Mystery in the Mansion
Page 22
Smythe marches into the room, his big footsteps making the floor rumble. His droopy eyes are fixed in a glare at Guinevere.
“Here,” he grumbles as he pulls a piece of paper out of a drawer right next to Guinevere. She reads it aloud:
“The treasure does not belong to you.
It belongs to me.
You have seven days to find it.
Or else.”
Eliza frowns. “Can we keep this threat? Just in case we need to revisit it later?”
Guinevere nods. “And you should have this picture I took of the second death threat.” She slides a photograph and the ransom letter over to me, and I tuck them both into my pocket
“What’s the second death threat?” I ask.
“You might’ve seen it walking in. Three days after I got this letter in the mail, I walked into my house and found my library destroyed. On the wall, in red paint, was a message.”
“What did the message say?”
“It said, ‘You are running out of time. Find that treasure, or MEET YOUR DOOM. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.’”
A shiver goes up my spine.
“Oh wait,” Guinevere says. “I actually think there were more HAs than that. How about this? HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHAHAHA.”
“Okay, we get the—”
“Wait!” she says, holding up her hand for silence. “I’m not done.” She clears her throat. “HA. Okay, now I’m done.”
* * *
TO ASK GUINEVERE ABOUT HER HUSBAND’S TREASURE, CLICK HERE.
TO ASK GUINEVERE WHO MIGHT BE SENDING THE THREATS, CLICK HERE.
* * *
“WHY, OTTO?” I say, taking one step closer. “Why are you doing this?”
I hold the lantern up and peer into his face, which looks dark from the shadows or anger . . . or both.
“My name isn’t Otto,” he says harshly. “It’s Preston LeCavalier.”
Preston LeCavalier? Mr. LeCavalier’s son? My heart skips a beat. “Y-you’re him?”
“Ah,” Preston says, “I see you’ve heard of me. That’s surprising, as this one”—he shakes Guinevere—“likes to pretend I never existed.”
“I . . . didn’t . . . mean . . . ,” Guinevere peeps.
“Oh, but you did mean,” Preston says. “You meant to erase me from my family. And you were successful at it. Except for one thing: you can never erase the memories I have of my father talking about the hidden treasure beneath the house.”
Guinevere squeaks.
“Now I finally get to give Guinevere here what she deserves, and walk away with my treasure. Of course . . .” He studies us through squinted eyes. “Now that you kids know who I am and what I did, I can’t let you go.”
Eliza hugs Frank close, and I step forward protectively. I have to do something. But I don’t see much to work with. There’s only the tapestry, the sleeping bats, the lanterns, Eliza’s backpack . . . Wait a minute!
Suddenly, clear as crystal, two plans form in my head. Both involve creating a distraction for Otto while we escape with Guinevere LeCavalier. The first plan is where I set the tapestry on fire. And the other plan is where I throw raisins at the sleeping bats to wake them up.
Which one would be a better distraction?
* * *
TO SET THE TAPESTRY ON FIRE, CLICK HERE.
TO THROW RAISINS AT THE BATS, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I DECIDE THAT maybe we should check in with Guinevere LeCavalier after all—just to let her know that we’re on the case. And maybe, while we’re there, we can tell her all we know about Patty and Maddock.
I let Frank ring the doorbell, and he presses it over and over, a billion times, ding ding ding ding ding!
Finally Eliza has to grab his hand and pull him away from the doorbell.
After a minute of standing there, I start knocking like crazy. Where is everyone? What the heck is going on?
At long last, Smythe opens the door, a sour expression on his face.
“Is that them?” cries a voice from inside the house, and the door swings open even farther to reveal Ivy. She’s wearing curlers in her hair, and she still hasn’t changed out of her nightgown. Her eyes are frantic.
“Oh thank goodness!” she breathes. “We just called the police, and they said the first twenty-four hours are the most important in a missing-person investigation—and to stay by the phone. Then they promised they’d drop by as soon as they could, but who knows how long that’ll be?”
Eliza and I exchange a glance.
“Er,” I say, “what are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you get my message? My mom—she’s been kidnapped!” Ivy cries.
“B-but,” I say, my brain trying to wrap itself around this new information. “But we told her to go to a hotel!”
“She was at the hotel,” Ivy says, her voice all shaky. “With me. But then she woke up in the middle of the night, missing Mr. Wubbles.”
“A stuffed animal?” Eliza asks.
“No, her diamond necklace,” Ivy says. “She texted me, saying she went home for it, but I didn’t get the text until I woke up in the morning. And when I got to the house, she was gone! And there was a note on her pillow.” Ivy opens her palm and hands us a small piece of rough, rolled-up paper.
I uncurl the note and look at the big block-lettered writing.
SHE WILL FIND THE TREASURE
WITH ME . . . OR PERISH AT SUNDOWN.
A shiver goes down my spine, and my stomach drops like it’s falling down an elevator shaft. Oh man oh man oh man. We really shouldn’t have taken this case. At first it was all kind of fun and mysterious, but I don’t think we took the third threat seriously enough, and now there is ACTUAL danger. It’s more than my mom’s fate on the line. . . . I mean, if we can’t solve this, then Guinevere might die. And if we get too close to catching the criminal, we’ll be in danger too.
Oh, man, what was I thinking?
“What does pear-ish mean?” asks Frank, pointing at the note.
“Perish. And it’s not good,” Eliza says.
Ivy snatches the letter back from my hands and waves it frantically. “WHO?” she crows. “Who would kidnap my mother? You’ve investigated this—who do you think is guilty?”
