Watson's Case Read online

  Rollie worried about the time. He did not want to break curfew rules longer than necessary, and he surely did not want to get caught by the night guard. He knew he had one more door to get through. As he rounded a corner, he collided with stacks of boxes. He stepped back to survey the obstruction.

  The passage was crammed with footlockers, steamer trunks, cardboard boxes, and metal cases of various sizes. Most were locked with padlocks, and labeled with tags. As he perused a few tags, he recognized names associated with Sherlock Holmes’ career:

  Holmes’ Pipe Collection

  Irene Adler’s Letters from Bohemia

  Inspector Lestrade’s Telegrams

  Watson’s Case

  Metal locks guarded the boxes. Rollie knew just by looking at them that they held great treasures. He picked his way through the storage. He could almost taste the mystery in the musty air, as if the walls were soaked with history. If they could speak, what would the walls say? Which stories would they tell? Perhaps they would tell about the lifelike bust Holmes made of himself and planted as a decoy in the window while he doubled back to surprise his enemy Colonel Moran. Or maybe they would tell about when Holmes disguised himself to look deathly ill in order to fool an enemy. They would number an incredibly long list of clients of the more than five hundred cases Holmes worked. If only they could talk. All that remained of those great adventures were the Academy and its secrets, one being the secret passage and these treasures.

  Rollie squeezed and scooted around the barricade. He recognized Holmes’ large tin bin full of souvenirs from his cases such as the Musgrave Ritual. When his eyes spotted a painting of a young woman, he knew it was Professor Moriarty’s artwork by Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

  Beyond all the storage, Rollie came upon another door. He spun the last combination he had memorized: 8-left, 1-right, 16-left, and entered through it. He hurried up to the fourth floor tunnel. He soon came to a dead-end where he leaned against the corner, and was relieved it opened. He scrambled out, watched the corner close, and tiptoed to his dorm room. He got into bed. Before closing his eyes, he glanced at his roommates. Eliot sprawled on his back, his arm hanging over the side of the bed, his mouth open. And Rupert—

  Where was Rupert?

  Panic gripped Rollie.

  He recounted his trek through the secret passage. Had he heard any noises? Had he sighted any shadows? He had been so enthralled with his exploration that he had not bothered to watch for the mole. He wanted to kick himself for being so careless. Some detective!

  Even if Rupert had not discovered Rollie and the secret passage, he must have noticed Rollie gone. He would be sure to tell on Rollie for breaking school rules. Rollie vowed not to sneak out of bed again . . . unless absolutely necessary.

  An opening door cut into Rollie’s blistering thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut, waited, and peeked. Rupert shuffle out of the bathroom and stumble back to bed. With a grunt, he rolled over.

  Whew!

  Maybe Rupert had not noticed Rollie’s absence. He appeared to be half-asleep. Either way, Rollie made a second vow to himself to be more watchful, especially of his suspicious roommate.

  Auntie Ei’s Warning

  Rollie woke with a start, and blinked around his room. Weak sunlight filtered through the window, and his roommates’ beds were empty—Eliot’s was nicely made and Rupert’s was an untidy heap of wrinkled bedding. Rollie sprang up and checked the clock on the desk.

  “I’m late!”

  He madly rummaged around in his suitcase for some clothes, got dressed, and raced down to the second floor. When he reached Ms. Yardsly’s closed classroom door, he paused to catch his breath. Trying hard to make no disturbance, he slipped inside and into his seat. Cecily raised her eyebrows in surprise, Eliot shook his head, and Ms. Yardsly immediately marched up to him. She looked as crisp as ever in a black skirt suit and orange tie. Her brown hair was pulled tightly into a bun at the back of her head. She stood stiffly and inspected him with her icy gaze.

  “You are tardy by seven minutes,” she told him, tapping her wrist watch. “I’ve already handed out today’s quiz. Unfortunately it’s too late for you to take it.” She spun on her heel and marched back to her desk.

  Rollie held his head in his hands, thinking how this missed quiz would raise the headmaster’s attention about his poor studies yet again. He could not believe he had slept through the alarm, slept through his roommates waking, and slept in clear past nine o’clock. He knew the reason he had been so tired was his midnight escapade through the secret passage. Well, he had not been caught, but he had not entirely gotten away without consequences. He hoped Yardsly wouldn’t take him off the mole case.

  “Time’s up, please pass your quizzes forward,” Ms. Yardsly barked. “We will continue with another Dancing Men message to decipher,” she drilled, tapping the blackboard. “You have one minute. Go!”

  Dancing Men!

  Rollie had almost forgotten the code in the Daily Telegraph. It was Monday, which according to Miss Gram meant keeping up on current events. He could not wait to get to her class and check if another code hid in the newspaper. Last time it had been one word: TUNNEL. Not much of a message, but—

  Rollie gasped.

  “Rollin E. Wilson, did you decode it?”

  Rollie gulped.

  “Rollin E. Wilson, answer me!”

  “Sorry, Ms. Yardsly, I, uh, thought—”

  “Did you decode it or not?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Then return to your work and stop distracting others with oral outbursts.” Ms. Yardsly’s stern voice rang with authority, yet her expression softened as she noticed his furrowed brow and flushed cheeks. She marched over to him, bent down slightly, and whispered, “What’s troubling you, Rollin?”

