Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits (16 page)

“Okay.”

“What’s ’e ’aying?” Ellie asked.

I explained the plan the best I could, considering I had three yards of cotton stuffed into my mouth. My head was pounding and my wrists were sore from being squeezed into the handcuffs with Ellie’s. I guess the kidnappers only had one pair; my presence in the compartment was a complication that they had not planned for.

The train rocked and rolled along, reminding me of the song that Gladys and Gwendolyn had sung. From there, my mind wandered to my own family. What were Mother and Jessica doing? Part of me hoped Mother was looking for me, but another part felt guilty for worrying her. If I got out of this alive, I promised myself that I would be a better son and big brother.

The door handle jiggled, and I held my breath.

“Someone’s coming,”
said Sam.
“I’m going to bolt when he opens that door, but I give you my word as a calico that I will be right back.”

I nodded at him and then looked at Ellie, whose eyes were glued to the door handle.

The door opened a few inches, and light from the corridor spilled into the room. There was a rustling sound, followed by a man’s voice as Sam dashed over his feet and into the hallway. “Hey! What the … how did that cat get in here? Scared me half to death. I
hate
cats.”

He opened the door just enough to let himself in and stood there quietly for a few seconds. Even though it was too dark to see his face, I was positive it was the man in the gray suit. Imagine my surprise when he turned on the light and I found myself facing the weaselly features of Reverend Perfiddle! What was
he
doing here? According to the lady in the bird hat, I should have been in the room belonging to … I couldn’t remember, exactly—my head was still spinning.

“Okay, kiddies,” he said. “Time to wake up, everyone. We’re going for a little walk. Just do exactly as I say and nobody’ll get hurt. Capisce?” He opened his jacket enough to give us a glimpse of his pistol—the same one that the back of my head was already quite familiar with. “Nod if you understand me.”

Ellie and I nodded.

“Excellent,” he said, untying the ropes around our lower legs and yanking us to our feet. Still handcuffed and facing
each other, we shuffled across the room to the door, where Reverend Perfiddle held up a hand to stop us. “We’re not going far. Remember, no funny stuff.”

He opened it a crack and looked out. Satisfied that no one was in sight, he pulled us to a door kitty-corner from the one we’d left and roughly shoved us inside another compartment.

“Whew. Made it,” he said. “Kids, say hi to your new babysitter.”

Mrs. Perfiddle, sitting on the bed with her face in the shadows, gave a little wave and glared at me. “So this is the boy gumshoe who just couldn’t keep his nose out of something that was
none
of his business. What are we going to do with you, little man? If there’s one thing I hate, it’s complications, and that’s all you are to me: a complication. You’re lucky—I was ready to toss you out the window of the train, but my partner is a softie. So we’ll let you live—for now.”

Then she stood up and it hit me: she wasn’t really pregnant! It was just an act and, I guessed, merely a pillow stuffed under her blouse. But that wasn’t all. When I looked a little closer, I saw another face—the face of the woman with the long red hair, the one who had not wanted to admit that the barrette belonged to her “daughter.”

She must have guessed what was going through my head,
because she pinched my cheek and smiled at me. “Clever boy. I see you’re putting two and two together. Maybe you’re not as dumb as I thought. In fact, you’re probably smarter than my partner there. Come to think of it, how
did
you know where to look for Little Miss Trust Fund? And how did you get inside? Who opened the door for you?”

An image of the hat lady flashed through my mind. She must have given me the wrong room number by accident, I thought, suddenly remembering more details of what happened before I got conked on the head. According to her, 3-B belonged to gray-suit guy and the sunglasses lady, which brought me to another question: if they weren’t the kidnappers, who
were
they?

“Shhh!” said Reverend Perfiddle, his ear pressed against the door, listening for activity out in the corridor. “Someone’s out there.”

Mrs. Perfiddle took the pistol from beneath her pillow and jabbed it in my ribs. “Don’t even
think
about making any noise,” she whispered.

I heard Clarence’s voice through the door. “You’re sure this is the room? According to my list, it’s empty.”

Faintly, sounding as if he were miles away, Sam’s voice answered inside my head.
“Yes, I’m sure. 3-B.”

Clarence knocked, waited a few seconds, and then knocked again. “Henry? You in there? Henry? Ellie?”

