“Shelby,” I said as I balanced on my foot. “This doesn’t feel right.”
While I didn’t have that feeling of dread like before, I felt off balance, which didn’t fill me with a feeling of assurance that this could all be explained away.
That feeling only really happened in this unit.
That could not be a good sign.
“You’re correct. I’ll show you why later.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out two flashlights. “We have to hurry. The last few nights have followed a pattern: lights are cut, followed by the footsteps, then tapping and howling.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“Since Moira isn’t able to cause the noise, the person she’s working for will have to do it. So we’re going to hide and let the perp come to us.”
I looked around the empty room. Where were we going to hide? The closet? In one of the bedrooms? Because let me make something clear: there was no way, and I mean no way, I was going to hide in the shower. That screamed horror movie scenario.
Shelby began running her hand around the wall next to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“This area has a significantly smaller square footage than the unit downstairs.”
Hey! I also thought that when we first came up here, but I blamed the absence of furniture. It really was smaller. But what did that mean?
“There was a reason when we came in here we didn’t see Moira. She was hiding where she couldn’t be found if you didn’t know where to look.”
At that moment, the lights flickered.
“Turn on the flashlights,” Shelby instructed as she continued to feel around the wall. “Aha!” she exclaimed as she pushed the wall. There was a clicking noise, and the wall popped open, revealing a secret room.
Then the lights went out. The apartment was completely dark, save for the beam of our two flashlights.
“Get in!” Shelby instructed. We both squeezed inside the tiny space. “We have to shut off the lights.”
If I thought it was dark in the living room, in the secret room I couldn’t see anything.
“Now we wait,” Shelby whispered.
“For what?” I asked. I hated being left in the dark—literally and figuratively—but I also knew Shelby didn’t tell me the whole plan because she deduced I wouldn’t be cool if she said, “Hey, Watson, we’re going to lock ourselves in a possibly haunted room where we’ll be trapped and it’ll be pitch black.”
So being left in the dark it was.
I didn’t want to know what was next.
“We’re waiting for him to fall for our trap.”
It was a him! It wasn’t Ms. Lyons or Kaitlin! It was Mr. Stapleton!
But wait a second. “I thought you said my deductions about Ms. Lyons and Kaitlin were logical.”
“They were, but that didn’t signify they were correct.”
Before I could say anything else, we heard it.
Those footsteps.
And they were coming closer.
CHAPTER
29
Oh no. There it was.
STOMP.
Whoooosh.
STOMP.
Whoooosh.
STOMP.
Whoooosh.
Even though we were hidden away, the sound was the loudest I’ve ever heard it. We were only a few feet away from whoever was doing this, on the other side of this door.
I tensed, waiting for it. Not like the footsteps weren’t bad enough. It was the anticipation of the howl that was the worst.
HOOOOOOWWWWL!
I shuddered. I almost jumped when I felt Shelby’s hand in mine. She gave me a squeeze.
Was Shelby actually scared?
Oh wow.
Although let’s be real: Shelby was probably holding my hand because she knew I was freaking out. She gave another squeeze. Was she signaling me? Oh please don’t tell me she was passing on some secret Morse code message to me, because I hadn’t been able to fully memorize the whole alphabet, much to Shelby’s annoyance. I had schoolwork. And journal writing. And apparently a secret room to hide in.
The light from Shelby’s phone lit up her face. She typed with one hand and then put her phone away.
As the hound howled away and started scraping at . . . something (please don’t let it be this door), we heard another set of footsteps. These were farther away and seemed to be coming up the stairs.
The howling suddenly stopped, and the entrance to the secret room flung open. A flashlight blinded us, so I couldn’t see who held it, but he let out a gasp in surprise upon seeing us before dropping the flashlight.
The flashlight clattered on the floor, and the person chased after it while I could only look on. We stood in the room with the person responsible for everything. Even though it was two against one, this person was bigger than us. And we were trapped.
