Sorry, Leslie. Really I am.

Disclaimer: For my literary purposes, Frank and Joe Hardy are both of the legal age of consent.

Here is the re-written Chapter 15 of the original Hardy Boys book #1, The Tower Treasure, by Leslie McFarlane.

CHAPTER XV

 

The Chief Gets a Bomb

 

“What’s up now?” asked Joe, when the Hardy boys had left the house.

“Chief Collig and Detective Smuff must miss that train.”

“But how?”

  “I don’t know just yet, but they’ve got to miss it. If they reach the hospital to-night they’ll interview Jackley first. One of two things will happen. They’ll either get a confession and take all the credit for clearing up the case, or they’ll go about it so clumsily that Jackley will say nothing and spoil everything for dad.”

  The Hardy boys walked along the street in silence. They realized that the situation was urgent, but although they racked their brains trying to think of some way in which to prevent Chief Collig and Detective Smuff from catching the train, it seemed hopeless.

  “Let’s round up the gang,” suggested Joe. “Perhaps they can think of something.”

“The gang” consisted of the boys who had been with Frank and Joe the day they held the picnic in the woods. There was, of course, Chet Morton. Besides him were Allen Hooper, otherwise known as “Biff”, because of his passion for boxing, Jerry Gilroy, Phil Cohen and Tony Prito, all students at the Bayport high school. They were usually to be found on the school campus after hours, playing ball, and there the Hardy boys soon located them. The game was just breaking up.

“Pikers,” grinned Chet Morton when he saw the Hardy boys approaching. “You wouldn’t play ball when we asked you to, and now you come around when the game’s all over.”

“We had something more important on our minds,” replied Frank. “We need your help.”

“What’s the mattah?” asked Tony Prito. Tony was the son of a prosperous Italian sanitation contractor, but he had not yet been in America long enough to talk the language without an accent, and his attempts were frequently the cause of much amusement to his companions. He was quick and good-natured, however, and laughed as much at his own errors as any one else did.

“Chief Collig and Detective Smuff are butting into one of dad’s cases,” said Frank. “We can’t tell you much more about it than that. But the whole thing is that they mustn’t catch the nine o’clock train.”

“What do you want us to do?” asked Biff Hooper. “Blow up the bridge?”

“We might lock Collig and Smuff in one of their own cells,” suggested Phil Cohen.

“And get locked in ourselves,” added Jerry Gilroy. “Be sensible. Are you serious about this, Frank?”

“Absolutely. If those two catch that train dad’s case will be ruined. And I don’t mind telling you it has something to do with Perry Robinson.”

Chet Morton whistled.

“Ah, ha! I see now. The Tower affair. In that case, we’ll see to it that the nine o’clock train leaves here without our worthy chief and his equally worthy—although dumb—detective.” Chet cultivated a sharp distaste for Smuff, for the police sleuth had once or twice tried to arrest the boys for bathing in a forbidden section of the bay.

“There is only one question left,” said Phil solemnly. “How to keep them from getting on the train.”

“Get your brains to work, fellows—if you have any,” ordered Jerry Gilroy. “Let’s figure out a plan.”

A dozen plans were suggested, each wilder than the one before. Sabotage of police vehicles was suggested, followed by kidnapping the chief and his detective, binding them hand and foot and setting them adrift in the bay in an open boat.

Phil Cohen suggested putting the chief’s watch an hour ahead. That plan, as Frank observed, would have been a good one but for the little difficulty of laying hands on the watch.

“If we were in Italy we could get the Black Hand to help,” said Tony Prito.

“The Black Hand!” declared Chet. “That’s a good idea!”

“We got no Black Hand society in Bayport,” objected Tony.

“Let’s get one up. Send the chief a Black Hand letter warning him not to take that train.”

“And if he ever found who wrote it, we’d all be up to our necks in trouble,” pointed out Joe. “We need to keep them otherwise occupied in the hour the train boards and leaves. We need an irresistible distraction.”

Chet Morton suggested starting a fight in front of the police station just as Collig and Smuff were about to leave for the train. But that plan too seemed likely to result in penal correction.

The boys all puzzled.

“Leave it to me,” announced Chet Morton at last. “I will make this work. I will guarantee to keep the chief in town.”

“No violence, right?” asked Frank. “No destruction of public property, no jail time?”

“Certainly not” said Chet. He paused, then qualified, “Almost certainly not. Listen.”

Chet proceeded to lay forth his plan in a stealthy whisper. It was received with chuckles, murmurs of admiration, and gasps of astonishment.

Joe took in the plan with particular enthusiasm. “Dad just mentioned that place—he called it ‘seedy.’ That sure piques my curiosity!”

“You’re certain you can arrange it?” Frank asked doubtfully.

“The proprietor of said establishment is, shall we say, an old family friend,” Chet replied elliptically, “one who owes me an entire carnival of favors. He will agree."

“It certainly is a unique idea,” Frank granted.

“I’ll say it is!” Joe agreed. “And I can’t imagine the Chief and Detective Smuff not taking the bait.”

Tony Prito was a bit reluctant. “So, do we all—I mean, have we all to—?”

“We are a united front,” Chet intoned solemnly, “on a mission to save Mr. Hardy’s case and Mr. Perry’s reputation.”

Frank offered an only semi-facetious “amen.”