Reverend Perfiddle’s eyes bugged out of his head, and he turned to his wife with a befuddled look. “How the heck does he know?” he hissed. “Nobody saw me! I swear!” He stared at me. “Did you tell someone where you were going?”

I shook my head. Even if I
had
, I wouldn’t have told him.

“You
idiot
,” snarled Mrs. Perfiddle. “Somebody must have seen
something
. I knew that salesman story would never hold up. That’s what I get for trusting you. All right, what’s done is done. That’s the conductor’s voice, for sure. Who’s with him?”

“I can’t tell. Can’t hear anyone else,” said Reverend Perfiddle.

“Use your key,”
said Sam.
“Trust me; they’re inside.”

The distinctive sound of Judge Ambrose’s shoes
clacked
down the corridor.

“I know who
that
is,” said the minister as the sound slowed and then stopped outside the door to 3-B.

So did Sam.
“Wonderful. How’s he going to try to kill me this time?”

“All right, Mr. Nockwood, I came, like you asked,” the judge blustered. “Now, are you going to tell me what this has to do with that … barrette, or whatever it is, that
you found? Whose compartment is this? And what is
that
doing here?”

It wasn’t hard to figure out that Sam was the
that
Judge Ambrose found so offensive.

Clarence ignored the reference to Sam. “Officially, this is an empty compartment. We had a few unsold rooms this trip. However, I believe that Ellie Strasbourg is inside.”

“Based on what information?”

I grinned, thinking of the real answer to that question: a little kitty-cat told me. The smile on Ellie’s face assured me that she was thinking the same thing.

“I … received a tip,” Clarence fibbed, “from someone who … would prefer to remain anonymous. That … and the barrette that Henry Shipley found, which has been identified by Mrs. Strasbourg as Ellie’s …”

“Ludicrous!” cried the judge. “The girl was taken off the train. I thought we went over this, several times! Well, let’s get on with it. Open the door.”

“Okay, I’m going in,” said Clarence.

We all heard the jangling of keys, followed by several seconds of silence.

“This is impossible,”
said Sam.
“They were right
there!
They were handcuffed to each other and tied up so they couldn’t move their legs.”

“You old fool!” cried the judge. “Wasting my time like this. Mrs. Strasbourg has put her trust in me to make sure that the necklace is ready for the drop-off. Please don’t bother me again with your imbecilic … follies. The next time you want to go on a wild-goose chase, I suggest you take your
cat
.” He stomped off, sounding like a team of Clydesdales and laughing rudely at poor Clarence.

“Clarence, you have to believe me,”
Sam pleaded.
“I saw them.”

“But you didn’t see the kidnapper, and now nobody is going to believe anything I say.”

“Oh, don’t let that overinflated zeppelin get to you. You can’t give up on me now. Whoever the kidnapper is, they have to be nearby. They had to move two kids without accidentally bumping into anyone, and that’s not easy to do on a full train. Come on; let’s check some of these other rooms.”

“How many would you like me to check? I know who’s in this one, and this one, and that one, and Mrs. Perfiddle is in that one. I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to bother her. Poor woman is about to have a baby.”

“Who is he
talking
to?” Mrs. Perfiddle asked, digging the barrel of the pistol farther into my ribs.

“The baby is the least of her problems,”
said Sam. “
How’d you like to live with Reverend Perfiddle? The man’s a complete
twit.” Part of me wished that the twit could have heard that for himself as Sam continued.
“Fine. You go back and keep an eye
on the judge. I saw the way he looked at that necklace. You humans have been known to do some pretty foolish things over a hunk of rock like that. Of course, I’m not a hundred percent certain that the judge is human. I’m staying here until I see what I need to see.”

Reverend Perfiddle removed his ear from the door and lit a cigarette. “I think they’re gone. Whew, that was close. If I hadn’t moved when I did …”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular Albert Wisenstein,” said Mrs. Perfiddle. “How much longer to Dunkirk? I’m going stir-crazy in here with these brats.”

“Not long. In fact, I need to get moving if I’m going to …”

“Shut up! These two don’t need to hear all the details. Just go.”

Mrs. Perfiddle was in such a hurry to close the door as he was leaving that she shut it on his fingers. He howled in pain and let loose a string of words that would have made me gasp if I hadn’t been gagged.

