The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (12 page)

Yes, it would have been a great time to do and say a lot of things. Instead, the two girls just stared at the tablecloth and listened to the rustling of the dancers' skirts and dresses.

This is what tension between friends can do: ruin a perfectly good opportunity to pursue the kidnapper of singing quintuplets.

Finally, Katie said, “So that guy Rick really didn't go to the bathroom when everyone else did?”

“No,” said Lily, embarrassed she couldn't give a more positive answer. “He really didn't. But almost everyone else did. Eddie Wax did, for example.”

“Eddie Wax,” said Katie. “Is he here now?”

Lily looked around. She shook her head.

“What was he like?” asked Katie.

“Nice. I feel really bad about his horse. He loved that horse.”

“He sounds a little insane,” said Katie. She shrugged. “But freckly.” She sighed and pushed away the last of her cake. “I can't eat any more. I feel like the cake is filled with eyes.”

Lily squinted at her.

“Everyone is staring.”

“No, they're not,” said Lily.

“Yes, they are. They think I'm crazy.”

“They're not thinking about it anymore.”

“Yes, they are.”

“There's other stuff going on,” said Lily.

Katie turned her fork upside down on her plate.

“Let's go to the bathroom. I need to hide for a minute.”

They got up and walked to the exit.

When they got to the bathroom, Katie sat inside a marble stall and said, “You can leave if you want to. I just need to sit here and calm down for a minute.”

Lily said, “I'll just lean against the counter.”

“Don't lean against the counter,” said Katie. “You'll get splash-back on your sweatshirt.”

“I'm not near the sink.”

They rested for a minute. Other women came into the restroom, and used it, and left.

“Are you still there, Lily?” said Katie.

“Yeah.”

“Why don't you leave for a minute?”

Lily hesitated, then said, “Oh. Okay.”

She started to leave.

“Hey,” said Katie. “Hey, Lily, are you still there?”

“Yeah. I'm near the door.”

“I'm really sorry. I was kind of a jerk earlier today.”

Lily shrugged. “Um, that's okay.”

“Okay?”

“I'm fine,” said Lily. “You weren't… Well, you weren't too much of a jerk.”

Katie thought about this, then laughed a little. “Like, only eight out of ten?”

“Six,” said Lily, smiling. “Or six point two.”

“Thanks,” said Katie. “You know you're my best friend?”

Lily shuffled nervously. She didn't like people talking about that kind of thing out loud. “Sure,” she said. “Hey,” she added in a reassuring voice, “we're going to solve this mystery, aren't we? Together?”

“Yeah,” said Katie. “Maybe.”

“Don't worry,” said Lily. “When Jasper gets back, we'll have a big discussion and figure out who's the guilty party.”

Katie sat for a minute before she said, “I feel like I'm the guilty party.”

Lily stood awkwardly with her hand on the door. Finally, she said, “I'll go up to the Sky Suite and meet you there when you're ready.”

“All right,” said Katie, from inside the stall. Her voice echoed. She heard Lily go out. She sat bent forward on the closed toilet seat, her elbows on her knees. She stared at the grain of the wood on the stall door.

Lily, meanwhile, walked across the lobby. She hoped Katie felt better. She paused for a moment and looked back toward the bathroom door. Still closed. Diners from the restaurant strolled out into the lobby to chat or to grab croquet mallets and head out to the lawn for an evening game. Lily passed by huddled groups that discussed the crimes in quiet tones.

As she was heading for the elevators, she noticed an odd shape scurrying down a hallway.

She trotted a short way along the corridor to see what it was.

It was Eddie Wax.

He was coming out of his room, carrying something bulky in a bag and looking terrified.
Lily stepped backward into one of the elevators. She let the door close in front of her, but she hit the Hold button, which kept the elevator from moving. In a minute the doors slid open again.

Carefully, she peeked out. Eddie was sneaking away.

She followed him, noting his room number.

He looked very worried.

Meanwhile, Jasper was falling thirty— Oh, I'm sorry. You probably want to hear more about Katie and Lily and their winning ways. Okay, fine. We'll just leave poor Jasper hanging in the air until you're ready. I'll start over.

Meanwhile, Katie stepped out of the bathroom, feeling a bit better after sitting there alone for a while. She headed for the grand staircase.

She hadn't even made it across the lobby when the huge front doors slammed open and the Manley Boys rushed in. They stumbled on the rug. They were a mess. Their faces were scratched and twigs and leaves hung off their varsity sweaters.

