Encyclopedia Brown and the case of the midnight visitor (6 page)

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100 Encyclopedia Brown

"The hit-run car might be the getaway car," he said. ''The bank is only six blocks from here. The robbers would come this way to dodge heavy traffic. What did the car look like?"

''It was a blue four-door Chevrolet, with two men in it," said Encyclopedia. "The last three numbers of the license plate are oh-oh-eight."

"That will help," said Chief Brown. "Who saw the accident?"

"I guess that woman—and the man on the stretcher."

Chief Brown spoke with the woman and the man. He returned to the police car and used the two-way radio.

Meanwhile, the men in white were lifting the injured man into the ambulance. They had strapped him down and were gently rolling him in feet first. Encyclopedia could see the top of his head clearly. It was bald, with cuts that were bleeding slightly.

Encyclopedia thought about the man's head. He thought about the blue car and the men in white. He thought about the woman who had stopped the ambulance.

Chief Brown had finished talking on the radio.

"You're our best witness," he .said to Encyclopedia. '^Neither the injured man nor the woman even recalls how many doors the blue car had. I'm afraid the robbers will take a lot of time to catch."

'*No, Dad," said Encyclopedia. "You can make an arrest right now."

WHAT DID ENCYCLOPEDIA MEAN?

(Turn to page 112 for the solution to The Case of the Hit-Run Car.)

Mr. Butler didn't dare write down the name of the kidnapper. The kidnapper might have seen it. So he wrote the number 7891011.

If that had been the entire clue, however, he would have written it on the pad by the telephone and not on the calendar.

Encyclopedia saw that the number stood for the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th months of the year—July, August, September, October, November. Taking the first letter of each month, he discovered that Mr. Butler had written JASON.

That night Chief Brown questioned Arthur Jason, who secretly (and unjustly) blamed Mr. Butler for his business troubles. Jason broke down and led the police to the garage where Mr. Butler was being held.

103

S^lvtiMi to The Case of the Hidden Penny

Bugs had seen Encyclopedia and Elmo enter the restaurant before they had seen him. He guessed why they had come.

So he hid the penny in his hot dog. To cover it, he had quickly heaped sauerkraut on top and then smeared on mustard. That was his mistake!

No hot-dog lover smears mustard on top of sauerkraut. The mustard goes on first and the sauerkraut afterward.

Bugs had expected Encyclopedia to search him and then leave. But Encyclopedia didn't.

So rather than have to swallow the last part of the hotdog—the part with the penny—Bugs gave the coin back to Elmo.

SolatioM to Tfce Case of the Red Sweater

Bugs wasn't wearing a girl's sweater, as Sally thought.

Encyclopedia realized that Bugs was wearing his sweater inside out!

One side was red. The other side was brown. The sweater could be worn either side out.

Bugs wore it red side out when he leaned over the oil drum to make Mr. Dillon believe he was Encyclopedia.

The oil stains looked "different," however, when it was worn with the brown side out. And the buttons were then on the left side, like a girl's.

Bugs's father paid for the things Bugs and his Tigers had stolen in order to frame the two detectives.

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SolntioH to The Case of the Painting Gerbils

The dictionary was the proof.

"Misled" is not the past tense of "misle." There is no such word as "misle" in the dictionary.

Yet Jerry called back the meaning to the boys. So he knew what the word meant before he walked into the kitchen.

"Misled" is the past tense of "mislead," which means "to lead in the wrong direction."

Jerry was the snitch. He went into the kitchen so that he could open the door to the garage and see what Herman and Sherman's painting looked like.

Thus he was able to tell the judges which painting was done by the gerbils.

SolHtioH to The Cage of the Time Capsule

"Lox is salty. It makes you thirsty as a horse," said Abe.

So Encyclopedia kept an eye on the water fountain on the fourth green. One boy made three trips to drink.

On his fourth trip, the detectives and Abe stopped him. He was a blue-eyed fourth grader named Rockwell Harrison III.

Rockwell admitted eating the lox and bagels and taking the riddle. "So what?'' he sneered.

What, indeed? The detectives left Rockwell to Abe and walked away.

Abe caught up with them later. He blew on his fist.

"What has two blue eyes and one of them is black?" he asked.

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S^lHtloB to Tfce CuBe of Freddy the Great

Cuthbert had tried to make it look as if Juno had escaped from his backyard by chmbing the boxes and jumping over the fence.

He had picked up Juno by the hind legs. Then he had dipped her front paws in the muddy spot.

Next, he had lowered her on the boxes so as to leave the right amount of paw prints. All the prints had five toes.

But cats have five toes on their front paws only. Their back paws have four.

Cuthbert didn't know that. But Encyclopedia did!

Trapped by his own mistake, Cuthbert returned Juno unharmed.

SolBtion to Tlbe Cute of the Tennit Racket

The guilty boy was Fremont, who pretended to know nothing about tennis. Thus, no one would suspect him of knowing which tennis racket to steal.

He deliberately picked out the wrong ball, an old Wilkins number 8, along with two new ones, from the steel basket.

That was his mistake!

If he really knew nothing about tennis, he could not have known how many balls— three—came in a can. Furthermore, no one told him how many balls were stolen.

Fremont confessed. The theft had been a test to prove himself fit to be a Tiger. He flunked it, and John beat Ike Quilp.

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S«latlMi to The Ctue •/ the Fi/Hy M^s^ttltoes

Stinky boasted that he had needed only the first twenty minutes of the hour given to him to buzz in and kill the mosquitoes.

However, had the mosquitoes really been on the ground for forty minutes, the ants would have found them. Instead, the ants were just coming out of their hole six feet from the table!