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Authors: Donald J. Sobol

Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case (7 page)

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Solution to The Case of the Two-Timer,

Bugs used Lefty to help him get even with the two detectives.

While Bugs and Officer Hall watched from the dress shop, Lefty paid Encyclopedia twenty-five cents and then five dollars.

To Officer Hall, it looked as if Lefty were paying the fee for setting his watch and then buying the rights to charge others.

But Lefty could not have been setting his watch. He was so nervous he used his left hand.

If you set your watch with your left hand, you will be holding it
upside down!

When Encyclopedia pointed out Lefty’s slip to Officer Hall, the policeman realized Lefty and Bugs had faked the whole scene.

Solution to The Case of the False Teeth

Duke had to think fast in order to explain the bite in his ear.

So he said he had chased the newspaper ads into the ocean, stumbled, and was bitten by a crab.

But he forgot about the wind.

It was blowing in from the ocean all the time Encyclopedia and Sally were on the beach.

Thus, the pieces of newspapers would have blown inland, not into the ocean
against the wind.

Caught by his own lie, Duke admitted stealing the jar of teeth in order to collect the rewards. Rocky Graham had taken the jar to the Tigers’ clubhouse.

Freddy got back his teeth.

Solution to The Case of the Skin Diver

Marlin claimed he had been skin diving and had come ashore to ask Trisk to stop scaling stones into the water.

If he spoke the truth, the water should have wiped out his part. Yet he had a part-even though he had no comb with him!

From that clue, Sally reasoned out what had taken place.

Marlin felt that since he was naked and he wore a face mask when he stole the earring from Trisk, he could not be recognized as the thief-except for one thing. His hair was always parted down the middle.

So, after putting on his clothes, he parted his hair on the side. Then he hid the comb and the earring in the bushes when he saw Encyclopedia, Sally, and Trisk approach. Without the comb, he couldn’t be accused of having changed the part. He planned to come back for the earring later.

Solution to The Case of the Barefoot Thieves

Pete and Stingy Stetson had taken off their shoes and socks in the truck in order to walk quietly. They had entered and left the building by walking along the white stripes of the parking lot.

As they left, Tyrone Taylor had sat down under the tree. The brothers did not see him. But he saw them—from the waist up—walking back to the truck.

Encyclopedia realized the brothers had not walked along the white stripe just for fun. It was a hot day, remember?

The blacktop burned their bare feet. So they had walked along the white strip-which was cooler.

Faced with the proof revealed by Tyrone’s sharp eyes and Encyclopedia’s sharp brain, the Stetson brothers confessed.

Solution to The Case of the Dog-Paddle Derby

Encyclopedia meant that in Canada an Imperial gallon holds five quarts. But in the United States, a gallon holds four quarts.

To throw suspicion off himself, Puddinghead claimed he made only one trip to the shed to fill the one-gallon gasoline can before the final race.

Impossible! He could not have filled five one-quart bowls to the top with a gallon of water.

He really made two trips. On the second trip, he put the knockout drops into the can and filled the fifth bowl-the one Rags drank from.

Horace Cushing was in on the scheme. He made sure Rags, the favorite, was placed before the proper bowl.

Because of Encyclopedia’s quick brain, the race was rerun the next week, and Rags won.

Solution to The Case of the Broken Globe

Gene Dickman had written only one word to describe each picture in the test: NOON, SEES, RADAR, LEVEL, REPAPER, and SOLOS.

The six words were the clue.

Each was a palindrome; that is, a word that reads the same backward and forward.

Two students, Encyclopedia saw, had names that were palindromes. They were ANNA McGill and Robert-BOB-Mason.

The next day Mr. Morton questioned only Anna and Bob about the broken globe. They thought he had positive proof of their guilt, so they confessed.

After he had left the classroom during the test, they had clowned around and had accidentally knocked over the globe.

Solution to The Case of the Pet Skunk

As Encyclopedia guessed, the slip of paper had fallen out of the guilty boy’s pocket when he took out the bottle of poison.

On the paper was typed: “In order to succeed you have to proceed to exceed.”

The sentence makes good sense only as a way of remembering the words in the English language that end in “ceed.” Many words end in “cede,” which sounds like “ceed.” But only three words—succeed, proceed, and exceed-end in “ceed.”

Encyclopedia realized the guilty boy had written down the sentence to help him remember the three words—in preparation for a spelling test.

Thus, the boy was Chuck Mitchell.