The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (17 page)

“I
heard
the thief,” Katie emphasized. “I didn't see him! Later on this made me suspicious—when I discovered that Dr. Schmeltzer
is a ventriloquist.
He could alter his voice to sound
like someone else—and he could throw his voice to sound like someone running away, even while he stood right near me.”

People gasped and looked at Dr. Schmeltzer.

“As a ventriloquist, Dr. Schmeltzer could have stolen the necklace and then imitated Rick's voice to remove suspicion from himself.”

“I am innocent,” said the bat specialist with dignity. “You may burn me upon a pyre, and still I will protest: I am innocent.”

“He
could
have stolen the necklace,” said Katie, “BUT I don't think he did. Not any-more!”

Her hands were trembling. If she was wrong, it would be a disaster. She and Lily and Jasper were just guessing, after all.

She caught the eyes of the Cutesy Dell Twins, and suddenly she felt even more nervous. They were watching her carefully to see what she would say next.

And then suddenly, one of them whispered, “Go on, Katie. You're doing real good so far.”

And Katie drew a deep breath and went on.

“Okay … So … After several confusing things happened today, Jasper, Lily, and me talked about who had kidnapped the Quints. We just couldn't figure it out. Nothing made sense. Until suddenly we realized … What if the Quints
were never kidnapped at all?”

Now everyone was bewildered.

“No one here has ever read any of the Quints' books,” said Katie. “No one knows what they look like. It's been years since their series came out. In that time, what if they've aged? What if they were full-grown adults now? What if they were jealous of other people who have appeared in books, and they wanted to show us all that they were still a force to be reckoned with? What if they decided to
stage a crime,
therefore, so they could solve it? What if they
pretended to be kidnapped and then stole something important, so that when they pretended to free themselves and saved the priceless necklace, everyone would be impressed?”

“Yeah?” said one of the Manley Boys. “What if?”

“Here's how they could do it,” said Katie. “One of them could be out on a search party, very loud and very visible. Meanwhile, another Quint could walk into the hotel,
pretending to be the same man,
and, without anyone noticing, go right up to Mrs. Mandrake's room, break in, and steal the necklace. The other Quints could be hidden up at a secret cave.

“Then that would be the perfect alibi. No one would suspect that person of stealing anything. If anyone saw him or heard him while he searched for the necklace and then accused him, he could easily say that he was part of a search party all afternoon … Couldn't he,
Rick?”

Rick put down his magazine. “Question for me?” he said.

Katie repeated, “Couldn't you? … Rick?”

“Could I what?”

Katie shuffled her hand in the air. “Be a Quint. Whose brother impersonated you while you were out searching with Lily and Mrs. Mandrake. So he could steal the Mandrake Necklace
and you could have an alibi. And that way you could regain your former glory.”

“That's the stupidest plot I've ever heard,” said Rick. “And you have nothing to prove it.”

Now people were looking suspiciously back at Katie, Lily, and Jasper.

Jasper stepped forward. “But we do. Luckily for us, those cunning Quints made one fatal mistake.” He paused briefly for dramatic effect.
“They never realized that they are fraternal, not identical, siblings!
That is to say, they do not all look the same.”

“In fact,” said Lily, “some of them are women and some of them are men. This is how we figured out what was happening: That lady there came up to me, pretending to be her brother who had been in my search party. She thought she looked just like him, and that I'd never tell the difference.”

“We suspect,” said Jasper, “that when they were kids, their nun nurse lied to them about being identical—as she did about their musical ability.”

The woman rose. “This is ridiculous!” she cried. “I have never heard a more silly story in my whole life!”

“Several Quints were pretending to be one,” said Katie. “This is why I thought I heard Rick's voice when the necklace was stolen. I
did
hear his voice—or, to be more exact, the voice of his one identical brother.”

“This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard,” said Rick.

One of the Cutesy Dell Twins rolled her eyes. “Duh, it's
your
plan, not Katie's,” she said.

“Yeah,” said the other Twin. “It's not her fault your plan is lame. Stop being this total jerk about it.”

“Earlier tonight,” said Lily, “that woman there introduced herself to me as ‘Rick,' the false name her brother had chosen. But first she kept on saying ‘It's me!'…”

“Remember,” added Jasper, “the Quints were all nicknamed after the names of the notes of the musical scale.”

Lily explained, “Katie and I know from our piano lessons—”

“—and I know,” said Jasper, “from my theremin lessons—”

“—that the notes of the scale begin
Do, Re, Mi.
What she was really saying was ‘It's Mi,' which is the nickname her brothers and sisters call her.”

At that, “Rick”—actually Fa Hooper— rose, throwing his magazine to the rug. He stood with his fists in balls. As he looked around the room, his lips twitched, as if he wanted to devour them all and lick his lips clean of them.

“You'll never catch us,” he said. And he cried,
“QUICKLY!”
to his sister—and grabbed her arm. She took his hands and they spun around.

People veered away from them, spilling hot chocolate on the floor.

Mi and Fa came to a rest and smiled triumphantly, side by side.

“There!” crowed Fa. “Shoot if you will, fools! But now you have no idea which one of us is which! You'll never know which one of us is the
real
Mi and which one is the man you know as Rick!”

