by Bill Doyle
Finally, she sighed and collapsed into a chair. “We seem to be stuck. We just keep coming up with questions and no answers!” Judge’s voice was filled with frustration. We need to focus, I thought.
“Let’s write down our questions and see which ones we can answer,” I said, picking up a new piece of chalk.
MY QUESTIONS
Main question: Who is poisoning people?
Why are people being poisoned?
Is the MAINE part of the puzzle?
We stared at the board. Finally I said, “Okay. I have two questions we can answer,” and wrote them down. Then we took turns writing down possible answers.
WHO ARE OUR SUSPECTS?
William Henry Moorie
Mrs. Rabella Notabe
WHAT ARE OUR CLUES?
broken teacup with fingerprint
dollar bill with fingerprint possibly counterfeit from station platform
singed remains of bill from fake cat
note left in journal
Agent Howard and Asyla Notabe both victims of poisoning
“We might be able to upgrade one of these two from suspect to criminal,” I said, pointing to the list of names. “And we have the clues to do it.”
“How–?” Judge started to ask, and then answered her own question. “The fingerprints!”
We went to work.
I began comparing William Henry’s print to the one I had found on the broken teacup.
“Well…, ” I said, pulling back from the microscope and rubbing my eyes.
“Well what!” Judge yelled impatiently. “Is there a match?”
“Unfortunately, or I guess fortunately for William Henry, there’s no match,” I told her.
“What does that mean?” Judge asked.
“We cannot directly link William Henry to the crime. But we can’t take him off the list either.”
Judge thought for a moment. “And we can only say this about one of our suspects.”
I agreed. “Yes. We don’t have a fingerprint from Mrs. Notabe.”
“I’m not sure she is such a strong suspect,” Judge said. “Would she really poison her own daughter?”
I remembered the way Mrs. Notabe had screamed in panic while holding Asyla. “She did seem very upset about Asyla’s poisoning. So I’d say the answer is no. She didn’t poison Asyla. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t poison Agent Howard.”
“There’s only one thing to be done,” Judge said. “We need to get Mrs. Notabe’s fingerprints to rule her out.”
“Or link her to the crime,” I added. “But she wears those long gloves all the time. Did you notice she didn’t even take them off when she was holding Asyla after she’d just been poisoned?”
Even as I was talking, a plan was taking shape in my brain.
“There might be a way,” I said, eyeing Agent Howard’s fishing line. “But we’ll have to be crafty.”
“Which is right up your alley,” said Judge with a grin.
April 17, 1906
6:55 PM
The sun has set over the horizon, transforming the clouds into bright shades of purple. This beauty seems to be lost on most of the passengers, though. They are not feeling lively. One thing I now know about train travel is that, after four nights, the endless rocking, the constant shrieking of machinery, and the smell of food that’s no longer fresh all can take a serious toll on passengers.
Most of them had closed themselves up in their compartments or sat dozing in their seats.
I took all this in as Judge and I paused before stepping into the first-class car. I looked at the girl next to me. She had dark hair and thick, heavy eyebrows. Blocky heels added nearly three inches to her height. The only splash of color came from the purple beaded necklace she was wearing.
“My name is Maximillion Millions,” I told her. “And yours is Henrietta Gotgobs.”
Judge looked back at me through lids heavy with rich eye shadow, and her mouth seemed to twist under the weight of the lipstick.
“Exxxcellent!” she said in a long, drawn out, snooty manner, and I had to control a laugh.
Wearing makeup and clothes one of her cousins had left on the Pinkerton Pullman, over her own clothes, Judge looked and spoke like a different person. I hoped I looked just as impressive, wearing the old brown suit jacket and black top hat we had found in a closet. If things went wrong with my plan, I didn’t want Mrs. Notabe to know we were involved.
“Are you ready, Henrietta, for Operation Coin Grab?” I asked Judge, giving my voice a southern twang.
“Yes, dahling Maximillion,” she responded in her snobby accent. “It’s time we make ‘cents’ of this mystery.”
We opened the door to the first-class car and started down the aisle. According to William Henry, Mr. Spike had moved the Notabes to this car after Asyla was stricken.
Our investigation had been stalled since yesterday morning. For Operation Coin Grab to work, the first-class hallway had to be free of other passengers and porters–and that meant we had to wait for the right moment.
As we passed the Notabes’ compartment, I saw that the door was open a crack. I took a quick look inside. Mrs. Notabe sat in her seat, reading a book. Asyla was curled up asleep on the bench next to her.
As planned, I said loudly, “Aren’t you carrying the jeweled purse with the hole in the bottom?”
“Why, no!” Judge responded, playing the part of Henrietta Gotgobs perfectly. “This jeweled purse was repaired by one of the maids.”
Then I tossed a five-cent coin attached to a piece of fishing line to the floor, making sure that the coin banged loudly off the door of the Notabes’ compartment. It clattered to the hallway floor.
Leaving the coin in place, Judge and I continued down the hall. At the end of the car, we crouched against a wall to see if Mrs. Notable took the bait.
