Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Frozen Hearts (22 page)

Pickle leaned forward and gingerly began to lick Wilma's face. Still nothing happened. “If only we'd been quicker,” Theodore whispered hopelessly—just as the plucky ten-year-old let out a small, dazed moan. Pickle stopped what he was doing and barked.

“Knew you wouldn't give up,” said the Inspector, a little choked.

Wilma's eyes opened slowly. “The killer ...” she began, struggling to speak. “The vent . . . it's . . .”

“Don't worry about that, Wilma,” said Theodore, making sure the little girl was wrapped tight in the overcoats. “Captain Brock has been waiting with his men. Whoever left this unit will be in his custody as we speak.”

“In fact, here he is, Goodman!” declared Inspector Lemone, standing up as Captain Brock approached through the gloom. “And he's got the villain with him. I knew it! Miss Pagne! Just wanted the Katzin Stone to turn into some trinket, I should imagine! Well, I hope you're ashamed of yourself!”

Miss Pagne frowned at the Inspector. “I have no idea what you're talking about,” she spluttered. “And I'd like to know why I've been arrested! This is an outrage!”

“The brass of the woman!” exploded Inspector Lemone. “You're the very worst sort of scorpion! Killing all those people. And now denying it! You're a proper poisoned pip!”

“Not so fast, Inspector,” said Theodore, placing a calming hand on his friend's back. “Captain Brock, did you apprehend the person coming out from this unit?”

“I did, Mr. Goodman,” said the Captain. “Got your message from Mrs. Speckle. Knew you'd want me to watch out for anything suspicious. So when I saw someone running off I sent two men to give chase. They'll have whoever it was back here in moments. In fact, I can hear them coming now.”

Everyone turned to peer through the fog. The outline of two soldiers appeared from the murky shadows and, between them, the hunched figure of a woman bent over a stick.

“Stand that person up, please,” said Theodore, touching his magnifying glass. “And come into the light.”

“What the ... ?” burst Inspector Lemone, shaking his head at what he saw. “It can't be! It's another Miss Pagne! There are two of them!”

“No, Inspector,” said Theodore. “Just someone dressed up to look like her. I apologize for having to have you arrested, Miss Pagne, but believe me when I say that it was for your own safety. Captain Brock, do the honors please. Let's unmask this rogue once and for all.”

Captain Brock stepped forward so that the hunched figure he now had hold of was standing immediately underneath the gaslight that burned on the quayside. Theodore stepped forward and grabbed ahold of the villain's dark hair with his hand. “Greed,” he said, pulling the wig off with a flourish, “can indeed charm the greatest of men. Isn't that right, Mr. Curator?”

“No!” gasped Inspector Lemone, shocked to his core. “Well, I never!”

“And did you bring the other person I asked for, from the station, Captain Brock?” added Theodore, glancing sideways.

“I did, yes.” The Captain nodded. “Step forward, Mrs. Grimbles.”

A woman with white hair stepped into the light. She was old but sprightly, and had an air of authority about her. “Mrs. Grimbles,” said Theodore, shaking her hand, “thank you for coming. I need your help. Tell me”—he gestured toward the Curator—“do you recognize this man?”

“I do, yes,” she said, and with one outstretched finger she pointed toward him and added, “He worked at my circus over twenty years ago as an odd-job man—until he left one day to make his fortune, and never came back. Left his poor wife heartbroken, the scoundrel. That is Fergus Waldock.”

“What the blue blazes!” declared Inspector Lemone, his brain in a spin.

“Thank you,” said the great detective with a bow. “I suspected as much. Visser's order book gave me the name, but I needed you to confirm that the Curator and Fergus Waldock were one and the same.”

Slowly the Curator raised his face into the light. “I only made one mistake, Goodman,” he began, “and that was underestimating you. And that meddling child!”

Inspector Lemone turned and shot Wilma a wink. “Hear that,” he whispered. “He means you.”

Wilma, still shivering, managed to muster a weak smile. Pickle gave her another lick.

