The Case of the Mysterious Handprints (3 page)

“Listen to her rave,” Bugs said. “Brain surgery isn’t for everyone, but this dame is ready.”

Officer Clancy held up his hand. “We’ll settle this at headquarters.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Encyclopedia said. “I can prove Bugs is lying.”

WHAT WAS THE PROOF?

(
Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Stolen Tools.
)

T
yrone Taylor had a way with the gentle sex.

He was forever typing notes and poems to girls of his choice.

When Encyclopedia and Sally saw him in South Park on Saturday afternoon, he wasn’t typing. He was tipping. He was standing before a bench, bowing and tipping his hat.

“He’s practicing to be Mr. Polite,” Sally whispered. “I’ll bet he’s meeting a girl.”

Tyrone spied the detectives and motioned them over.

“Which greeting do you like better?” he inquired of Sally. “This?” He lifted his hat a few
inches off his head. “Or this?” He swept his hat off grandly and bowed to the knees.

“I like the first one,” Sally answered. “The other makes you look as though you’re shoveling flies.”

“Good,” Tyrone approved. “I like the simple approach better myself. It’s more refined.”

Suddenly he stooped to pick a sunflower. “The perfect touch!” he exclaimed. He sat down on the bench, holding the sunflower like a vase of roses.

“What’s this all about, Tyrone?” Encyclopedia asked.

“I’m meeting Adorabelle Walsh here any minute,” Tyrone answered. “I have to treat her like a lady.”

Encyclopedia understood. It wasn’t wise to forget your manners around Adorabelle.

Adorabelle was a fifth-grader with a special talent, a strong right arm. At the last Junior Olympics, she had won the girls’ shotput.

“Here she comes now,” Sally remarked.

“We’ll leave you alone,” Encyclopedia told Tyrone. “We’re overdue at the field for a soft-ball game.”

“Good luck,” Tyrone said. “I hope you win.”

“I hope you win, too,” Sally replied with a smile.

The detectives had walked fifty yards when Sally tugged Encyclopedia behind a bush. “Let’s hide. I just
have
to see Tyrone in action,” she confessed.

In the next eight seconds, there was plenty of action—most of it by Adorabelle.

Tyrone jumped to his feet, tipped his hat, and offered the sunflower.

Adorabelle ignored it. She stepped in close and landed a right on Tyrone’s jaw, spinning his hat halfway around his head. Then,
thud
! She buried her left in his stomach.

Tyrone sank to the earth, nose down. It was all over before the detectives knew what was happening.

Sally gasped, “That is one angry girl!”

“And very neat, too,” Encyclopedia added as he watched Adorabelle clean up.

Adorabelle dragged Tyrone onto the bench and laid him out, toes up. She folded his arms over his chest, tucked his hat under his hands, and placed the sunflower between his teeth.

“Go find a cushion, you pinhead!” she flung at the speechless figure, and marched off.

When Sally and Encyclopedia reached him, Tyrone was just coming around. He gagged.

Sally removed the sunflower from his mouth. “You poor boy,” she murmured. “How do you feel?”

Tyrone groaned. “If I felt any better, I’d get to a hospital.”

“Whatever made Adorabelle so angry?” Sally asked.

Tyrone groaned again. “All I did was write her this note.” He fumbled a sheet from his pocket and gave it to Encyclopedia.

The detective read the typewritten words.

“You’ve written better,” Encyclopedia said. “It’s choppy, but it isn’t
that
bad.”

“I borrowed some sentences from a book of love letters and strung them together,” Tyrone admitted. “I was kind of in a rush.”

He explained. Adorabelle was leaving that night for a week in Atlanta. He had dashed off the letter three hours ago to express his feelings for her.

“I called her at noon,” Tyrone said. “I expected to read the letter over the telephone as if the words had just come to me. She wasn’t home. So I spoke with Lulubelle, her kid sister. Lulubelle took down what I said and promised to give the message to Adorabelle.”

“Lulubelle is only in third grade,” Sally protested. “She must have got the words wrong. Or maybe she changed them because she doesn’t like you.”

“She likes me,” Tyrone insisted. “She’s taken messages before, and she prints clearly in capital letters. Besides, I had her repeat each word as she took it down.”

He fingered his bruised jaw a moment before continuing.

“Adorabelle called me an hour ago,” he said. “She had received my message. She asked to meet me here. Oh, my, did she sound eager.”

“She was eager to pop your bulb,” Sally said. “Encyclopedia, what went wrong for Tyrone?”

