The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (18 page)

So, see? Six. It all works out completely logically. Did you doubt me?

Now, as a result of this mathemato-musical confusion, the whole roomful of guests was in a pickle. Sol Hooper held them all at gunpoint.

Sol looked just like Fa. He, however, was dressed in black.

“Suffering solfège,” muttered Jasper Dash. “This is not a pretty picture.”

“Give up,” said Lily. “We have all your brothers and sisters.”

“And you don't have the Mandrake Necklace,” said Katie. “Mrs. Mandrake ground it up so that no one would be able to find it.”

Sol, blinking rapidly, aimed again at Mrs. Mandrake, howling with rage.

She saw the barrel swinging her way and screamed.

Eddie Wax jumped from a table onto Sol and yanked at the man's arms. The two of them
bumbled around the room, knocking into antlers— their struggle punctuated with
Ows
and
Yikeses
and
Ouches
as they were jabbed from all sides.

Eddie Wax grabbed at Sol's gun.

Shots rang out—people shrieked—and plaster drifted from the ceiling.

Eddie finally got his hands firmly around the pistol—he pried it from the man's hands.

Lily and Katie were at Sol's sides, pulling on his shirt, trying to knock him so he would let go of Eddie.

Sol, full of rage, caught a glimpse of a huge, pointy rack of caribou antlers.

Leaning forward, he ran straight toward them—trying to skewer Eddie on the biggest spikes.

Katie screamed—and she and Lily punched at the Quint—but he shoved his hand into Lily's face and sent her sprawling. Katie tripped on Doe—she fell—

Sol threw himself and the freckled boy jockey toward the sharp horns, growling—

And something came between him and the spikes.

Something invisible.

Sol staggered backward.

“No!” commanded Jasper. “Stop, you scoundrel!”

The sharp prongs of the antlers glinted in the light. Eddie wailed for mercy.

Sol ran forward again.

And once again came up against a shape in the air.

A shape hot with transparent anger and lather.

Sol started to sense that he was up against something that was not of this world.

He backed up carefully.

Eddie let go of Sol. He slipped to the ground and watched the empty place in front of them…. His face was full of hope.

A shape solidified there.

Two glowing eyes.

A mane of shadow.

Eddie's breath was sudden and delighted.

It was the ghost of Stumpy.

Sol fired at it—but of course the bullets did nothing.

The spirit horse whinnied, reared up on its hind legs, and wheeled its hoofs in the air.

Sol panicked and fired again, sending the chandelier rocking, firing as many times as he could, sinking backward away from the flailing hoofs.

The phantom horse let out a weird, angry howl.

Sol, terrified, fell down before it. He had run out of bullets.

With a cataclysmic thump of ghostly hoofs, the horse landed and placed a heavy foot on Sol's chest.

Eddie ran to the horse, calling, “Stumpy! Stumpy, girl!”

The horse bashfully removed her hoof from the criminal and greeted her rider with a whicker.

Lily and Katie ran forward and grabbed Sol's arms. Jasper and the Manley Boys grabbed
his double, Fa, who was lying, tongue out, on the floor.

“Stumpy,” said Eddie Wax, rubbing his dead horse's neck. “Good old Stumpy.”

The ghost horse leaned her head against Eddie's chest.

Everyone watched the beautiful reunion of horse and boy.

The boy went to the refreshment table and picked up an empty, torn sugar packet. He mimed pouring sugar into his hand. The horse licked his empty palm of nonexistent sugar, and the boy laughed.

Eddie Wax had found his horse.

They were together again.

He pulled himself up onto Stumpy's back. Everyone clapped.

“Thank you,” said Eddie Wax. “We're leaving now.”

“No,” said Lily, “thank
you.
And thank Stumpy.”

Eddie whispered into the horse's ear.

Outside, snow blew across the porch and the parking lot. Eddie Wax and his phantom steed headed into the darkness, picking up speed— lifting off—flying through the air.

People ran after them as they galloped toward the clouds.

There they were, the white ghost mare and her boy, headed at last for immortality.

Katie and Lily, without even having to talk about it, both started singing, in haunting, small voices:

“Yippee-eye-oh! Yippee-eye-ay!”

And the Cutesy Dell Twins joined in, singing softly together,
“Ghost riders in the sky…”

And so Eddie Wax was reunited with the horse he loved; and they rode through the clouds, outpacing Pestilence, Famine, Death, and War; and they rode through the gulches where flames billowed hotly and the fields of green where the asphodel flowers never wither. At night they slept in the prairies on the dark side of the moon, and Eddie Wax told his horse tales by the fire,
occasionally throwing more oxygen on the flame to keep it burning. They followed the aurora borealis and clattered down the rings of Saturn and they herded asteroids, and their adventures have not yet come to an end.

When Eddie and his horse had disappeared, people went back inside.

