The Dangerous Transmission (6 page)

Joe remembered that Jax had said he never took his father's tools out of the shop. He waited to see what his friend would say next. But Jax stopped there and just smiled at the guard. It looked as if he
was forcing himself to be friendly to his interrogator.

“‘Must have been?'” the guard repeated. “Are you saying that you aren't sure yourself how the knife got there?”

“Well, no, not exactly. Of course it had to have come from my bag, I guess. It's definitely my father's knife.”

“And when did you take it out while you were in the Palace?” the guard asked. “For what purpose were you handling it when you were there?”

Jax edged toward the front of his chair. “Look, exactly what are you getting at here?” he asked. His voice had taken on an irritated tone. “I've already told you I had no use for it there that night,” he continued. “Perhaps it fell out when I got some other tool. Perhaps I took it out in order to reach something else and left it on a table by mistake. If you're saying that I took the knife so that I could cut a wire and start the fire, you're wrong. You're absolutely wrong.”

“You're a dentist by trade, I believe.” A different voice filled the room. Joe, Jax, and the guard shifted their attention to the fireman.

“An orthodontist,” Jax corrected him.

“Yes,” the fireman acknowledged. “We found this substance near the source of the fire,” he continued, opening up a package of wax paper. Inside was a wad of something that looked like plastic.

“That looks like dental compound,” Jax said. “As
you've been told, I formed all the teeth for the wax figures. I used that compound for part of the process.”

“There's nothing suspicious at all about finding that in the Palace,” Joe pointed out. “Jax had been there several times, fitting the teeth and working with the figures.”

“Yes, I suppose you're right,” the guard said, turning toward Joe. “Tell me, Mr. Hardy, just what were you doing there that night?”

“My brother, Frank, and I are old friends of Mr. Brighton,” Joe answered. “We were invited to come with him that night.”

“And when did you discover the knife?” the guard asked.

“After the fire, while my brother and Mr. Rooney met with the fire chief and Tower guards, Mr. Brighton and I surveyed the fire scene. This gentleman monitored us the entire time.” Joe nodded toward the fireman.

“While we were walking around, I spotted the knife. I didn't pick it up until I was cleared to do so. It obviously belonged to Jax, and the guard allowed him to take it. It was not suspicious because Jax had been in the Palace several times with his tools.”

“Yes, well, if you don't mind, Mr. Brighton, we'd like to hold this knife here for a day or two while our investigation continues. I will be happy to give you a receipt.” The guard wrote a note on a piece of paper and handed it to Jax. Then he stood up,
indicating that the interview was over. Everyone else stood up too.

“Thank you for coming in,” the guard said. “We will be contacting you.” He walked around behind the desk, and Jax and Joe headed for the door.

“Mr. Hardy,” the guard called out as Joe stepped onto the cement stoop outside the door. Joe turned and looked at the guard. “How long have you known Mr. Brighton?” the guard asked. His lips spread out in a thin smile.

“He is an old friend,” Joe replied. “In fact, he came to America and stayed with my family while he was studying there. You may have heard of my father, Fenton Hardy. He is a colleague of yours, in criminal justice.”

“How interesting,” the guard said. “I shall be sure to check him out.”

The door closed behind Joe and Jax. There was no light except for a bit coming from a crescent moon and from the few security lamps on the Tower grounds.

Joe checked his watch. “I wonder what happened to Frank,” he said. He reached for his cell phone and dialed the familiar number.

“Hey, bro, what's up?” he asked when Frank answered the phone.

“I was just going to call you,” Frank whispered. “I'm in this church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields—down in the crypt.”

Joe knew there was no point in asking his brother to speak up. If Frank was whispering, there was probably a good reason.

“So are you still with the mysterious woman?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, but I'm not sure why anymore,” Frank said, his voice still low. “She's doing some art project in this small area down here. I've been watching her since we got here, and there's nothing weird going on. I'm walking right now to an area where I can talk better.”

