Shadows on the Train (14 page)

“WOO-HOO, WOO-HOO-HOO!”

Crackle
.

Huh? Wait, that crackle wasn't part of the
Woo-Hoo
tune. It was…I wrenched the walkie-talkie out of my back pocket.
Crackle
. Gad, the thing actually worked.

I flipped the light switch that served as the
On
button. “Talbot?”

“WOO-HOO!” the cuckoo shrieked above me.

“Dinah, stay away from the luggage car…”

“It's a bit late for that,” I informed Talbot. “Where are you? I've been so worried, my stomach's in sailor's knots. You're not the type to wander off, not like me. I'm supposed to be able to
count
on you.”

His next words were barely intelligible. “…got me. I'm in with the…”
crackle
“…dolls.”

My gaze veered to the boxes labeled
PETRIE'S
PORCELAIN DOLLS
. Poor Talbot must be squished up like a pretzel if he were in one of those. I ran toward them and began yanking randomly at the boxes. “
Who
got you, Talbot?”

A particularly ear-splitting
crackle
, and the walkie-talkie lapsed into silence.

A weirdly intense silence. After a moment, I realized why. The loudmouth cuckoo had finally shut up and retreated behind his bright red wooden door.

It was odd that Pantelli wasn't clambering up to check what wood the door was made of.

I looked around. Odder still that Pantelli wasn't anywhere near me.

I gulped. “Pantelli? Uh, remember what we agreed about the buddy system?”

The ceiling lamps, flat and pale as blank pages, gleamed up and down the gold-tiled motionless passageway. Nobody there.

I gulped again. First Mrs. Chewbley, then Talbot, then Pantelli. All vanished. Maybe this wasn't the Gold-and-Blue at all. Maybe it was the Black Hole.

I would've started biting my nails, except that I'd chomped them down to the quick that morning as part of my regular manicure routine. Nope, I'd have to go for Option B, always the last resort of a junior sleuth: taking the problem to a grown-up. Head Conductor Wiggins would be so-o-o pleased to hear that a third passenger had disappeared.

I started back to the luggage car entrance.

And stopped.

Whistling pierced the air. Beautifully pitched whistling, flute-like.

Hey, I knew that tune—

Black socks, they never get dirty,

The longer you wear them

The blacker they get.

It was coming from the far end of the luggage car.

Someday I think I will wash them,

But something keeps telling me…

Something was telling me to escape the luggage car now. To do the sensible thing and find a grown-up. A whole pack of grown-ups, preferably.

Don't do it yet.

But—what else is new?—my curiosity was too much for me. Who was whistling my song, the one I'd been singing when I first met Ardle McBean, seven years ago? My feet began moving to the far end of the luggage car, drawn by that Pied Piper-style whistling.

Not yet, not yet.

Past rows of jammed-in steamer trunks, the whistling grew stronger, swept around me like the eddy of a sweet, irresistible current, filled my eardrums…

I was beside a green-with-gold-trim trunk. Standing on its side, the trunk was so long it practically qualified as a train car itself. I placed a palm against the shiny surface.

Black socks…

The whistling reverberated into my hand and right through me.

I slid my hand over to a gold latch. My fingers closed on it. Nothing to be afraid of. After all, I thought, what kind of villain would
whistle
? I pulled on the latch, and it swung open like a door.

The trunk didn't have a back to it. A large rectangle had been cut out. I could see right through to the other side.

Where Mrs. Chewbley sat, drinking tea at a table.

Chapter Nineteen

The Mad Hatter Had Nothing
on this Tea Party

I did the only thing I ever do when intensely surprised. I wisecracked.

“Does the baggage handlers' union know about this?”

Mrs. Chewbley held out her arms. “I knew you'd find me! That's why I was happily whistling that tune you're always singing. I was thinking of you and not worrying at all. You're such a clever girl.”

I edged round the table and let myself be enfolded in a soft lavender-scented hug. “Mrs. Chewbley, let's get out of here! Both Talbot and Pantelli are missing, but now that I've found you, I can prove—”

Ping! Ping!
Hairpins cascaded, some landing on a large wicker picnic basket, some sliding down the side of a plump gold and blue teapot and onto fainting-women romance novels scattered on the floor. The piano teacher was shaking her head slowly, sadly. “You can't leave, Dinah. The trunk flapped shut behind you—and it only opens from the outside.”

