Fenton had been on the case behind the scenes and bailed them out when the crunch had come.

They watched as Collig’s men led Jake and Greta up the stairs to the waiting police van. Fenton sent Greta a hard, disgusted look. Collig indicated the camera sticking out of Frank’s jacket pocket.

‘Feel up to taking a few more photographs to use as evidence?’ he asked with a hint of a smile.

‘As long as I get to keep a set,’ replied Frank with a smile.

While Frank, under Collig’s direction, took pictures of the studio area, beds and the darkroom, Joe and Biff showed Fenton the picture of Joe in ‘Young Scene’. Fenton looked at the advertisement and shook his head, his mouth a thin line of disapproval.

‘This is outright exploitation of you, Joe,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t believe Greta took advantage of you like that.’

‘She seemed to have quite a few screws loose under all that makeup,’ said Joe wryly. ‘What will happen to her Dad?’

‘She’ll be charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault and deception for starters,’ explained his father, his face grim.

‘It was lucky Vanessa spotted Joe’s picture.’ said Biff. ‘I bet we’ll find advertisements featuring Joshua and Steve when we go through other magazines.’

Fenton stopped looking at the picture of his handsome son and looked at the real person instead. Joe seemed a little quiet. He had been through a lot since the euphoria of beginning to investigate a new case less than a week ago. Fenton wondered whether Laura had been right all along about not wanting Joe involved in sleuthing. Biff tactfully excused himself to help Frank.