The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (16 page)

The life of a manager at a luxury hotel is never easy. One person complains that their room is too hot. Another complains that their room has too many angles. Another person thinks something is hidden inside their pillow. Someone else wants free shoes. A rock star keeps throwing an Etch A Sketch out the window and lighting his pajamas on fire. There are rats in the cellars. Huge rats. They want a cable connection.

And, then, in comes a girl and a boy holding one of the guests gagged between them, whispering that they've solved the mystery of the missing Hooper Quints. Even though the boy is Jasper Dash, famed for his escapades with riveted airships, and the girl is Katie Mulligan, known for
combating evil wherever it shambles and drools, it is not easy to call together everyone in the hotel in one place and make accusations just because two thirteen-year-olds have requested it.

“I'm sorry,” said Sid. “You'll have to wait an hour and a half until our evening Hot Cocoa Splurge in the game room.”

“It's really important,” said Katie. “We think we have all the clues we need to solve the crimes! We just have to figure out a few things and put the pieces together right.”

“Wait for the Splurge,” said Sid, and picked up an incoming phone call.

Katie and Jasper pulled the duct tape off Dr. Schmeltzer's face.

“Ow!” he said. “I believe you devilish tots have pulled out the fine crop of hairs I was cultivating on my nose.”

“Oops,” said Katie. “Sorry.”

“Why, Dr. Schmeltzer,” called Mrs. Mandrake from across the room, “look at you! Without those ugly hairs, you cut quite a dashing
figure! Plucked, you remind me less of someone hiding behind a stand of Spanish moss.”

“The bats, madam, do not shun hair on their snouts. They find hair beautiful.”

“I admire your commitment,” said Mrs. Mandrake. “Would you have any interest in sipping a cup of chocolate with me a little later, at the Cocoa Splurge?”

Dr. Schmeltzer considered.

“Katie! Jasper!” Lily called. She had just come out of the elevator, dressed in her coat. “I was about to go and look for you!”

Katie ran to her side. “We've got to talk,” she said. “Lots and lots and lots to tell you. And we have to tell everything to Jasper. And we have to be
absolutely
sure who committed these crimes by an hour and a half from now.” She looked around carefully to make sure no one had heard her.

“We're going to make our accusations at the Cocoa Splurge?”

Katie nodded. “Sid told us to.”

Jasper came over, and Lily almost danced up and down to see him.

“You, Lily, are a sight for sore eyes,” he said.

Now they were all three together again. Now everything felt right.

They rushed up to their room: That is, they rushed up to 46B, knocked loudly, and when the man wearily let them in, they rushed past him into his bathroom. Lily gave him a bag of lemon cookies she'd found.

They went into the Sky Suite and closed the door. Then they started babbling. No one knew who should speak first. They kept jabbering and pointing and laughing just for the sheer joy of being reunited.

Lily told them about the weird woman in the game room. Katie told them about what she had heard during the theft. Jasper told them about the dastardly mucus.

“Mucus?!?” said Lily.

“Snot,” said Katie, wriggling her hands. “I saw it. It was
ewww.
”

“That was one of the closest scrapes with death I've ever had,” said Jasper, “and it happened mostly in my sinuses.”

Pretty soon they realized that they were going to have to organize their various clues. Jasper ran to a riveted desk and pulled out some Post-it notes.

They started to write down all the things they had learned about the mystery.

I wish I had done that, too. Frankly, I am becoming increasingly worried that it is impossible to find a solution to this puzzle that works. Then I will be in big trouble. You will seek me out, and you will yell at me while I'm trying to eat my luncheon special in peace. I will snivel into my pad thai.

I may be in trouble here.

We will have to see.

As they stuck the Post-it notes on the walls in rows, Katie and Lily and Jasper asked each other questions like these: Did the person who stole the necklace also kidnap the Quints? Was there just one person, or were there several
people involved? How did the kidnapping tie in with the theft? Was it likely that one of the guests was the person in the black ski mask at the cave? Was there any way to prove their suspicions beyond a reasonable doubt? And do it in time for the Cocoa Splurge?

Katie was enjoying solving mysteries again. Her eyes were bright and she kept licking her lips.

“Opportunity,” said Jasper. “Who had the opportunity to kidnap the Quints?”

“Almost anyone,” said Lily. “The kidnapping happened before everyone gathered at the hotel.”

“We met everyone after the kidnapping happened,” said Katie.

“Who had the opportunity to steal the necklace?” mused Lily.

“It happened when you were all gathered on the lawn in your search parties, about ready to start up the mountain,” said Katie.

“The necklace was stolen while people …” Jasper stalled. He blushed. He did not think it
was proper to mention people going to the bathroom in the presence of girls.

“Used the bathroom,” said Katie. “Who went to the bathroom right then?”

“A lot of the guests,” said Jasper.

“But not Rick,” Lily noted. “He was with me. And we should remember, it doesn't have to be a guest.” She blew her bangs back from her face. “It could be a person from the staff. Like Sid.”

