The Uncanny Express

by Kara LaReau

  “I think she told us, but I didn’t start taking notes until after she disappeared,” Kale said. “There was something about two people in love and something else about a woman committing a crime.”

  “And a man who is hiding something,” Jaundice added.

  Mr. Hatchett twirled his pen. “I have it in my notes from that night,” he said, consulting his reporter’s notebook. “She looked out into the audience and said, ‘two young people in love are deceiving each other,’ then ‘a woman has committed a grave crime against her husband,’ then ‘a man with a limp is hiding something.’ Pretty vague stuff. That’s how these fakers work.”

  “I wonder, though, if there was some grain of truth to those claims,” the great detective suggested. “Perhaps Mademoiselle Magique did not know it, but what she meant as a vague reading actually touched a nerve with members of her audience. Perhaps that is why they left her performance—not because of her shoddy showmanship, but to escape the revealing of their transgressions!”

  Everyone in the dining car shifted in his or her seat. Colonel McRobb scoffed and crossed his arms. Chrysanthemum yawned.

  “In honor of Mademoiselle Magique, Hugo Fromage will perform his own magic. With you all as my audience, I will solve the mystery of the magician’s disappearance using nothing but the physical evidence before me, the testimony I have gathered during my questioning of you all this afternoon, the help of my faithful assistants, and, of course, the slow and steady simmering of my brain stew,” the great detective announced. “Let us take the matter of the handkerchief, which no one will claim. To whom does it belong?”

  Hugo Fromage picked up the handkerchief and unfurled it. As he held it up for all to see, he looked a lot like a magician himself, Kale thought.

  “It is too ornate for the countess, and too fancy for Mademoiselle Dreary, and Mademoiselle Springwell does not claim it. And it is embroidered with an H, which no woman has in their initials. So curious. And then, I wonder, what if someone on this train is not using their real name?”

  The great detective’s gaze fell on Cecily Springwell.

  “Mademoiselle, do you have something you would like to tell us?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Cecily, scratching her head. “All of this is really rather boring,” she said with a giggle.

  “I do not think you find it boring at all, mademoiselle. Nor do I think you are as foolish as you pretend to be,” said the great detective. “Nor do I think it is a coincidence that the embroidery on this handkerchief matches perfectly with your green eyes.”

  “Darling, what’s he on about?” Desmond asked Cecily.

  “Simply that your fiancée is not the heiress Cecily Springwell,” said the detective. “She is Hortense Frank, one half of the detective team known as Harry and Hortense!”

  “Well, I guess the jig is up,” said Hortense, sighing. She pulled off her blond wig, revealing her short dark hair. “At least I don’t have to wear this anymore. It itches something awful.”

  “I guess she doesn’t have lice, then,” Kale said, crossing it off in her notebook.

  “So, who is the other half of the detective team?” asked Jaundice.

  “That . . . would be me,” said Mr. Harold.

  “So you’re not really ‘Frank Harold’?” asked Kale.

  “Close. I’m Harry Frank,” he explained. “We’ve been undercover for just over six months now, trying to crack our latest case—a thief who’s been stealing jewelry and artwork and other valuables all over Dullsville. The paper’s been calling him ‘the Weasel.’ How did you know it was us?”

  “What kind of a detective would I be, were I not familiar with my contemporaries?” Hugo Fromage explained. “Plus, there was the woman’s voice saying, ‘She’s going to ruin everything,’ which Mademoiselle Dreary said she heard in the hallway, only to find you standing there with the tea tray, Monsieur Frank. This coincides with the time Madame Frank left her compartment to ‘powder her nose.’ I suspect you two were whispering out there, and that Madame Frank ducked into the restroom when Mademoiselle Dreary appeared on the scene.”

  “When I saw Harry walk by with the tea tray, I did excuse myself,” Hortense Frank admitted. “It seemed like the perfect opportunity to confront Magique together and beg her not to reveal our identities, for the good of our investigation.”

  “But when we knocked on her compartment door, she wasn’t there,” Harry Frank continued. “I must admit, the possibility of more than six months of undercover work going to waste made me a little, er, emotional. Hortense had given me her handkerchief to dry my eyes when the maid appeared. I must have dropped it in my panic.”

