Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective Read online

  WHAT WAS THE PROOF?

  The Case of the Diamond Necklace

  “You’ve hardly touched your soup,” said Mrs. Brown. “Something is wrong.”

  “I’m not hungry,” said Chief Brown. He pushed his chair back from the dining table.

  “It’s that Van Tweedle case,” said Mrs. Brown. “Now stop blaming yourself.”

  “What happened, Dad?” asked Encyclopedia.

  “I wish I knew,” answered his father. “Last night I was at Mrs. Van Tweedle’s yearly party for the Community Chest Drive. I was guarding a diamond necklace.”

  He drew a deep breath. “The necklace was stolen right under my nose!”

  “Mrs. Van Tweedle must have been afraid it might be stolen,” said Encyclopedia. “Was that why she asked you to guard it?”

  Chief Brown nodded. “She received an unsigned letter last week. It told her to put ten thousand dollars in cash behind the statue of George Washington in the park. If she refused to do this, her necklace would be stolen.”

  “Wow!” exclaimed Encyclopedia. “Is the necklace really worth ten thousand dollars?”

  “More,” said his father. “Want the facts?”

  Encyclopedia closed his eyes and prepared for some hard thinking. “Go ahead, Dad.”

  “Mrs. Van Tweedle planned to give the necklace away during the party,” Chief Brown began. “That is, she was going to sell it to the highest bidder on the stroke of midnight. The money was to go to the Community Chest.

  “To show off the necklace, Mrs. Van Tweedle’s old college roommate, Miss Stark, wore it at the party. At first, I didn’t let Miss Stark out of my sight.

  “Around eleven o’clock Miss Stark said she felt ill. She went upstairs to the guest room. She said she wanted to rest a little while.

  “I went into the room ahead of her. I wanted to make sure no one was there. Then I had her lock the door. And I stood guard in the hall.

  “Ten minutes passed. Suddenly I heard her scream. A few seconds later, two shots rang out. I called to Miss Stark. She didn’t answer.

  “I broke down the locked door. Miss Stark was lying on the bed in a faint. The necklace was gone from her neck.

  “When she came to, she could tell me little. Everything had happened so quickly. She had heard nothing. And she had fainted before she could see the thief, she said.

  “The thief must have got in and out by the window. Two bullets were in the wall above the bed. Miss Stark was lucky that she wasn’t killed!”

  Encyclopedia’s father finished speaking. A silence fell over the Browns’ dining room.

  Then Encyclopedia asked one question:

  “Was Miss Stark left alone in the room after you broke in?”

  Chief Brown looked surprised at this question. He thought a bit before answering.

  “Let me see.... I was with her all the time. Mrs. Van Tweedle came up to the room as soon as she heard the racket. Then the doctor came. He took Miss Stark directly to the hospital. He never left her side.”

  “The hospital?” said Mrs. Brown. “The poor girl. She must have had a terrible scare!”

  “She was pretty badly shaken,” said Chief Brown. “The doctor ordered complete rest and quiet. She has to stay in the hospital until tomorrow.”

  “Good,” said Encyclopedia, opening his eyes. “But there is no time to lose. Her room must be searched before she gets back.”

  “Searched for what?” asked Chief Brown.

  “For the necklace,” said Encyclopedia. “And the gun.”

  “Leroy!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. “Do you think the thief would be so silly as to leave the necklace and the gun behind?”

  “She did,” said Encyclopedia calmly. “She had no choice.”

  “She!” gasped Chief Brown. “Do you mean Miss Stark? What makes you think she did it?”

  “It’s quite simple,” said Encyclopedia. “First she tried to get ten thousand dollars out of her old classmate by writing that letter.”

  “But the letter didn’t work,” Chief Brown said. “Mrs. Van Tweedle hired me to guard the necklace. The letter only made it tougher for Miss Stark.”

  “She didn’t think it would,” Encyclopedia pointed out. “She must have talked Mrs. Van Tweedle into letting her wear the necklace at the party.”