“Good point,” said Katie. “Suspect every-one.”

This kind of discussion continued for a while. They were thinking and arguing and bringing up points and counterpoints. And gradually things became clear to them. They scribbled out more clues. Soon they had Post-it notes all over the wall, and Katie had also stuck some on Jasper, who was sitting in the way, stroking his chin. He got feisty and stuck three motives on her back when she wasn't looking.

Lily pulled them off and showed them to her.

Katie tickled Jasper when he was writing a note about Mrs. Mandrake, so it read:

First missed necklace when a

Outside, the air had turned frigid. The windows of the lodge slowly glazed white. Snow started to fall over the black, twisted places in the forest.

Up on the tallest peak, a scientist who lived in an antenna went out, held his thumbs to the wind, and went back inside to make a warm radioactive fire and read a storybook on benzene rings.

And in the cave?

The cave was empty.

Both rooms.

The hour of the Splurge—and of accusations—grew closer.

Everyone was intrigued by the Splurge. Usually, the only thrill with the Splurge was the popcorn bar and occasionally a few college students who had gotten tangled playing Twister and who couldn't get unbunched. They had to be hand-fed the popcorn by bellhops.

But tonight there was mystery. There was accusation. Everyone had heard about it.

People got there early for seats.

There, on one of the sofas, was Rick reading
Road & Track
magazine. There was Mrs. Mandrake, her hair piled high atop her head and clasped with a huge amber comb, talking with Dr. Schmeltzer, who was wearing a black velvet evening jacket and felt tufts on his ears. There was Eddie Wax trading gymnastics stories with
the water polo team. There were the Cutesy Dell Twins, admiring the wooden construction of the roof eaves (“Nice joinery!”). There were the Manley Boys, chalking the billiard balls. There were Dix Wickerbasket and His Amazing Dix-Chords, striking a pose where they all looked in different directions. One of them ran to get their singer more cocoa, then more marshmallows, then more caramel corn, then more cocoa again.

And there were our three nervous heroes, Jasper, Katie, and Lily, huddled together near the door, hoping against hope that they were right in their deductions.

Everyone in the room murmured. Everyone watched each other with a delighted kind of suspicion. Everyone seemed very thrilling and mysterious. Lily and Katie, looking around the room, realized that the more boring someone looked, the easier it was to imagine some amazing and fascinating criminal past they were trying to hide. A gray husband and wife who had run out of things to say to each other twelve years before might really be brother and sister
safecrackers contemplating crimes. A businessman might be selling land that was deep underwater. A man in a mall-store sweater and track shoes might smuggle endangered animals across the Canadian border. Narwhals, for example.

Lily and Katie whispered unlikely crimes to each other. It helped them forget their stage fright.

If they were wrong, they were in big trouble.

Big, big, BIG trouble.
^*

Dix Wickerbasket's band, bored, began to whistle “Begin the Beguine”

The Manley Boys sat down and waited for some action.

“Hey,” someone said loudly. “I wonder if
anyone would like to make, I don't know, any
accusations
tonight.”

“That would be great,” said someone else. “We would listen real close.”

Everyone fell silent and stared at our heroic trio.

“Miss Mulligan,” said Sid, “I think people are wondering if you can shed any light upon this mystery.”

Katie looked at the faces before her, faces turned to observe the drama, people waiting to hear what she had to say. Yes, she was terrified and her heart beat quickly. But also, she felt the thrill of conclusion—for soon, she and Lily and Jasper would put things right. Katie wouldn't have missed this moment for anything. It could turn out that her theory was wrong; she hoped it was not. Either way, the next few minutes would be crucial. Eventful. Thrilling.

Katie cleared her throat. She stepped forward.

At that, there was a hideous scream.

*
Does the larger type help you? (A) Yes. (B) No. (C) It saddens me. You, sir, are tawdry.

“Sorry,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “I was just looking for one of those little sugar packets.”

Katie, putting her hand on her heart to still it, calmed herself.

And she began.

“There are several mysteries here at the hotel,” she said. “First of all, there is the question of why the animal heads in the lobby keep disappearing and reappearing in the woods. Then there is the missing necklace. Then, most importantly, there is the disappearance of the Hooper Quints.”

“Who still,” someone pointed out, “are out there somewhere.”

“Exactly,” said Katie. “It turns out, though,
that not all of those things are connected. For example, the animal heads were being … um …”

“Liberated,” Lily supplied.

“… liberated,”
continued Katie, “by a guest whose beloved pet had been stuffed years ago. He didn't have anything to do with the other crimes.”

Katie paused and looked carefully from face to face. She said, “For a long time tonight, I thought about who might have stolen the necklace. I was right nearby when the necklace was stolen, so I had the most evidence of who the thief was. Here's what happened: I heard someone talking to himself as he searched Mrs. Mandrake's room. Just afterward, Dr. Schmeltzer appeared. He stumbled across me. I might have been more suspicious of him, except that I heard the thief run by while we were talking.