The Case of the Sleeping Dog (6 page)

Encyclopedia glanced up the street. Mugsy and Jimbo were on the next two corners, waiting for customers.

“They’ve declared a rag-popping war,” Candice said. “Lucky for me they brag better than they shine.”

“Then let’s have action,” Sally said.

They began with Mugsy.

“We’d like to talk with you,” Encyclopedia said quietly.

“Interview me?” Mugsy said. “Listen, I’m so big I turn down a hundred interviews a year. However, as a special favor, I’ll talk to you. I’m the Idaville rag-popping champion. Watch this.”

He picked up a cloth and pretended to shine his shoe on the metal footrest. Between rapid back-and-forth strokes he brought the ends of the cloth together and snapped them wide,
pop pop chuckha chuckha pop pop.

“Oh, I do make such sweet music!” he sang.

“Sounds like a school bus clumping along on three cylinders,” Sally murmured.

“Candice says someone stole her sock with ten dollars in it a few minutes ago,” said Encyclopedia.

“The only thing I’ve stolen from Ms. Fatso is some of her customers,” Mugsy bragged.

“Liar!” Candice shot back. “You use rags I wouldn’t hit a cockroach with.”

“Where were you when Candice left her corner for the donut shop?” Sally asked.

“I mind my own business,” Mugsy growled. He folded his arms tightly across his chest. “End of interview.”

“I think he’s the one,” Sally said as they walked over to Jimbo.

Encyclopedia gave Jimbo his friendliest smile. “How’s business this morning?”

“Slow so far, but it’s early,” Jimbo replied. “It’ll pick up. There’s no shine like a Jimbo shine.”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Sally said.

“Go ahead,” Jimbo said. “Although I’m famous, I still talk to my fans. I still walk the street and sign autographs. How many famous people will do that?”

“Candice keeps money for making change in a sock in her shoeshine box,” Sally told him.

“It was stolen,” Candice piped up.

Jimbo snorted. “This kid’s belly weighs more than her brain if she thinks I robbed her. What do I need quarters for when I have a million dollars’ worth of talent? I’m the best rag-popper anywhere. Now be kind to yourself and get lost!”

The detectives and Candice walked away. When they reached Candice’s shoeshine stand, Encyclopedia halted and closed his eyes in thought.

“Maybe someone else stole my money,” Candice suggested.

“I doubt it,” Sally said. “Mugsy and Jimbo want to run you off Main Street. They’re after all the business.”

Candice nodded. “Both had time to steal my money and hide it before you questioned them. But which one? Jimbo or Mugsy?”

“Give Encyclopedia a minute and we’ll find out,” Sally said confidently.

Encyclopedia opened his eyes. “The one who stole your money, Candice, is—”

Who stole Candice’s money?

(Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Shoeshine War.)

The singers were Dale Manning, Walter Blake, Stan Z. Zamora, Oscar March, Maria Woods, and Oliver Grossman.

Once he had the key to the code—Mrs. Galan’s interest in names—Encyclopedia easily cracked it.

The words—
aria alter liver scar ale tan
—were the singers’ first names with the first letter of each name left off.

When the first letters were put back, the words became names:
Dale, Walter, Stan, Oscar, Maria
, and
Oliver.

Encyclopedia then took the first letters and put them in the same order as the words of the code.

Thus, the winner was
m w o o d s
, or Maria Woods.

Bugs Meany dreamed up the story about making writing disappear.

He wanted to trade for Kitty’s key lime pie.

Once he got her to write her name with a red pencil, he thought the pie was his.

But he overlooked Encyclopedia’s fast brain.

Using an ordinary flashlight like Bugs’s, you too can make red writing disappear. All you need is a red bulb to shine on the red letters in the dark.

As Encyclopedia knew, you can’t see red letters when a red light is shining on them.

Kitty’s grandmother got her pie.

By his own account, Bugs never saw the electric desk fan when it wasn’t turning.

Mr. Mann, Bugs said, had raced from his office to the accident. That meant Mr. Mann left the fan still turning.

Yet Bugs said he knew the fan in the garage belonged to Mr. Mann because, among other features, it had four blades.

Only if the fan was stopped could Bugs have seen the blades, Encyclopedia realized.

To steal the fan, Bugs first had to unplug it. When the blades stopped, he saw how many there were—not two, not three, but four!

Bugs’s attempt to frame the detectives stopped, too.

Hugh, Billy, and Frank all claimed to have come to the pet food building just a few minutes before the tryout.

Frank lied. He had to have come earlier because he knew Elmo had been hurt.

He also knew where to put the sleeping powder. The sheet on the picnic table told him the number (three) of Elmo’s stall and bowls.

During the test, Sally said, “Those panes won’t stop him.” By
panes
she meant the glass panes of Elmo’s stall.

Knowing Elmo had been hurt, Frank thought she said
pains.

He gave himself away by suggesting, “You ought to get him to a dog doc.”

Kirby showed Sally he couldn’t reach the figs by standing on Slim’s shoulders.

That’s when Encyclopedia figured out how the boys had reached the figs without a ladder.

They had simply swapped positions.

Instead of Kirby standing on Slim’s shoulders, Slim stood on Kirby’s shoulders.

Slim’s longer arms allowed him to reach the fruit without any trouble.

Kirby and Slim admitted stealing figs all summer. They promised to stop.

Sally made sure they did.

Encyclopedia didn’t have to prove who was guilty. Judd did it for him.

Judd said he was getting ready to count the food in the boxes when he rushed to see what mouse won.

Later, forgetting what he had said, he told Encyclopedia and Sally, “Some dirty crook steals forty-three candy bars while I’m off finding out what mouse won.”

He could not have known how many candy bars were stolen if he hadn’t yet counted them.

Unless, of course, he had stolen them himself.

Judd returned the candy.

A rule of the contest was that the
same
seventeen-foot rope had be to used throughout the year.