The Case of the Mysterious Handprints (6 page)

“Would you rather we report you to the airport officials?” Encyclopedia inquired. “Your alibi is all wet, Tessie!”

WHAT WAS TESSIE’S MISTAKE?

(
Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Fighter Kite.
)

O
n Sunday afternoon Encyclopedia received the treat of treats. He went with his father on a real police case.

Clarence Heiden had reported a pair of valuable bookends missing. He had asked Chief Brown to investigate the theft personally.

Every kid in town knew of Mr. Heiden. Fifty years ago he had started his career selling cotton candy in a circus. By the time he retired to Idaville, he owned circuses in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

A bachelor, Mr. Heiden lived with three servants in a rambling old house. His grounds,
which backed onto a canal, were surrounded by a wire fence.

He was waiting on the front porch when Chief Brown and Encyclopedia drove up.

“Thank you for coming out on a Sunday,” he said to Chief Brown. “This must be your son, Leroy.”

Encyclopedia liked him right away. Instead of pinching the young detective’s cheek, he shook hands.

“The bookends mean a lot to me,” Mr. Heiden said. “Since they’re made of ivory, I expect they’re worth a great deal. To me they’re priceless. They were a gift from my office staff when I retired.”

“When did you notice that they were missing?” inquired Chief Brown.

“About seven o’clock this morning,” Mr. Heiden answered. “I keep them on my desk in the den. They must have been stolen during the night.”

The heaviest thunderstorm of the summer had struck Idaville the night before. Encyclopedia had read about it in the
Idaville News.
The rains had begun around midnight and had not stopped until nearly dawn.

“Do you suspect anyone?” Chief Brown asked. “One of your servants, perhaps?”

“No, no,” Mr. Heiden said emphatically. “They’ve been with me for years. If they wanted the bookends, they could have stolen them long ago.”

“Who else might have slipped into the den last night?” Chief Brown asked.

“My two houseguests.” Mr. Heiden spoke reluctantly. “The thief might be either of them, but I hope that I’m mistaken.”

He explained. The guests, Molly Farrow and Jack Maloney, were old friends from his early circus days. Miss Farrow had been a bareback rider and later a seamstress with the circus. Mr. Maloney had been an acrobat until he lost the use of his feet in an automobile accident.

“Come inside and I’ll introduce you,” Mr. Heiden said.

Miss Farrow and Mr. Maloney were in the living room playing chess. Miss Farrow was a thin woman with small, quick hands. Mr. Maloney, a large man, sat in a wheelchair.

Neither seemed nervous under Chief Brown’s questioning. Both insisted they had nothing to do with the theft of the bookends.

From the living room, Mr. Heiden led Chief Brown and Encyclopedia to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Through the kitchen window Encyclopedia saw a guest cottage. It had two doors that opened onto a front porch. The front porch faced the back porch of the main house.

“The cottage was finished last week,” Mr. Heiden said. “It contains two units, each with a bedroom and a bath. Molly is staying in the unit on the right. Jack has the one on the left. As you can see, I haven’t yet laid down sod.”

Bare earth stretched between the cottage and the main house, a distance of fifty yards. The thunderstorm had churned the earth into mud.

Mr. Heiden opened the kitchen door and stepped onto the back porch.

“I sometimes forget to lock this door,” he admitted. “I’m afraid it was left unlocked last night. I want to show you something quite strange.”

He pointed to two trails of handprints in the mud. The handprints went between the back porch of the house and the front porch of the cottage, one set in each direction.

“It looks like someone walked on his hands,”
Chief Brown said. “Why? Was anything else stolen?”

“Yesterday morning,” Mr. Heiden replied, “my handyman reported that a pair of work gloves and a small bag of ready-mix cement were missing. An hour later Molly said she couldn’t find her leather dress gloves.”

“Did you search the cottage?” Chief Brown asked.

“Molly and Jack demanded a search,” Mr. Heiden said. “I found none of the missing articles in their rooms.”

Beside the handprints, the only marks in the rain-washed earth between the cottage and house were wheel tracks and a set of woman’s footprints.

“Those were made this morning,” Mr. Heiden said. “Coming to breakfast, Molly had to help Jack with his wheelchair because of the mud.”

Encyclopedia had heard enough. He believed he knew who had stolen the bookends, but he wanted to be sure.

He excused himself and strolled behind the cottage.

Six feet from the back doors ran a wire fence
that surrounded Mr. Heiden’s grounds. A few feet beyond the fence flowed the canal.

“Throwing distance,” Encyclopedia thought. “The thief has to be—”

WHO?

(
Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Mysterious Handprints.
)

Mr. Day wanted the second race postponed. The calm sea favored the Cushings’ boat.

However, he didn’t want to commit a crime by damaging their boat. So he damaged his own. He wore a blond wig and left it where it would be found. Since he was a blond, he thought to cast suspicion on the dark-haired Cushings.

He claimed that he first learned about the smashed rudder when the Yacht Club manager
telephoned him—
after
he had driven Mrs. Day to have her hair set. Therefore, as Encyclopedia realized, the Days
already
knew the race would be postponed.

Mrs. Day would never have had her hair set a few hours before competing in a sailboat race. Her new hairdo would have blown apart in the wind!

Bugs remembered that he had stolen the sayings from Gary’s right-hand shirt pocket. But he forgot Gary’s shirt had
two
pockets.

When he accused Gary of stealing the sayings from him, he had to think fast. The shirt he had on did not have a pocket.

So he made up the story about having on a different shirt at the time of the theft—one with “a pocket.” He traced the pocket on his right side. That was his mistake!

If a man’s or boy’s shirt has only one pocket, it is on the wearer’s left side,
never
on his right side.

Caught in his lie, Bugs gave back the sayings.

Two hours had passed between the time Bugs
said
he had looked at the moon through the telescope and the time Sally did. Impossible!

In two hours the moon would have traveled past the telescope’s field of vision.

Encyclopedia reasoned: After hearing him and Sally talking about the party as they walked past his house, Bugs stole the tools, hid
them, and called the police. However, Officer Clancy did not arrive for two hours.

When Bugs saw him coming, he aimed the telescope at the moon. Then, pretending to be Stan Hemming, he telephoned Sally and got the detectives to enter his backyard.

Because he knew nothing about astronomy, Bugs’s attempt to frame the detectives went
flop
!

Lulubelle, a third-grader, wrote down Tyrone’s message “word for word.” But he forgot to punctuate it for her!

So, as Encyclopedia realized, Lulubelle put in her own commas and periods—in the wrong places.

The commas and periods were so placed as to change Tyrone’s meaning entirely and make Adorabelle punching mad!

What Adorabelle read was: