Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Putrid Poison (12 page)

“Drat!” she yelled, wringing seawater out from her pinafore. “Gone! And we saw nothing!” she wailed, thumping her fist downward in frustration. “Who could it have been? One thing's for sure: Whoever it was, was in a rush to get out of here without being seen and, if I remember rightly from the chapter in my textbook about Fleeing Suspects, that tells me they were up to no good!”

Wilma looked around her. “There must be something,” she mumbled. “People who dash off generally don't have time to cover their tracks.”

Pickle, who despite shaking himself down was still sopping wet, dripped forward and began pawing at the sand behind an old discarded lobster pot.

Wilma jumped over a rock to see what he had found. “Footprints!” She beamed. “We can see them in the wet sand. Well done, Pickle. They go back there to that rock pool.” She scampered over to take a look. “There's a jam jar. And it's filled with Ascopopis Nodolum seaweed! I knew it meant something! And . . . oh my goodness . . . it can't be . . .” Wilma gently lifted up the jam jar by the metal hoop it was attached to. Hanging off the handle, by a tiny leather attachment, was one small, wooden finger.

“Well, there's only one person with a wooden finger at the Valiant, isn't there, Pickle? Mr. Goodman was right,” she whispered as she placed the tiny but amazing clue into a Clue Bag. “This case is
filled
with suspects . . .”

 

The Institute for Woeful Children was as dark and foreboding as Wilma remembered it: the all-too-familiar turrets like upturned claws, the huge front gates lined with a row of cawing iron crows as terrifying as they had ever been, but when Wilma walked through them and saw the tree in the front yard, famously split in two on the stormy night of her arrival at the Institute, her resolve strengthened. She had come to do a job. And do it she would.

“Wilma Tenderfoot!” snarled Madam Skratch as she answered the miserable dull toll of the front doorbell. “Please don't tell me you're back.”

Madam Skratch was what an independent panel of experts would call “revolting.” She looked like a vulture and gave off an odor of over-boiled Brussels sprouts. Being the matron of the Institute for Woeful Children, her dealings with Wilma had, for ten years, been thorny and troublesome. So, as she stared down her considerable nose at the small child in front of her, she made a face that might lead some to believe that something dead had crawled up her nostrils.

“Actually,” said Wilma, putting her thumb behind her apprentice detective badge and lifting it up for the matron to see, “I'm here on official detective-type business in my capacity as apprentice detective in the employ of Mr. Goodman—he's a detective—and as an enrolled student at the Academy of Detection and Espionage and under the tutelage of Headmistress Kite—”

“Yes, yes!” snapped Madam Skratch, curling her lip. “That'll do. I'm not in the least bit interested. What do you want? And make it snappy. I have children to beat.”

Wilma cleared her throat. It was quite daunting to be standing in front of her old matron, but right now Madam Skratch was the only tangible link to her past and, frightened or not, Wilma knew she was going to have to bite the bullet and work backward. “I've had a quick read of my Academy textbook,” Wilma began with a gulp, pulling it out from her pinafore pocket, “and it's got a whole chapter on Inquiries and Questions.” She held it up for Madam Skratch to look at.

The matron batted it away with her bony fist. “Blah, blah,” she said. “Get to the point, Tenderfoot. I don't have all day.”

“And I was wondering if you had anything else you could tell me about the night I was left here? And who left me? And why they left me? And where I came from? And how you know I've got a relative alive somewhere? And where they might be? And whether you think they've got themselves lost? And, if so, where they might have lost themselves? And—”

“Stop!” yelled Madam Skratch. “You're making my brain spin! You really are a thorn in my side, Tenderfoot! Still, the sooner I answer your questions, the less likely I am to ever see you again. All right! Let's get this over with. I don't know who left you. There was a basket and you were wrapped up in something. In fact, I've still got it somewhere. Every child that comes here gets a box. Everything from the basket was put into that. Along with the monthly letters that came. With the money. I don't know who sent them. And—before you ask—no, the money was not for you. It was for me. So you can't have it back. And, even if it was for you, you still can't have it back. Because I'm mean. And then another letter came. Just before you left here. From someone looking for you. But I only read half the letter because the second page was burned after Timothy Scraggens tripped and dropped it in the fire as he was delivering it to me. So I never knew who sent it nor did I have an address to reply to. But they were definitely looking for you. There. That's it. That's all I know.”