For a long moment nothing happened. I was afraid our mission had failed. But then a hand wearing a black glove appeared through the doorway of the Notabes’ compartment. The gloved fingers found the coin, but the tiny bit of glue we had used on it made the coin hard to move. The fingers tried sliding the coin back toward the compartment, but it would not budge. Finally, the hand disappeared back through the doorway. Seconds later it was back, but this time it was not wearing the glove.
I heard Judge take in a quiet breath of anticipation. Wait… wait… I told myself, thinking of my father who told me patience is as important as a hook when it comes to fishing. “Want to end up with air for dinner?” he’d say. “Then just forget to pack your patience when you go fishing.”
As Judge and I watched, the bare hand tried to pick up the coin, but the fingers only brushed along the coin’s surface.
Come on! I wanted to shout.
Finally, the index finger of the hand shot out–and we had what we had come for. The finger had pressed down firmly onto the coin, giving it a solid fingerprint.
Yes! I imagined the fish closing its mouth around the hook. I yanked on the fishing line that was attached to the coin. The coin jerked–and the hand suddenly smacked down on it, trying to keep it in place.
I pulled again, but still the coin was held by the weight of the hand.
This was not part of the plan! Judge and I should have been long gone by now with the fingerprint sample safely in our grasp.
Framed by long black hair, Rabella Notabe’s perfectly made-up face suddenly appeared around the corner of the compartment door. Keeping her hand firmly on the coin, she leaned toward it.
As she moved her finger so that she could pick up the coin, I pulled the fishing line with all my might. The coin flew from under her hand and shot toward us. I reached up and caught it in midair in my own gloved hand.
There was no time to celebrate. Mrs. Notabe raised her head and made eye contact with me. For one instant, she gave me a creepy smile like a panther spotting its prey–and then she let out a shrill scream.
Instantly, doors opened and faces popped out of compartments. Judge and I
were turning to flee when Mrs. Notabe screamed to a porter, “Those two thieves stole from me!”
No! I wanted to shout. That’s not true!
But Judge and I panicked, and we didn’t stay to hear any more.
We had to get away as fast as we could. I could hear Judge’s feet pounding after me as we raced out of the car, with people shouting at us to stop. If we could just find a hiding place and remove our disguises, we’d be safe.
Through the coach car, the dining car–where startled passengers looked up from their roast beef dinners–we raced toward the front of the train. The car that housed the train employees was next–and we dodged around some workers who were sitting at a table playing cards and some who were folding sheets at another.
We were running out of train cars! If we didn’t find someplace to remove our disguises soon, we would reach the locomotive, the end of the line for us.
Finally, we reached the mail car. Basically, it’s a mobile post office. One wall is taken up with row after row of slots where mail is sorted. Usually, three or four men are there, sorting the mail that’s been picked up along the route. But it was deserted now.
The other wall has a long sliding door that was open to the cool night air. The door allows workers to reach down into the net that catches the mailbags left for pickup along the side of the tracks.
The amazing thing is that the train does not have to stop in order to pick up or deliver bags of mail to different areas of the country.
Bags for pick up are left on poles along the tracks. A steel frame supporting a net is extended from the side of the train. When the train passed by the mailbags, the net scoops up the bags and carries them off. To drop off a mailbag, the opposite procedure is followed. A bag is extended from the train by a steel pole, and nets along the tracks catch them.
For some reason, William Henry’s face popped in my head as we entered the car. It wasn’t a completely unpleasant image. But I also heard his voice, and that was more upsetting.
“Mailbags are flying into the mail car faster than greased lightning. One man was hit by a bag and it snapped his wrist!”
We shouldn’t be in here.
“Judge! Wait!” I cried.
But I was too late.
Judge was two steps ahead of me. As she started to turn toward me, the train jerked, and there was a strange grinding sound.
Suddenly a 10-pound mailbag flew in from outside. The brown canvas bag knocked squarely into Judge and sent her sprawling. The system was still malfunctioning!
As I rushed toward her, I heard the grinding sound again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blur rushing at me. I barely had time to throw myself backward before a mailbag rocketed between Judge and me. The net that is supposed to hold onto the mailbags until a worker reaches in to retrieve them wasn’t doing its job. Instead, it was acting like a giant slingshot, plucking the mailbags off poles and firing them into the car.
Judge and I looked at each other from across the car. Judge appeared winded and confused. She rubbed her side where the bag had hit her, but she looked unhurt. Then she was on her feet, running for the other end of the car. “Come on!” she called back to me as she ran from the mail car toward the baggage car.
But I wasn’t going anywhere. As another mailbag fired into the train, I realized I would be a fool to follow her. One of those bags could kill me.
I took off the top hat and jacket, pulled my cap out of my pocket, and put it back on, then turned to face the music.
The door from the workers’ car slid open. The train officials, led by Mr. Spike, rushed into the mail car.
April 17, 1906
8:15 PM
Without a word, William Henry walked me to the storage closet in the dining car. He opened the door and waved me in. The closet’s shelves were jammed with tablecloths, napkins, canisters filled with wooden spoons–all the day-to-day things needed for the dining car to run smoothly.
