Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch (2 page)

 

Yankee Stadium, New York
June 31

 

Dear Bugs:

Your cross-eyed pitch is the greatest thing since the spitball. I expect to win thirty games with it this season.

For sole rights to the secret of it, I’m happy to enclose my check for one hundred dollars.

Yours truly,
Spike Browning

 

The letter was written on plain white paper. The check, bearing the same date as the letter, was drawn on the First National Bank for one hundred dollars.

“Spike will win fifty games this season,” said Bugs. “And I won one baseball bat from Speedy Flanagan. So where is it?”

“Where’s
your
bat?” corrected Encyclopedia. “Speedy won the bet. You lost. The letter and check are fakes.”

“I ought to shove those words down your throat,” said Bugs. “But I’m feeling too good about what I did for the great American game of baseball.”

Bugs crossed his eyes. Humming to himself, he went into his secret throwing motion. The other Tigers cheered wildly.

“Man, oh man!” sang Bugs. “I invented the greatest pitch since Edison threw out the gas lamp. No smart-aleck private detective is going to walk in here and call me a liar!”

“Oh, yes I am,” said Encyclopedia. “Spike Browning never wrote that letter. That check is a worthless piece of paper!”

“Leroy!” Mrs. Brown called. “Leroy, it’s time for dinner. Wash up, please.”

Encyclopedia put down the book he was reading,
Six Ways to Reach the Moon on a Budget.
In the bathroom he gave his face a lick and a promise.

When he got to the table, his father looked at him in a strange way.

“Do you know Bobby Tyler?” Chief Brown asked his only child.

“Sure,” said Encyclopedia. “He was in my homeroom last year. Did anything happen to him, Dad?”

“He’s missing,” said Chief Brown.

“You mean he ran away from home?”

Chief Brown shook his head.

Encyclopedia gasped. Mrs. Brown stopped in the kitchen doorway, her eyes opened wide.

“Kidnapped?”
mother and son asked together.

“It looks that way,” answered Chief Brown.

“Do you know who took Bobby?” asked Mrs. Brown.

“Yes, Izzy the balloon man.”

“Izzy?”
cried Encyclopedia. “No, Dad. Izzy couldn’t do anything so terrible!”

“What do you know about Izzy?” asked Chief Brown gently. “Do you know what kind of man he really is? Do you even know where he lives?”

“I know he loves children,” insisted Encyclopedia. “Otherwise he wouldn’t do what he does for a living.”

“He has an old truck and sells ice cream, candy, and soda, mostly to children,” Chief Brown explained to his wife.

“Why is he called the balloon man?” she asked.

“If you buy more than fifteen cents worth of candy or anything, he gives you a green and pink balloon free,” answered Encyclopedia.

“I guess Izzy got tired of blowing up balloons,” said Chief Brown quietly. “Bobby’s father is wealthy. So Izzy—”

“I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Encyclopedia. “You ought to see Izzy stick the end of a balloon in his mouth and huff and puff like a steam engine till it’s blown up. He always makes funny faces so the kids will laugh.”

“All right, son,” said Chief Brown. “I’ll accept three facts. One, Izzy is a funny fellow who always blows up balloons with his mouth for laughs. Two, children love him and he loves children. And three, Sam Potts saw him kidnap little Bobby Tyler this afternoon.”

“There was an eyewitness?” Encyclopedia asked.

“Mr. Potts came down to headquarters when he heard little Bobby was missing. He gave me a complete statement,” said Chief Brown. “I made some notes to bring home to you. Want to hear them?”

Encyclopedia closed his eyes as he always did before using his brain at full power. “Go ahead, Dad.”

Chief Brown took his notebook from his breast pocket. He looked it over a moment. Then he repeated what Mr. Potts had told him.

“This morning Izzy made a stop near Bobby Tyler’s house and drove off—or so it appeared,” Chief Brown began. “Later Sam Potts and Reverend Bevin were in Sam’s back yard, which is right behind the Tyler’s walled back yard.

“Sam saw a green and pink balloon—the kind Izzy gives away—rise into his oak tree,” continued Chief Brown. “The balloon stuck high among the branches. Because there was no breeze to blow the balloon loose, Sam got a long ladder and climbed into the tree.”

Chief Brown paused as he turned over a page in his notebook. He went on.

“From up in the tree, Sam could see over the Tylers’ twelve-foot wall. Sam says that as he freed the balloon, he looked down in the Tylers’ yard. He saw Izzy put Bobby into his truck and drive off. Sam told Reverend Bevin what he had just seen. Both men took it for granted that Bobby’s mother had said he could go for a ride in Izzy’s truck. Later, when the Reverend learned that Bobby was missing, he advised Sam Potts to see me.“

Chief Brown closed his notebook.

“An hour after Sam Potts had told me what he had seen, Bobby’s father telephoned. He had received a note. It said he must pay sixty thousand dollars or never see Bobby again. He would learn where to leave the money tomorrow.”