Wilma was agog. “A box? With stuff in it about me?” she asked, slightly trembling. “Can . . . can I have it?”

Madam Skratch stared down her considerable spiked nose at the ten-year-old in front of her. “Do you promise never to bother me again?” she asked, bending low and stabbing Wilma in the shoulder with her finger.

Wilma nodded, wide-eyed. “I promise.”

“Then stand over there,” Madam Skratch snarled, gesturing toward the courtyard. “I shall throw everything down from my study window. And then you will pick it up, leave the premises, and never return. Do you understand, Wilma Tenderfoot?”

“I do, Madam Skratch,” replied Wilma, clutching the bottom of her pinafore. This was incredible. In her wildest dreams Wilma could not have imagined that she was about to receive a box filled with things that might help her find out where she had come from. Or where her relative might be. As the front door of the Institute slammed shut, she looked down at her faithful beagle. “Can you believe this, Pickle?” she asked wonderingly. “A whole box of clues!”

Even Pickle, who was rarely astonished, was so stunned that all he could do was stand with his tongue hanging out and look slightly crosseyed. He shook his head. No. His eyes were still crossed. He hadn't been this surprised since he'd found out that jellyfish can't do the backstroke.

The window to Madam Skratch's study creaked open above them. “This is everything!” shouted down the matron, holding out a burlap sack. “I never want to clap eyes on you again, Wilma Tenderfoot!” And with that she hurled the sack from the window and then slammed it shut again with a bang.

Wilma ran to the dropped sack and, trembling, untied the rope around its top. Inside the bag there was a cardboard box stuffed with hundreds of letters. “Oh, Pickle,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. “There are so many! And there's something else . . . down at the bottom . . . something white.” Reaching in farther, Wilma pulled out a delicate, gauze-like material. “This must be what I was wrapped in,” she pondered, holding it up to look at it. “It's a strange material. I wonder what it is.”

But before she could do anything else the clock tower at the Institute began its melancholic chime.

“Oh no!” Wilma yelled, leaping to her feet. “It's one o'clock, Pickle! We need to get to the lab!” And grabbing the sack up and tossing it over her shoulder Wilma ran off through the Institute gates, Pickle fast behind her.

“
A
bsolute disgrace!” blustered Inspector Lemone, his cheeks a vivid red. “They don't know what they're talking about, Goodman!”

The Inspector had picked up the lunchtime edition of the
Early Worm,
Cooper's most popular paper, to read as he coasted along on the back of Theodore's tandem, only to discover the front page splashed with the headline FRIGHT NIGHT'S FLIGHT OF NO-GOOD GOODMAN!

“They're saying you ran away!” Inspector Lemone continued as the great detective pedaled hard in front of him. “Total rot and balderdash!”

Theodore, as well as being very serious and very great, was also very sensible, and as he looked over his shoulder at the offending headline he merely raised an eyebrow. “Don't give it a second thought, Inspector. Alarming events often lead to minor frenzies. We shall rise above it and continue with our inquiries. And I'd appreciate it if you did some pedaling, Lemone. It's quite a steep hill up to the lab.”

 

“Sorry if I'm a bit late, Mr. Goodman!” Wilma called out, running up the path with Pickle toward the lab as Theodore and the Inspector were arriving. “Have I missed any deductions? You'll never believe what Madam Skratch gave me! Look! A whole box of clues. There's letters! And a strange piece of cloth! I'll be deducting this for weeks! Not only that, but I went to Filthy Cove and found the most amazing clue and . . .” Wilma was grinning, but noticing the Inspector's troubled expression she stopped. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “I'm not in trouble again, am I? Because I didn't mean to tip caramel into your rosemary-tobacco jar, Mr. Goodman. It just sort of happened.”