“We found a—”

“Jasper Dash has been kidnapped!”

“Its a cave!

“He's been kidnapped!”

“Jasper Dash!”

“He's—”

“Excuse me,” said Sid, coming over to them. “Pardon me.” He held his hands over their mouths. “If every hour on the hour,” he hissed with some menace, “people are going to stagger into this lobby and make catastrophic announcements—kidnappings, thefts, secret caves, alien abductions, radiated salamanders, trolls, underground cities, mysterious and deadly games—the hotel management would be grateful if instead of shrieking about local disaster so all the other guests can hear, you could please fill out this simple, quiet complaint form, available from the concierge.
^*
”

“But Jasper, he's—,” said Fud.

“Those handsome Manley Boys, they've solved another—,” said Jank.

“Hup! Hup!” Sid led them over to the desk.
He handed them two forms. They bowed their heads and started writing. The hotel manager stopped them, grabbed their pencils, and said, “In pen, please. Press hard. This has to be in triplicate.”

While Jank, who thought the alphabet was for sissies, gripped his pen and tried to tell their story in hearty, masculine pictograms, Fud said, “It took us a real long time to get back. Without Jasper.”

“Not because he knew the way better or anything,” said Jank, looking up from his drawings. “We just got turned around from, uh, magnetism. And lost the map climbing a tree. So it's been a while since we left him.”

Katie rushed over. “Where is he?” she demanded. “Why didn't you stay with him?”

“Because we were saving him,” explained Fud, “by running away. So we could tell every-one.”

“Tell them
what?
That you're
chickens?”
cried Katie.

“We had to tell the people that we found the cave,” said Jank. “We are the well-built sons of ace detective Bark Manley.”

“Is Jasper in danger?” Katie said. “What's going on? Where?”

“In the cave!” said Fud.

“What cave?”

“We found.”

“Where?”

“On the mountain.”

“Where?”

Fud emphasized, “THE. CAVE.”

Katie emphasized, “Where. Is. The. Cave?”

“The. Cave. Is. On. The. Mountain.”

“Where. On. The. Mountain?”

“IN. THE. CAVE.”

Before this moronic conversation could go on any longer, suddenly, across the lobby, there was a bloodcurdling scream.

*
See appendix B.

Eddie Wax made his way down the service stairs, a grain sack filled with something lumpy in his arms.

Lily walked carefully behind him. She had learned various tricks about how to shadow people from Katie and Jasper when they talked about their previous adventures. Most of these clever techniques, though, were only good if you were following people on a crowded street. When there was no one else around, it was a different story.

By the time Lily reached the bottom of the service stairs, Eddie was gone.

She looked around. One set of doors led into the laundry room. One led into the garbage pit.
One led to a breezeway and the outdoors—and that door was still swinging slightly.

Lily opened the inner swinging door, and then, very slowly, the door to the outside.

There, in the glaring lights of the back parking lot, Eddie Wax, with his mysterious package, was making a run for the woods.

In a moment, he had disappeared into the darkness.

Time,
Lily thought,
to go through that bathroom to the Sky Suite and find Jasper's lock-picking tools.

She was going to pay a visit to Eddie Wax's room.

Meanwhile, in the lobby, a hideous scream had stopped everyone in their tracks.

“Pardon,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “I did not mean to startle.”

People breathed a sigh of relief, or perhaps irritation.

“I could not help but overhear the young gentlemen,” said Dr. Schmeltzer. “They appear to have been disoriented. I suspect they no longer can state with clarity where lies the grot within which their benighted playmate is immured.”

No one knew what he was talking about. They nodded and prepared to do something else.

“The cave,” explained the cloaked professor,
“where their friend is being held. They don't know where it is.”

Exasperated, Fud insisted, “The. Cave. Is. On. The. Mountain.”

“But we, young man, are on the mountain, and we are not in the cave. My point, ladies and gentlemen, is this”—everyone turned to listen— “If young Jork and Flick Mandeley here had navigated not by sight, but by echolocation, as the clever bat does, they would have no trouble leading us back through the darkness to the cave. But because …”

Everyone groaned.

“Wait!” cried the professor. “Wait, before you dismiss me!” He swept his cape back and declared, “I, good people—I know where the cave is! Three years ago I went there to conduct a survey among the bats. Indeed, it was to return to the aforementioned cave that I came to this hotel. Thus: Using echolocation, I, ladies and gentlemen, I can conduct a search party thither posthaste.”