I think for a moment. We’ve found out some interesting things about a whole bunch of people. I could tell Ivy all we’ve learned—everything we know about every single person. But then again, maybe I don’t want to go around pointing fingers too soon.
* * *
TO TELL IVY ABOUT EVERY SINGLE SUSPECT, CLICK HERE.
TO NOT ACCUSE ANYONE YET, CLICK HERE.
* * *
ELIZA HELPS FRANK climb onto my shoulders.
“Feel around up there, Frank!” Eliza calls. “Try up high, near the ceiling.”
Frank feels around for a while. Meanwhile, I’m dying under his weight.
“Ugh, Frank!” I groan. “You’re heavier than you look.”
Frank huffs. “Of course! I’m a BIG KID!”
My shoulders start to ache.
“Ooooh! A vent!” Frank says. “Taller, please!”
“I can’t get any taller!”
“Wait!” Eliza says. “Carlos, lift your left foot.” I lift my left foot, and Eliza slips an enormous platform shoe underneath it, which boosts me up five inches. “Now the other!”
“Awesome!” Frank says as he pulls on the vent’s screen and sends it clattering to the floor.
“Watch it!” Eliza says. “That almost hit my head!”
“Sorry!” Frank pulls himself up into the vent, and an enormous weight is lifted off my shoulders . . . literally.
At first, I can hear him climbing around. There are clattering sounds from the vent. Then the noises start to get far away from us. In the end, I can’t hear Frank wiggling around at all.
“Do you think he made it?” I say after a while.
As if the universe was waiting for me to ask that question, the closet door opens, and Frank stands there grinn
ing.
“Great job, buddy!” Eliza exclaims, and I clap Frank on the back.
We run around the halls, looking for Otto. But he’s gone. My stomach drops to my toes—we need to find him. Without him, my mom’s life is ruined.
“We have to hurry! He’s getting away! Any ideas, Eliza?”
“I have two. Didn’t Otto say something about how the treasure is buried beneath the house? We could go into the basement and see if there’s a way in down there.”
“Or?”
“Or we can ask the LeCavaliers for help. Maybe they’ll know how to get in. It’s your mom on the line, Carlos. You choose.”
* * *
TO CHECK OUT THE BASEMENT, CLICK HERE.
TO ASK THE LECAVALIERS FOR HELP, CLICK HERE.
* * *
I DECIDE TO follow Maddock. He does give me a weird vibe. . . .
We tiptoe down the hall behind Maddock, being as sneaky-stealthy as we can be. We creep behind him as he bounds down the hall. We slither down the stairs. We inch across the living room—
“What are you doing?” Maddock says, whipping around to face us.
Oops! I guess I was so busy being sneaky I didn’t notice that Maddock was onto us.
“Er . . . nothing,” I say.
“You’re following me, aren’t you?”
“Whaaaat?” Eliza says. “Who? Us? No! What?”
I smack my forehead. Could she be any more obvious right now?
“I demand you stop following me at once!”
“HEY! YOU SKUNKY SKUNK FACE!” Frank shouts. “DON’T BOSS US AROUND.”
Maddock runs a hand through his greasy hair and smirks. Then he leans so close to us that I can smell his stinky breath. “If you don’t stop following me, I’ll slap you with a lawsuit!”
“You can’t sue us for walking around,” Eliza says.
“Yeah! It’s a free country.”
Maddock smiles. “A free country, hmm? We’ll see about that.”
He brushes past us and runs out of Guinevere’s house, but we stick to him like my abuela’s dentures stick to her gums. We follow him all the way down to his office, where he drafts up something called a restraining order and gets a judge to sign it. This piece of paper means we’re not allowed to go within five hundred feet of him or we can get fined, sued, or put in jail. Which is crazy, because I can’t afford to be fined, sued, or put in jail!
Maddock drives back to Guinevere LeCavalier’s house. We wait outside on her lawn for hours, but Maddock doesn’t leave. As long as he’s in there, we can’t be.
In the afternoon, Maddock opens a window and sticks his tongue out at us. “I’m not leaving . . . ever! How does it feel to be shut out of this case?” he gloats as he slams the window closed.
CASE CLOSED.
About the Author
Photo by Jose Hernandez
LAUREN MAGAZINER is the author of Wizardmatch, Pilfer Academy, and The Only Thing Worse Than Witches. She is originally from New Hope, Pennsylvania, and she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she writes full-time. Lauren is also a secret undercover international detective—but don’t blow her cover. You can visit Lauren at www.laurenmagaziner.com.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
CASE CLOSED: MYSTERY IN THE MANSION. Copyright © 2018 by Lauren Magaziner. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art by Petur Antonsson
Cover design by Andrea Vandergrift
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Magaziner, Lauren, author.
Title: Mystery in the mansion / Lauren Magaziner.
Description: First edition. | New York : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2018] | Series: Case closed ; 1 | “Pick Your Path, Crack the Case!” | Summary: Carlos and his friends must uncover who is sending death threats to a wealthy eccentric or Carlos’s mother may lose her business, and the reader decides which clues they will follow.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034681 | ISBN 9780062676276 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Plot-your-own stories. | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Buried treasure—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Plot-your-own stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Interactive Adventures. | JUVENILE FICTION / Mysteries & Detective Stories.
Classification: LCCPZ7.M2713 Mys 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034681
* * *
Digital Edition AUGUST 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-267629-0
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-267627-6
18 19 20 21 22 CG/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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CASE CLOSED.