Sherlock Bones 1: Doggone Read online

  “’Fraid there’s no time for that, ma’am,” Waggins said.

  “There’s not?” I raised the whiskers above my eyes at him. “Not even some hummus?”

  “No, ma’am.” He turned to Bones. “I summoned that cab you wanted and it’s been waiting right outside.”

  “Cab?” I demanded. “When did you call for a cab?”

  “Waggins!” Bones cried. “Why didn’t you say something earlier? By all means, send the cabbie up!”

  As the puppy scampered away and down the stairs, I asked the dog, “Send the cabbie up? Isn’t it the usual practice, when a cab arrives, to go down and get into the cab and go away? If I’m not mistaken, I do believe you have things backward here.”

  While I was saying this, the tiny part of my brain that was as yet not shot from sheer exhaustion wondered: Perhaps Bones was finally going away … for good?

  “Not at all,” the dog answered me. “I need the cabbie to come up to help me with this.” He pointed to a large steamer trunk, the kind that might be used when going on a long ocean voyage or rail journey. Where had that come from? It certainly wasn’t mine.

  “As extraordinary as I am,” Bones continued, “even I cannot move something of that size without help. And it is, after all, one of a cabbie’s duties to help a customer load his luggage.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  Perhaps he had found somewhere else to stay while he sought more permanent lodgings? Good! So why, then, did I not feel entirely happy? It must be because I was so tired.

  “All in good time,” Bones said. “All in good time.”

  It was such a mysterious thing to say. We cats are mysterious. But dogs? Everything about them is right on the surface. What you see is what you get. Well, except for this one apparently. How annoying.

  While we waited for the puppy to return with the cabbie—the other puppies running in circles as puppies will do; the inspectors looking confused at the turn of events and then annoyed at their own confusion; the turtle bobbing up near the ceiling—Bones opened his trunk and brought out a shiny object that looked like two silver bracelets attached at the center by a chain. He offered them to Inspector Strange.

  “What are those?” Inspector Strange asked with a derisive sniff. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend!”

  Why is it that anything associated with “girl” is always deemed some sort of insult? You always hear humans say things like, “You run like a girl!” or “He screamed like a little girl!” How is that an insult? After all, I’m a girl. I’m a girl and a doctor and I can run as fast as anyone. Well, I could before I was injured in the Cat Wars.

  “Nor do I want you to be,” answered Bones, “and please don’t refer to girls in such a disdainful fashion. It is so backward-thinking of you.”

  Did my ears deceive me? Did Bones just say that? For the briefest of seconds there, I could have kissed him. Yuck. As if I would ever! I wiped the back of one paw against my mouth as though wiping away the phantom kiss and its resulting dog germs. Perish the thought.

  “No,” Bones went on. “These are handcuffs. Do you not know what handcuffs are? They are something I invented and am in the process of perfecting. They are most useful when apprehending criminals. I thought you might have some use for them. After all, I think it’s a bit much for you to expect criminals to just come along with you quietly once you’ve apprehended them.”

  Those things he held in his paws, they did look handy; cuffy too. Still …

  “You invented those?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, “just like I invented the jetpack for Mr. Javier. Did I not tell you that in addition to being the world’s greatest detective I am also an inventor?”

  “You did not,” I said, still skeptical. “What else have you invented then?”

  The dog cast a meaningful look upward at the lighting fixture hanging over our very heads.

  “Oh, come on!” I said. “You expect me to believe that Thomas Alva Edison stole the idea for the light bulb from you and not James Swan?”

  The dog closed his eyes as he nodded in a gesture that could have been humble but somehow wasn’t.

  “You’ve seen my handiwork with what the jetpack can do, have you not?” he said.

  “Yes, but that’s a far cry from—”

  “I have no use for your silly bracelets!” Inspector Strange scoffed, interrupting.

  “Very well then.” Bones set the handcuffs down to one side of the steamer trunk. “We’ll just leave them there for now.”

  No sooner had he finished speaking than there came the sound of the door opening, followed by the scamper of Waggins returning, a much heavier tread trailing his eager puppy feet.

  Bones turned to me then, his eyes flashing excitement.

  “Now,” he said, “the real fun begins.”

  What was he talking about?

  I did not get the chance to pose my question aloud, however, for now Waggins was back among us and, with him, the cabbie.

  He was a tall human, this cabbie. Were my ceilings of the low sort you sometimes hear about, more typically found in older pubs, his head would no doubt scrape against it.

  “The pup said you needed help with a trunk?” the cabbie said in what can only be described as a surly fashion. I must say, the help these days. It’s not like when I hired Mr. Javier, that’s for certain.