  “I just thought of something important. I’ll get back to work.”

  “Good lad.” For a split second she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, then turned on her heel and strode to the blackboard. “Time’s up, pair and share!”

  Rollie barely heard another word spoken in class. The tunnel! He had not just stumbled upon someone’s silly doodling in a newspaper—he had stumbled upon an intentional message to someone in the school.

  That someone had to be the mole. Because of the tightened security, the newspaper was perhaps the only method of getting a secret message into the school. If the message was for the mole, then it had to be an order from Herr Zilch himself. He was telling the mole to search for the tunnel, or secret passage as Rollie called it. What would Herr Zilch’s message be this week?

  During recess, Rollie caught up with Cecily about the weekend.

  “It was a good thing I stayed.” Rollie told her all about the secret passage and the map hidden in the newspaper Auntie Ei had given him. Then he flipped open his notepad and read his list of clues to her.

  Herr Zilch’s mole is looking for the secret passage

  He is looking by pounding holes in the walls

  He is using Miss Gram’s missing tools to pound holes

  He wants something in the secret passage

  What does Herr Zilch want? Something in the locked boxes?

  Cecily listened, her green eyes sparkling. “You said he. You think the mole’s Rupert, don’t you?” She glanced around the recess area to be sure Rupert was not lurking somewhere nearby.

  “I think he is, but I can’t find any evidence. It’s really frustrating!”

  “You want him to be the mole.”

  “I wouldn’t say I want him to be, but . . . it would make sense, and—”

  “Be honest.”

  “I am being honest with you! I think he could very likely—”

  “No, Rollie,” Cecily stopped him. “Be honest with yourself.”

  He furrowed his brow. “He’s mean, shifty—”

  “Shh! Not so l
oud.”

  Rollie sighed. “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m following my instincts about Rupert, but I can’t find any evidence! Auntie Ei always tells me to trust my instincts. My instincts tell me he’s no good—I don’t like him.”

  “Sounds like you’re going off of your feelings more than instincts. Your feelings could be wrong. Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t make him a criminal, you know.”

  Rollie stared at her. “You’re right. Then who is the mole?”

  “I’m not saying Rupert isn’t,” Cecily countered. “He could be. I’m just saying you need to suspect him for the right reasons. Not because you can’t stand him, but because the evidence points to him.”

  “Good point.” Rollie smiled at her. “You’ve got a lot of good points this morning.”

  Cecily giggled. “I wish I could take credit for all that, but they’re not my words—they’re Auntie Ei’s. She got home this weekend.”

  “What! Did you tell her about our case?”

  “I talked to her mainly about you and Rupert. She gave me the advice I just told you.” Cecily wiggled out of her coat.

  “We need evidence,” Rollie reiterated.

  Cecily patted his shoulder. “We’ll get it on whoever it is, but right now we better get to class.”

  “You look different.” Rollie eyed her. “You’re wearing a dress!” He pointed at her mustard yellow dress with green buttons.

  Cecily blushed slightly. “I didn’t have any clean trousers.”

  “That’s not the reason,” laughed Rollie. “I deduce that the Lady Gram club is the reason.”

  “I think I’m gonna quit the club,” said Cecily, smoothing her skirt. “All we do is practice curtsies and other boring lady-things. Plus I don’t like Rosemary Wood.”

  Wesley jogged up to them, raising a high-five to Rollie and nodding a greeting at Cecily.

  “I thought you were going to join us for rugby drills this morning,” he said, tossing his rugby ball in the air.

  “Do we still have time for another scrum?” asked Rollie.

  In response, the bell rang.

  “Apparently not,” chuckled Wesley. “Which classes do you two have next?”

  “Miss Hertz’s class, then Miss Gram’s etiquette class,” replied Cecily, following the boys across the roof.

  “Miss Gram’s alright, huh?” said Wesley. “I mean, she’s no Professor Enches. He was really great, wasn’t he? He was always my favorite.”

  “He was?” Cecily wrinkled her nose.

  “Sure. He sort of took me under his wing.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about him anymore, Wesley,” Rollie said solemnly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” Rollie wished he could be honest with his friend. He felt it did more harm than good to keep some secrets. “Never mind. See you at lunch.”

  In Miss Hertz’s class, Rollie wondered what Herr Zilch’s new message would be in the Daily Telegraph. He hoped it would give a clue about who the mole was.

  “Footprints contain an entire story to someone’s identity,” Miss Hertz twittered. “Sherlock could discover the height of a person by measuring the length of his or her stride. To figure this, one can divide the length of the footprint by 0.16—that will be the height. Sherlock could also identify the type of shoe, which always offered a helpful clue. Do you remember what I always say? Footprints are the best tattle-tales!”

  Her words went in one ear and out the other. Not until she announced, “Class dismissed!” did Rollie fully hear her. He bolted to Spy Etiquette and Interrogation class. The door was locked, but he heard hammering from inside the classroom. No doubt Miss Gram was adding a new touch.

  “You left in a hurry.” Cecily joined him by the closed door.

