The members of the club looked at each other after the observation about the white sweater.
“Before we start accusing people,” Miss Marvel cautioned them. “Are there anymore observations? Okay. Harold, go to the chalkboard and let’s diagram the crime scene like we did for the dance so Bev can get into our record.”
As Miss Marvel talked, Molly reached into her backpack and pulled out a blue covered notebook, placed it on her desk and opened it. She turned a few sheets and stopped at the one titled, The Sign of the Four, Chapter 1 – The Science of Deduction. She quickly read the points she had written about Sherlock Holmes in this story; Detection is an exact science to be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner as any science experiment. Three qualities necessary for an ideal detective, the power of observation, deduction, and knowledge. Never guess, observe small facts upon which large references may depend.
“Anything else?” Miss Marvel’s voice caused Molly to look up at the chalkboard. It was a rectangle with two smaller rectangles within it labeled tables. One X was behind one of them and another X at a break in the large rectangle apparently representing the door to the gym. It was marked with a Y.
“I am sorry,” Molly said. “I was looking at some notes I made from one of the Holmes’ stories and I missed what the Y means over that X.”
“That represents Mrs. Young,” Harold pointed at it. “Going into the gym the last time June remembers seeing her.”
Molly nodded. Miss Marvel confirmed that Bev had replicated the diagram in the red notebook and the room was silent for a few moments. Harold erased the diagram from the chalkboard.
“We need to find who owns that fingerprint,” Molly said.
“I think that is all we need,” Jason agreed with Molly. “But we need to know who to target. Do we have a suspect?”
“Jason, can you come to my office during your lunchbreak tomorrow so we can get Miss Chaplin’s fingerprints?” Miss Marvel stood up from her seat and walked around the desk.
“I think we know they aren’t going to be hers,” Ted said. “She wasn’t at the dance.”
“But we have to get all of the facts so that the most obvious deduction is the right one,” Molly said. “Let’s do this right. Let’s be sure.”
With that, Miss Marvel nodded and took the slide projector with her, leaving the remaining members of The Whodunnit Club to rearrange the student desks back into their regular positions. They walked quietly toward the front doors of the school and the activity busses just beyond them. Molly, Bev, June, and Harold waved good-bye to the others and boarded their bus. Harold sat near a window next to June and Molly and Bev sat in front of them. Molly turned to look back at Harold as he was resting his head against the window.
“What do you think?” Molly asked him.
“I don’t know. What do you think?” Harold replied closing his eyes.
“I am afraid to think,” Bev whispered.
“I think,” Molly said as she leaned against the window still facing Harold. “We have all the facts or will have all of them once we get Miss Chaplin’s prints. We just have to deduce who could have done the crime and get their prints.”
“Easy-peasy,” Harold said as the bus started to move out of the school parking lot.
When she was home, Molly set the dinner table quietly. She was thinking about the case or, rather cases. Why would anyone steal from a school fund-raiser?
“Penny for your thoughts?” a voice interrupted her.
Molly turned toward her Dad and said “Hi, Dad. It’s just school stuff. I do have a question for you though. Why does someone steal?”
“That sounds like a deep question, can I sit down?” He smiled at her and sat in his chair at the head of the table. Molly sat down in her chair beside him.
“Why?” he answered. “Do you know someone who has stolen something?”
“No, it is for a history assignment, extra credit,” Molly fibbed to her father. “I was wondering if you had any ideas, that’s all.”
“Okay,” he said leaning back in his chair looking at her. “I think most robberies are about a want. You know, I want more than you or something you have. But some people steal for a need. They think they need it to pay for something like drugs or alcohol or gambling. Desperate people think they need it to help someone or to feed their family.”
“Dad, I notice you said, think, they have a need. Some of those examples you just made are real needs.”
“I believe there is always a way to work out your needs rather than to commit
a crime. Sometimes people just get desperate and don’t think clearly.”
Molly was silent as she thought about what her father told her. She looked at him and nodded her head. He rose from his chair, bent down, and kissed her head. She smiled and watched him go into the kitchen. Billy passed him carrying a bowl of green beans that he sat on the table and he returned to the kitchen. Molly sat back in her chair wondering who needed that club money.