“He says he's in a church called St. Martin's something,” Joe said to Jax while he waited for his brother to relocate. “The woman's doing some sort of art project.”

“St. Martin-in-the-Fields,” Jax said. “The London Brass Rubbing Centre is there, down in the crypt. They're famous for having a great collection of brass castings and moldings. They also supply colors and paper. People go in and make rubbings of these castings that they can take home, frame, and hang on their wall.”

“What do you mean, ‘brass rubbing'?” Joe asked.

“You place a paper over the casting, then rub it with a chalk crayon. The design from the casting appears on the paper.”

“Oh, right—I know what you mean,” Joe said. “We use that technique sometimes in detective work. You can use it with ID tags or coins or
tombstones—anything on which the words or numbers are hard to read. You put a piece of paper over the object and rub a pencil over the paper, and the information just appears.”

“Exactly,” Jax said.

“Are you still there?” Frank asked in Joe's ear. This time Frank's voice was accompanied by a low hum of chatter and an occasional ringing noise, as if glasses were being clinked together.

“Where are you?” Joe asked. “I thought you said you were in a crypt. It sounds more like a restaurant.”

“There's a café down here too,” Frank said. “They're setting it up for some kind of party or something. I'm still walking down a hall, and now through some arches.” Another pause. “Okay, it's quieter here. I can talk without someone hearing me. How's the interview going in the Tower?”

“It's over. And I gotta tell you, they were kind of rough on Jax. They treated him as if he were somehow responsible for the fire or something.”

“Who are you? Why are you here?” Joe heard a strange man's voice with a heavy accent filtering through the earpiece of his phone. His heartbeat seemed to stop for a second. Through the phone he could hear Frank and another man talking.

“Hey, man, take it easy,” Joe heard Frank say. “I'm just talking on the phone here.”

“No—you are causing trouble,” Joe heard the strange voice mutter. “But not any more.”

“Frank!” Joe yelled into the phone. His voice seemed to echo around the massive empty Tower of London fortress. “Frank! What's happening?”

“Mmmgmfph . . . crckkkk . . . uumph . . .” The sounds that Joe heard were not good—and they could mean only one thing. Frank was in trouble.

7 The Eyes Have It

“Joe! You're white as a ghost!” Jax said. “What is it? Who's on the line?”

“Frank!” Joe yelled again into his phone. But he heard nothing. He stayed on the line just in case and sprinted to the gate of the Tower of London with the cell phone next to his ear. “Come on!” he yelled back to Jax. “Frank's in trouble!”

Joe and Jax left the Tower and raced across the street to the Underground. They jumped on the train and streaked through the tunnels of the Tube to the Charing Cross station. While Joe listened to his phone, calling to Frank in an effort to reconnect, Jax called the security number for St. Martin's. As they rode through the city, they caught pockets of phone reception.

They emerged from the Underground at the world-famous Trafalgar Square. The National Gallery of Art was across one street. Forming another side of the square was St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Jax led Joe into the side entrance of the St. Martin's crypt. Occupying the basement of the church, the crypt had been a burial ground centuries ago. Now it had become a tourist attraction with a gift shop and café. But the remnants of the crypt were still evident. Embedded in the floor were tombstones labeled with the names of the bodies buried below the feet of visitors to St. Martin's.

Joe darted ahead when he heard his brother's voice. He and Jax wound through the arches in the crypt until they found Frank talking to three men.

“Hey,” Frank said. He flashed a smile at Joe and Jax. “Did you call for this posse?”

“It sounded like you needed some help,” Joe said. “Jax called these guys before we got into the Tube. I knew they'd get here faster than we could.”

Frank let the medic check over his arm, but Joe could tell that his brother was feeling restless. “I'm fine,” Frank said. “I need to—”

“Sir, you don't look fine,” the man said. The man's name tag identified him as an employee of St. Martin's. The other two wore white jackets with the name of a London hospital printed on the back.

“Just have a seat, sir,” the man with the medical bag said. “Let me take a look at your arm.”