  “Yes, my good chap!” Bones said, all friendly good cheer and politeness himself, as though taking no notice whatsoever of the cabbie’s surly rudeness. “It’s this trunk right here.” He indicated. “If you could be so good as to … ”

  The cabbie bent to the task and—

  Bones, in a move swifter than I would have thought him capable, reached down beside the trunk, snatched up the handcuffs, slapped them around the cabbie’s wrists—they did make a satisfying click!—and announced, to the surprise of all assembled:

  “Mr. Jefferson Hope, I hereby arrest you for the murders of, er, John Smith and the secretary!”

  What just happened here???

  No, really. What just happened?

  I had no time to ask because, all at once, his hands cuffed behind his back, Mr. Jefferson Hope—if that really was his name and not just something the dog had dreamed up—made for my bay window, hurling his body against it with such force that the lower window broke, raining glass down upon my precious cushion.

  As the tall man moved, so moved the public detectives, grabbing onto his restrained arms and tackling him to the floor before he could make his escape. The most horrible melee ensued with furniture crashing and limbs flying. For a restrained man, and even with two humans against his one, he was still capable of putting up quite a fight.

  “Do you think we should help?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over all the loud thumping and crashing. “I’m not particularly keen on fighting,” I added.

  “I am.” The dog smiled. “But let them handle it.” He indicated the inspectors with twin juts of his chin. “It is the one thing they’re good at.”

  Meanwhile, no doubt excited by the excess of noise, the puppies, with the exception of Waggins, were scampering all over the place, getting into every nook and cranny of my home, as puppies will do.

  “Waggins!” Bones called over the thuds. “In future, perhaps it would be best if you left the puppies outside and simply came up yourself?”

  “Future?” I cried, not like a girl. “There isn’t going to be any future!”

  But the dog didn’t answer me, only smiling as the public detectives finally wrestled “Mr. Jefferson Hope” to his feet.

  “And anyway,” I said, quite irritable now, “how do you know that’s the murderer? I’ve seen no evidence that he’s—”

  But this time, I cut myself off, for as the two detectives led the tall man past me, I happened to look down and see the tall man had incredibly tiny feet. I also remembered what Bones had said earlier, when we’d been at the locat
ion of the first murder: something about a cab—and, therefore, a cabdriver—having been there and how two men had gone in, but not left, as friends.

  Tall man. Tiny feet.

  Oh. Oh.

  The public detectives and the tall man were now gone, the former having wrestled the latter down the stairs and out the door. Waggins and the puppies were gone too. As for the turtle, no sooner had the door slammed behind everyone than he collapsed from sheer exhaustion right in the middle of the carpet and was now snoring.

  “Well, that was abrupt,” I said. “But wasn’t that a quick wrap-up of the case?”

  “Yes,” Bones said, “but that is often the way of it.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, not that I really knew—I’d never worked on a case before. “But how did you know that this Mr. Jefferson Hope did it? And why did he do it?”

  “Elementary, my dear Catson,” he said. “I looked for the common thread in the case. We knew that at the first crime scene, two men went in, but only one came out. We knew there was a tall man with tiny feet—our murderer—but we also knew there was a cab. It was natural to assume someone else, a cabdriver, had driven them there. But—”

  “But,” I said, feeling myself grow excited in a way I could never remember feeling before, not even when my life had been at risk during the Cat Wars, “when the old woman who wasn’t an old woman came to claim the gold ring, and when Mr. Javier followed her in the cab later but only saw a tall man matching the description of our killer emerge, you deduced that the common thread was the cabdriver; that there wasn’t, in fact, a separate cabdriver, but that the cabdriver must be our killer!”

  “Precisely,” Bones said. “I am impressed by your perception.”

  “Well, you practically told me.”

  “Not at all, though. With the public detectives, I’d no doubt need to connect all of the dots, and still they might not get it. But you, my very dear Catson, are capable of connecting at least some of the dots all on your own.”

  If I could have, I’d have blushed with pride.

  “So then,” Bones said, “having figured that our murderer was either a cabdriver or at the very least impersonating one, I enlisted the aid of my young associates in locating him. Puppies who live on the streets have so much useful knowledge and ways of finding out whatever they don’t know, because people mostly dismiss them as stupid and their presence as a nuisance.”

  “But what about the pills?”

  “Pills?”

  “Yes, the pills. When you left earlier, you said you wanted to prove that the pills were what killed er, John Smith.”

