Wilma Tenderfoot: The Case of the Fatal Phantom (5 page)

“Good grief,” gasped Lady Blackheart. “So there is!”

Belinda, who had been out cold and slumped over a heap of books, woke just in time to see the archaeologist holding up the shrunken hand in the lamplight. Staring at it with horror, she let out another short gasp and swooned again. Tarquin began fanning her distractedly once more while listening, rapt, to everything Dr. Flatelly had to say.

“Now let me show you something else,” said the archaeologist, reaching into his jacket pocket. “Here I have a book of portraits of the Blackheart dynasty stretching back for generations.” He opened it to a marked page. “In this portrait, the same tooth is missing. And there, on the right hand, the same ring on the same finger.”

“Is anyone else finding this a bit frightening?” Inspector Lemone gulped, looking around him. Nobody replied. One and all were hanging on the archaeologist’s every word.

“Well, who is it, man?” barked Lord Blackheart, spitting bits of fish.

“Bludsten Blackheart,” declared Irascimus. “I believe this body is that of Bludsten Blackheart, your great-great-great-grandfather!”

“Well, that’s the quickest case we’ve ever solved,” said Inspector Lemone, rubbing his hands together and moving toward the door. “Come on then, Goodman. Job done!”

“We don’t know how he was killed yet, Inspector Lemone,” whispered Wilma, pointing to the relevant page in her textbook. “Thank goodness
I’m here to point that out. Don’t worry, though. That’s why I’m the apprentice and you’re not. Happy to help.”

“Bludsten Blackheart?” said Theodore, tapping his chin with the end of his pipe. “Am I right in thinking that there is an old legend about him?”

Lord Blackheart nodded. “He’s supposed to have buried an artifact of unbelievable wealth on the estate for some reason—a golden claw, they say. He then disappeared, presumed dead, without telling anyone where it was. Don’t know much about it. I don’t think anyone paid much notice, perhaps because he was a bit crazy. He might have made the whole treasure thing up.”

“I say,” said Tarquin, eyes brightening. “You don’t think the legend is true, do you? And that the golden claw is still on the estate? And that key has something to do with it?”

Everybody in the room turned and stared at the large key in the mummy’s hand.

“Because according to Cooper’s Finders Keepers rule, whoever finds it gets to keep it,” Tarquin added.

The room bristled with tension. Sometimes,
when an enormous fortune is up for grabs, people, even honest ones, realize that if they keep their ideas to themselves, they might end up finding it and becoming very rich. During the silence, everyone shuffled on their feet and looked a bit shifty—something that didn’t go unnoticed by Wilma.

“Stop everything,” said Penbert, picking out the piece of blackened skin from under her microscope and holding it up. “I have something to announce. This is carbonized adrenaline. That means solidified fear. I think I have the ‘How was he killed?’ bit solved. Bludsten Blackheart was
frightened
to death!”

A gasp rippled through the room.

“But by who or by what?” whispered Wilma, clutching the hem of her pinafore.

“Maybe I can answer that too,” offered Irascimus Flatelly, holding his book of notes aloft. “Something Lord Blackheart said rang a bell, so I have been going back through my notes. And yes, it seems Bludsten Blackheart did find gold somewhere on the island. He excavated a mine, the location of which he kept secret. A mighty and
magnificent claw was made from the gold, but his obsession with keeping it for himself drove Bludsten to the point of paranoia and madness. Folklore suggests that in his delusional state he hid it and tried to summon up an evil spirit to guard the gold trophy forever. A Fatal Phantom, if you will. But from the moment he enacted the ceremony, his madness worsened. It was as if the Phantom haunted…HIM!”

“You mean…it scared him to DEATH?” Wilma whispered, eyes wide. “It jumped out at him or something and he dropped down dead on the spot and his body was never discovered until now?”

“Nonsense, surely!” wailed Lady Blackheart, her face white with terror.

“Madame, I am sure it is,” Mr. Goodman began.

“Maybe, but maybe not,” whispered Dr. Flatelly, gesturing toward Penbert’s tweezers. “Solidified FEAR. Let the evidence speak for itself.”

“And this Fatal Phantom is guarding the thing forever?” whimpered Inspector Lemone, gripping the edge of a bookcase.

“So the legend is true …” whispered Belinda, opening one eye. “There is a treasure …”

“But where is it?” warbled Lady Blackheart, licking her lips. “What does the key fit?”

