The Case of the Mysterious Handprints (7 page)

Jim needed to photograph his trout being “caught” unnoticed. So finding
Albatross
alone at Biscayne Landing, he scared the fish and got
Albatross
to leave.

Actually, he photographed a fish frozen in a curved position. Thus, it appeared as if the fish were alive and fighting.

Letting the fish thaw out, he brought it to be judged. The photograph was meant to prove
that he had caught the fish during the tournament.

Encyclopedia spotted the clue. A live fish fighting a line sprays water in all directions. The drops of water fell from the fish in the photograph as if from a rock—“downward.”

Chuck Dawson wanted to give his father’s pig the best chance to win.

He knew that the fastest pig in the heats started from the number one chute in the final. So after the heats, he slyly shoved a chocolate chip cookie into the number one chute through the air slot. Hambone broke late because he was eating the cookie when the race started.

Chuck was
leaving
, not arriving, when he
met the detectives in the parking lot. His long cigar ash was proof. The ash would have blown away during the motorcycle trip to the fairgrounds!

Encyclopedia informed the officials. One of them recalled seeing Chuck in the tent during the heats. The final was rerun, and Hambone won.

Before answering the last question, Mary McKean had gone for a drink of water—and passed the room with the prizes.

Her curiosity got the better of her. She sneaked in and opened the three boxes. The wristwatch, the first prize, slipped from her hand and broke on the floor.

So Mary decided to try for the second or third prize. She deliberately didn’t answer the last question. That was her mistake!

She knew a word with “three double letters in a row.” She called herself a
bookkeeper
!

When Encyclopedia told Mary that he had figured out what she had done, she confessed. She gave Arty her prize, the adding machine.

Encyclopedia performed a simple test: He turned the book upside down. Holding the covers out like the wings of an airplane, he let the pages fall open freely.

Each time he did so, the pages parted differently—except in one place. They always parted between pages 136 and 137.

That was where the chapter on Clive’s favorite, Ted Williams, began. Clive had weakened
the binding there by reading the chapter over and over.

Faced with the evidence, Clive denied he was the thief till Omar threatened to have his father call Clive’s father.

Clive confessed. He returned Milly-Dilly, which he had stolen for the seeds.

When Sally accused her of flying her kite into the clouds, Tessie made up an alibi on the spot.

She said she had just got out of a bubble bath, where she had been soaking for “longer” than an hour.

But then Tessie filed her fingernails!

She completely forgot that she would never file her nails after washing dishes, showering, or bathing. Nails that have been softened in
hot or warm water will split or peel when filed.

Encyclopedia pointed out her error, and Tessie became frightened. She begged him not to get her into trouble.

Encyclopedia agreed—if Tessie promised never to fly her kite into the clouds again.

This time Tessie kept her word.

Molly Farrow filled the work gloves with cement (both of which she’d stolen) and sewed on straps cut from her belt. Wearing the gloves as sandals, she walked to the house after the rain had stopped, stole the bookends, and returned to the cottage. She wanted everyone to think that the thief was the crippled Jack Maloney—that he had walked on his hands.

She threw the evidence into the canal, planning
to recover the bookends at her convenience.

To lift suspicion from herself, she made up the story of her missing gloves. A lie, Encyclopedia realized. No visitor brings leather gloves to Idaville in the summer.

A diver found the bookends, wrapped together in a blouse she had worn the day before. Her second mistake!

She had not reported the blouse missing.