“Mrs. Mandrake,” said Jasper. “I believe that I accidentally recovered the Granulated Necklace.” He presented her with the pepper grinder. “It was not a theft, but a misunderstanding. I am honor-bound to report that Fud Manley, well-built son of ace detective Bark Manley, switched the pepper grinder and his flashlight without realizing his mistake.”

He guiltily realized that the time had come to admit that he had snorted some of the granulated gemstones up his nose, trying to sneeze. “And I… Mrs. Mandrake, when tied to a chair and attacked by a poisonous snake, I—”

“Oh, what a delightful boy you are,” said Mrs. Mandrake. She took the grinder from him. “I've been feeling naked all evening. It is time to
pepper my décolletage.” She tilted her head to the side and began cranking the grinder. She generously applied diamond necklace to her shoulders and neck. “Here, darling,” she said to Dr. Schmeltzer. “Could you sprinkle a bit on my nape?”

“I certainly could,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “I don't mind telling you that when I heard you called an ‘old bat,' my heart began pounding. And your shriek, madam—you and I could get along very well, indeed.”

Meanwhile, several of the hotel's maid service had tied up the Quints.

“I don't know why you're doing this,” said Fa. “You don't have anything on us. We didn't actually kidnap anyone. And we didn't actually steal the necklace.”

Katie said, “You did actually threaten us all with guns and try to steal a bunch of stuff and try to stab Eddie Wax with caribou horns.”

“Hmm,”
said Fa. “True.”

“You rascal,” said Jasper, “you did tape my mouth shut without making adequate inquiries
as to whether I suffered from any plant-related allergies.” He frowned. “Though that, I guess, is the least of your crimes.”

“That was my brother,” Fa said. “I think.”

Lily asked, “What happened to your nun nanny? The one who told you that you could sing and that you were identical and that there were five of you?”

“Eh,” said Fa. “It was a long time ago. She was a nun. She was a nanny. So we figured she could fly.” He shook his head. “That was just the first in a long line of disappointments.”

The snow fell more thickly around the grand hotel. Inside, through the frosted windows, people drank cocoa and hot toddies and ate Cajun-style popcorn. People stomped in from midnight sleigh rides, dusting snow off their coats and laughing. Everyone was happy suddenly to be alive.

In the grand lobby, the Dix-Chords struck up tunes and people danced. They jitterbugged and fox-trotted. Mrs. Mandrake and Dr. Schmeltzer spun each other and tipped their
heads back and clasped each other by the arms. The Cutesy Dell Twins stood back to back, rocking their heads and holding their arms out straight. The three heroes of the evening danced together in a triangle—Jasper doing formal ballroom dances with an imaginary partner, Lily shuffling shyly from one side to the other, and Katie throwing herself around like a wacky hyena. The Manley Boys hurled popcorn at each other. Sid whistled the melody while the band's pianist accompanied him with punchy chords.

The bellhops got up on the counter and tap-danced on the blotters, while the water polo team, grinning widely, lined up on the staircase and toppled one by one into a fountain of champagne. They swam in kaleidoscopic formations around the trussed-up Hooper Quints, who lowed along with the song in awful close harmony, their heads bent together while popcorn rained down upon them; and around them, the water polo team enthusiastically circled and kicked and held up their hands making jazz fingers; and above them, chandeliers sparkled, and
animal eyes glittered from the mounted heads remaining, and corks flew through the air.

Finally, they all gathered around the tree and sang carols.

Sid, smiling widely, proclaimed, “Hooray! It's the best Christmas ever!”

People clapped.

“Um,” said Katie. “Isn't it the middle of summer vacation?”

There was an awkward pause while the author checked his notes.

The water polo team clambered out of the fountain and toweled off the champagne.

Finally, a bellhop ran forward with a telegram in an envelope.

Sid tore open the envelope, read the message, and nodded.

“Hooray!” he proclaimed. “It's the best summer vacation ever!”

They gathered around the palm tree and sang summer songs while the wind blew down from the mountaintop and the snow gathered on the roof of the Moose Tongue Lodge and Resort.

Snow fell in spirals through the black trees. It landed on the mountain streams and disappeared. It lay on the burrows of wolves. As night grew deeper, clouds snagged on the summit, on the antennae there, and everything was silenced.

Snow fell on crags and on pines. Secretly, it muffled shapes and finished them.

It tumbled past the window where Lily and Katie knelt on Lily's bed, looking out at the darkness.

“The Hooper Quints' books were published a long time ago,” whispered Katie. “Back in the 1930s or 1940s or ‘50s. Back when Jasper's books came out.”

She could, somehow, feel that Lily was nodding, though the room was unlit.

“Then, why …,” started Katie, and she fell silent.

She tried again. “Then why did they get older and Jasper didn't?”

Lily reached out and laid her hand on the windowpane. It was cold to the touch. In the faint ghost of light from outside, the spaces between her fingers grew slips of fog.

She said, “I guess because no one read their books. So they were free. They could change and grow older. People somewhere must still read about Jasper. So he's still who he was.”