Encyclopedia Brown Shows the Way (2 page)

“My word!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown. She looked at Encyclopedia for help.

The boy detective had already closed his eyes. He always closed his eyes when he did his deepest thinking on a case.

Suddenly he opened them. “Ed made the footprint. He stole Mr. Dale’s tools.”

“But the footprint is too small,” protested Mrs. Brown.

“The footprint was made when the earth was still wet from the rain,” said Encyclopedia. “It’s been hot and dry since.”

“Of course!” cried Chief Brown. “How stupid of me! When earth dries, it shrinks. So the footprint is smaller than when it was made!”

“Oh, Leroy!” said Mrs. Brown proudly. Then she gave a troubled frown. “But how did Ed get past Rover?”

“The clue of the torn shirt tells us how, Mom,” answered Encyclopedia.

 

HOW?

During the winter, Encyclopedia did his detective work at the dinner table. When school let out for the summer, he decided to help the children of the neighborhood.

So he opened an office in the garage.

Every morning after breakfast he hung out his sign.

Thursday afternoon a small boy entered the detective agency. He looked as happy as a cheer-leader in a graveyard.

“I want to hire you,” he said, putting twenty-five cents on the gasoline can beside Encyclopedia. “My name is Northcliff Hicks. Yesterday was one sad day for me.”

“How come?” asked Encyclopedia.

“Soft music,” replied Northcliff. “Do you know anything about soft music?”

“It goes with soft lights,” answered Encyclopedia. “Is this some affair of the heart?”

“No, of the ears,” said Northcliff.

He explained. Yesterday afternoon he had been sitting by Mill Pond playing his new red harmonica. A big kid had come up holding a funny whistle.

“The big kid said I might be good at playing loud,” said Northcliff. “But he was better at playing soft. In fact, he claimed to be the champion soft-music player of the world.”

“Could he prove it?” asked Encyclopedia.

“He challenged me to a soft-music contest,” said Northcliff. “His rules.”

“That really tied your lips, eh?”

“And how,” said Northcliff. “Each of us had to play a tune so softly the other couldn’t hear it, and yet loud enough to wake a bulldog that was sleeping across the pond.”

“What did you play?”

“ ‘Kitten on the Keys,’ ” said Northcliff. “I figured a dog would go for it. I might as well have played ‘The Dance of the Spanish Onion’ on a frankfurter roll. That mutt lay like a dead battery. Then the big kid said he’d blow ’Coney Island Babe’ on his whistle. I didn’t hear a thing. But that bulldog jumped up and raced around, crazy as a bee in a honey pot.”

“Don’t take it so hard,” said Encyclopedia. “You lost to a champion.”

“I don’t mind losing,” said Northcliff. “But the big kid took my red harmonica. He said if
he’d
lost, he’d have given me his whistle. The liar!”

“You should have made tracks,” said Encyclopedia.

“I tried, but his three friends caught me,” said Northcliff. “They wore shirts with the word ‘Tigers’ written across the chest.”

“Tigers? I should have guessed!” exclaimed Encyclopedia. “The big kid was Bugs Meany!”

Bugs Meany was the leader of a gang of tough older boys. They called themselves the Tigers. They should have called themselves the Umbrella Carts. They were always pulling something shady.

“Bugs must have blown a dog whistle,” said Encyclopedia. “People can’t hear it. Only dogs can.”

“And I thought I was going deaf!” yelped Northcliff. “That no-good cheat! Can you get back my harmonica?”

“I can try,” said Encyclopedia. “I’ve dealt with Bugs before. Let’s go see him.”

The Tigers’ clubhouse was an unused tool shed behind Mr. Sweeny’s Auto Body Shop. Bugs was alone when Encyclopedia and Northcliff arrived. He was puffing “Tiger Rag” on a shiny red harmonica.

At the sight of the two boys, he switched to “Shoo, Fly, Don’t Bother Me.”

“Scram,” he growled at Encyclopedia. “Or I’ll put your head in a cast.”

Encyclopedia calmly relieved Bugs of the harmonica and played “I’ve Heard That Song Before.” Then he said, “This is Northcliff Hicks. He claims you stole his red harmonica.”

“That soft-music contest was a phony,” put in Northcliff. “You blew a dog whistle.” He took the harmonica and rendered the opening bars of “You Took Advantage of Me.”

“Soft music? Dog whistle?” cried Bugs. “You’re completely out of your tree!” He snatched the harmonica and began playing “Imagination.”

“You couldn’t beat me in a fair contest, and you know it,” said Northcliff, seizing the har-monica.
He blew “Little White Lies.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Bugs. “Let’s see how well you play with loose teeth.” He grabbed the harmonica and blew “Just Before the Battle, Mother.”