  “The whole idea sounds pretty weak to me,” said Chief Brown. “Think how fast Miss Stark would have had to work. She would have had to hide the necklace and the gun after she fired the two shots into the wall. She must have known I’d break down the door the instant I heard the gun go off in the room.”

  “She hid the necklace before she fired the shots,” said Encyclopedia.

  “Well, if you are right, the gun and the necklace are still in the room,” said Chief Brown. “I’ll telephone one of my men to search it right away.”

  An hour later Officer Murphy called back. Mrs. Van Tweedle’s guest room had been searched. The necklace and the gun had been found, hidden in a hatbox on a closet shelf.

  The Browns had finished dinner. Encyclopedia was in the kitchen drying dishes for his mother when he heard the news.

  “Miss Stark expects to leave the hospital tomorrow a rich woman,” said Encyclopedia.

  “All she had to do, she thought, was to go back to the room and pick up the hatbox with the gun and necklace,” said Chief Brown.

  He was drying dishes when he heard the news.

  “She might have got away with it,” said Encyclopedia. “But every crook makes one mistake!”

  WHAT WAS MISS STARK’S MISTAKE?

  The Case of the Knife in the Watermelon

  Mr. Patch was the first grownup to come to the Brown Detective Agency. He was carrying a watermelon.

  Mr. Patch owned a grocery store. He showed the watermelon to Encyclopedia. It had a knife buried in it up to the handle.

  “Find the boy who owns this knife!” roared Mr. Patch. “Look what he did!”

  Encyclopedia looked at the watermelon. “Stabbing a watermelon isn’t against the law,” he pointed out. “I mean, it’s not the same as stabbing a person.”

  “The knife ended in my watermelon,” Mr. Patch shouted. “It started in the window of my storeroom.”

  “Someone used the knife to break into your storeroom?”

  “And to open my money box!” cried Mr. Patch.

  “How much was stolen?” asked Encyclopedia.

  “The thief didn’t have time to take anything,” said Mr. Patch, in a calmer voice. “He heard me coming and he got scared. When he started to run, he tripped and fell. His knife plunged into this watermelon. He didn’t have time to pull it out.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  Mr. Patch shook his head. “No, but I did see he had the letter L on the back of his jacket.”

  “That means he’s a Lion—a member of the boys’ club on Woodburn Avenue,” said Encyclopedia. “A real lead!”

  The private detective stepped closer to the watermelon. The knife had plunged into it so deeply that only the carved wood handle showed above the green skin.

  Mr. Patch laid a quarter on the gasoline can. “Find the owner of this knife, quick!”

  “I’m sorry,” replied Encyclopedia, thinking he would have to charge for expenses on this case. “I’ll need a little time. I have to buy a fingerprint kit. Then I have to dust the handle of the knife and—”

  “There are no fingerprints,” said Mr. Patch heavily. “I wiped them off.”

  “Y-you wiped them off?” said Encyclopedia weakly.

  Mr. Patch explained. “My cat knocked a bag of flour off a shelf. It broke and spilled over the watermelon and knife. I wiped off the flour—”

  “And the fingerprints too!” Encyclopedia clasped his head and moaned. Then he looked up. “Still, the thief doesn’t know that you wiped off his fingerprints—”

  Encyclopedia took out his handkerchief. He wrapped it carefully around the handle of the knife.

  “That does it,” he said. “That makes it l
ook as though we have fingerprints we are trying to save. The thief may try to wipe them off, and give himself away. We’ll have to watch all the Lions. Let’s go—”

  Encyclopedia got into Mr. Patch’s truck. They drove over to Woodburn Avenue. Four Lions—John, Frank, Corky, and Buster—were outside the club, working on the engine of an old black car.

  Although few in number, the Lions were all big boys—bigger than Bugs Meany. But Mr. Patch was bigger than any of them. He had strong hands and big arms. So the Lions listened when Encyclopedia spoke.

  “Do you see this watermelon?” he asked. “Now I take off the handkerchief. There! What do you see?”

  “The handle ...” said Buster.

  “... of a knife,” said Corky.

  “Very interesting,” said John.

  “So what?” said Frank.

