The Mystery of the Black Rhino (10 page)

Jackson started walking down Munyu Road.

The Hardy boys followed at a safe distance. The area they were in was full of seedy hotels, night clubs, and secondhand clothing stores. Frank and Joe initially felt out of place, but they soon realized that with the vikoi, they fit right in. Nobody was paying any attention to them.

“I'm glad you thought of buying these clothes, Joe,” Frank whispered. “These are perfect disguises.”

Two blocks from River Road Jackson entered the Hotel Zebra. The front of the building was painted with black and white stripes. The Hardys could hear loud music coming from somewhere on the first floor.

“We've got to follow him inside,” Joe said. “We have to find out what room he's staying in.”

“Well, we've fooled everyone so far. Nobody has looked at us like we're two American boys from Bayport,” Frank said. “Maybe our luck will hold in the Hotel Zebra.”

With that, Frank and Joe entered the hotel. They immediately found themselves in a crowd of people who seemed to be using the lobby for a party.

The Hardy boys made their way slowly through the mass of people toward the rear of the lobby. There they caught sight of Jackson heading up some stairs.

“Come on, Frank! I don't think there's too much security in this place,” Joe whispered. “I doubt if anybody will try to stop us from following him.”

By the time the Hardy boys reached the bottom of the steps, Jackson was already on the second landing.

Frank grabbed Joe by the arm. “Maybe he's leading us into a trap,” he whispered. “This seems too easy.”

Joe considered that. “We have to take the chance,
Frank. He's looking for two teenage American boys in jeans and sneakers. He's not looking for two Kenyans dressed in vikoi.”

“True,” Frank said.

They quickened their pace up the stairs. When they reached the second landing, they heard Jackson above them—so they headed up to the third floor.

Frank had noticed that the Hotel Zebra had four stories. Jackson stopped on the third floor and headed down the dimly lit hallway.

“This is definitely not a four-star hotel,” Joe whispered.

“You got that right,” Frank agreed.

Just as they were passing a door, it opened, and a man came out. He was draped in a towel, and he was heading down the hallway.

“A communal bathroom,” Joe observed. He suddenly had an idea.

Up ahead Jackson was unlocking a door. After struggling with the lock for several seconds, the door finally opened and Jackson went inside.

“Quick!” Frank said. “Let's find out the number.”

They hurried along the corridor until they reached the room Jackson had entered.

“Room Thirty-seven,” Frank said. “That's the information we'll give the police. Come on.”

“We may be able to give the police some other information, Frank, if we just wait long enough,”
Joe said. He motioned toward the far end of the corridor, which was even dimmer than where they were standing. “Let's wait for a few minutes.”

“Why, Joe?” Frank asked. “We have what we came for.”

“That communal bathroom gave me an idea,” Joe said. “If Jackson takes a bath, then we can search his room. We might be able to find the name of this man who's coming in two days.”

“You're right. There may be a telephone number or something,” Frank said. “But what makes you think he's going to take a bath?”

Joe shrugged. “He looks like an American, and most Americans are used to washing themselves daily,” he explained.

“Won't he take the key to the room with him?” Frank said.

“He had trouble opening the door, so I think he'll take a chance,” Joe said. “I doubt if he keeps anything he considers valuable in the room, anyway.”

After an hour of waiting Joe was about to concede that he had been wrong. But just then Jackson's door opened, and he exited, wearing only a towel. He headed down the hall toward the communal bathroom. And he hadn't locked the door!

Once Jackson was inside, Joe said, “Let's do it!”

Frank and Joe hurried down the hall and quickly went inside Jackson's room.

It was as seedy as the rest of the hotel. There was a small chest against one wall, with a couple of the drawers pulled out halfway. A suitcase was lying open at the foot of the chest. The boys couldn't tell if Jackson had been packing or unpacking. There was an unmade double bed on the far side of the room. The open window just above it was letting in plenty of noise from the street below. Outside the window, the Hardy boys could see the frame of a rickety old metal fire escape.

“That's comforting,” Joe said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “This place is a real firetrap!”