  “All that effort I put into my disguise, and I forgot to buy new handkerchiefs,” Hortense Frank said, shaking her head.

  “Does that mean that Mr. Goode is . . . the Weasel?” Jaundice asked.

  “An astute observation, mademoiselle,” said the great detective.

  “That is preposterous!” Desmond Goode exclaimed.

  “Is it?” asked Hugo Fromage. “You operate a mysterious import-export business, making it easy to relocate the stolen treasures. You are obsessed with reading about crime in the newspapers. And of course, your last name: Goode. As the newspapers have described, the man the authorities are looking for is named Clayton Plenty.”

  “Goode . . . and Plenty,” Jaundice said, reaching for the candy box.

  “Do you think Magique was trying to give us a clue?” Kale wondered.

  “I suspect she was. I suspect you are also familiar with this candy, Monsieur Plenty. And that it is what inspired your latest alias,” added the great detective.

  “Too clever by half,” Clayton Plenty said. “Don’t believe a word he says, Cecily—er, whatever your real name is.”

  “Oh, please. You never loved Cecily,” said Hortense. “For all your talk about her shining eyes and her sparkling laugh, the real object of your desire was the Green Goiter. Harry and I knew you’d been smuggling your stolen loot on the train and handing it off to your contact in the Uncanny Valley, who ships it off to prospective buyers. And we knew you liked cozying up to rich girls and making off with their valuables.”

  “So, you just made up ‘Cecily Springwell,’ and ‘Fernwood’?” asked Kale, consulting her notes.

  “Not exactly,” said Hortense. “The real Cecily was my roommate in college; she’s away on vacation, so she said she didn’t mind if I impersonated her here for a little while. All Harry had to do was get a job on the Uncanny Express, to keep an eye on you, Mr. Plenty. And all I had to do was lure you in . . . which didn’t take long.”

  “How could it?” he said, gazing forlornly at Hortense.

  “I waited until you came up with a reason for me to take the Green Goiter out of the safe at home,” Hortense continued. “When you offered to take me to the Uncanny Valley to have it cleaned, I knew you were ready to make your move. And you would have, too, if our cover wasn’t just blown!”

  “Who says he hasn’t made his move?” said the great detective. He turned to Jaundice. “Mademoiselle, if you would be so kind as to look in Monsieur Plenty’s briefcase.”

  When Jaundice opened the briefcase, something glittering and green caught her eye.

  “The Goiter!” exclaimed Hortense. Her hand flew to the jewel around her neck. “But, then, what am I wearing now?”

  “That one is fake, I am afraid,” said Hugo Fromage. “Though I suspect the one Monsieur Plenty stole from you while you went to ‘powder your nose’ earlier is also a fake, no?”

  Hortense blushed. “Cecily has the real one with her,” she explained.

  “I can’t believe I’m finally going to jail for stealing a fake emerald,” said Clayton.

  “During her reading, Magique said, ‘two young people in love are deceiving each other,’” Kale said. “And she was right!”

  “Desmond—or, rather, Clayton—took me to her show on our first date,” Hortense explained. “When the m
agician gave that reading, I was worried it would make him suspicious, so I faked one of my headaches so he would take me home.”

  “Wait. There’s something else in his suitcase, too,” said Jaundice. She pulled out a ring set with a dark red stone.

  “My garnet ring!” exclaimed the countess.

  Clayton Plenty shrugged. “I couldn’t resist,” he admitted.

  “I told you I di’n’t do nuffin’,” Vera reminded her.

  “No, you did not take anything from Countess Goudenoff. But your employer did take something precious from you, Mademoiselle Dreary,” said the great detective. “Might you show everyone the framed photo Count Goudenoff gave you, before his passing?”

  “It’s right here,” said Vera, producing it from a pocket in her tweedy coat. She handed it to Hugo Fromage.

  “The last thing the count said to you before he died was, ‘I’ll always look after you,’ yes?” said the great detective, gazing at the photo. He then popped it out of its frame.