  “There are no fingerprints,” said Mr. Patch.

  “The knife,” said Encyclopedia, “was used in an attempt to rob Mr. Patch’s store.”

  “The knife... ” said Buster.

  “... doesn’t belong ...” said Corky.

  “... to any ...” said John.

  “... of us,” said Frank.

  “Maybe not. But the police will probably take your fingerprints,” said Encyclopedia. “If the guilty boy steps forward now, Mr. Patch will ask the police not to be too hard on him.”

  The Lions looked serious. Mr. Patch looked serious. The only boy detective in the state looked serious.

  But that was all.

  “It’s not working the way you planned,” said Mr. Patch in a whisper. “None of them has tried to wipe the handle of the knife.”

  Encyclopedia nodded. “Leave the knife in the watermelon, just as it is. Don’t touch it,” he whispered back.

  To the Lions he said, “The police will break up your club if they find one of you is a thief.”

  The Lions stopped looking serious. They looked scared.

  Suddenly John said softly, “Frank owns a knife like that.”

  “A lot of fellows own knives with carved handles,” retorted Frank. “Cut it out!”

  “You showed me yours yesterday,” John shot back. “You even tried to get me to hold it. Why, my fingerprints might be on that handle!”

  “It’s not the same knife,” said Frank. “So quit worrying.”

  “I lost my knife last month,” Buster said. “Everyone knows I did. Where is your knife, Corky?”

  “I lost mine, too,” said Corky. “This one couldn’t be my knife, anyway. Mine has a blade a half inch longer.”

  None of the Lions remembered what the others’ knives really looked like. They began to argue loudly. Each boy tried to put himself in the clear.

  “Too bad,” muttered Mr. Patch. “They are scared and fighting among themselves. But none of them has touched the knife to try to get rid of the fingerprints. Your plan didn’t work.”

  “Yes, it did,” said Encyclopedia. “I know whose knife it is.”

  HOW DID HE KNOW WHOSE

  KNIFE IT WAS?

  The Case of the Missing Roller Skates

  Between nine and nine-thirty on Tuesday morning Sally Kimball’s roller skates disappeared from the waiting room in Dr. Vivian Wilson’s office.

  And where was Encyclopedia Brown, boy detective? He was not ten feet away from the scene of the crime. He was sitting in a chair, with his eyes shut and his mouth wide open!

  In a way, he had an excuse.

  Dr. Wilson was pulling one of Encyclopedia’s teeth.

  “There!” said Dr. Wilson. He said it cheerfully , as if he were handing Encyclopedia an ice cream cone instead of a tooth.

  “Ugh!” said Encyclopedia.

  Dr. Wilson said, “All right. Hop down from the chair.”

  Encyclopedia hopped down and put the tooth in his pocket. He was going to give it to Charlie Stewart, who collected teeth and kept them in a flowered cookie jar.

  Encyclopedia went into the waiting room. The chair on which he had left Sally’s roller skates was empty!

  He looked behind the chair. He dropped to his knees and looked under the chair.

  “The skates—they’re gone!” he exclaimed.

  “Are you sure you brought them with you?” asked Dr. Wilson.

  “I’m sure,” answered Encyclopedia. “They were broken. I fixed them last night for my partner, Sally Kimball. I was going to take them over to her house on my way home from your office.”

  Dr. Wilson shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid you will never get them back.”

  But Dr. Wilson knew nothing about detective work. Encyclopedia liked the dentist, though he felt that Vivian was a better first name for a woman than a man.

  “The skates—they’re gone!”

  “I’ll find the skates,” said the boy detective. He spoke with certainty. But he felt no such thing. What he felt was the blow to his pride; it hurt worse than his jaw.

  Imagine a detective being robbed!

  In the corridor outside Dr. Wilson’s office, Encyclopedia leaned against the wall. He closed his eyes and did some deep thinking.

  Dr. Wilson’s office was on the ground floor of the new Medical Building. The building had three floors and fifteen offices. All the offices were used by doctors or dentists.

  What if the thief had followed him into the building in order to steal the skates? Then the case was closed. “I could spend the rest of my life looking through closets, school lockers, and garages all over Idaville,” Encyclopedia thought.

