Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits (6 page)

The smell of stale cigar smoke filled the cramped room, and Clarence pointed at the ashtray, where two thin cigars and a single hand-rolled cigarette had been snubbed out.

Taped to the window were a story and photograph neatly clipped from a newspaper. “Holy cow! Look at that!” I said, pointing at it. “That’s Ellie, with her parents.”

From deep within a vest pocket, Clarence dug out his reading glasses and put them on. “Pittsburgh newspaper
from last summer. The family was at an amusement park for some kind of groundbreaking, it looks like.”

“The Blue Streak!” I cried. “That’s where she said she was going.”

Sam’s silence and Clarence’s blank look told me that they had no idea what the Blue Streak was, hard as that was for me to believe.

“The Blue Streak is a roller coaster,” I explained. “But not just any roller coaster—it’s the fastest one ever, and it opens tomorrow! Ellie told me that she was on her way to Conneaut Lake Park. Her father is a friend of the man who designed it. She gets to be one of the first people to ride it.”

“Our kidnapper has been planning this for a long time,”
said Sam.
“He knew she’d be on this train, and he knew exactly where she was going.”

“Why would he just leave all this here?” Clarence wondered aloud. “First the tile samples, which he must have known would lead us right here. The handkerchief. This article. Never heard of a kidnapper—or any kind of crook, for that matter—being so sloppy, leaving so many clues behind.”

“He doesn’t care if we find it. In fact, he
wanted
us to find it, all of it,”
said Sam.
“But something still doesn’t add up. I never heard of a kidnapping without a—”

“Ransom note?” I said, kneeling down to unstick an envelope that had gotten jammed beneath the compartment door. Printed in primary school lettering across the front was the name Doris Strasbourg. “Betcha this is it. It must have gotten caught when we opened the door.”

“Let’s see it,”
said Sam.
“Open it very carefully.”

My hands were shaking as I followed Sam’s directions and removed a single sheet of paper that had been folded in half. Large, all-capital letters spelled out the kidnapper’s demands:

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “How can you put the Blue Streak into a mailbag?”

“There’s a
lot
about this case that doesn’t make sense,”
remarked Sam.

“We need to get this to Mrs. Strasbourg right away,” said Clarence, motioning to Sam and me to exit the compartment. “I guess it’s up to me to tell her that her daughter’s been kidnapped, and she has a little over five hours to pay a ransom I don’t understand. I’m not looking forward to
that, not one bit. Poor woman. She’s going to be hysterical, and I can’t blame her. Ever since that Lindbergh case, folks are …” He closed the door, making certain that it was locked, and then shook his head. “That poor kid. She must be terrified. Henry, would you mind carrying Sam? Thank you. I want him to hear everything, but some passengers are afraid of cats, and if they see one wandering around, there’s no telling what they’ll do. He’s caused a panic on more than one occasion.”

“Are people really afraid of cats?” I asked.

“There’s a lot of old wives’ tales out there,” said Clarence. “My own granny, rest her soul, wouldn’t have one in the house if there was a baby. Said that cats would sneak into the baby’s crib and steal its breath—whatever
that
means.”

“If you ask me, people aren’t nearly scared enough,”
said Sam.
“If they knew what I know about cats, they’d
really
be afraid.”

“Is he serious?” I whispered to Clarence.

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said Clarence. “He’s full of hot air. He’s just mad because the cooks brought aboard the wrong kind of cream. Apparently, it’s from Holstein cows, and Mr. Persnickety here prefers Jersey cows. Don’t ask me how he can tell the difference.”

“Even a stupid
dog
could tell the difference,”
said Sam, almost spitting out the words.
“Seriously, if you humans had any less sense of taste or smell, you’d be rocks.”

As we entered the dining car, Clarence stopped James, the young porter who had discovered the spilled marble tiles.

“James, I want you to do me a favor. Remember that compartment we discussed? Keep a close eye on it. No one goes in there without my permission. Not even to clean up. Got it?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Nockwood,” said James. “You can count on me.”

The observation car was quiet, as most passengers had returned to their rooms to dress for dinner or were enjoying cocktails in the club car. Clarence’s knuckles had barely touched the door to the Commodore Perry suite when Ellie’s mom, Doris Strasbourg, flung it open. The hopeful look on her face was instantly dashed when she saw no sign of Ellie—only the long faces of Clarence and me, holding Sam, who wouldn’t stop wriggling, digging his claws deeper into my arms.

“Where’s Ellie? What’s happened to her?”

“Maybe it’s best if we talk inside, ma’am,” said Clarence.

When I got my first look at the Commodore Perry suite, my mouth was hanging open so wide that a fly actually buzzed right into it. For a second I thought I had swallowed him, but somehow he found his way out.

“Stop fidgeting,”
said Sam.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “There was a—”

Sam laughed when he saw the look on my face as I realized that everyone was staring at me.
“Go on, finish your story,”
he said with a chuckle.

I apologized and then quickly wiped my tongue on my sleeve before taking in the mind-boggling sights of the Commodore Perry suite. All around me were dark, lovingly polished wood, gleaming brass hardware, and plush green velvet; it was a room fit for kings and queens, and princes and princesses. I thought for a moment of my mother and baby sister in their ordinary, uncomfortable section seats near the front of the train, and suddenly it struck me: Ellie Strasbourg
was
a princess. If the rest of her world was anything like this, she and I might as well have been from different planets.

“Not bad, eh, kid?”
said Sam.
“I could get used to living in a joint like this. In fact, I
should
be living in a place like this, right, Clarence? Don’t ignore me, old timer—I know you can hear me just fine.”

A giant of a man, six and a half feet tall with a waist that must have measured in yards instead of inches, stood in the center of the room; everyone else seemed to revolve around him, like moons around a planet. His head was completely bald except for an impressive handlebar mustache, its ends waxed into perfect curls.