I spun, knocking against the table so that the teapot lid danced and clattered. Mrs. Chewbley was right. The trunk door was stuck fast, no matter how hard I pushed it.

“Bowl Cut's just cleverer than we are,” Mrs. Chewbley shrugged. She produced another cup from a nearby box and poured tea out for me. “Peppermint tea. You'll love it. So good with chocolate creams!”

I saw that yet another box was stacked with dirty cups and dishes. For a fleeting second I was reminded of the Mad Hatter's tea party. Then I reminded myself that Mrs. Chewbley was a prisoner; the setting was hardly her own choice.

Mrs. Chewbley smiled sadly. “While you were napping in the dining car, Bowl Cut crept up behind me, covered my face with a chloroform-doused cloth,” she leaned forward and lowered her voice ominously, “and dragged me off.”

I'd read up on chloroform for a report to last month's Neighborhood Block Watch meeting. (Funny—the meetings were getting smaller each month. Good thing
I
was such a steadfast attendee.) I adjusted my glasses thoughtfully. “Chloroform stinks. I'm surprised the smell didn't wake me up.”

Mrs. Chewbley reached inside the basket for a deviled egg sandwich. “Maybe you were too tired to wake up.” She took a large chomp.

“But,” I objected—Mother and Madge often complained that “but” was my favorite word—“wouldn't someone have seen Bowl Cut dragging you off? Beanstalk was in the dining car. Maybe he's part of this too.” I sighed. “Are there many people on the planet who
aren't
?”

“Or maybe Bowl Cut bribed him.” Mrs. Chewbley waved the remaining crescent of egg sandwich at me. “Bowl Cut is ruthless, Dinah.”

I sank down on a carton labeled
GARDEN
ORNAMENTS: SOLID STONE! LARGER THAN LIFE!
since there weren't any other chairs. “I haven't even spotted Bowl Cut on this train. Some junior sleuth I am.”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Chewbley soothed. “You're a very good sleuth, Dinah—just over your head on this one. Here, let me find you some creamer for your tea.” Whistling, she rummaged in the picnic basket.

I was in full self-pity mode by now. “Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have snoozed while a material witness was kidnapped,” I mourned. “And, in the best Pantelli Audia tradition, I felt ready to heave when I woke up. Not very suave.”

Woo-hoo, woo-hoo-hoo
. Mrs. Chewbley was whistling the cuckoo's tune now. In her search for the creamers, she was withdrawing more sandwiches, fruit, chocolate creams…Bowl Cut certainly kept his prisoners well fed.

Much as I liked Mrs. Chewbley, found her a food soul mate and all that, I couldn't help thinking that Mr. Wellman would have been a way better match for Bowl Cut. Though in his late fifties, my agent worked out daily at a gym. Rather than allowing himself to be dragged off, the lean, agile Mr. W. would have landed a few good punches on Bowl Cut's smug, dinner-plate face.

Mr. Wellman would also have dealt much better with Head Conductor Wiggins than I had. Being loud and tactless, I tended to alienate authority figures. Smooth Mr. Wellman charmed them practically to purring.

If only Mr. Wellman hadn't got sick!

Still whistling
Woo-Hoo
in her beautiful pitch, Mrs. Chewbley pulled out a squashed nougat bar in her quest for creamer.

But, I thought regretfully, Mr. Wellman had caught the flu from that would-be client, the one he'd told me about on the phone. Not even a very promising client at that, he'd said. One who whistled.

I gaped at Mrs. Chewbley.
A whistler had visited my
agent.
Had breathed all over his lunch, and he'd promptly got sick, preventing him from making the train trip.

Got sick.
I'd heard this refrain before, from Mother, about Mrs. Grimsbottom.

Pantelli's regular piano teacher got sick, so Mrs.
Chewbley, a new neighbor down the street, has taken over
his lessons for the summer. She's very nice, not like that
sour old Mrs. Grimsbottom. Mrs. Chewbley has offered
to give you lessons too, Dinah. Apparently she has the
patience of a saint.

I'd replied,
Oh, ha ha ha, Mother
. What I was thinking now was, Oh, ho-ho-hold on. Mr. Wellman, Mrs. Grimsbottom. In both cases, they'd got sick—and Mrs. Chewbley had stepped forward, beaming, as a substitute.

