Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case (6 page)

Encyclopedia's stomach rumbled. He put down his book and checked his watch. It was ten minutes past dinnertime, and no one had called him to the table.

He followed the smell of spaghetti and meatballs to the kitchen.

“Your father will be a little late tonight,” Mrs. Brown said. “He's tied up with a case at the convention center.”

Encyclopedia's eyes lit up at the prospect of a case. “Do you think Dad needs help?” he asked. Then his stomach rumbled again.

“Your stomach and your curiosity will have to wait a few more minutes,” Mrs. Brown said.

At half past six, Chief Brown came home.

“What's happening at the convention center this week?” Mrs. Brown asked, after he had washed up and sat down at the table.

“The Philatelic Society is having its annual convention,” he answered.

“The stamp collectors,” Encyclopedia said. “Sally and I plan to bike there tomorrow and look at the new stamps.”

“Two very old stamps were stolen this afternoon,” Chief Brown said. “We recovered them, but we don't know who stole them.”

“Give Leroy all the details,” Mrs. Brown said. “He's helped you out before.”

Chief Brown pulled his notebook out of his pocket with a sigh. “I don't know,” he said. “Even Leroy might have trouble with this case. It's got me licked.”

Encyclopedia ate his spaghetti while he waited for the details.

“A dealer named Mr. Sansbury brought two rare stamps to the show,” Chief Brown said. “Both were issued by the Confederate government after the Civil War began. The first was a five-cent green Jefferson Davis stamp. The second was a ten-cent stamp with a picture of Thomas Jefferson.”

“There must be lots of suspects,” Mrs. Brown said.

“No.” Chief Brown shook his head. “Mr. Sansbury didn't put these stamps on display. He kept them locked in a small office. But he gave three collectors, all of them longtime friends, the key to the office so they could view the stamps in private. They each spent time alone in the room before Mr. Sansbury noticed the stamps were missing.”

“But you said you already found the stamps,” Mrs. Brown said. “Didn't they also lead you to the thief?”

“We searched each of the three suspects thoroughly,” Chief Brown answered. “Then Officer Lopez discovered that someone had pried up a corner of the carpet and slipped the stamps underneath. The thief must have intended to go back for the stamps at a later date. But it's impossible to find out which one of the three is the real thief.”

Mrs. Brown glanced at Encyclopedia. She seemed a little disappointed that he hadn't solved the mystery yet.

“Tell us about the suspects,” she prodded.

Chief Brown turned the pages of his notebook. “Each one of the suspects was alone in the room for a short time. The first was a Mr. Beckman from Tampa. He told us that he already had these stamps in his collection, a fact that Mr. Sansbury was able to confirm.

“Mrs. Dwyer is planning to open a stamp museum and store in the northern part of the state. But she couldn't believe that a serious stamp collector would hide such valuable stamps on a damp concrete floor where they could be damaged.”

“Perhaps it was the third suspect,” Mrs. Brown said.

“That may be,” Chief Brown said. “Mr. Patterson has a well-known album of early American and Confederate stamps. And he has long been searching for these two to complete his collection.”

Mrs. Brown looked at Encyclopedia. She had run out of questions herself and hoped he was ready to ask the one that would truly crack the case.

Suddenly his eyes opened. “What kind of carpet was on the floor?” he asked.

“A standard dark blue carpet for a place like the convention center where there's lots of foot traffic,” Chief Brown answered. “The thief had pulled up one corner.”

Encyclopedia opened his eyes. “Then it's obvious who the thief is, it's…”

 

WHO WAS IT?

 

(Click here for the solution to “The Case of the Stolen Confederate Stamps.”)

The jewel thief was forgetful. Mrs. Brown suspected he might have written his hiding places down, and she was right. As soon as Encyclopedia learned about the onion juice he was able to shed some light on the situation.

Onion juice can be used as an invisible ink. The words, but not the smell, disappear as soon as the juice dries on the paper. Encyclopedia realized that while the thief had used a regular pen to write what seemed like ordinary letters, in between the lines, he wrote with onion juice. The thief knew that his mother would keep all his letters. She never dreamed of the secrets they contained.

Encyclopedia and his father carefully heated the letters under a 150-watt lightbulb until the secret writing appeared. Each letter revealed a hiding place for a secret stash of jewels.

Chief Brown called the police chiefs in each and every town, and soon all of the stores had their jewels back.

Bugs may not have signed the book, but he gave away his trick when he penned the author's name for Encyclopedia. He got the name right, but he spelled it wrong.
Alice in Wonderland
was written by Lewis Carroll, not Louis Carol.