“That I do not know,” said Dr. Flatelly, “but I do know this: Finding it may be more dangerous than any of us can possibly imagine.”

“Don’t like the sound of this,” said Lord Blackheart, frowning. “Perhaps you should set up shop here at the Hoo, Dr. Flatelly. Carry on your research. There’s an old hut in the grounds—you can work there if you like. That way you can do some more poking around without getting under my feet. Help get to the bottom of this business. Maybe track down the treasure,” he added hopefully.

“Of course, Lord Blackheart,” replied the archaeologist. “To find it for you would be of immense historical interest to me, and would help round off my paper nicely.”

“Well, now we know who the body is, and as there are no apparent signs of foul play, we’ll help Kooks and Penbert pack it up for further
confirmation tests back at the lab and be on our way.” Mr. Goodman began to usher Wilma toward the forensics gear to help gather it up.

Wilma’s eyes widened. No signs of foul play—no signs of human foul play maybe, but what about all this spooky stuff? Surely there was a case somewhere in this for them? Reaching for her notebook, she turned to her latest scribbles. “The thing is,” she pointed out frantically to Mr. Goodman, “according to my Academy textbook chapter on dug-up bodies, any attached curses are reawakened as soon as the body is uncovered, so that Fatal Phantom is probably about to start another
enormous
haunting.”

And as she spoke these fateful words, out in the garden Pickle threw back his head and howled.

“I really wish he’d stop doing that,” Inspector Lemone said in a strangled tone.

A treasure AND a spooky curse? Well. Didn’t things just get interesting!

W
hen horrible things are afoot on one side of an island, there are invariably horrible things afoot on the other. On small islands it is very important to achieve balance, as one end could tip up at any moment, resulting in sinking and multiple deaths. And no one wants that. So mirroring events at Blackheart Hoo were the hideous happenings at the Lowside Institute for Woeful Children, the revolting establishment where Wilma had spent most of her life and where the island’s most notorious villain was now stuck good and proper.

“I am FURIOUS!” yelled Barbu D’Anvers,
slamming his fist down on the chopping board in front of him. “FURIOUS! How have I, Barbu D’Anvers, criminal mastermind BEYOND COMPARE, ended up in a stinking kitchen cutting up onions for woeful children? Woeful children, I might add, who seem to have permanent plugs of snot hanging from their nostrils and an ignorance of basic hygiene. They don’t just smell, they’ve got MOLD growing on them! HOW? How has this happened?”

“The Health and Safety Officer came to that theatre where you were the manager and made you pay a fine for all the actors who died, and then she seized your property and—” began Tully, Barbu’s stupid henchman.

“Yes,” hissed Barbu, throwing a potato at him. “I know
that.
I don’t need reminding, thank you! What I mean is how am I
still
here? It’s been a month! That’s FOUR weeks!” He slumped forward onto the workbench in front of him, his once magnificent pompadour flat and dull. “I fear,” he mumbled, “that I may be…
depressed
.”

Barbu D’Anvers, wrong’un of the highest
order, was living at the Institute for Woeful Children under duress. His own home, Rascal Rock, was currently under a confiscation order until Barbu could pay the hefty fine he had been given following the unfortunate events a month previously at the Valiant Vaudeville Theatre, where Goodman’s last case, that of the Putrid Poison, had unfolded. No two people disliked each other more than Theodore P. Goodman and Barbu D’Anvers. The detective had spent most of his working life chasing around after the diminutive villain, but Barbu had always managed to elude capture by shifting blame and just being plain, old-fashioned sneaky. Until now.

Squeezed into a tiny room with a triple bunk for him, his apprentice Janty, and his sidekick Tully, Barbu was seething. He had been forced to do menial chores like defrosting the frozen underpants from the clothesline and shaving the Institute matron Madam Skratch’s bunion, but worst of all, especially for a gent so dedicated to fashion, he had to wear the Institute uniform—dingy gray overalls with a flat cloth cap.

Criminal Elements, you must understand, are never happy unless they are hatching evil, spreading misery, and accumulating fortunes by any means necessary. “I am rankled BEYOND BELIEF!” yelled Barbu. “To think it would ever come to this! Barbu D’Anvers
working to pay off a debt
! Oh, the humiliation! I have striven all my life never to do an honest day’s work and here I am, being
paid
to peel onions. This is all Goody-Goody Goodman’s fault! And that revolting child that works for him! Outwitted by a girl! Oh…oh, help me…I think I may be …”

Barbu’s eyes rolled back into his head and the tiny villain toppled sideways. Janty and Tully dropped their peeling knives and ran to their master’s side. “Should I slap him?” asked Tully, staring down at Barbu’s crumpled body. “Throw water in his face?”

