“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.
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 tha
t 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.
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen Page 10
