The Giant Rat of Sumatra (#143)

The giant rat of Sumatra is a loose end that Arthur Conan Doyle left in “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” In that short story, Holmes says, “Matilda Briggs … was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.”

Obviously, you can’t leave an opening like that and not expect someone to try to stick a story in it, although you might expect people to jump on Matilda Briggs rather than a rodent as a subject for a story. “Sussex Vampire” originally appeared in 1924, and within two decades, a story about the Sumatran rodent was featured on an episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show. Movies and TV shows — including an infamous Doctor Who serial, “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” — have used the concept, and at least seven Sherlock Holmes pastiche novels have had titles that include the phrase “giant rat of Sumatra.”

The Hardy Boys book The Giant Rat of Sumatra (#148) makes eight (well, it comes before many of the others, but for dramatic purposes, I put it at the end). Unlike pretty much all the other stories, the Hardys’ “giant rat” isn't a rodent; instead, he’s a gangland leader in Victorian England who is Sherlock Holmes’s chief antagonist in a new off-Broadway musical uncoincidentally named The Giant Rat of Sumatra. I’m not sure a singing Holmes and Watson is a good idea, but then again, whouda thunk a musical about Alexander Hamilton would be so popular?

The play’s author, Donald O’Lunny, comes to Fenton, hoping the Hardy patriarch will look into some vague intimations of sabotage of the play. O’Lunny is unable to come up with any specific problems he’s encountered — translation: The author ran out of time or space to come up with any — but he’s hoping Fenton will help. I assume O’Lunny wants to hire Fenton, but when Mr. Hardy says he can’t help because he’s got a job in Seattle but the boys can step in, no mention is made of, you know, paying Frank and Joe for their help.

Also: the narrator says Fenton has “enlisted the help of his two sons on many tough cases” (2), which was often true when the Stratemeyer Syndicate controlled the books (#1-83 or 85). However, it hasn’t happened much in the digests up to this point. Together, the boys and Fenton solved the mystery in The Desert Thieves (#141), but they were on vacation together rather than working one of Fenton’s cases. Fenton fobbed the theatrical sabotage in Reel Thrills (#127) onto his sons and Chet; that time he and Laura were heading to Paris. The last time Fenton wanted Frank and Joe to work on a case with him was Danger in the Fourth Dimension (#118), which was 25 books (and four years) before The Giant Rat of Sumatra. Before that, the Hardy males worked together in Shield of Fear (#91). So: two mysteries out of nearly 60 … that’s not “many.”

Frank and Joe are sent undercover to the Bayport Orpheum Theater, where The Giant Rat of Sumatra is working out the kinks in its preparations for Broadway. Frank’s cover is as O’Lunny’s assistant, while Joe … Joe gets to be an actor, prancing around in the background as one of Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars. His mother is very proud of him, but by the end of the story, the other actors (without much malice) tell him he’s not very good. We shouldn’t be too surprised, as readers; when one of the stars explains a rather simple plot to him, “Joe looked stunned” (9) — most likely because the explanation focused on a romantic subplot, and Joe has trouble with this emotion you call “love.” Remember, Joe: There are no small parts, just crummy actors. You should have been a stagehand instead.

Joe also says, “I don’t know why they call these things plays. Being in one is hard work, not play” [11]. *ugh* If I could reach you, Joe, I would hurt you.

On opening night, the play has a few small snafus: Some VIPs are given duplicate tickets, and a scenery flat nearly falls on the show’s star as he’s arguing with his Watson. Joe pulls Sherlock Holmes (Charles Battenberg) out of the way of the flat, while Frank and some stagehands catch the flat before it falls. O’Lunny soothes the displaced theater-goers by finding them other seats and inviting them to a champagne reception — one that serves potato chips! However, Frank and Fenton are rude enough that they don’t really deserve the accomodation; Fenton rolls his eyes at the inconvenience, and Frank gets darn near belligerent.

These incidents don’t rise to the level of sabotage — they’re inconveniences, really, since the flat wasn’t life-threateningly heavy — but it gives the boys an idea of what they’re dealing with. (It also introduces me to the word “shindy,” meaning “a noisy disturbance or quarrel,” which I’ve never seen before.) But if I know anything about a Hardy Boys mystery, it’s that the violence will escalate when the boys start investigating, and usually they’ll be the victims. That’s what happens here, as Frank gets sandbagged — literally — while wandering backstage. He manages to avoid passing out, but he’s woozy and unsteady. No one suggests going to the emergency room.