“You were so desperate not to be discovered for who you really were that when you found out Wilma worked for Mrs. Waldock—when you saw the photo she had of both of you—your great plan began to unravel,” said Theodore, standing tall and thrusting his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. “If you hadn't concerned yourself with her—and taken that same opportunity to get rid of Wilma—there is a chance that yes, you might have gotten away with it. But by going after someone so seemingly unconnected to the case, you gave me a huge clue. Though not your only one. From the beginning you have gone out of your way to hamper the investigation. The shard of poisoned sugar that you sent flying, leaving the feathered dart shaft on top of a corn crumble so that Pickle would eat it . . .”

“Terrible waste,” mumbled Inspector Lemone, shaking his head.

“Everything you did,” continued Theodore, “was designed to destroy evidence and trip me up. Yes, it was you who commissioned Visser Haanstra to make the fake Katzin Stone, you who murdered Alan Katzin and his aunt so that you could disguise yourself as him, use his pass, and switch the fake for the real thing using a simple sleight-of-hand trick taught to you all those years ago by your wife, Barbara Waldock. And the fake won you time to get back to the Museum and discover the stone missing. It was you who killed the forger who had helped you. Only he knew the truth, and so you eliminated him using a dart filled with poison made from the leaves of the Cynta tree in the arboretum that you pretended you knew nothing about. But in a picture in the paper taken on the day that Cynta tree was planted, there you were in the background, attending the ceremony as a guest—no doubt one with special access to the tree itself! So when you denied all knowledge of it, at that moment I knew you were involved. But your greatest mistake was killing Mrs. Waldock. You were getting clumsy and by leaving the body of a known skinflint in front of an open fire, you helped me finally understand how you had been killing your victims.”

“Oh good,” said Inspector Lemone. “I've been waiting for this bit.”

“Your method was fiendish,” said Theodore, fingering his magnifying glass. “You began with stealth, creeping up on your victims and pretending to offer them lavender. But the lavender was infused with chloroform, drugging them instantly so that you could drag them here, to the abandoned refrigeration unit. You left them to freeze to death and then, so as not to arouse suspicion, you took the bodies back to their homes, where you left them to defrost. That was why there were no marks on the bodies. And why their hearts were still frozen!”

“Because they weren't quite thawed through!” shouted Wilma, who was slowly reviving. “That's why we found that fish scale too!”

“Devilish clever!” commented the Inspector, shaking his head.

“But not clever enough, Inspector Lemone,” said Theodore. “And on top of that, you tried to frame your assistant. You disguised yourself as her, perhaps you even hoped the red fingernail left on Mrs. Waldock's body or Miss Pagne's love of trees would lead us to her—but anyone can see Miss Pagne's fine set of fingernails are entirely real.”

“Despicable fellow!” growled the Inspector. “Blaming a woman like that!”

“I don't know what to say,” muttered Miss Pagne, who was clearly in shock. “Except ... I resign!”

“Resignation accepted!” spat the Curator. “All you ever did was flirt with every Tom and Johnny-Jack that came into the office! But did you ever pay me any attention? Never!”

“Unrequited love,” explained the Inspector with a small sigh.

“Not love,” sneered the Curator. “I learned that lesson a long time ago. She's just like my wife—so busy fluttering her glamorousassistant eyelashes at everyone, an errand boy like me barely had a look in even though we were married. So I set off to find my own fortune and I ended up at the Museum, surrounded by its beautiful things—and for a while that was enough. At night, once the doors were closed, it was almost as if they were mine, all mine. But they weren't, not really—and then the Katzin Stone came along. I saw its picture before it was due to arrive. It was so big, so beautiful, so utterly priceless—I had to have it, to keep it for myself. I wanted the whole of Cooper to know what it was like to see something beautiful, then have it taken away . . . forever . . . !” His voice faded away on this last line and he turned his face back into the shadows.

“So where's the Katzin Stone now?” asked Wilma, trying to sit up. “Seeing as that was the start of everything.”

“Here,” said a voice emerging from behind them. It was Barbu D'Anvers, flanked by Tully and Janty. “And under International Finders Keepers rules, I don't have to give it back.”