“Don’t you
dare,
” snarled Barbu, opening one eye. He lifted a limp arm in Janty’s direction. “You there, help me up,” he growled. “My brilliance may be diminished, but it’s not extinguished yet.”

Janty had been taken on as Barbu’s apprentice a few months previously. His father had been a
prominent forger but had come to a sticky demise during one of Goodman’s cases, leaving the boy an orphan. Rather than have the boy fall into his enemy’s hands, Barbu had plucked Janty from under Goodman’s charitable nose, pumped him for information, then ended up taking him on as his own. Like many boys, Janty had been lured by the promise of fast living and crazy horseplay, but had found himself a novice in the ways of menace and misdeeds. Though he was doing his best to learn fast. Young boys sometimes think that being terribly naughty is a sharp thrill, but they are wrong. And all girls would do well to remember that, however handsome those boys might turn out to be.

“That’s the spirit, master,” said the curly-haired young man now, grabbing hold of the villain’s wrist and heaving him upward. “If it helps, I conned two five-year-olds out of their monthly apple ration last week, I’ve stolen some blankets from the baby dorm, and I’ve set up a protection racket in the boiler room. I’ve made quite a few groggles already. It doesn’t matter where we are, we can always be bad.”

Barbu sniffed. “Protection racket, you say? And I suppose we
could
do a little scamming. Children, woeful or not, are
terribly
gullible. The problem, of course,” continued the tiny terror, “is that woeful children don’t have much to lose. Yes, we can take their apples, grab a few groggles, but if we’re going to get out of here, we need to think bigger.”

“You there!” shouted a voice through the kitchen window. It was Madam Skratch, her bony nose quivering with disdain. “Small boy with the beard!” she yelled, pointing at Barbu. “No slacking! I want those onions for a dessert!” And with that, she marched off.

“Oh no,” mumbled Tully, “not again …”

If there was one thing guaranteed to send Barbu D’Anvers spinning into a blind rage it was any reference to his size. Short men are painfully aware that they are squat, and any reminder of their slight stature is guaranteed to cause a psychotic episode. History, for example, teaches us that tiny men are much given to rampaging, marauding, and invading countries. Consult any
history book you please and you will discover that every single dictator and bad sort was on the stunted side. Napoleon, an infamous tiny Frenchman, invaded Russia simply because a passing Cossack asked him if he needed a hand up some steps. Short men are VERY sensitive. Be warned. And Barbu, being an exceptionally short man, was no different. He glared in the direction of the now empty window. His left eye twitched, he squeezed his hands into tight fists. “Small boy with the beard?” he whispered through gritted teeth. “SMALL BOY WITH THE BEARD?”

“Stand back,” warned Tully, pressing Janty behind him.

Barbu, face blood-red with fury, picked up the large peeling knife in front of him and, with a yell, threw it hard. It rotated fast across the kitchen, cut a turnip in half, and embedded itself in a large hanging hare. Next, he took up a rolling pin and began to bash all the boxes of eggs, one by one, until yellow yolk splattered every surface. Then, in one last fit of ferocity, he grabbed a large potato and battered it until it was mashed to mulch.

“Small boy with the beard???” he screamed, raising his rolling pin aloft once more. “I need to KILL something!”

“You killed that potato, Mr. Barbu,” proffered Tully, poking his head up from behind the barrel where he had ducked with Janty moments before.

“Yes, Tully,” panted Barbu D’Anvers, calming slightly. “I
did
kill the potato, and let that be A LESSON TO THEM ALL!” he added, throwing the rolling pin to one side. “I have had just about enough of being down in the dumps and told what to do by a woman with a BEAK for a nose. That’s not what being the greatest villain that ever lived is all about. Go and find our old clothes and those stolen groggles you mentioned. We’re hitting the Plumbus Club.”

“The Plumbus Club, master?” asked his young apprentice.

“A gaming establishment for young men with more money than sense. We are going to divest them of their inheritances. Gambling, young Janty, has been many a promising fellow’s ruin.”