Before they go home, the Hardys discover a death threat against Battenberg spray painted on a flat. The custodian sees them in front of the damaged scenery and draws the logical conclusion, but the Hardys talk their way out of things and take a sample of the paint. Later, after Joe uses social engineering to guess the theater’s computer password, Frank and Joe discover the ticketing program (written in BASIC! in 1997!) had been altered to double book seats. This implicates Hector, one of the Irregulars, who is also a computer programmer. Why does he want the play to fail? Well, he was offered a part in a TV pilot but turned it down because he’d accepted the role in The Giant Rat of Sumatra already. If the play were to fail … well, he’d be out of a job, since the role in the pilot has probably been recast, but for some reason Frank and Joe think producers hold small roles open indefinitely.

Who else might want the play to fail? Battenberg will have to turn down a movie role to continue with the play. Ewan Gordean, who plays Watson, thinks his friend, Will Robertson, should have been Holmes instead of Battenberg. Li Wei, the lyricist, has a secret meeting with Tertius Lestell, a financial backer Gordean says can’t be trusted, after her favorite song is cut by Gilbert Hornby, the producer. Even O’Lunny appears to have paint spatters on his shirt that match the graffiti. (Mr. Hiroto, a forensic chemist Fenton knows, says it’s spray talc. He also makes it clear Frank and Joe are burning one of Fenton’s favors; I wonder what the old man will say about that.)

During the next day’s practice, an effigy of Holmes is hanged in front of the cast. You know, effigies get a bad rap these days; they’re too associated with racism. But I long for the days when you could let the bastards in charge know you weren’t going to take their crap with a crude representation of one of them set on fire in the night, followed by some violent chanted slogans. Mom would hand ‘round the Molotov cocktails …

Anyway, the fishing line used in dropping the effigy seems to implicate Gordean, an avid fisherman. Later in the performance, ammonia is put in the fog machine, which creates hazardous fumes. Villains pulled the same trick in Reel Thrills (#127), although that was on a movie set rather than on the stage. (Is the author the same? Reusing this distinctive trick and shuffling Fenton off while Frank and Joe investigate show-biz sabotage makes The Giant Rat of Sumatra seem a lazy copy.) Everyone escapes, but Frank is attacked by one of the Irregulars, Max, after Frank finds the ammonia bottle. Max blames Frank for the prank, which is ridiculous; everything gets smoothed out again.

The sabotage continues, of course. Joe almost falls through an open trap-door meant for Battenberg, but he manages to save himself through his “martial arts training” (89). The light system gets shorted out just before the performance one night. Lestell arrives after a performance to look over everyone’s shoulder, obviously setting up a meeting with someone in the cast or crew; Frank and Joe stake out his hotel the next morning, obviously believing detectives and suspects should keep bankers’ hours. This is the brothers’ most common failing: They like sleep more than mysteries, whatever they say.

As the other suspects get cleared, suspicion slides to Hornby, who’s doing an awful job promoting the play. Well, I say Hornby becomes a suspect, but for some reason, Frank doesn’t twig to the possibility when Hornby yells at Frank for looking at a collection of headshots. Hornby claims they’re private, which is ridiculous: They’re headshots. They’re meant to promote actors and the play. Frank’s a little slow in The Giant Rat of Sumatra; later, he’s impressed when Joe quotes the “whenever you’ve eliminated the impossible” line, despite that coming up several times in the past.

But remember: Frank’s been hit hard in the head. He gets conked again on the head and placed, unconscious, on the turntable stage so he’s likely to be crushed; Joe saves him, but Frank gets a long gash on his leg. Frank refuses a hospital visit, although that’s only proposed for the bloody leg wound, not the head injury. Even Frank can’t ignore Hornby as a suspect when he and Joe find an important file has been deleted from the computer — a computer Hornby was one of the few to have access to — although it takes both him and Joe a while to admit it.

Now the game is afoot! (But not before Battenberg accuses Frank of being the saboteur; Frank drops the name of the rarely mentioned Chief Collig to slip the charges. A BPD officer actually calls Frank “Mr. Hardy” [129] after the false accusation.) After a stage gun fires a real bullet, narrowly missing a cast member, Frank and Joe have an incentive to wrap up the mystery. (Frank’s head injury’s hardly constitutes an inducement. I’m beginning to think he likes the woozy feeling they give him.)