“
H
e can't be allowed to get away with that!” cried out Wilma, leaning on Pickle for support.

“I'm afraid he's right,” said Theodore. “Finders Keepers does mean that a person who locates anything that's gone missing is allowed to hold on to it.”

“I must say,” said Barbu with a triumphant sneer, “I have been enjoying listening to everything. Most illuminating.”

“Is that the man who killed my father?” spat Janty, his gray eyes flashing at the Curator.

“I'm afraid it is,” answered Theodore, adopting a serious tone. “And I can promise you that he will be brought to justice.”

“I'll punish him myself!” shouted Janty, and, pulling a small pistol from his pocket, he aimed it at the Curator. The Curator, seeing the raised gun, screamed and cowered with fear.

“No, Janty!” cried out Wilma, struggling to her feet. “Two wrongs don't make anything right!”

Janty paused and, glancing at Wilma, something in him faltered. Theodore, seeing an opportunity, threw himself forward and knocked the gun from the small boy's hand.

“Best not to do anything you'll regret,” he said, picking up the gun.

Barbu turned and stared at his young charge. “Never,” he began, with a frown, “try and shoot anyone in front of police officers. Honestly. That's just basic. Anyway, where did you get that?”

“I made it,” snarled Janty, kicking at the ground.

“Hmmm,” replied Barbu, raising an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

“It's not me you should want to kill anyway!” shouted the Curator, wild-eyed. “Why don't you ask your new master what he was doing to your father before I put him out of his misery?”

“Ah ha ha,” laughed Barbu, a little nervously. “Never mind him, Janty. He's rambling. It's what everyone does when they've been caught. He's desperate. Don't even look at him. It's too sad.”

“What do you mean?” asked the boy, staring back at the Curator.

“Ask him why your father was beaten before he was killed! Who did that to him? It wasn't me! It was him—and his stupid thug.”

Janty turned to glare at his master. “Is this true? Did you hurt my father?”

“He did!” yelled Wilma. “Honestly—he's awful! You should stay away from him!”

“Oh, do you ever shut up?” moaned Barbu, rolling his eyes. “All right. Technically we might have tortured your father. But only for a bit! Let's not bog down the issue with facts! I'm evil! This is what I do! I mean—so what? What are you going to do? Put me on the naughty step? Give me a Chinese burn? And I only gave him a little roughing up. He was a forger! It goes with the territory! Come on!”

Janty's lips tightened. “You didn't kill him, I suppose . . .”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Barbu, throwing his arms up. “So can we move on? Thank you! Let's get down to business. I've got the Katzin Stone, and with it I'm going to buy the island. And my first decree, when I own everywhere, is having you sacked, Goodman!”

“It's not worth anything, Barbu,” said Theodore, handing Janty's homemade pistol to Captain Brock.

“Don't be ridiculous,” laughed Barbu, reaching for the stone in his pocket and holding it aloft. “It's practically priceless!”

“No, it's worthless,” repeated Theodore, turning to face his nemesis. “Because it's not the real Katzin Stone. Pickle, fetch!”

Pickle leaped up at the command and, before Barbu could react, snatched the stone from the villain's hand in his mouth. Dropping it from his mouth into the detective's lowered palm, he returned to a wide-mouthed Wilma's side.

“I believe that, at the Curator's request, Visser made two fake stones,” explained Theodore. “One to be placed in the original box and the other to act as a decoy should the investigation threaten to tighten its net. The Curator's next step would have been to place the decoy—left with Visser for safekeeping, no doubt—on Miss Pagne, and have us find her with it! Barbu, you must have found the decoy before the Curator could pick it up to use it. And to prove it's worthless, if I drop the stone into that small puddle of water, then . . .” Everyone watched in amazement as the sugar-based gem fizzed and disappeared. “It simply melts.”

“Then where is the REAL one?” screamed Barbu, clouting Janty about the ears.

“I'll never tell,” wailed the Curator, both hands clutching the top of his cane as he leaned heavily upon it.

“No need,” continued Theodore, also taking hold of the Curator's cane. “It was right in front of our noses all along. Here, set in the end of the Curator's cane!”