“Can you tell us how you got this injury?” the St. Martin's employee asked.

“Um, I work in the café,” Frank answered. “I'm new. I was taking a break and bumped into someone coming around the corner. The collision sent me into the edge of the archway and I jammed my shoulder.”

“So it was an accident?” the medic asked.

“That's right.”

“Well, you seem okay, except for that shoulder,” the medic concluded, closing up his bag. “Looks like you might have injured your rotator cuff. You'll probably want to have that X-rayed, just in case. Take it easy for a while—no lifting with that arm. Don't swing it around, especially up or back. It might take some time for it to heal completely.”

“Actually, I've had a rotator cuff problem before,” Frank said. “Injured it in a soccer match. So I know what to watch for.”

“Very well, then,” the St. Martin's man said. “I guess we are no longer needed.” With smiles and nods all around, he and the other two medics left.

Joe waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps in the hallway. Then he turned to his brother. “How are you really?” he asked Frank.

“I'm fine,
really,
” Frank said, getting up from his seat. He made a few tentative passes through the air with his arm. When he'd gone too far, he felt a familiar twinge of pain. “If it feels like I need more tests, I'll go in for them,” he added. “But I'm okay for now.”

“So what happened?” Jax asked, following Frank into the hall.

“I'll tell you in a minute,” Frank said. He led Jax and Joe past the café tables and on to the Brass Rubbing Centre. As he'd expected, the mysterious woman was gone.

“We lost her—
and
the guy,” Frank said.

“You mean the woman you followed here, right?” Jax said.

Frank nodded.

“But who's the guy you're talking about?” Joe asked.

“When you called me,” Frank said, “I was watching the woman in the Brass Rubbing Centre. I walked back into the hall where I could be alone to talk, but some man followed me. He asked who I was and what I was doing here.”

“I heard that on the phone,” Joe said.

“Right. Well, I told him I was just talking on the phone,” Frank continued. “But he didn't believe me. He grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. He wouldn't tell me who he was, of course. And he said he knew I'd been following someone and had to stop—that if I didn't, I'd pay. He gave my arm a final twist, and then dropped it and started to run away. When I grabbed his jacket, he wriggled free. I started after him, but the medics stopped me.”

“The woman is the key, don't you think?” Joe guessed.

“Yes,” Frank said. “And she looks familiar.”

“I know,” Joe said. “Let's work on figuring that out—we're bound to place her if we really rack our brains.”

“Maybe some fuel will help,” Frank said. “I'm suddenly starving.”

“Hey, I still need some dinner too,” Jax said. “That Tower interrogation left me weak. Now I know how the royals must have felt before their beheadings on the Tower Green. How about some food? There's a place near my flat that I can't wait to show you.”

Jax, Frank, and Joe grabbed the Tube. While they rode, Frank told them about the man who'd attacked him.

“Obviously a friend of the woman who was following us,” Joe concluded.

“Yeah. I wish I could remember why she looks so familiar,” Frank murmured.

They got off the train in Jax's neighborhood. At eight o'clock they rounded a corner onto a street of small houses. A black sign dangled out from the building on the corner. Painted on the sign were plain white words:
BLACK BELT
.

“There it is,” Jax said.

“No way,” Joe said. “Karate?”

“Remember the fun we had taking lessons when I was staying with you guys?” Jax said, clapping Joe on the back. “You're really going to like this place.”

The club was full of young men and women sitting
at tables and in booths. In the far corner was a small stage.

“This place has karate exhibitions and amateur competitions at nine,” Jax pointed out. “If you want to, you can even participate. You just sign up, and you can either do a single demonstration or pair up with someone else.”

Jax took a flyer from the stack on the stage. “How about it?” he asked. “Shall we show them what we learned? Check it out.” He handed the flyer to Joe.

Jax's cell phone rang while the Hardys read the rules for the amateur karate exhibition. Jax talked for a few minutes, then hung up.