“Let's start looking,” Frank said. “Jackson doesn't strike me as the kind who spends much time soaking.”

Frank started with the suitcase.

“I'll search his wallet,” Joe said.

He picked up Jackson's wallet off the top of the chest, flipped it open, and looked in the bill section. When he found nothing except some American and Kenyan currency, he looked through the other pockets. Just as he was about to put it back on the chest, he stopped. “Hey, Frank! Take a look,” he said. “There's something weird here.”

Frank stopped his search of Jackson's suitcase and looked at what Joe was pointing to.

“It's his driver's license,” Frank said. “He's just as ugly as his picture.”

“Look at the name,” Joe said.

Frank looked closely at the tiny print. “Harry Andrews,” he read. The address was in Long Island City. Frank looked up at Joe. “I thought Mr. Watson said his name was Jackson.”

“He did,” Joe said.

“Well, maybe that's what Andrews told him,” Frank said. “He probably has plenty of aliases.”

“That's probably it,” Joe agreed.

Just then, they heard voices out in the hall. One of them belonged to the man they had been calling Jackson. At that moment, the door to the room began to open.

There was no time to make it out the window.

“Quick!” Frank whispered. “Under the bed!”

The Hardys dove under the bed just as Andrews entered the room.

He spent several minutes cursing whoever it was had stopped him in the hall for money. Clearly, there was no way that he was going to give away any of his hard-earned cash.

The Hardy boys were finding it hard to keep from sneezing because of the thick dust on the floor, but Joe's sniffling was overpowered by the angry words from Andrews.

“I hope he's planning to go out for the evening,” Frank whispered. “I don't think I can stay down here much longer.”

Andrews yawned, muttered something unintelligible, turned out the light, and headed toward the bed.

“Uh-oh!” Joe whispered to Frank.

They weren't prepared for how low the bed sank when Andrews fell onto it.

Frank and Joe both let out small groans.

Andrews jumped up. “What the . . .” He tripped over the suitcase and crashed to the floor. This was followed by a string of curse words in several languages.

Frank and Joe jumped out from under the bed. They had to get out of the room, but Andrews was between them and the door—and they could just make out his outline as he began to lift himself off the floor.

“The fire escape!” Frank whispered. “It's the only way out!”

At that moment Andrews lunged across the bed. He barely missed them as Frank and Joe tumbled out the window onto the landing of the metal fire escape.

The Hardy boys started down the escape, but part of the frame had detached itself from the side of the building. They had to hold on tightly to the rail as they ran down the steps to the next landing.

Andrews was obviously used to getting dressed in a hurry, because by the time the Hardy boys had
reached the bottom of the fire escape, Andrews, fully clothed, was already on his way down.

Frank and Joe jumped down from the escape and landed in the alley together. They immediately headed toward Munyu Road.

The crowds were thicker along the street now. The clubs were really lively.

“Let's head for River Road,” Frank said. “Maybe well luck out and find either a bus or a taxi that'll take us back to the city center.”

The Hardy boys didn't want to run, because they were sure it would attract attention and probably give the street crowds the impression that they were up to trouble. But one look over their shoulders let them know that Andrews had reached the end of the alley, and was running up the street after them. They had to hurry.

Frank and Joe began walking as fast as they could, weaving in and out of the crowds of people on the sidewalk. Finally they reached River Road.

Frank ran up to a man standing on the corner. “Is there a bus or a taxi we could take back to the New Stanley Hotel?”

The man laughed. “No bus. No taxi,” he said.

Joe glanced around and looked back down Munyu Road. Harry Andrews was closing in.

Right up River Road, about a half block away, a taxi pulled up to the curb in front of a busy nightclub. Two young couples got out. One of the men handed the driver what looked like a lot of money. “Be back in two hours,” he said. He spoke loudly, with an English accent. “And I'll double that.”

“Yes, sir!” the driver said.

“Taxi! Taxi!” Joe shouted. “Wait!”

He and Frank tore up the crowded sidewalk as fast as they could. The two couples stared at them in shock.