  “Oh, don’t break it!” said Vera. “It’s the only one I have!”

  “Just as I thought,” said Hugo Fromage. From behind the photo, he produced a folded-up piece of paper. He unfolded it and adjusted his pince-nez to read it. “It is the Last Will and Testament of Count Goudenoff, in which he leaves everything to you . . . his daughter!”

  At this, Vera Dreary fainted.

  Professor Magic’s Rules of Illusion

  To add one final amazing moment to your performance, nothing beats a costume change.

  Someone fetch some smelling salts!” shouted the great detective. Harry Frank soon appeared with a vial, which he placed under Vera Dreary’s nose.

  “Who? How? What?” she said, sitting up straight.

  “How did you know?” Kale asked Hugo Fromage.

  “I told you, being a detective involves using your eyes and ears,” the great detective reminded her. “In this case, it was Mademoiselle Dreary’s ears that gave her away. They are quite distinct," noted the great detective.

  "They are funny little things," Vera said, patting her ears self-consciously.

  “Well, those ‘funny little things’ are identical to the count’s,” said Hugo Fromage. “When I saw his photo, I began to have my suspicions. But when the dog Chrysanthemum vomited on my shoes, it was then that Hugo Fromage knew for sure.”

  “Come again?” said Vera Dreary.

  “The vomit, it smelled terrible,” said the great detective. “But it also smelled faintly of something else: bitter almonds. I suspect that the dog had lapped up some of the tea that was spilled this afternoon, around the time of Mademoiselle Magique’s disappearance. That tea was poisoned with cyanide.”

  Everyone turned to look at Vera Dreary.

  “Why’s everyone lookin’ at me?” she asked. “I di’n’t do nuffin’!”

  “No, you didn’t, mademoiselle,” said Hugo Fromage. “She did.”

  He pointed his finger at Countess Goudenoff.

  “You deliberately ordered milk for the tea and then demanded that Mademoiselle Dreary fetch the cream. While she was gone, you poured the poison into her tea. When you learned there would be an investigation into Mademoiselle Magique’s disappearance, you feared an exposure of your own attempted crime, so you deliberately spilled the tea onto the floor,” said the great detective.

  “He told me Vera was his daughter, and that he’d written her into a new will—after I did him in, I searched everywhere for it. I couldn’t risk that it would be found and she would be named his heir. I’d never part with that money!” the countess said.

  “You killed the count?” Jaundice asked.

  “Indeed, she did,” said the great detective. He took the countess’s ring from Jaundice and fiddled with the garnet. Eventually, it popped open. “And I suspect she hid the poison in here.”

  “‘A woman has committed a grave crime against her husband,’” Jaundice recalled. “That’s the second reading Magique gave.”

  “My husband had bought us tickets to her show for our last anniversary,” the countess admitted. “Ironically, I thought it would be foolish to let them go to waste after his death; I had Vera accompany me, so I could keep an eye on her. When that ‘magician’ started in on her reading, I worried that Vera might suspect me, so I told her I found the performance tiring and needed to leave immediately—which wasn’t untrue.”

  “And I think you were the one who left the threatening note for Mademoiselle Magique,” said the great detective, holding up the red envelope. “With your crimson lipstick and nails and your garnet ring, red seems to be your favorite color.”

  “You are not as dumb as you look, Monsieur Fromage. Clearly, I underestimated you,” said the countess.

  “Most people do,” the great detective said with a nod.

  “You—you monster,” said Vera. “Me mum always said the count was too good for you!”

  “He wasn’t too good for your mum, evidently,” growled the countess.

  “Me mum also said, ‘That Ima was never good enough to be a Goudenoff!’” Vera Dreary cried. “Now I hope they take away your title, so you’ll have to go back to your maiden name: Nutt!”

  “Ima Nutt?” Jaundice said.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Kale, patting Jaundice’s hand.

  “What about Magique?” Jaundice asked the countess. “Did you kill her, too, to keep her from revealing your secrets?”

  “I am getting to that,” said Hugo Fromage. “But first, I must ask Colonel McRobb two questions. The first is: How is your leg feeling?”