“No, no, Wilma,” reassured Theodore, dismounting and undoing the bicycle clips from the bottom of his trousers. “The Inspector is a bit cross about something he's read in the paper. Hmm . . . I'd wondered why my pipe was so sticky.”

“
Bit
cross?” snarled Inspector Lemone, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “I should say! Ridiculous claims! Barbu D'Anvers is trying to smear Goodman's name! Look at that, Wilma!” he added, holding out the paper. “The nerve of it!”

Theodore stood tall and placed his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. “As I said before, Inspector, we shall rise above it . . . Two people have been killed in startling circumstances. Until we find out who did it and why, the
EarlyWorm
needs to be cross with someone.”

“Well, can't they be cross with someone horrible?” asked Wilma, a little puzzled. “Like Mr. D'Anvers? I don't understand why they should want to be cross with you. Although there was that time when I was at the Institute and all of Madam Skratch's underwear went missing and I just happened to be on pant-folding duty and she was very cross with me. But I hadn't done it. I was just there.”

“How . . . unexpected,” said Inspector Lemone, who had almost calmed down.

“Yes,” said Wilma, nodding, “it turned out a boy named Timothy Herrpip had taken all her underpants to make a gigantic catapult out of the elastic. Madam Skratch had VERY big underpants. But until she'd found out who'd done it, I got the blame. I suppose it's like that?”

“Sort of,” said Theodore, clearing his throat a little. “Anyway, you said you'd found a clue at Filthy Cove . . .”

Wilma nodded and held out the bag with the wooden finger in it for Theodore to see. “I went down to the shore to collect some seaweed. Remember, I saw some in the Baron's office and thought it was an . . . anomaly . . .”

“Well done,” said Theodore.

“And I looked up seaweeds in one of your reference books and found out that the only place I could find the same seaweed was in Filthy Cove. So I went there. And someone else was also there. Someone who ran off before I could get a good look at them. And whoever it was left a jam jar with some more seaweed in it and this was attached to it! It must have come off in the rush to get away.”

Theodore took the finger and peered at it through his magnifying glass. “And who do you think this belongs to, Wilma?” he asked, one eye closed.

“Well, obviously Eric Ohio, Mrs. Wanderlip's dummy!” declared Wilma, panting with excitement. “It's the only answer!”

“Hmm. It would seem suspects are piling up,” Theodore commented, twiddling his magnifying glass back into his waistcoat pocket with a flourish. “Onto the Clue Board with it, Wilma,” he added, handing the finger back. “We shall have to contemplate this further. But first the lab! Penbert has some results at last.”

 

Dr. Kooks's assistant had been waiting anxiously at the lab window. There were formalities to be performed whenever visitors arrived and she had had the guest badges lined up and ready to be handed out from the moment she had heard Theodore's tandem on the graveled path outside. The visitors' book was opened at the relevant page, the incident register was ready should a mishap occur, and her official white coat had been bleached and starched to within an inch of its life.

“Penbert!” bellowed Dr. Kooks, waltzing out into the reception area. “I've been working on a new song.”

The preoccupied assistant turned to look at him. He was wearing a large spongy homemade hat that looked suspiciously like a big gray cauliflower, and a sheet that had a spine painted down its center.

Penbert blinked. “Where's your white coat, Dr. Kooks? Mr. Goodman is here. Have you forgotten?”

“Yes, yes,” answered the eccentric scientist with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Never mind that. Guess what I am?”

Penbert didn't have time for this. Visitors were imminent. There were badges to hand out, books to sign. “I don't know. Mr. Goodman is here. I'm a bit—”

“I'm a brain! Ah-ha!” declared the doctor, throwing his arms into the air. “It's for the song. Here goes.” He cleared his throat and closed his eyes.

 

“If we didn't have a brain!

Then we'd surely be insane!

Or dribble like a big Great Dane!

We'd be a horse without a rein!

An empty head's a mental sprain!

If you haven't got a brain!

A brain! A brain! A brain, brain, brain!

A brain makes you urbane!

Gives you the fizz of pink champagne!