“We need to get to the New Stanley Hotel as quickly as possible!” Frank shouted to the driver.

Behind them, Harry Andrews had turned the corner and was racing toward them.

“Well, get in,” the driver said. “That'll be something for me to do while I wait to pick up these rich people!”

The Hardy boys jumped into the taxi. It pulled out into traffic just before Harry Andrews reached them.

“Man, that was close,” Joe whispered.

They looked out the rear window to see Andrews scowling at them.

“Do you think he recognized us?” Joe said.

“If he shows up at the hotel tonight, then I guess he did,” Frank replied.

“And if he doesn't show up?” Joe said.

“Well, in that case, he'll probably let the man who's coming in two days ‘take care of us,' ” Frank said.

Joe shivered. “I don't really like either choice,” he said.

“Me, either,” Frank agreed.

“We need to let the police . . . ,” Joe started to say It suddenly occurred to them both that by now the police stationed in the hotel knew they weren't on the fifth floor swimming.

“We're going to have a lot of explaining to do,” Joe finished.

When they reached the hotel, Joe had just enough money to pay the taxi driver the fare and give him a meager tip.

The Hardy boys had barely entered the lobby when they were met by Mr. Hardy and Dr. Malindi.

“Are you boys hungry?” Mr. Hardy asked them.

Dr. Malindi gave him a surprised look. This was obviously not the question he would have asked his sons if they had been missing for several hours after having given a large percentage of the Nairobi police department the slip.

Frank and Joe nodded.

“How did you guess?” Joe asked.

“Good. I have a reservation for a table for four in the Tate Room,” Mr. Hardy said, naming the New Stanleys main restaurant. “We can eat, and then you can fill Dr. Malindi and me in on what's been happening to you since you left the hotel.” Mr. Hardy winked at his sons.

Most of the restaurant's guests had already ordered and were in the midst of enjoying dinner, so it didn't take the Hardys and Dr. Malindi long to be served.

Frank and Joe told Fenton Hardy and Dr. Malindi everything that had happened to them, from the information about the man who was coming from the United States in two days to kill both the black rhino and the Hardy boys, to the race with Harry Andrews down River Road.

By dessert Dr. Malindi was convinced that the boys knew what they were doing.

“Harry Andrews lives in Long Island City, New York. That's what his driver's license says,” Joe said. “He must have given Mr. Watson a fake name, because Mr. Watson called him Jackson.”

“That could be one of his aliases,” Dr. Malindi suggested.

“That's what we thought, too,” Frank said.

Dr. Malindi had written everything down. Now he picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. He gave the information to the person on the other end of the line.

“Are the police going to pick up Andrews tonight?” Joe asked.

Dr. Malindi shook his head. “We can wait two more days for him, if it means we might get all of these culprits. We certainly don't want to take a chance on tipping off the mastermind behind all of this,” he said. “I've sent some men to the River Road area to keep an eye on Harry Andrews. They won't lose him.”

As they left the restaurant, Dr. Malindi told the boys that he had arranged for them to take guided tours of several of the important museums, art galleries, and other points of interest in Nairobi.

Frank and Joe accepted this gesture, even though they knew that the invitation had been offered so that the Kenyan authorities could keep an eye on them.

“We'll probably get enough information for a dozen term papers,” Frank said, “so this won't be too bad.”

Joe didn't even want to think about school.

•   •   •

As it turned out, the next day was one of the high-lights of the trip.

The Railway Museum particularly interested Joe. Outside there was a collection of old locomotives and carriages, most of them built in England. Some of the moving stock had been used in the filming of movies set in Nairobi.

Frank thought the National Museum was the best. He stayed for a long time in the Prehistory Gallery, where there were reproductions of Tanzanian rock paintings and casts of wide-splayed, human-looking footprints—a small pair following a larger pair, which were discovered at Laetoli, in Tanzania. A guide told them that the footprints almost certainly belonged to
Homo erectus,
who many people thought were the direct ancestors of modern human beings.