  “It hurts like heck, like any war wound,” the colonel replied.

  “The second question is: Which leg?”

  “Pardon me?” said the colonel.

  “Which leg did you break on your heroic and daring rescue mission?” asked the great detective. “Because I have seen you limp on one, and then the other, throughout our time on this train. This makes me think that the answer may be neither.”

  “Well, I never,” the colonel said, rising from his chair.

  “Exactly. You have a great deal riding on your reputation as a ‘true hero,’” Hugo Fromage noted. “It would be an even greater tragedy if your story turned out to be untrue.”

  “I don’t need to listen to this balderdash!” the colonel said, his face redder than ever.

  “Balderdash!” Kale repeated, showing everyone where she’d underlined the word in her notes. “That was what one of the audience members said as he stormed out of Magique’s show!”

  “So what if I was there? My editor gave me a ticket, to celebrate True Hero’s first week on the bestseller list. Attending a performance is not a crime. Now, I’m going back to my compartment!” said the colonel, striding off.

  “Before you do, sir, you have forgotten something,” the great detective said. “Two things, in fact.”

  Jaundice followed Hugo Fromage’s gaze.

  “His walking stick!” she said.

  “Yes,” said the great detective. “In his haste to escape the truth, he has left behind his walking stick. And his limp altogether.”

  “‘A man with a limp is hiding something,’” recalled Kale. “That was Magique’s third reading!”

  Everyone in the room stared at the colonel. Finally, he sank into the nearest chair.

  “All right then, here it is: I never saw active duty during the war,” he explained. “I worked at a desk job, filing paperwork and daydreaming about the heroic adventures I might have had. And then, long after the war was over, I fell off a ladder while pruning some hedges and broke my ankle pretty badly. After it healed and I was up and around and using my walking stick, I got a lot of sympathy from people—and respect, even from perfect strangers, who assumed I was injured in combat. So I started writing down the adventures I’d imagined all those years ago, and they seemed so vivid, they became real to me. ‘Colonel McRobb’ was born. Until now, no one ever asked me if it was all true or not. People will believe anything, i
f you tell them with enough authority.”

  “So you did something to Magique,” Kale said. “To protect your secrets.”

  “Despite what my memoir claims, I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. I followed her on this train to bribe her, not kill her,” the colonel said. He opened his briefcase to reveal rows of stacked bills. “The insufferable woman went and disappeared before I could make my offer!”

  “Well, then,” said Hugo Fromage. “All of you were in the audience at Mademoiselle Magique’s debut performance six months ago. All of you witnessed her mind-reading act and felt singled out by that reading. All of you got up and left, which caused the rest of the crowd to reach for their tomatoes. The magician has kept a low profile since then, recovering from her failure and planning her comeback—until recently, when she advertised her return to the stage, and to the mind-reading act that implicated you all. I would not even be surprised if she sent you all tickets to her comeback performance, to goad you into attending.”

  “Now I’m really confused,” Kale said, rifling through her notes. “Does this really mean they all did it?”

  “It is quite possible, mademoiselle,” said the great detective. The other passengers began protesting as he turned to them. “You all knew she would be on this train, you all made sure you were passengers today, and you all had reason to stop her, by whatever means necessary. Including you, Monsieur Hatchett. Especially you.”

  “Me?” Mr. Hatchett scoffed. “That hack managed to kill her career all by herself. She didn’t need any help from me.”

  “Ah, but you relished writing your terrible review of the occasion. It is clear that you feel quite a disdain for Mademoiselle Magique. What is not immediately clear is the reason, although I have my suspicions,” said the great detective.

  Mr. Hatchett laughed nervously and twirled his pen around his fingers. “I bet you do,” he said.

  “You, who are always in the habit of exhibiting such flamboyance with your pen, not to mention such dexterity. You yourself have a few tricks up your sleeve, do you not?” said Hugo Fromage. “Could you have been an aspiring magician yourself at one point? Might you even have been a potential protégé of Mademoiselle Magique’s father, Professor Magic, who ultimately dismissed you for having inferior skills?”