  But suppose the thief had simply come into the building to see a doctor. Suppose, on his way in, he had noticed a boy carrying a pair of roller skates. Well, that was something else!

  Encyclopedia reasoned further. “The thief could be a grownup, a boy, or a girl.”

  He ruled out a grownup. First, because it was unlikely that a grownup would steal an old pair of small skates. Second, because a grownup would be too hard to catch. Too many men and women went in and out of the Medical Building every hour.

  “I’ll have to act on the idea that the thief is a boy or girl,” he decided. “It’s a long chance, but the only one I have.”

  He opened his eyes. The case called for plain, old-fashioned police leg work!

  Encyclopedia began on the ground floor. He asked the same question in every office: “Were any boys or girls here to see the doctor this morning?”

  The answer was the same in every office: “No.” Things looked hopeless. But on the top floor he finally got a lead. The nurse in room 301 told him a boy named Billy Haggerty had been there this morning to have a sprained wrist treated.

  Encyclopedia asked in the last two offices, just to be sure. Neither doctor had treated children that morning.

  Billy Haggerty became suspect number one!

  Encyclopedia got Billy Haggerty’s address from the nurse in room 301. He hurried back to Dr. Wilson’s office to use the telephone. He called Sally. He told her to meet him in front of the Haggertys’ house in half an hour.

  “We may have some rough going ahead of us,” he warned.

  But Billy Haggerty turned out to be only an inch taller than Encyclopedia, and shorter than Sally.

  Billy drew himself up to his full height at Encyclopedia’s first question:

  “Were you in Dr. Vivian Wilson’s office this morning?”

  “Naw,” snapped Billy. “I don’t know any Dr. Wilson.”

  “You didn’t ask anyone about Dr. Wilson?” put in Sally.

  “I never heard of him before you spoke his name,” said Billy.

  “Then you went straight to your own doctor on the third floor?” said Encyclopedia.

  “Yeah. Dr. Stanton in room 301. What’s it to you?”

  “Dr. Wilson’s office is down the hall from both the stairs and the elevator,” said Encyclopedia thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t pass his office going up or coming down.”

  “I don’t know where his office is, and I don’t care,” said Billy. “It’s none of your business where I was.�
�

  “We just want to be sure you weren’t in Dr. Vivian Wilson’s office this morning. That’s all,” said Sally.

  “Well, I wasn’t. I had a sprained wrist, not a toothache. So why should I go near his office?” demanded Billy. “I don’t like snoopers. What are you after?”

  “A pair of roller skates,” said Encyclopedia. “Do you mind returning them? You’ve given yourself away.”

  WHAT GAVE BILLY AWAY?

  The Case of the Champion Egg Spinner

  Mr. O’Hara made the biggest and best chocolate ice cream sodas in Idaville. He used a double helping of ice cream in each and every one.

  Encyclopedia went to Mr. O‘Hara’s drugstore on hot afternoons. When the detective business began to pay off, he went there on cool afternoons, too. But he never thought he would one day solve a case sitting at Mr. O’Hara’s soda fountain.

  People who sat at Mr. O’Hara’s counter ordered a soft drink. Or ice cream. Sometimes they ordered both.

  Nobody ever brought his own food.

  But one Sunday a boy about twelve years old came into the drugstore carrying an egg. He put it on Mr. O’Hara’s counter.

  Encyclopedia was surprised. He had finished his soda, but he sat and watched the boy with the egg.

  He was even more surprised when the boy spun the egg on the counter.

  “Still practicing?” Mr. O’Hara asked the boy.

  The boy smiled as if he owned the whole world. “Just keeping my touch. I’ve got a big match tomorrow.”

  He gave the egg another spin.

  “He’s good,” thought Encyclopedia. “He really knows how to spin an egg to keep it going.”

  The boy ordered a chocolate soda with a triple helping of ice cream. That cost ten cents extra.

  Mr. O’Hara made the soda. He placed it before the boy. He did not see the egg spinning toward the glass till it was too late.