After dinner, Molly sat at her desk in her room. She was attempting to read her history assignment, but her mind wasn’t into it. She pushed it away and reached for her backpack. She extracted the blue notebook, placed it on her desk and turned the pages to the first blank one. She drew a line down the middle and across the top of the page she wrote the question, who needs money? Above the first column she wrote Observations, and across the second she wrote, Deductions. She folded her arms in front of her and thought over all she had observed starting with the dance. She wrote in the first column; people distracted, area of thefts not protected, unknown fingerprint found, no logical way of leaving the event unseen. She tapped her pencil after she wrote that. The thief didn’t leave the event. A thought came to her and she hesitated to write it down. She remembered Sherlock Holmes’ comments to Dr. Watson about the science of deduction, to stay unemotional and unattached when gathering the facts of a case. She nodded to herself and wrote, Mrs. Young’s brown bag. In the Deduction column she wrote, the brown bag was missing, it was with her at the start of the dance but not at the end. She shook her head and drew an arrow from that comment to the observation column. It was really an observation. She wrote a final observation, white sweater left at the concession table. Molly looked down her list of observations and concluded they needed one more fact and that fact is, who is the owner to the fingerprint? But who is our suspect?
Molly leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling, trying to clear her mind of the deduction she kept coming back to, hoping to find a different one but failing. She sat up and wrote in the Deductions column, Mrs. Young. She added another question at the top of the page, in capital letters, WHY?
Tuesday was a long day and Molly was cranky. In her second hour, Physical Education, Coach Huntleigh had them go outside and run. It was cold and windy and, even though she wore sweats, she was still cold at the end of the day. She walked into the cafeteria for her last hour class, Resources, and dropped her backpack on the floor at the first table she came to. She kept her jacket on and sat down.
Molly looked about the room and the usual groups had already formed, and they were whispering to each other. Mrs. Irondale was sitting at a table nearest the stage to Molly’s right. She was looking at a magazine, occasionally looking up to see if the students needed anything. Molly pulled her backpack up to the table and got the blue notebook out of it. She pushed the bag aside and opened the notebook to the page of observations and deductions. She remembered the third part of Holmes’ science of deductions. She got a pencil out the pocket of the backpack and drew a line at the bottom of the page and wrote Knowledge. She stared at the name she had written there last night and thought about what she knew about Mrs. Young. She had to find out more. Molly closed her notebook and rose from her seat. She walked toward Mrs. Ironside leaving her backpack behind.
“Hi, Mrs. Ironside,” Molly said as she stopped in front of her.
Mrs. Ironside looked up from her magazine and smiled at Molly.
“Hello, Molly. What can I do for you?”
“Oh nothing really. I need to relax a bit and wondered if we could just talk.” Molly said rubbing her left elbow.
Mrs. Ironside’s eyes studied her for a few moments and finally said, “Sure. Please have a seat.”
Molly sat down and sighed.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Ironside asked. “You look tired.”
“I am but that’s okay. I am a teenager or almost one anyway.”
Mrs. Ironside laughed so Molly decided to start to ask her a few questions.
“Mrs. Ironside, where are you from?”
“Right across the river in Grafton, Illinois. Where are you from? I know it wasn’t originally here.”
“California. It was definitely warmer there.” Molly answered. “Do you know where Miss Marvel or Mrs. Young are from?”
“Oh, I don’t know about Miss Marvel, but Mrs. Young is from somewhere in Mississippi.”
“Mississippi. I wonder what it’s like in Mississippi,” Molly said, waiting to ask the next question.
“Oh, the weather isn’t much different than here. Maybe a little warmer,” Mrs. Ironside said as she looked over Molly at the other students in the room.
“Does Mrs. Young have a family?” Molly asked.
“Yes. She is married and has a daughter,” Mrs. Ironside said and looked directly at Molly. “Why?”
Molly didn’t hesitate to answer the question, “She came by our club meeting yesterday and said she was going to visit her daughter at the hospital. I like Mrs. Young and was wondering what was wrong with her daughter because she seems stressed. I wondered if there is way to help her.”
“Her daughter is extremely sick and has to be in the hospital for a while. I don’t know how you can help Mrs. Young. Maybe you could ask her,” Mrs. Ironside suggested. “Now, if you will excuse me, Michael Webber and his buddies need some guidance.”
Molly stood and watched Mrs. Ironside walk in a slow, determined way toward a group of four boys on the other side of the cafeteria. She returned to her chair and sat down. She reopened the blue notebook and wrote next to her note at the top of the page marked WHY? – Daughter in hospital.
To be continued…
My First Stories 