When they search the play’s office, the Hardys find all the evidence on the pranks; Hornby sees the jig is up and tries to make a break for it. Like with everything else, Hornby fails, and he’s caught by Joe after the chase spills onto the stage. Hornby's motive? Thinking the musical was going down the tubes, he hoped to cash in on a $1 million insurance policy on Battenberg’s availability to play the lead role. With Hornby out of the way, Lestell steps in to make The Giant Rat of Sumatra into a hit. Hornby’s henchman, Max, escapes, and it’s uncertain whether anyone will be bothered to bring him back to face justice.

A Few More Notes

Wipeout (#96) has a character named Emil Molitor, who turns out to be the book’s villain. The name made me think of Paul Molitor, a baseball player who spent most of his Hall of Fame career with the Milwaukee Brewers in the ‘80s. I have a feeling another Hardy Boys book mentioned a few members of those ‘80s Brewers teams, but I can’t remember which, and I can’t find it in my notes. Can anybody help me out here?

***
You may have noticed I included the price tag on the image of Wipeout’s cover. That’s my copy, and I like those little reminders of the book’s past. I had no idea what “Hills” was, but I like knowing the book was sold by Hills at a discount. (Hills was a discount department store chain founded in Ohio in 1957; it was regionally successful, but it was bought out by Ames in 1999. Ames went out of business in 2002.) I also appreciate that Hardy Boys books were, at that time — a time I remember! — sold at full price for $3.50. I also like previous owners’ names printed or carefully signed inside the front cover or on the front flyleaf; it gives the book a bit of history. But former library copies are right out; those things are used and abused.

***
Early in Spark of Suspicion (#98), the previous book, Cast of Criminals (#97), is mentioned. I bring this up for two reasons: 1) most of the digests don’t mention the books preceding or succeeding them, and ii) because it’s taken only a dozen books for the old practice of linking the books to become strange. Is Cast of Criminals mentioned in Spark of Suspicion because the two books share an author, or was it because of an editorial mandate to tighten references between the books? Spark of Suspicion doesn’t go so far as to mention the next book (Dungeon of Doom) at the end like the books in the Stratemeyer Syndicate days did.

***
Whoever wrote Danger on the Air (#95) may have also written Spark of Suspicion (#98). Besides WBPT being in both books, Mr. Pizza appears as well. More superficially, both books take place in Bayport. It’s possible the editor tied two books close together in sequence together, but I think it’s more likely that a single author is the link.

But perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions. The narration also mentions the Liberty Bell Diner. The boys and Fenton stayed in the Liberty Bell Inn in Shield of Fear. I linked that book’s authorship to Vincent Buranelli because the author named motels after obvious points of reference for tourists. The use of “Liberty Bell” for a place for travelers to stay makes Buranelli a suspect for the authorship of Spark of Suspicion. But Spark of Suspicion calls Phil Cohen “lanky”; Buranelli knew he was “slight” in Danger on Vampire Trail (#50). On the other hand, he called Phil “wiry” in The Witchmaster’s Key (#55), and “slight” could be considered a synonym for “thin” rather than “thin and small.” Also, almost twenty years separate Spark of Suspicion and Danger on Vampire Trail … Hmm. This isn’t as far-fetched as I thought.

On the other hand, none of the evidence I mentioned rules out a decent editor’s involvement.

***
I didn’t want to mention this in my post on Spark of Suspicion because it seemed to demand more seriousness than that post could carry off, but the book’s ending reads much differently after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. The parallels are undeniable: a bomber with a badly thought-out grudge decides to explode a bomb that will hurt random people at a public celebration of a local patriotic holiday. The differences are that the Boston Marathon attack was real and that Hardys, being fictional, were able to wrap up things cleanly without anyone being harmed.

A Couple of Notes after Shield of Fear

Last week, I ventured a guess at who wrote Danger on the Diamond. I don’t have much of a guess for Shield of Fear. The only clue I can find is the awful motel name: Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell Inn. Such lazy names were featured in a couple of Vincent Buranelli books: the William Tell Hotel in Switzerland and the Montezuma in Mexico City in The Jungle Pyramid (#56) and the Australian Arms Hotel in The Firebird Rocket (#57).