  “Oh.” He waved a dismissive paw. “That was just a ruse. I never want the human detectives to know precisely what I’m up to until I want them to know what I’m up to. Of course I knew at least one or more of the pills contained cyanide. I could smell it.”

  Huh.

  “So,” I said, “we know who killed er, John Smith and the secretary, and how, but why did he do it, Bones?”

  “Does it really matter?” the dog said, looking suddenly deflated.

  “Does it really…” I was practically spluttering. “How can you say it doesn’t matter?”

  “The criminal is in custody.” The dog yawned. “I’ve invented handcuffs.” The dog yawned again. “The turtle now has a jetpack.” He yawned a third time. “In the face of those three happy events, what else could possibly matter?”

  “But why did he do it?” I insisted to know.

  “That, my dear Catson, is a rather thorny question. And one I don’t have the complete answer to as yet. Really, based on what evidence is currently available, the only motive we have is revenge, and that we only have because the murderer gave it to us by writing it on the walls at both crime scenes in red paint! Well, that and the fact that a woman’s wedding ring was found at one of the scenes, a ring the murderer desperately wanted back. We can therefore infer that the crimes had to do with revenge over something involving a woman, but no further than that.”

  I stared at him for a long time. Seriously? That was all he had for me?

  “Look,” he finally said, “the only way we’ll ever know why Jefferson Hope wanted revenge is if he tells us. And right now, he’s not talking. Sometimes, my dear Catson, you need to be content with knowing you’ve caught the right person, knowing that you’ve proven how he did it, and knowing you’ve taken a very bad person off the streets and put him behind bars, unable to hurt anyone else ever again.”

  “And that’s enough for you?” I said.

  “Not really,” he admitted. “But today it has to be. Tomorrow, I will rise to fight again.”

  I considered everything he’d said. The way he put it, it did sound like enough had been accomplished for the time being.

  Then I considered how usually around midnight I need to race around my apartments, as best I can now with my bad leg, until I wear myself out in order to get to sleep at night. But it was long past midnight—hours past, in fact—and I was already worn out.

  The sky outside was lightening, moving away from darkness, and soon the sun would be rising. I thought to leap onto my cozy cushion, but it was still covered in shattered glass. Mr. Javier would have to attend to that when he woke up.

  As for me, I would simply curl up here on this lovely patch of carpet, like so, close my eyes and—

  “What are you doing?” Bones asked.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked, eyes still shut. “And shouldn’t you be on your merry way by now?”

  But the dog didn’t reply to my question. Instead, he said eagerly, “Great! While you do that, I’ll send for the rest of my things!”

  “Things?” I opened one eye. “What things?”

  “My violin, for starters.”

  The dog played the violin?

  “Also, I was thinking,” he said, sounding truly excited, “perhaps I’ll take the bedroom on the left? You don’t seem to use either bedroom for sleeping, but it would appear that more of your own things are in the one on the right and I wouldn’t want to appear inconsiderate.”

  Now both my eyes were wide open.

  “You’re not—” I started to object, but the dog merely continued, as though I’d not spoken at all.

  “And I was thinking … ” He stood there, paw to lip. “A chandelier. I think this place could use a chandelier. What do you think? Perhaps over the dining room table?”

  “Bones! One last time, you don’t live here!”

  I am Dr. Jane Catson and these are my case files. That is how you know that everything you have just read is all true and not made-up stories. This is not fiction. Everything I have told you, and everything in my many case files to come, it all really happened.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I wish to thank the following people for their help along the way:

  Georgia McBride, for wanting to publish a book in which it’s widely accepted that animals can speak and for making the publication process so easy.

  Laura Whitaker, who is such a brilliant editor, there are insufficient words for how brilliant she is. (Laura, help me out with some synonyms here!) Laura is the editor every writer dreams of: someone who sees the problem, identifies the solution and communicates it all in such a positive way, why would any sane author ever say no to her?

  Everyone at the Georgia McBride Media Group – you people are rock stars.

  My Friday night writing group: Lauren Catherine, Bob Gulian, Andrea Schicke Hirsch, Greg Logsted, Rob Mayette, Krissi Petersen Schooner – you make me better.

  Greg Logsted and Jackie Logsted, best husband and best daughter.

  Readers everywhere.

  (Photo Credit: Jackie Logsted)

  LAUREN BARATZ-LOGSTED

  Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of over 25 books for adults, teens and kids, including The Sisters 8 series for young readers which she created with her husband and daughter. She lives in Danbury, CT, with that husband and dau
ghter as well as their marvelous cat, Yoyo.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Endnote

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

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