  “I have to get the business section of the Daily Telegraph again.”

  “Alright. If I get that section I’ll trade with you. Do you think there will be more Dancing Men?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Fa-la-la, boys and girls!” Miss Gram sang as she opened the door for them. She looked whimsical in an orange-and-black polka-dot dress. “Monday morning means current events! Cecily, I adore your dress—simply darling.”

  Cecily beamed with delight.

  As Rollie sat down at his desk, he scanned the room for new decorations. He did not notice anything new, although now there were so many decorations that it would have been hard to spot anything small. Suddenly he spied something new in the pretend parlor scene . . .

  A hole.

  Rollie squinted hard at it and noted its similar size to the other holes. Had Miss Gram just hammered out that hole minutes before? Was she the—

  “Boys and girls, I spy with my little eye a new decoration!”

  The students swiveled their heads and eyes around the busy room.

  Cecily was the first to observe the addition, and she shot her hand up.

  “Cecily, dear!”

  “You hung a window!” She pointed to a window frame dressed with curtains hanging on the wall in the pretend parlor.

  “Wonderful! I thought our parlor needed to look a little more realistic for the ambiance.”

  Rollie glanced at the faux window frame. Now he was puzzled. Which had she hammered—the hole or a nail for the faux window? Or both?

  Miss Gram clip-clopped between the desks and passed out newspaper pages. She handed Rollie a page from the Times with a cartoon. He frowned with dismay. Quickly he searched his classmates nearby, trying to see which pages they got. He noticed Eliot looking glum.

  “Chum, what did you get?”

  “The business section of the Daily Telegraph,” Eliot grumbled.

  “I got a cartoon. Do you want to trade?”

  “Yes!” Eliot leaned over to make the trade, but paused. “Wait a minute. Why do you want the business section?”

  “I know you want the cartoons. I’ll trade. You need to get more ideas for your cartoon.”

  “That’s truth.”

  They exchanged pages.

  Rollie breathed out a sigh of relief. When he raced his eyes down the page, he spotted a Dancing Man next to a pie chart. As he found more Dancing Men, he copied them down in his composition book. He whipped out his pocket notepad, flipped to the Dancing Men alphabet Eliot had made for him earlier, and decoded Herr Zilch’s message. He gaped at the two words that made more sense to him than any other clue had so far:

  The Art of Trapping

  “The message was Watson’s Case.”

  “What’s Watson’s Case?” Cecily asked in between bites of her fish and chips.

  She and Rollie huddled together on a lone picnic bench. They intentionally distanced themselves from the other students as they ate lunch, and talked in hushed tones.

  “It’s a small metal lockbox in the secret passage. The label says Watson’s Case.”

  “But what is it? What’s in the box?”

  “I don’t know—it’s locked. But it must be important if that’s what Herr Zilch wants the mole to find.” Rollie nibbled on a chip and brushed aside the fish.

  Cecily swallowed her bite. “Why is Herr Zilch using the newspaper?”

  “Nobody would think to monitor the newspaper. Headmaster’s busy monitoring the mail. The newspaper is a great way to sneak a secret message into school.” Rollie slid his plate aside.

  “How does the newspaper get here?” Cecily wondered.

  “Rupert. He told me he’s in charge of picking them up and throwing them out—not sure I believe him though. Why would he get a special job like that?”

  “It would be very easy for him to read the message,” Cecily concluded.

  “I have another suspect. You’re not going to like it.” He mentioned the hammering sound from Miss Gram’s classroom and the hole in the wall. />
  “It can’t be Lady Gram! Besides, she hung that window frame. She had to hammer a nail for that.”

  “I’ve been suspecting her because I found that letter in her wastebasket. I don’t care if she knew about MUS or not, she should have turned it in when she saw it was in code. Besides, I still think she could be in disguise.”

  “Why would she be in disguise?” Cecily wiped her mouth on her napkin.

  Rollie threw a glance over his shoulder, and whispered, “I think she could be Zilch’s secretary.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Remember how she always wore high-heels and she had a similar voice?”

  “She had reddish hair,” countered Cecily.

  “She could have dyed her hair. Mr. Chad says not to get distracted by the trimmings.”

  “But that secretary was much taller than Lady Gram.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We can check my observation notes I took on her over the summer.” Cecily took a sip of water. “I have my own suspicions about someone, but I’m not telling ‘til I have evidence. What’s our next move?”

  “Check your notes on the secretary. I’ll question Rupert about the newspapers. I’ll meet you in Mr. Notch’s class.” Rollie scoured the rooftop for Rupert. When he could not find him there, he headed indoors, and poked his head into their dorm room.

  Rupert lounged on his bed and taped drawings on the wall. He glanced at Rollie, and turned back to his artwork.

  “Rupert, can I ask you some questions? It’s really important.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “I’m doing something important for Headmaster and I need to ask some questions.”

  “For Headmaster?” Surprisingly, Rupert relented. “Fine, what do you want to know?”

  “When are the morning newspapers delivered?”

  “In the morning,” Rupert sneered.

  “When exactly?”

  “Around four-thirty.”

  “Is that why you’re up early?”