Buranelli was a relatively prolific Hardy Boys author. He revised two books, The Mystery of the Flying Express (#20, a book that badly needed revising) and The Flickering Torch Mystery (#22). He also wrote fourteen original Syndicate books, including three in a row (The Bombay Boomerang (#49), Danger on Vampire Trail (#50), and The Masked Monkey (#51)). The last book we know he wrote was The Crimson Flame (#77), which was published a mere five years before Shield of Fear. It’s not inconceivable that he would have kept writing books after the Stratemeyer Syndicate sold the series to Simon & Shuster.

Then again, bad motel names are a thin thread to hang this conclusion on, especially given that he only used those names in two of the books we knew he wrote.

***

As you may have noticed, I’ve been going through the digests in order — in February, I covered #88 (Tricky Business) through #91 (Shield of Fear). I’m going to continue this pattern, but I don’t have some of the books that are coming up, and some of them I’ve already gone over.

The next books in order are The Shadow Killers (#92) and The Serpent’s Tooth Mystery (#93); you can click on those links to read my recaps. The next book I haven’t recapped is Breakdown in Axeblade (#94), but neither my local library nor I have that book. I’ll skip it and come back to it at a later date.

After that gap comes Danger on the Air (#95), which I’ve obviously covered. For the first Friday in March, then, the plan is for me to cover Wipeout (#96), a title that really needs an exclamation mark at the end.

(And as always, you can find all my summaries so far at this page.)

Shield of Fear (#91)

Every Hardy Boys book I read is a battle against low expectations. I don’t want much from the story: something to make me chuckle, a little mystery, a little investigating, a chum doing something stupid. If I’m lucky, I might get a surprise, like a neat literary trick from the author or an intriguing mystery. I don’t expect either of the last two.

Shield of Fear has an opportunity to do more than the usual Hardy Boys book, and it avoids that opportunity like it was Ebola. Frank and Joe go undercover at the Philadelphia police academy to see who is making the commissioner’s grandson, who is also undergoing training, look bad. While Frank and Joe are there, they sense that Larry, the grandson, isn’t as enthusiastic about upholding the family tradition of police service as his grandfather wants him to be.

The author could have gone two ways with this:

1. Frank and Joe get to see what police training is like. Their father started out as a police officer. Is this something Frank and Joe want to do? Or are they set on going straight into private investigation?
   
2. Larry struggles with the family legacy. Frank and Joe have decided to follow their father’s legacy. Do they have any second thoughts? Might it be worthwhile to make an active comparison between the family scions?

The first part is touched upon; wearing a police cap makes Joe “really feel like a cop!” (51), but given how the Hardy family bosses around police officers, that might mean Joe feels like a menial stooge. He suggests he and Frank should become cops: “Good pay, great uniforms, excitement, adventure …” (2). Since police work is not seen as terribly lucrative and Frank and Joe have already encountered a great deal of excitement and adventure, that has to be a joke. The boys’ attitude toward becoming policemen is not addressed after they actually begin attending the academy.

I don’t know why this idea was allowed to lay fallow. The editor may have decided not to point out what Frank and Joe’s future looked like. The writer might have not considered it an interesting point. The “action” might have crowded out such a minimal attempt at characterization, although Osiris knows the action in any Hardy Boys book is disposable. Maybe the writer figured that level of writing craft was above his pay grade. Or — more worryingly — maybe it didn’t occur to anyone.

***

As I said, Frank and Joe are sent to the police academy by the Philadelphia police commissioner, Andrew Crawford, to investigate who is making his grandson look bad. Crawford says he hasn’t investigated himself because “people would say I was taking advantage of my authority” (8), but sending two undercover operatives into the police academy is the definition of using one’s authority for one’s own advantage. But perhaps I’m not up on big-city ethics. Frank and Joe’s first instinct is that Larry is a screw-up who can’t hack it, which Crawford rejects. It’s good that Frank and Joe realized not everyone is as hyper-competent as they are, though.