Chief Brown stopped talking. Both he and Mrs. Brown looked at Encyclopedia.

Idaville’s ace detective kept his eyes closed in thought a long time after his father had finished talking.

At last he opened his eyes. He asked two questions—it seldom took more than two to solve a mystery when his father gave him the facts.

“How does Mr. Potts earn his living?” he asked first.

His father frowned. “Why, I don’t know. He’s only been in Idaville two months. He doesn’t own the house behind the Tylers’. He just rents it.”

Encyclopedia’s second question was, “Did Reverend Bevin see the balloon fly into the tree?”

“No,” said his father. “But Sam Potts did, and the Reverend saw it stuck in the branches. What difference does the balloon make?”

“It solves the case,” answered Encyclopedia.

“Do you know where Bobby is?” asked his mother anxiously. “Is he unhurt?”

“I don’t know that, Mom,” said Encyclopedia, realizing that he had spoken too quickly. “But I know who kidnapped Bobby.”

“We already know that,” pointed out Chief Brown. “It was Izzy the balloon man.”

“No, Izzy has probably been kidnapped too,” said Encyclopedia.

Chief Brown sat back and stared.

“The guilty man,” said Encyclopedia, “had to find someone to blame Bobby’s kidnapping on. Izzy was chosen. So Izzy has to be kept hidden or he’ll deny the crime.”

“What makes you so all-fire certain Izzy didn’t kidnap Bobby Tyler?” demanded Chief Brown.

“Because Mr. Potts kidnapped Bobby,” answered Encyclopedia.

“Sam Potts may be a stranger in Idaville, but that doesn’t make him a kidnapper,” said Chief Brown angrily. “And don’t forget Reverend Bevin was right there with him.”

“Mr. Potts wanted him there,” said Encyclopedia. “The Reverend was a perfect witness. But the Reverend couldn’t see over the wall into Bobby’s back yard. He had to accept what Mr. Potts, up in the tree,
said
he saw.”

“Are you telling me that Sam Potts used the Reverend?” said Chief Brown.

“He did,” said Encyclopedia.

“I’m sorry, son,” said Chief Brown. “You just don’t have any reason for saying Mr. Potts lied about seeing Izzy put Bobby into his truck.”

“I have a very good reason, Dad,” said Encyclopedia. “Mr. Potts might have got away with the kidnapping and collected the sixty thousand dollars ransom. But he overlooked one simple fact about Izzy!”

Through his detective agency, Encyclopedia solved cases for children of the neighborhood. Occasionally he even solved cases for grown-ups. Whether his customers were children or grown-ups, they had one thing in common.

They were always alive.

He never supposed that one day he would solve a case in which all the people had been dead for nearly one hundred years.

But that is what he did—twice—while on a trip out West.

The two adventures in long-range detective work had their beginnings in the Brown dining room. The dinner hour was very quiet. For the third straight evening Chief Brown had not brought home a mystery for Encyclopedia to solve.

There was nothing to do but eat.

“It’s time we took a vacation,” said Mrs. Brown.

Chief Brown agreed. “I haven’t taken any time off in three years,” he said. “We could go on a long trip.”

“Let’s go to Texas,” suggested Encyclopedia. He had just read a book called
Upper Cretaceous Limestone In The Lone Star State.

“It certainly is a long way from Idaville,” said Mrs. Brown. And as nobody could advance a better reason for going to Texas, she began at once to make plans.

Two weeks later Encyclopedia found himself bouncing painfully atop an honest-to-goodness Texas mustang. His father was riding right in front of him. The boy detective wished he had stayed behind his mother instead. She had ridden a taxi into Fort Worth to have lunch and shop for gifts.

Since sunrise Encyclopedia, his father, and fourteen fellow guests at the Badlands Inn had been in the saddle. They had paid five dollars each for this tour of “Historic Scenes of the Old Wild West.”

“All right, folks, dismount!” shouted Mr. Scotty, the tour’s skinny little guide.

Mr. Scotty had bowlegs. They made Encyclopedia think of rain.

“I could open an umbrella between Mr. Scotty’s knees and never touch either one,” Encyclopedia thought.

Mr. Scotty pointed to a high rock that formed a perfect corner.

“That there is the Johnny Kid corner,” he said. “Eighty-five years ago on that spot, Ringo Charlie got ambushed by Johnny Kid.”

The members of the tour stepped forward. They looked at the rock. They looked at Mr. Scotty.

Mr. Scotty spat tobacco juice between his teeth.

“In them days,” he said, “Johnny Kid and Ringo Charlie were feuding at the poker table. Johnny Kid claimed Ringo Charlie kept too many extra cards up his sleeve. Johnny Kid never complained very loud, though. Ringo Charlie was cousin to half the townsfolk, and he was said to be the fastest draw in Texas.”