He finally grabbed the flashlight and put it back in our faces so we couldn’t get a good look at him.
I held up my hand over my eyes to prevent being blinded by the light.
Shelby stepped out of the room with confidence. “Happy Halloween, Mr. Barrymore.”
CHAPTER
30
What? Barrymore?
But . . . but . . . but . . .
I wasn’t the only one confused.
Mr. Barrymore pointed his finger at us, his hands shaking. “It was you? You—You must’ve—You could’ve—”
He was going to try to blame this on us? Yeah, nice try.
A knock on the door rattled both Mr. Barrymore and me. Shelby remained as cool as ever.
“Maybe you should get that?” she suggested.
Mr. Barrymore looked between the door and us. “I don’t know what you’re playing at.”
His eyes narrowed as he walked over to the door. Before Barrymore opened it, I had a feeling I knew who’d be on the other side.
And yep, there she was, standing in the darkness of the hallway with a flashlight shining up so her face was illuminated: Detective Lestrade.
“Thank you for coming promptly, Detective Lestrade,” Shelby said coolly. “This conversation might be better accompanied by light, even though I will be the one illuminating everybody on these recent matters.”
“I’ll do it,” Mr. Barrymore said, but Lestrade put her hand on the frame of the door.
“Not so fast. We wouldn’t want you to interfere with a key piece of evidence,” Lestrade stated.
So Lestrade knew about Shelby’s plan to clean the fuse box.
She turned to exit the room, but paused. “Maybe I shouldn’t leave you two alone with him.”
Shelby snorted. “I think we’ve proven to be quite capable.”
Lestrade pointed her flashlight at Barrymore. “Do not move an inch until I return.” She gave Shelby a nod as she climbed back down the stairs.
Barrymore wrung his hands while we waited in silence for Lestrade to return. Shelby went to the kitchen counter and started to lay out files.
The lights in the apartment came on again suddenly. I blinked for a moment while my eyes adjusted.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Barrymore said, his voice high. He looked nervous.
He looked guilty.
Shelby crossed her arms as we heard Lestrade on the stairs.
After Lestrade walked in, she removed plastic gloves. “Okay, Holmes. Talk.”
“With pleasure!” Shelby picked up the first file folder and handed it to Lestrade. “Mr. Barrymore here has been trying to get rid of his tenants so he could sell this apartment building he inherited from his uncle. As you can see from these plans, the entire block has been bought up by a developer to build a new luxury condo building. The developer is one Hardy Enterprises, which just happens to be where Mr. Barrymore has his internship.”
Barrymore interned at Hardy Enterprises?
The plot thickened.
“Mr. Barrymore wasn’t able to force his tenants out as his uncle had put a provision
in the leases that tenants would be given three years’ notice before being forced to vacate. The senior Barrymore appeared not to like what was happening to his beloved neighborhood. To put it plainly: Barrymore wanted to sell the building to make a lot of money, but his uncle made it impossible to kick his tenants out. Therefore, he needed to give them a reason to want to vacate immediately.”
Oh.
OH.
There was the motive. The WHY.
We had the WHO.
Now I knew what was next. Shelby would explain HOW he did it.
Shelby began pacing the room while Lestrade took her notebook out and furiously scribbled down everything Shelby had just said. Barrymore, meanwhile, looked like he was going to be sick.
“I do have to compliment you, Barrymore,” Shelby said. “It was quite a clever plan, albeit a dangerous one. One that I believe you didn’t come up with yourself.”
Mr. Barrymore looked like he was the one who saw a ghost.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she continued. “No doubt he met his chicanery coconspirator at his internship—more on her shortly. First, how did they convince the tenants there was something wrong? They used carbon monoxide to give the tenants an uneasy and paranoid feeling. Barrymore removed the batteries of all the carbon monoxide detectors in their units. The dosage was small enough not to poison them, but it still affected the elderly Mr. Mortimer. By the time they stopped using the carbon monoxide, the seed had already been planted with the tenants.