Anyway, while the boys are at the police academy, palling around with Steve Guttenberg, Fenton is spearheading a grand-jury investigation into Jack Brannigan, a “crime boss” who’s into “protection, extortion, [and] gambling” (5). When the Hardys leave their meeting with Crawford, they spot a man wearing 1988 bling (“a thick gold pendant … in the shape of a dollar sign”) with his hands on the hood of Fenton’s car. Showing none of the usual Hardy caginess, the three shrug and go on with their lives, but on the way to the Liberty Bell Inn, Fenton’s car loses steering and brakes before crashing down a hillside. Soon after the boys rescue Fenton, the car explodes because it’s the ‘80s. Perhaps they bought the car after it had been used on Miami Vice or Hunter. Joe calls the police and ambulance on the cellular phone Phil Cohen “installed” in the van. Installed! My heavens, what a wondrous world they live in.

After the accident, Frank calls his mother to pooh-pooh her concerns, ignore her worries, and generally get permission to continue the investigation, which he and Joe were going to do anyway. This is the last we will hear about Laura. Keep that in mind.

While Fenton recuperates, the famously friendly city of Philadelphia opens itself up to Frank and Joe. It takes them only five minutes to get from the interstate to their destinations downtown, because why would downtown Philadelphia be busy in the middle of the day? When not gorging themselves on deli sandwiches and pizza, Frank and Joe enjoy the police academy’s light schedule of half-days and tours while using the foolproof aliases Frank and Joe Johnson. Fenton and Frank tell Joe he should do something to disguise his youthful appearance, like wear fake glasses (NERD!) or grow a beard (like he could). Joe, feeling the city’s friendly vibes, tells his family he cannot be expected to conceal his “handsome face” behind a disguise (21). I’m not sure why he’s worried about the largely male recruits seeing his beauty. Maybe he hopes to kindle a romance with Kim Cattrall.

Unfortunately for Joe’s potential romance with Cadet Karen Thompson, Frank and Joe shouldn’t be at the academy at all. Larry has been accused of cheating on tests, which will get him more demerits, which will cause expulsion when he reaches a certain threshold. But cheating really should be an automatic expulsion. If you teach recruits that cheating isn’t that bad, it sets a bad example for their later careers.

Anyway, Frank and Joe quickly see that Larry is being hassled by fellow recruit Dennis Fielding, who batters Larry in a couple of fights and tries to drown him in the pool, and Sgt. O’Connor, who blames the incidents on Larry. Lt. Redpath, head of new recruits, is more ambiguous, as he upholds O’Connor’s judgments (despite seeing evidence against them) but doesn’t make any accusations himself. Personally, I think a supervisor who blamed a recruit who had been beaten up for the assault is a pretty poor one. I think he’s this police academy’s Commandant Lassard, compared to O’Connor’s Lt. Harris.

With Fenton sidelined, Frank and Joe take over his investigation as well. Using police mug shots, Joe IDs the man who sabotaged Fenton’s car as Nick Marino. Then, rather than letting the police investigate, the brothers tail the suspect to a toy shop, linking him to game-and-toy enthusiast Brannigan. Soon after, Joe is clubbed while making a food run. He’s knocked out, but he later walks the concussion off.

Eventually, Larry gets his grandfather to admit what Frank and Joe are doing at the academy. When he confronts them, Frank and Joe conjecture that Larry’s difficulties are related to the Brannigan investigation — Brannigan’s gang might allege that Crawford is misusing his position to keep Larry at the academy, trying to get Crawford fired — and after hearing this, Larry concludes Frank and Joe are “amazing” (71). I think Frank and Joe were right originally: Larry isn’t cut out for police work.

Perhaps Joe isn’t either. While sneaking into the toy store they trailed Marino to, he pulls a complete Chet: while trying to remove his squeaking shoes, he knocks over a shelf and turns on a Santa robot. He manages to escape, but geez, Frank should never let him forget that.

Speaking of Chet: He comes to Philadelphia to watch the Phillies play the Mets in an afternoon game at Veterans’ Stadium. Well, he doesn’t say “Mets,” but he does say “New York,” and the Mets are the only New York team the Phillies could have played in the late ‘80s. Chet, Frank, and Joe watch the entire game, but the author doesn’t say whether the Mets or Phils won. You would think someone would mention this, but no, that’s not important — what all three boys note is that it’s a dog of a game. I almost didn’t notice no one mentions who won because of the SEETHING, RED RAGE CAUSED WHEN I READ, “Chet was good at sports, especially football. His favorite sport, however, was baseball” (81).