At seven o’clock, after their several suppers, Chet and Tony drove the chums in the direction of southwestern Bayport where they rendezvoused in front of an unremarkable bungalow that might have served as someone’s residence but for a small, illuminated sign that read:

The Scroobious Pip

 

  Frank had assumed that Chief Collig and Detective Smuff would be leaving to catch the train at about eight-thirty, so shortly after eight, Phil Cohen telephoned the police station and asked for Detective Smuff by name. Disguising his voice with a generic Eastern European accent and a nasal twang, Phil provided the detective with an anonymous—and very unusual—tip.

“They’re going to do what?!” Smuff was apoplectic.

“Zat is as mooch as I can zay,” Phil replied mysteriously and hung up the telephone.

There was no question but that the detective and the chief would investigate the situation personally. Consequently, shortly after eight o’ clock, the front door of The Scroobious Pip was manhandled open by a breathless Ezra Collig, Chief Constable of the Bayport Police Department. The chief swept stridently into the public house and, as he came in sight of the bar, stopped dead in his tracks, staring upward in disbelief.

“Evenin’, Chief!” the proprietor hollered from behind the bar.

‘‘Evenin’, Chief!’’ echoed Joe Hardy, standing on the bar wearing no-thing at all beyond a jock strap, a pair of gym socks, and the confident glow of a young man in his element. Joe’s chums, in similar states of undress, were stationed at intervals along the roughly rect-angular span of the wrap-around bar.

The chief, agog, seemed not to hear the greetings. ‘‘What do you boys think you’re doing?’’ he raged at the Hardy party.

Joe, who was nearest to the chief, replied, ‘‘What do you think we’re doing, Chief Collig?’’

‘‘You—you—you can’t be up there!’’ Collig blustered, stepping closer to the bar. ‘‘You’re minors!’’

‘‘Chief,’’ Joe admonished, likewise narrowing the distance between them, ‘‘you know perfectly well that miners work down there, not up here.’’ He punctuated the gag with an earnest and cheery smile.

Meanwhile, Detective Smuff had advanced in a flanking maneuver and was giving the stink-eye to Chet Morton and Tony Prito, who were likewise upon the bar wearing, respectively, a kilt and a pair of boxers festooned with cartoon tur-tles. At the far side of the bar, nearest the rest rooms, Phil Cohen made the most of his white cotton briefs while Biff Hooper clutched a mauve bath towel around his hips.

“I dunno what’s got into your boys!” so Smuff did huff. “It’s outrageous!”

“Oh, good sir, you don’t know the half of it!” Chet agreed, taking small, slow steps toward the detective. “You should be outraged. Indignant. Maddened. Engorged.”

“Git yer butt down from there, ye damn thesaurus!” Smuff bellowed.

“Brother Smuff, it was Kilimanjaro getting up here—you want me down, you’ll have to climb up and get me,” Chet warned him. “But take your pants off first. It’s the rule.” Chet was surprised to see Oscar Smuff actually blushing.

Meanwhile, Chief Collig’s squall was still blowing but was fast losing pitch. Among other things he had calmed down enough to get an eyeful of Joe, and quite the eyeful that was. Sure, Joe had always been a pretty boy with a generically attractive build. But standing here naked, he clearly wasn’t just a boy anymore. Rather, the young man’s charms were abundantly evident: ripe, cherry nipples standing out from his ample pecs, gorgeous and shapely gams, and a fine light dusting of peach-fuzz covering his thighs and calves and that little trail leading from his navel down toward—

“Joe Hard—”Collig attempted, but it was a useless sally. A highball glass of bourbon whiskey had appeared on the bar in front of him.

“Chief,” Joe said cordially as he lowered himself to his knees before the chief. “This is just a lark. None of us are drinking alcohol. And all the money we raise goes directly to cha-ri-ty.” He over-articulated the word. Joe had positioned his jock strap directly in front of Collig’s face, and the chief was having obvious difficulty directing his gaze anywhere but there. He couldn’t help noticing how very full the pouch was.

“Charity, you say? What charity?”

“The Chet Morton Stolen Automobile Retrieval Fund.”

“What?!” the chief almost giggled. “But the Morton kid got his roadster back! Heck, it’s parked right out front.”

Joe picked up the glass of whiskey and went in for the kill.

“Oh, but you never know . . . when it might be stolen . . . again.” By now he was purring in Collig’s ear and holding the glass to the chief’s lips. “There are . . . so many . . . bad men in the world.”

At this exact moment, Frank Hardy, returning from the rest room, walked around the right side of the bar and accosted the already entangled policeman, who at his salutation was startled out of his reverie.

“Chief Collig! It’s so good of you to be here!” Frank said warmly. “Is this—I mean, do you frequent this place? It’s our first time, of course.”

“Frank—you—”

Frank had on a microscopic pair of swim-wear expressly designed to satisfy all curiosity as to the wearer’s religion.

“Yes, sir, I know, it’s all very silly. But it’s for a good cause!”

Frank continued his stroll around the bar until he came to Detective Smuff, whom he greeted affectionately first with words, then with a big sloppy kiss planted right on Smuff’s mouth. Smuff exploded.

“That’s it! That’s enough! That’s more than too much! You boys get down and get your clothes on right now, you hear?”

“Shut up, Smuff,” came the reply from the bar, where Chief Collig was digging from his billfold a wad of one-dollar bills and a couple fives and tens.

“Charity!” Collig said with the air of a fine, upstanding American, as he poked a dollar bill into the top of Joe Hardy’s jock strap. “One should always support charity.”

Collig and Smuff spent a good while at ‘The Pip’ that night and deposited quite a handful of cash into socks, briefs, and the drink till; and when at last those able guardians of the law took their way home, nine o’clock had come and gone. So had the train.