The next part is quite simple: Barrymore turned the power off on the fuse box, while his coconspirator walked around this unit that Barrymore intentionally kept empty. They used a recording device to play the sound of a wild beast howling. A device you’ll no doubt find on Barrymore now if you search him. They added scratching noises and the tapping in Morse code to really rev up the tension. When we went into this unit, the person making the noise hid in the secret compartment.”
Shelby walked over to the counter and pulled out another folder. “Now let’s look at this Baskerville legend. One Mr. Hugo Baskerville did die in this very unit one hundred years ago, but from a fall. Not murder, as you’ll see from this New York Times obituary from November 2, 1919.” Shelby put the real article I found on the counter, alongside the fake one. “A tour guide gave us this phony article that talked about haunting and a beast. He can attest that Mr. Barrymore hired him. You may call him to confirm it yourself.” Shelby handed Lestrade the guy’s head shot.
Lestrade flipped through the papers in the file. “How did you get all of this?”
“Simple, the library,” Shelby stated. “You also may have realized that the fake article reporter’s name is an anagram for Barrymore’s coconspirator, one Moira Hardy. I have her on tape confessing to being part of this.”
Shelby held up her phone and typed in it for a few seconds before Lestrade’s cell phone dinged.
Lestrade looked up from the folder. “I knew that girl I followed looked familiar. Moira Hardy? Where do I know that name?” Then her eyes got wide. “Oh, from . . .” She shook her head as she looked at me.
“Yes, a worthy foe if there ever was one,” Shelby said with a smile. An actual, legit smile.
“It looks like I’ll be having a talk with her and her parents when we’re done here,” Lestrade stated.
YES! So Moira wouldn’t get away with it. ABOUT TIME!
“Shall I go on?” Shelby asked Lestrade.
“Please, do,” Lestrade said with a nod of awe.
Barrymore put his hand on the counter to steady himself.
“They used claw marks and fake blood, which we found in this unit, to really make the tenants uneasy. But I do have to say my favorite part of this ruse is below us.”
Bryant’s apartment?
Shelby walked with a little more purpose across the floor. “As you may notice, it’s not stable. It gives you the sense, especially if the power is cut, that you aren’t balanced.”
Lestrade bobbled a little. “You’re right. I did notice it, but I have no idea why.”
Shelby reached into her backpack and pulled out a crowbar. “May I?” she asked Lestrade with a raised eyebrow.
“No!” Barrymore cried out as he put his head in his hands.
Lestrade stepped back.
Shelby got on her knees, took the crowbar to the wooden floor, and cracked open one of the floorboards. She put on plastic gloves of her own before she reached down and pulled out a couple of . . . golf balls?
“If you put these close together and place a board on top, it gives about a half inch of movement, just enough to make one feel uneasy. I believe this had to be a Moira touch.”
We all turned to Mr. Barrymore, his head dropped. But he did give a little nod.
“Genius!” Shelby replied with a clap. “Yes, this was a very solid plan, indeed, Mr. Barrymore. Especially to coincide with Halloween, a holiday where paranoia and paranormal delusions run rampant.”
All the clues from the last few days began to swirl in my head. “What about the letter given to Barrymore? The one that was allegedly from you?”
“Ah, yes!” said Shelby. “That letter was to throw us off Barrymore’s scent. Moira must have realized that one of the tenants went to the Harlem Academy of the Arts, and therefore deduced that you and I would eventually become aware of these odd occurrences. It’s probably one of the reasons she wanted to take on this case. While Moira no doubt enjoyed dressing up as me, that bit made it very clear that this was all a ruse. How could a spirit deliver a letter? So you no doubt will want to thank your accomplice for that, Mr. Barrymore.”
Barrymore’s entire demeanor was defeated.