He spread his arms wide.

“Ha-ha!” he said. “Ha-ho-ho, you fools! Now try to tell reality from illusion!” He crossed his arms and grinned like an emperor.

Everyone was embarrassed.

People shifted from foot to foot. People cleared their throats. A few people watched but licked the inside of their cocoa cups.

“Um,” explained Katie apologetically, “first of all, you really don't look anything alike.”

“And second of all,” said Lily, “you're dressed differently. One of you is wearing a skirt.”

“And third of all,” said Jasper, “you are both dastardly criminals in any case, so we could just arrest both of you.”

Rick/Fa looked panicked. He yelled, “Okay! Brothers, sisters, unite!”

Suddenly the glass doors to the porch rattled
and were kicked open. Panes shattered. People screamed.

In ran three more Quints—two men and a woman—dressed painfully in undersized linoleum lederhosen and carrying guns.

Everyone was held at pistol point.

“Okay,” said Rick/Fa. “So the little brats are right. For years we've been forgotten. Oh, I used to have golden hair, and now it's gray. Yes, I used to have apple cheeks and shiny shorts. Now—all
tarnished.
So we invited you people here with those fake coupons so you could witness our big comeback.

“Tonight,” he said, “was to be our victory night. We were going to dress up as our child selves and return here and claim our reward for finding the necklace—and publicize our fearless escape from the imaginary kidnappers. But these kids, these stupid, irritating kids, ruined that plan. The young ruin everything for the aging. That's how the world works. But there are other ways for us to win this little game. We will turn this Cocoa Splurge into the greatest robbery the
world has ever known.” He walked among the guests, holding a gun. “People, take off your jewelry. Hand it to me. We will add it to
this
priceless little item …”

He pointed at his brother. His brother reached into his pocket and pulled out the Mandrake Necklace. It glittered in the light. People
oohed
and
aahed.

“That's
what you stole?” asked Mrs. Mandrake.

“Yes, of course, you old fool,” said Fa.

“I wish you wouldn't call me an old fool,” said Mrs. Mandrake. “Especially when I told you that I took precautions to secure my necklace. That piece of glittering gimcrackery isn't the necklace at all.”

“What?!?” growled Fa.

“No, for safety's sake, I had the real Mandrake Necklace ground up into little pieces.”

“So you… what?!? We didn't steal the necklace?”

“No, darling. You stole the copy I had hidden to mislead the stupider of thieves.”

“So where is the real thing?” he said. He walked over to her and jabbed the gun into her temple. “Tell me where it is!”

“As you well know, I haven't the faintest idea. The granulated necklace was stolen. I had it hidden inside a pepper shaker.”

Jasper blinked, blushed, and made sure he didn't look down at his waist, where the pepper shaker was shoved between his belt loops.

“Earlier today, down in the lobby,” said Mrs. Mandrake, “some miserable thief switched the pepper shaker for a flashlight.”

Gingerly, Jasper stepped to the side and concealed his midriff behind an overstuffed chair.

Fa was crazed with anger. Snarling, shaking Mrs. Mandrake's arm, he demanded,
“Tell me where that necklace is, you rich old bat, or the next society dinner you'll attend will be with Saint Peter and all the angels!”

There was a click as he prepared to shoot.

Salvation came from an unexpected direction.

One of the Cutesy Dell Twins grabbed a billiard ball and hurled it at Fa.

It clocked him on the forehead and he stumbled backward, clutching at his brow.

And one of the water polo players caught the ball on the rebound and hurled it at another Quint. It bonked her on the side of the skull, and she wobbled and started to fall.

Fa grabbed at Lily's shoulder to steady himself. She stepped out of the way. He fell backward at her feet.

Meanwhile, Katie had caught the billiard ball, and she threw it at another Quint—who ducked, rammed his head on a pair of moose
antlers, and with a wooden
plok
was knocked unconscious.

I am bad at action scenes and even worse at counting. Have I knocked out all the Quints yet? If there are any left in the room (and I'm pretty sure there are), they had a coughing spell and Jasper bopped them with the pepper grinder.

“Hooray!” said Fud Manley. “We did it!”

“No—watch out!” said Lily. “There's another one!”

“I think that's five,” said Sid. “One, two, three, four—”

“There are six,” said Katie. “Doe, Ray, Mi, Fa, Sol, and La!”

“That's right,” said Sol, stepping into the room, gun raised.

Six Quints! How had Katie, Lily, and Jasper figured out there were actually
six
Quintuplets? Well, at first they realized that there had to be someone other than the five Quints involved to pretend to be a kidnapper when the taxicab was held up.

Then the three of them had started to think about the Quints' names, which were all the names of the musical notes. In the book Sid had read from—
The Hooper Quints on an Oil Derrick; or, The Danger Gang!
—it mentioned Quints named for the musical scale from Doe to La—which meant
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La
—
six
notes, not five! This meant six Quints! Astonishing. Just the kind of surprising twist that makes a mystery novel particularly satisfying. Once again—this time in
the question of numbers—the Hooper Quintuplets had been cruelly misled by their nun nanny.