“Quiet!” she snarled, locking the door behind him. “Nincompoop.”

Even though I was a
little
bit scared, I couldn’t help laughing, and neither could Ellie.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” Mrs. Perfiddle said, attempting to be serious but unable to hold back her own smile. She patted Ellie on the head, as if she were petting
a dog. “Kid, take my advice. Don’t get married. When we started going out, everybody told me how lucky I was to find a fella like him. Believe me, if anybody’s lucky, it’s him. I’d say he’s an imbecile, but that’s not fair to the imbeciles of the world. He’d have to get quite a bit smarter before they’d let him into the club. So when you two kids grow up and Prince Charming here asks you to marry him, run in the other direction as fast as your legs will take you.”

Ellie grunted to get Mrs. Perfiddle’s attention. “Ah-er!”

“Huh?”

“Ah! Er! I ’eed ah-er!”

“Ohhh.
Water
. I guess that would be all right.” She started to untie Ellie’s gag. “Don’t forget, I still have a gun pointed at you.”

Without taking her eyes off us, she filled a cup and handed it to Ellie, who drank it in one gulp and asked for more. She downed a second cupful and stared up at Mrs. Perfiddle.

“I know who you are. I recognized you right away from the picture in the post office. You and your partner are Connie and Ty. Kind of like Bonnie and Clyde, but not nearly as famous. Or as smart, I think. You’re never going to get away with this, you know. I told a
bunch
of people on this train about you and they’re going to catch you.”

Mrs. Perfiddle—Connie—didn’t look too worried.
“Sure, kid. But you see, it’s almost over, and I
am
going to get away with it, even though I’m stuck with Ty, who is dumber than a sack of dead chickens. It was his fault the FBI even got that picture of us. The whole thing was his idea. Once he got his hands on those machine guns, we just had to pose like Bonnie and Clyde, he said. You want to know a secret? He’s afraid to shoot the thing! Tried it once, and almost shot his own foot off.”

Ellie pointed at the pistol in Connie’s hand. “I’ll bet you don’t even know how to use that. Have you ever shot anybody? Or do you just go around scaring people with it? You know what? I’ll bet it’s not even loaded.”

Connie lifted Ellie’s chin with the cold steel barrel of the pistol. “Unless you want to find out the hard way, you ought to shut up, kid. You should consider yourself lucky. You’re going to get out of this with hardly a scratch. All your rich mommy and daddy have to do is hand over a little necklace. Big deal. They’ll buy another one just like it. Except … it really is one of a kind, isn’t it? I guess mommy will have to—” She stopped suddenly, holding up a hand to silence Ellie, even though she wasn’t the one talking. “Someone’s out there,” she said, pointing her gun at the door.

“Mrrraaaa,”
said Sam.
“Mrrraaaaaaaa.”

“What was that?” cried Connie, almost jumping out of her skin.

“Sam!” said Ellie.

Connie waved the gun wildly. “Shut up! Who’s Sam?” It took a few moments for the truth to hit her, and when it did, she laughed at herself. “It’s the conductor’s cat, isn’t it? You know, I always liked cats, but I’m allergic to them.”

Sam’s voice rang inside my head again:
“Henry! Are you in there with Ellie? If you can’t talk, stomp your foot or bang your head against the wall so I can hear, okay? On the count of three. One … two … three!”

I lifted both feet off the ground and brought them down as hard as I could on the floor. With all the usual noise of the train, it wasn’t very loud, but it did the job.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Connie asked. “Sit still.” She opened the door a few inches and peeked outside. “Here, kitty, kitty. Come inside. I guess it’s okay as long as I don’t touch you.”

Sam poked his head inside.
“I need to talk to you, kid. You think it’s safe?”

I nodded, and Sam’s lanky body slinked inside.

“You are one ugly cat, I have to tell you,” said Connie. “Somebody dipped you in a bucket of ugly. Twice. Poor little girl.”

“Sam’s a
boy
,” said Ellie. “He’s not ugly—he’s
beautiful
.”

Connie refolded Ellie’s gag and held it up for her to
see. “Goes to show how much you know, Little Miss Foo-Foo Private School. That’s a calico, and all calicoes are girls. Even Ty knows that. And if she’s beautiful, I’m Miss America.”