“You didn’t account for two things when you tried to mess with your tenants,” Shelby said. “One, people in Harlem take care of their own. And two, never, ever underestimate the intelligence of kids, especially ones as smart as Watson and me.”
Barrymore remained silent. I think we all were stunned with the amount of information—and cold, hard evidence—Shelby had presented.
“I just . . .” Mr. Barrymore finally spoke, in a soft voice. “I never wanted this building. I’m only twenty-four. I’m in business school. I wanted to get rid of it, and a developer from Hardy Enterprises contacted me. They offered me a lot of money for the building. They became aggressive and gave me a dream internship. Then I got a message from this anonymous person offering to help me out. I didn’t know most of the plan. She kept me in the dark. I had no idea about that letter. I don’t know this Moira you’re talking about as she never gave me her name. She made sure we never crossed paths. She always hid in the secret room when I came up. Did you say . . . she’s also a girl? Like you?”
Shelby snorted. “A girl? Yes. Like me? She could only dream.”
Barrymore sunk his head. “I never meant for anybody to get hurt. I just thought people would get spooked and want to move. That was all. It got out of hand, but it was too late. And my contact . . . well, she wouldn’t back down. There was nothing I could’ve done.”
“You could’ve told the truth,” Shelby countered. She then turned to Lestrade. “I believe you have everything you need.”
Lestrade nodded. “Yes. I do.” She looked at the folders in her hand. “Thank you, Holmes.”
“You’re welcome, Lestrade.”
Okay, Barrymore wasn’t the only one stunned by the turn of events. Was this an official truce between Lestrade and Shelby? Would we be calling her for all our cases?
“Someone had to do the police’s work,” Shelby replied with a sniff.
And truce over.
Lestrade grimaced as she took Barrymore by the arm and escorted him out of the apartment unit.
“Well, Watson, you can call your friend. It’s safe to come home.”
CHAPTER
31
“Timing is everything,” Shelby said the next day as we left school.
Bryant stood outside with a duffel bag at his feet.
“Hey,”
Bryant said as he kicked the sidewalk. “My mom dropped this off for you. The rest of our neighbors will be delivering their thanks later today. Even Mr. Mortimer, who was released from the hospital this morning.”
“Wonderful!” Shelby replied as she opened the bag.
Do you even need one guess of what’s inside?
Yep, candy.
Bags and bags of Halloween candy.
A lightbulb went off in my head. Because it was now on sale with Halloween being over. That’s what Shelby meant about timing.
“And this is for you, Watson.” Bryant handed me a gift card for Sal’s pizzeria. “Thanks for everything.”
“Sweet! Thank you!”
Bryant looked down at the sidewalk. “We’re really grateful you guys figured it out. Mr. Stapleton is looking into buying the building so we can all stay there.”
“That’s awesome!” I replied.
Shelby put an entire mini-bag of M&M’s in her mouth.
“I still can’t believe everything Barrymore and that Moira girl did just to scare us. Oh, hey, I did have one more question for you: How did they get the candles to keep going out?”
“What?” Shelby said with her face scrunched up.
Oh, yeah. The candles blew out shortly after the lights went out.
Both Bryant and I looked to Shelby, waiting for her to explain.
She stared blankly at us for a second. “A simple breeze.”
“Oh, okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Bryant said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Um, wait a second. What breeze? From where? I didn’t feel a breeze—
Stop it, Watson. As Shelby proved, there was no such thing as ghosts.
Well, at least in Bryant’s apartment building. Allegedly.
Bryant kicked the sidewalk again. I noticed it was something he did when he was uncomfortable. “And Shelby, thanks for helping. I know we aren’t that close, and well, it was really cool to watch you in action. I really appreciate what you did.”
“Your expression of gratitude has been accepted,” she stated as she held up the candy. “I realize how excruciating this must be for you, so you may move on.”
She motioned her hand at Bryant to go away.
The Great Shelby Holmes and the Haunted Hound Page 14