There was barely room inside for the two of us, and William Henry’s clean, soapy smell filled the closet. He watched my eyes traveling over items on the shelves and said, “We don’t keep any sharp objects in here, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
Who did he think I was? He was one of the suspects. I wasn’t!
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but he cut me off. “Mr. Spike ordered me to keep you in a safe location–”
“And do you always follow orders?” I snapped.
“When they make sense, yes, I do,” William Henry shot back. “Stealing from poor Mrs. Notabe at a time like this, with her daughter just getting well. What were you thinking?”
I couldn’t help wincing at his words, which were filled with disappointment. “Mrs. Notabe isn’t as innocent as she appears.”
“And how about you?” William Henry’s eyes finally met mine and he studied me. “Are you all that you appear?”
Now it was my turn to look down. Did he know I was a girl? The pots and pans made a strange tinny song as the rocking train banged them together. It seemed pointless to explain who I really was. If he was the poisoner, nothing I said would matter. And if he wasn’t, the truth about my identity would just add to his suspicions that I was up to no good.
Taking my silence as an admission of some kind of guilt, William Henry said, “That’s what I thought. Now I have to finish the task Mr. Spike gave me. Not to worry, I won’t have this job for long. Once the Pinkertons discover that I’ve lost their daughter on board this train, I’ll lose this job faster than you can say ‘balloon juice.’” He started to leave the closet.
“Wait! William Henry, listen to me.” I had to do something: I had to stop him! “I think we’re in danger. Everyone on this train is at risk!”
“Yes, from children with too much freedom. But that’s about to be solved as well.”
“You can’t lock me in here!” I said, shocked.
“You’re right,” he said. My panic eased, but returned when he added, “There’s no lock on the door. So I’ll have to find another way.” With that William Henry took a screwdriver from the long pocket of his jacket and started to remove several screws from the doorknob. “You know why I like machines so much?” he said. “There’s a sense of order to them. You turn a switch and you know the light will come on. You twist a screw and you know a bolt will tighten. But people, that’s a different matter.”
I didn’t know what to say.
The doorknobs on both sides of the door loosened, and William Henry slid both of them out of the sockets and into his pocket.
He was leaving. Do something! I shouted at myself. “William Henry,” I said. “Before you go, promise me one thing. Go to the Pinkerton Pullman. Look at the list of evidence we have on the chalkboard–”
He just shook his head and cut me off. “We’ll let your family sort this out. Now I’ve got to track down your accomplice, Miss Pinkerton.”
He closed the door, and I was left alone in the dark. The only light was the circular glow from the empty hole in the door, where the doorknobs used to be.
I have to get out of here! I told myself. But how? Then I remembered something I’d learned from my father and got to work.
SURVIVAL GUIDE
for
EVERYDAY LIVING
Imagine your door is closed. You reach to open it and the doorknob is gone. Somehow, if fell off and disappeared. You have a tricky problem on your hands. But do not panic! The rod or spindle that edges turn the can that constricts the spring and pulls back the latch. This opens the door.
How ever, you do not have a spindle, so you will need to make or find one of your own!
I found a butter knife and used its dull edge to whittle a wooden spoon into the shape of a spindle. It look me a long time!
The door to the Pinkerton Pullman opened with a loud click, and for once, I was happy for the deafening noise of the moving train. I had used my detective skills to escape from the storage closet and managed to sneak down the length of the train without being spotted.
I had been hoping to find Judge in her family’s car, but she wasn’t there. The car’s windows framed the darkness of the outside. Without Judge there, the clacking sounds of the train echoed around the empty compartments like lonely ghosts. It made the car seem like a mobile haunted house.
I knew that I had limited time before my escape was discovered, so I rushed to the laboratory. A wave of worry for Judge hit me. If she was in danger, one of the ways I could help her was to figure out who the villain was. So I set to work. I carefully took the coin Mrs. Notabe touched from my jacket pocket. After lifting her fingerprint, I compared it with the broken teacup fingerprint under the microscope.
This fact didn’t prove she was innocent. But it didn’t link her to the crime of poisoning Agent Howard either.
So? I thought. Who’s left? We’re running out of suspects! I went to the chalkboard to see if I could come up with a new plan.
I was so intent on the task that I didn’t hear someone coming up behind me.
A shaking hand fell on my shoulder.
Dropping the chalk, I wheeled around and nearly screamed.
The cry died in my throat as I recognized the person standing in front of me. It was Judge.
“Oh, it’s you,” I started to say, and then I felt like screaming again. It was Judge, but her hair was disheveled and her eyes were rolling about in her head.
Her cherry red lips suddenly parted and her voice emerged like the squeaks of an amateur violinist. “I cracked the case,” she wheezed. “I figured it out–”
Then her legs buckled and she began to sink to the floor.
April 17, 1906
10:30 PM
Somehow I caught Judge and gently lowered her to the floor. Her face was close to mine. There was no denying the smell of bitter almonds that came with each gasping breath.