The detective didn’t answer. He was reading the letter again. Understanding flickered across his face.

“Kid sister Lulubelle meant well,” he murmured. “But I’m afraid she is to blame.”

WHY?

(
Turn to
this page
for the solution to The Case of the Angry Girl.
)

E
ncyclopedia and Sally entered the Idaville Trout Fishing Tournament for Children because of Conway Tintushel.

Conway had a boat.

Encyclopedia fished with Conway several times a summer and always paid a painful price. Along with a few snapper and grouper, the detective caught an earache. Conway, a kind but gabby sixth-grader, talked a better line than he fished.

The trout tournament began Thursday morning as the sun cleared the horizon. The starter’s whistle sent twenty-three boats racing
across the bay toward favorite fishing spots. Conway steered his little boat,
Albatross
, for Lighthouse Point.

“Last week I discovered the grass beds there,” he said. “You should have seen a trout I landed. I took a picture of it, and the negative weighed eight pounds. Lighthouse Point is my secret spot.”

A few others knew the secret. Half a dozen boats were strung out over the grass beds when
Albatross
chugged up.

Conway killed the motor and let
Albatross
drift.

“Fish,” he announced, “if you’re looking for a fight, here I am.”

After half an hour, he had caught a snapper and Sally had caught a grouper. Neither was big enough to keep.

“Fishing can be a spectator sport,” Encyclopedia mused as he waited for his first nibble.

“The tide is wrong,” Conway complained. “Let’s try another spot I know—Biscayne Landing. We’ll haul in so many trout, our elbows will hurt.”

Biscayne Landing was deserted, except for fish. They began biting almost immediately.

“Lock the doors. They’re coming in the
windows!” Conway cried gleefully as he reeled in a trout. “This is the hot spot!”

Within ten minutes three small trout, three groupers, and a snapper lay in the ice chest.

Encyclopedia had hooked into his second trout when everything changed. A twenty-four-foot sportfisherman raced directly at
Albatross.

“That’s Jim Loring’s boat,” Sally said.
“What’s he doing?”

At the last second the sportfisherman swerved, narrowly missing
Albatross
, and glided to a halt.

Sally gazed in disbelief at Jim and the two teenage boys with him. “Those cement-heads. They nearly hit us!”

“Ignore them,” Encyclopedia advised. “Let’s fish.”

“Not here,” Conway declared angrily. “Jim just scared all the fish away.”

Conway hoisted anchor, and for the next three hours he looked in at one fishing spot after another. At eleven o’clock he headed for the docks. The tournament ended at noon.

Albatross
was among the last boats to return. After tying up, the three children reported to the judges’ table.

Benny Breslin, one of Encyclopedia’s pals, was helping weigh the trout. “Any luck?” he inquired.

“Pompeii was luckier,” Sally said. “We caught five small trout. And some grouper and snapper by mistake.”

“Who’s in the lead?” Conway asked.

“Jim Loring looks like the sure winner,” Benny answered sadly.

“Impossible,” Encyclopedia said. “The tournament is for kids fifteen and under. Today is Jim’s sixteenth birthday.”

“Not all day,” Benny corrected. “Jim convinced the judges that he was born in the evening. So he won’t be sixteen for a few hours yet.”

“The big hunk of baloney!” Conway screamed. “Only his eyebrows keep him from being a barefaced liar!”

“Jim told me that he caught his biggest trout off Biscayne Landing,” Benny said. “He claimed you three saw him do it.”

Benny searched among the papers on the table in front of him. He found a color photograph and handed it to Encyclopedia.

“This is a picture of Jim catching the trout,” Benny said. “It was taken with his new high-speed
camera that develops its own color prints.”

Encyclopedia, Sally, and Conway stared at the photograph. It showed a bowed fishing rod off the stern of a boat. In the air a foot above the water was a trout. Its tail was turned up in the familiar curve of a hooked fish struggling against a line. The details were so sharp that Encyclopedia could see the line and even the drops of water as they dripped downward from the fish.

“You can’t tell who is catching the fish,” Sally objected. “Jim isn’t in the picture.”

“No, he isn’t,” Benny said. “But take a closer look. Notice the boat in the background.”

There was another boat in the picture. Although it was in the distance and somewhat out of focus, the boat did look like
Albatross.
And the three blurred figures in the boat wore the same color clothing as Encyclopedia, Sally, and Conway.

“Jim left the picture with the judges to prove you were present when he caught it,” Benny said. “You’re his witnesses.”