The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (13 page)

“I'll go with you,” said Katie. “Let me just find my friend Lily, and I'll be right back!”

“Very good, young lady,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “I will wait for you on that landing.”

Katie ran up to their room—or to the room that led into their room—and found the door ajar and the occupant of 46B sitting in bed. “If you're looking for that girl with bangs over her eyes,” he said, “she went into the bathroom. I think she's building something in there.”

Katie ran to find Lily in the Sky Suite. Quickly, throwing their hands around a lot, they each explained what had happened to them since they had parted in the restroom. They agreed they'd split up: Lily would go break into Eddie Wax's room and see if she could find any clues. Katie would go with Dr. Schmeltzer to find Jasper.

“I'm glad we're working together again,” said Lily.

“Me too.” Katie nodded, then looked down at her good skirt. “My assignment for next time:
Find some nice-looking shoes that wear really well for crime fighting.”

Quickly, the two girls grinned at each other.

Then they set off running. Lily went through drawers in the crime lab, looking for Jasper's lock-picking device. Katie threw off her fancy shoes and hopped back through the bathroom of 46B, pulling on her sneakers.

The man in 46B had turned over on his side and wrapped the pillow around his head.

Katie ran downstairs. As promised, Dr. Schmeltzer was waiting on the landing, hanging from the railing, in fact, grooming himself with his teeth.

“I'm ready,” said Katie.

“Good, then,” he said, nipping at vermin on his cape. “Let's be off.”

With a horrifying shriek, he dropped to the ground, swirled his cape, and ran for the exit.

Katie ran right behind him.

Jasper hit the ground hard. He slid. The chair cracked beneath him.

He slid on shale.

He rolled on scree.

He came to rest near a river. It chortled over stones.

The snake was gone, but Jasper was still suffocating.

His legs were free now; that wouldn't help if he passed out again.

He rolled to one side and the other, writhing.

Something was lumpy under his stomach, pressed against the rocks.

He jumped—thinking it was the snake.

But no—it was just Fud's pepper grinder, which Jasper had shoved in his belt.

If only it had been an item of some use… something that could…

But then he had an idea.

Trembling, he smeared himself along the ground. He rubbed his stomach on the stone; and as he did so, the pepper grinder turned. It left behind it a trail of freshly ground pepper.

Feverishly, Jasper shoved his nose into the spicy mix. He snorted in as hard as he could. Nothing.

He sucked in harder—but just succeeded in choking on globs of sputum like softball pitches of cottage cheese.

He buried his nose again in the peppery dirt and drew breath with all his might.

And—miraculously—Jasper Dash sneezed.

He sneezed so hard that the plugs shot out of his nose. He sneezed so hard that he kicked with his feet, and the chair cracked again beneath him and fell apart.

He lay in the dying sunlight, listening to the pittering of the river, breathing deeply, fully at last. Bubbles of goobery joy slid down his cheeks. Air, sweet air, sweet air filled with spores, flooded back into his lungs to begin the whole cycle again.

But now Jasper had time.

He kicked with his legs and broke the chair to pieces. The back and one of the struts hung
awkwardly from the ropes, but the rest lay on the rocks of the little valley where he had come to rest.

Jasper put his knees up near his face. He scraped them across the frayed corners of the duct tape. He clapped them together on the edges of the tape, seizing the corners between them. He pulled.

Slowly, at first, but then more easily, he pulled the duct tape off his mouth.

It was stuck now on his knee.

He threw his head back and breathed deeply.

He leaned against a rock.

His hands were tied together, but that hardly mattered. He could walk back to the hotel. He would follow the river.

Jasper Dash, exhausted, stood up and began walking, entirely unaware of the pack of wolves that had snuck up behind him.

Lily stood before the door to Eddie Wax's room. Looking both ways along the hallway, she drew a gadget out of her pocket. It looked like a little cylinder with thin wires sticking out of one end and a toggle switch on the other.

It was Jasper Dash's Astonishing Universal Lock Pick.

She pressed it up against the keyhole. She flicked the switch.

The cylinder clicked quietly as little wires were extended. They felt the tumblers of the lock, jumped into formation, and began spinning.

In a moment the door swung open.

Lily stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

The room was dark, lit only by the glow of evening. Lily set her jaw and waited for her eyes to adjust.

Eddie had a single suitcase open on a stand. On the floor there was a saddle with all of the rest of the tack, as it's called—all the horse straps—laid out around it. He had attached the bit, which usually goes into the horse's mouth, to a lamp he'd moved to the floor. He had also attached a feed bag filled with oats to the lamp.

Lily leaned down over the saddle and picked up the bridle.

It looked very much as if Eddie Wax had been riding an imaginary horse.

It looked very much, in other words, as if Eddie Wax, truly, was insane.

A little chill went up Lily's spine.

She put down the bridle and began rummaging around in the suitcase. There were three identical pairs of blue overalls, some underwear, some socks, and his tuxedo, bow tie, and Brylcreem.

Lily straightened up and looked around the room again.

Now her attention was drawn to the bed.

In the half-light, she could see that there was a lump in it—an irregular little lump near the pillow.

She walked carefully around the bed skirts, approaching the lump.

She reached up to seize hold of the covers.

She felt danger all around her.

She pulled the cover back.

And there, grinning up at her from the bed, was a head.

A mounted weasel head.

Lily lifted the stuffed weasel's head.

That's odd,
she thought.
Eddie must be the one who hid that bear head in the woods. And took the other missing heads from the lobby. I wonder why …

And with that, she froze.

Because someone had put a key in the door.

Katie and Dr. Schmeltzer walked through the woods. Katie carried a flashlight. Dr. Schmeltzer just kept shrieking.

It was not an easy hike. The pine trees and fir trees clustered tightly around them. Everything was dark and needly. Everything brushed against them. Everything prickled and poked. Dr. Schmeltzer walked into branches and let them snap back. Katie kept her hands in front of her. Otherwise, the branches slapped across her nose.

They crossed the little bridges over mountain streams that Lily had crossed by day. Now, however, there was nothing charming about them. Beneath them, black chasms hung. Water
gargled in unseen holes, past unseen spikes of rock and grim little pools and mossy banks where water rats could hide.

As they walked, Dr. Schmeltzer's shrieking voice echoed through the desolate hills, as if calling forgotten mountain ogres to join in a feast. The hugeness of the peak above weighed on Katie. She could hear the impossible heights and the terrifying drops recorded in Dr. Schmeltzer's yell.

“Um,” she said, “you know, we're going out to find a cave with an armed bandit in it.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “Unless he's out on a foul errand.”

“Yeah. My point is that maybe the element of surprise is kind of ruined by having you screaming continually at the top of your lungs.”

“I am, unfortunately, unable to find the cave without it.”

“But, see, when we find the cave, the kidnapper might be prepared for us. That is, if he knows an hour, an hour and a half in advance that we're on our way.”