Did Mrs. Chewbley have something to do with their getting sick? Rather than breathing on Mr. Wellman's lunch, she could've added something to it when he wasn't looking. Could've just pretended to be sick herself.

Nooo. Far-fetched, Dinah. Not likely.

Well, not very likely.

But suppose she
had
poisoned them. In that case, Mrs. Chewbley wasn't quite the sweet old lady she seemed.

In that case, she might be involved with the people trying to get hold of the stamp.

I thought rapidly. Mrs. Chewbley had moved into our neighborhood just before Ardle got out of jail
.
Did she know he'd head for our house? Was she tracking down the stamp by keeping watch on Ardle—and on us?

“What are you thinking, Dinah?” twinkled Mrs. Chewbley.

“Ummm. About what a nice piano teacher you've been to Pantelli and me.”

Too nice, I thought all of a sudden. Would a proper piano teacher praise every single note Pantelli played, when, with no Mrs. Grimsbottom to bully him, he'd been slacking off for the past few weeks? Would a proper piano teacher fail to object when I bashed out my Edna May Oliver exercises so deafeningly?

R-r-rip!
Tearing open the creamer packet, Mrs. Chewbley sprinkled the contents into my teacup. “Poor child, you're pale! This tea will have you right as rain in no time.”

I stared at my reflection in the tea. Then I wasn't seeing my reflection, but rather Mrs. Chewbley prowling about in our front yard under the horse chestnut trees. Looking for her glasses, she'd explained.

But maybe she'd really been looking for something else.

For horse chestnuts.

Horse chestnuts are way too bitter to eat, unlike sweet
chestnuts,
Pantelli had said.
Toxic and poisonous…The effect
all depends on the dose…

He'd also said,
Mrs. Chewbley's cool. Unlike Mrs.
Grimsbottom, she doesn't mind when I rant on about
trees
.

She didn't mind—because she was busy listening and learning.

I gulped. All at once I knew that under no circumstances should I drink this tea.

“Drink up, dear,” Mrs. Chewbley said brightly. A little too brightly. Her tiny, currant-like eyes were brilliant, and her cheeks burned with two scarlet points.

The steam from the teacup roiled up to my face. I blinked at it—and my eyelids almost stayed shut. I was exhausted. I wanted, oh how I wanted, to oblige Mrs. Chewbley by knocking the tea back and sleeping for a hundred years. Naw, not a hundred. That'd be a mere catnap. Sleeping Beauty got ripped off. I wanted to sleep for the next millennium.

Mrs. Chewbley pushed the teacup closer to me. “Drink
up
, Dinah.”

My groggy brain was hatching a plan. A lame plan, but a plan. It was so very lame it just might work.

“Mrs. Chewbley,” I said, “there's a huge black spider right behind you.”

The piano teacher gave me a broad, knowing smile. “A spider,” she repeated. With a faint shrug, she turned.

I grasped the handles of the two teacups, hers and mine, and pushed the cups around. When she turned back, the tea in both cups was bouncing. Would she notice?

The piano teacher's smile, now revealing small, rather pointed teeth, was downright unpleasant. It must've always been, except that she'd covered it with cute twittering and lots and
lots
of chocolate creams.

“I take it back. You aren't really a very smart junior sleuth, Dinah,” Mrs. Chewbley said—and switched the cups. “Yours for mine. Did you honestly think I wouldn't guess what you were up to with that stupid spider remark? The old drugged-drink switcheroo is stale as last week's donuts.”

Raising her cup to me, Mrs. Chewbley downed her tea all at once. “Now,” she said, running her tongue over her lips to gather the last drops of the tea, “are you going to drink your tea and fall into a lovely, deep sleep, or do I call my associate?”

“What do you call him?” I joked nervously. I had to play for a bit of time. Just a bit. “Or maybe ‘her,' if you mean Nurse Ballantyne. The ‘he' is Bowl Cut, I assume.”

Mrs. Chewbley shoved the still-full teacup at me with a pasty white fist. “Now drink up. I wouldn't want to have to force it down your throat, would I?” She started to rise.

“Fine.” And I drank my tea, every last drop.

Chapter Twenty

Dinah Gets into the Vanishing Act

For a minute the only sound in the luggage car was the smooth hum of the Gold-and-Blue speeding along the tracks. Mrs. Chewbley and I eyeballed each other without blinking.