IF CHET LIKES BASEBALL SO MUCH, WHY WASN’T HE IN DANGER ON THE DIAMOND, WHERE THERE WAS A ROLE PERFECT FOR HIM? ANSWER ME THAT, FRANKLIN W. DIXON. YOU CAN’T, CAN YOU?

*ahem* Please, forgive me. I didn’t mean … well, I get emotional sometimes about odd things. You understand.

Anyway, the Hardys have an amazing piece of luck when they see Fielding and O’Connor outside the Vet after the game. What are the odds? Wow. They trail O’Connor’s car around Philly, with Joe trying to obscure what they’re doing from Chet by making up names and historical context for random buildings around the city. (Joe’s spur-of-the-moment improvisations might have been funny if the idea had been given more than a sentence in the text.) When Chet figures out what’s going on, Frank immediately wants to dump him off at the next corner because why would they ever need a stalwart friend’s help during an investigation? That never comes in handy. Chet refuses to be put off, but he wishes he had when Frank allows a sports car to almost run the Hardys’ battle van off a bridge over the Schuylkill River.

Nice driving, Frank. You have the laws of physics and metallurgy on your side, and you still lose.

During a shooting demonstration at the academy, Fenton is shot at. He prevents future shots by “taking every precaution,” i.e. “moving to a different spot.” After Brannigan’s lawyer engages in a little mudslinging at Crawford, Fenton is kidnapped while searching for a missing witness. After breaking into the toy store again to look for him, Joe is also taken. Desperate, Frank confronts Dennis Fielding, who crumples like a sports car in a high-speed collision. Frank and Dennis find a warehouse Marino had used before and discover Fenton, Joe, and the witness; the fight between Marino and Frank almost immediately sets the warehouse on fire. Marino and a confederate escape with Fenton and the witness, but Frank and Dennis recover Joe. Dennis decides to turn himself in, then vanishes from the story.

Frank and Joe fall asleep for the next 20 hours or so. Do they call the cops? Do they call Laura? No. No, they do not.

The brothers and Larry follow a slim clue — the narration acknowledges, “It was a long shot, at best” (119) — to the Water Works in Atlantic City. There, they find Fenton and the witness, and they manage to subdue Marino and another thug, despite Larry being distracted by helping a hobo living in in the abandoned works. Oh, and despite Joe being a moron: while Marino is throttling Frank, Marino tells Joe, “Don’t come any closer,” and Joe stops. What’s Marino going to do differently if Joe attacked him? Choke Frank harder? Honestly. It’s not like Marino had a gun or knife.

With the witness back in police hands and all three members of Brannigan’s gang in custody, we learn Brannigan’s plot: He was going to use extortion and threats to buy up toy companies “in an effort to control the toy and game industry in the U.S.” (131). Those tactics might work for small companies, but the larger companies — Mattel, Hasbro, Parker Brothers — are going to sic the FBI on Brannigan so quickly he’ll have to decide which prison gang to join before he knows what has happened.

I will give the writer credit for one surprise: when Crawford mentions Brannigan, the racketeer, was taking over toy companies, I knew — knew — that it was a front for smuggling activities. I mean, the ol’ drugs-in-the-teddy-bear trick is a classic for a reason, right? But no, I was wrong. My explanation made more sense, but I was still wrong.

O’Connor, arrested after Dennis turned himself in, cracks like someone threatened with Michael Winslow’s beatboxing. He confesses to everything, up to and including kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Still, neither he nor Marino gives up Brannigan’s hiding place. At the airport, Joe shows he doesn’t know how to treat a female impersonator: he tackles Brannigan’s lawyer, who was dressed as a woman.

Frank and Joe wander back to one of Brannigan’s hideouts, a toy museum. The boys believe he’s ducked back there after the police searched it, thinking they wouldn’t look there again. Frank and Joe are right — of course, all hail Frank and Joe — and they manage to beat up the fake security guards and capture Brannigan without any help from Bubba Smith. They do set off the fire alarm, which causes the sprinklers to go off, presumably ruining a great deal of the museum’s inventory. The end!

Oh: Larry tells his grandfather he wants to be a lawyer instead of a cop. The commissioner, showing rare poise, doesn’t weep openly at the choice or the low odds of Larry achieving his goal. Frankly, Larry seems to be about as dedicated to tasks as a puppy exploring a new room for the first time: everything distracts him. But hey, law school — that seems just the thing to arrest his wandering attention for a moment.