“Judge J. P. Ambrose,” he announced in a booming voice as he produced a shiny silver badge. “Crawford County sheriff. Retired, that is.”

If he wasn’t scary enough, seated in a wing chair and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette was the serious young man with the fiery eyes who had barked at me for nearly knocking over his pregnant wife. I quickly covered half of my face with one hand, hoping he wouldn’t recognize me.

“I’m Reverend Travis Perfiddle,” he said seriously. “My wife and I were in the observation car when we heard about Mrs. Strasbourg’s misfor—er, her current situation. I’m here to provide moral support in this
most
difficult time. My dear wife is expecting a child very soon, or she would be here as well. She is in her bed, praying for the safe return of poor Ellie.”

Across the room, the Strasbourgs’ maid, a striking young woman in a starched blue uniform, looked warily at Sam, who was still in my arms. She backed away, never taking her eyes off him, and stopped only when she ran into a wall.

“Oh, I’m sorry, gentlemen,” said Mrs. Strasbourg. “This is Julia, our maid. I’d forgotten—she’s afraid of cats. We have dogs at the house, but no cats.”

“No need to worry about Sam,” said Clarence. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Unlike Henry,”
said Sam, in my head.
“Apparently, he
eats
flies.”

Clarence shook Reverend Perfiddle’s hand and then told them everything: the discovery of the marble samples, the handkerchief, the picture of Ellie, and finally, the ransom note.

Once Mrs. Strasbourg started sobbing, there was no stopping her. “My baby, my poor baby. Who would do something like this? Where is she? Why? Why!”

Julia glided across the room, her floor-length dress rustling quietly. She knelt close to her employer, speaking soothing words and wiping tears from the distraught woman’s face.

Judge Ambrose stomped his foot, shaking the whole compartment. “Anarchists, that’s who. They’re everywhere. First they kidnap that poor little Lindbergh baby. Then along come Sacco and Vanzetti with their robbing, murdering ways. Where does it end?”

“Who?” I whispered to Sam.

“Shhh! I’ll tell you later. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Clarence ignored the judge and handed the ransom note to Mrs. Strasbourg. “Do you know what this means? Henry tells me that the Blue Streak is an amusement park ride—a roller coaster that you are on your way to see. Why would the kidnapper—”

Mrs. Strasbourg turned to the maid. “Julia, would you please show them …?”

Julia hurriedly crossed the room again, then knelt before a leather-covered trunk and opened its lid. An elaborately carved jewelry box sat inside, and from this she removed a sky-blue leather pouch. She carried it back to Mrs. Strasbourg.

Mrs. Strasbourg untied the drawstring and turned the bag over, spilling a necklace into her hand. She eyed it sadly for a few seconds and then set it on the table in front of everyone.

“It was a gift from my father,” she said, “on my eighteenth birthday. It’s called the Blue Streak.”

Dozens of brilliant gems made up the length of the necklace, starting with tiny stones at the clasp and ending with one enormous blue-as-the-sea sapphire set in the center.

Reverend Perfiddle inhaled deeply from his cigarette and leaned forward, choking on his own smoke and almost falling out of his chair when he saw that sapphire, and Judge Ambrose’s eyes looked as if they might pop right out of his shiny bald head.

“Sweet Caesar’s ghost,” he whispered.

“The center stone is over seventy-five carats,” said Mrs. Strasbourg. “It’s called the Blue Streak because if you examine it very closely with a magnifying glass, you’ll see a
single flaw deep inside the stone. When my father first saw it, he said that it reminded him of a comet streaking across the sky.”

“Probably would have been cheaper to buy a real comet,”
noted Sam, though only Clarence and I heard.

Judge Ambrose cleared his throat loudly and addressed Clarence directly. “Is there a cinder dick aboard the train?”

“No, not this trip,” answered Clarence.

“What’s that?” I whispered to Sam.

“A railroad detective,”
he answered.

“Any other lawmen?” Ambrose asked. “Police? FBI, maybe?”

“None that I know of.”

“And how long till we get to Dunkirk?” He tugged on his watch chain until a shiny gold pocket watch dropped into his hand.

“Five hours. A bit more.”

Ambrose made a big show of winding his watch and then puffed himself up even bigger.

Sam clenched my arms with his claws.
“Back up, kid! You remember the Hindenburg? If that belly of his explodes, nobody is going to get out of here alive. Oh, the humanity!”

The judge took the ransom note from Clarence and patted him on the back in a way that seemed to annoy the kindly conductor. “I think it’s best if I take over from here.
I have experience dealing with situations like this, and besides, I’m sure you have other responsibilities. I’ll be in touch if I need to see inside the compartment where you found the note. I’ll be needing to send a telegram—have to let someone in Dunkirk know what’s going on, and to have them alert the local authorities.” And with that, he pushed Clarence and me (along with a loudly complaining Lantern Sam) out the door of the suite.

“Mrrrraaa. What just happened?”
Sam asked, digging a single claw even deeper into my arm.
“Who does that blowhard think he is? Just because he’s the size of a small planet—no, I take that back, a huge planet—he thinks he can boss everyone around. Retired sheriff, my eye. Did anybody get a good look at that badge he flashed? Probably came out of a box of Cracker Jack.”

“It looked real enough,” said Clarence.

“Well, I’m not giving up,”
said Sam.
“There’s more holes in this case than a trainload of Swiss cheese.”

“What can we do?” I asked.

Sam jumped down to the floor.
“Back to the dormitory. I think best in my own bed. With a bowl of fresh Jersey cream. And a can of Sail On sardines. If only someone cared enough about me to provide those two simple necessities of life.”