“Cut the tough-guy stuff, Bugs,” warned Encyclopedia. “That’s Northcliff’s harmonica. I suppose you’re going to say that you found it.”

Bugs blinked. “Why, so I did,” he said with a sly smile. “I found it last night on a trash pile.”

“Where?” demanded Northcliff.

“Along Miller Road,” said Bugs. “It was dark except for some blue lights strung on the palm trees by the trash pile. I saw something red shining. I walked closer. It was the harmonica.”

“That’s our trash pile,” Northcliff whispered to Encyclopedia. “Dad strung blue lights for a party in the back yard yesterday. But I didn’t throw the harmonica away. Honest!”

Bugs grinned, raised the harmonica to his lips, and blew “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”

“Blow till you’re blue in the face,” said Encyclopedia. “You won’t make me see red. You stole the harmonica!”

 

 

WHAT MADE
ENCYCLOPEDIA SO SURE?

Bugs Meany’s heart burned with a great desire. It was to get even with Encyclopedia.

Bugs hated being outsmarted by the boy detective. He longed to punch Encyclopedia so hard on the jaw that the lump would come out the top of his head.

Bugs never raised a fist, though. Whenever he felt like it, he remembered Sally Kimball.

Sally was the prettiest girl in the fifth grade—and the best fighter. She had done what no boy under twelve had dreamed was possible. She had flattened Bugs Meany!

When Sally became the boy detective’s junior partner, Bugs quit trying to use muscle on Encyclopedia. But he never stopped planning his day of revenge.

“Bugs hates you more than he does me,” warned Encyclopedia. “He’ll never forgive you for whipping him.”

Just then Ike Cassidy walked into the detective agency. Ike was one of Bugs’s pals.

“I’m quitting the Tigers,” he announced. “I want to hire you. But you’ll have to take the quarter from my pocket. I can’t move my fingers.”

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

“Bugs’s cousin, Bearcat Meany, is spending the weekend with him,” said Ike. “Bearcat is only ten, but he’s built like a caveman. Bugs said he’d give me two dollars to box a few rounds with Bearcat.

“Bearcat tripped you and stepped on your fingers?” guessed Encyclopedia.

“No, he used his head,” said Ike. “I gave him my famous one-two: a left to the nose followed by a right to the chin. I must have broken both my hands hitting him.”

“You should have worn boxing gloves,” said Sally.

“We wore gloves,” said Ike. “Man, that Bearcat is something else!”

“Did he knock you out?” asked Encyclopedia.

“He did and he didn’t,” said Ike. “His first punch didn’t knock me out and it didn’t knock me down. But it hurt so much I just had to go down anyway.”

“Good grief!” gasped Encyclopedia. “H-he licked you with one punch?”

“With two,” corrected Ike. “When I got up, he hit me again. I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move enough to fall down.”

“Bearcat sounds like a coming champ,” observed Sally.

“He’s training for the next Olympics,” said Ike.

“Isn’t he a little young?” said Sally.

“You tell him that,” said Ike. “He hurt me when he breathed on me.”

The more Encyclopedia heard about Bearcat, the unhappier he became. “Why do you need a detective?” he asked.

“Bugs said I didn’t last long enough to earn the two dollars,” replied Ike. “I want you to get my money.”

Encyclopedia gulped. The case looked like a bloody nose for sure. “Forget the two dollars,” he suggested.

“It’s a matter of pride,” said Ike. “Bearcat made me mad. He said I fought like a
girl.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” cried Sally. She stamped her foot. “We’ll take the case. I’d love to teach Mr. Bearcat Meany how a real girl fights!”

“That,” thought Encyclopedia, “is what Bugs wants.”

He said nothing, however. When Sally was out to defend her sex, arguing was useless. He took a quarter from Ike’s pocket and the three of them went to see Bugs. They found him sitting in the doorway of his clubhouse.

“Did you lose your way?” snarled Bugs. “The ladies’ sewing circle meets down the street.”

“We’ve come to get Ike’s two dollars,” said Sally.

“You’re a squirrel’s idea of heaven,” retorted Bugs. “I don’t pay boys to fight like girls.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten how well a girl can fight,” snapped Sally. “Shall I remind you?”

Bugs held up his hands playfully. “You know me. I’m too old to fight little girls,” he said. “Say, wait a minute! You’re in luck. There’s a fifth-grader in the clubhouse. Maybe he’ll box you.”

“If I win, will you pay Ike his two dollars?” said Sally.

“Of course,” said Bugs. “Am I not a man of my word?”

Bugs tossed a pair of boxing gloves at Encyclopedia’s feet and disappeared into the clubhouse. His voice sounded from inside: “Some fresh dame thinks she can make you eat dirt, Bearcat.”