When confronted with the proof, Bugs admitted that he saw Taffy on Melissa's front lawn and thought the tiger would make a great mascot for his clubhouse. He went home, found the old book, and had Rocky sign it with the author's name. He made up the tiger thief story when Melissa didn't want to trade.

If Bugs's baby cousin hadn't cut pictures out of the book and ripped out the title page, they would have known the correct spelling of Lewis Carroll.

Luckily for Melissa, they didn't.

Bugs gave back Taffy the Tiger and apologized—gritting his teeth the whole time.

Bugs wanted to get even with the boy detective who always outsmarted him. He wanted revenge on Sally who always out punched him.

He watched the detectives help Sonia close up her lemonade stand and noticed that no one locked up the money. He pretended to be Sonia on the phone. Then he watched as the detectives walked right into his trap.

Bugs's plan might have worked except for one thing. He talked too much.

Bugs said that he caught Encyclopedia and Sally red-handed. Later he said that he watched them grab the money.

But that was impossible.

If Bugs had really caught the pair “red-handed,” the money would still be in their hands when Encyclopedia and Sally were swept up in Bugs's trap. The money was still stacked neatly on the shelf when Bugs added his dime.

When Encyclopedia pointed out the flaw in Bugs's story, the bully confessed.

Officer Muldoon drove beside Encyclopedia and Sally as they biked to the First National Bank. They deposited the money in Sonia's account.

Encyclopedia knew Wilford Wiggins was no historian with a million-copy best seller up his sleeve. But he didn't know how to prove it until Wilford brought out his “most important artifact”—George Washington's letter to Martha Washington.

Encyclopedia knew something Wilford didn't. George Washington wasn't one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. As Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, he was in New York fighting the British, not in Philadelphia signing the Declaration.

When Encyclopedia pointed out this truth to Wilford, he admitted that all of his “revolutionary antiques” were fakes. For the letter, he soaked a piece of paper in tea to make it look old. Then he added the words and the signature himself.

The neighborhood kids kept their money, and Wilford gave Mark Goldberg his savings back. Mark got to keep the rusty lantern, too, just in case the British ever decided to invade Idaville.

Encyclopedia suspected Mrs. Sweeney the minute she asked about fingerprints. Her shoulders slumped in relief, not sadness, when Chief Brown told her the thief's fingerprints would only be useful if the thief's prints were on file.

But Encyclopedia was sure as soon as he flashed the light on the tree outside the window. Mrs. Sweeney said the crook had climbed down the tree. But if that were true, Mrs. Monarch and the other club members in the living room would have been alerted to trouble when the butterflies took flight. And they would have seen the masked man through their binoculars.

When confronted with Encyclopedia's theory, Mrs. Sweeney admitted to slipping the brooch into her pocket.

Mrs. Sweeney left the Butterfly Gardener's Club and Idaville in disgrace, and Mrs. Monarch put the butterfly brooch in the bank—except for very special occasions.

An assistant brought fresh water to the judges
after
each tasting. But Encyclopedia noticed that judge number two made sure her water glass was full
before
tasting Joey's cookie. She knew it would taste awful and wanted to have a glass of water at the ready.

When confronted with the evidence, she confessed. Judge number two wanted her cousin Mary to win the contest and was afraid Joey's cookies would be impossible to beat.

She was right. Joey remixed his cookie dough with the right ingredients. He walked away with the blue ribbon for first prize, a check for fifty dollars, and a chance to have his recipe published in a cookbook.

Encyclopedia wondered why a real NASA astronaut would have to raise money from schoolkids, fifty cents at a time. He suspected the astronaut was a fake the minute he started talking about top secret missions. But he didn't know for sure until he saw the duck.

If that duck had truly flown in space, it wouldn't have lived to quack the tale. Ducks need gravity to swallow. It would have starved in a weightless space capsule.

The man admitted that he was a phony. He was simply trying to make some fast money and pretending to be an astronaut was his latest scam. When he came across a doll's space helmet—the perfect size to fit a duck—he got the idea for an astronaut duck. He used a computer to put the duck into the pictures so it would look like the duck had flown in space.

The man set the duck free, and Moonboy kept the fifty dollars he was saving for space camp.

Encyclopedia noticed a clue that his father had missed.

There was glass sitting on the small pedestal in place of the baseball. If someone had broken the glass case and then taken the baseball, the pedestal would not have had broken glass on it.

Ace Harvey wanted to collect the insurance money and keep his baseball as well. Billy Turner was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Mr. Harvey walked in and found him with a piece of glass in his hand, he decided to frame him for the robbery.

When Encyclopedia stated his theory, Mr. Harvey confessed. A couple of weeks later, he sold the ball to a baseball museum. By the next spring, he had moved out of Idaville.

After Billy's hand healed, he started catching fly balls again.