The Encyclopedia Brown Encyclopedia

Marlo Fosgood thought he was doing good things for Idaville with his group called Pride. His group would find pick up litter seen around the town and mail it back to its origin, along with a strongly-worded letter about how littering is a dick move.

How did his group know where the litter came from? He said that a lot of the litter was junk mail and bills, which had the addresses on them. Luckily, no one ever dropped candy wrappers, soda cans, cigarette butts or anything else completely untraceable in that town. As for the litter thrown from cars, the group would get the help of the Idaville PD. The group would give the police the license plate of the car, and the police give the group the names and addresses of the litterbugs.

Don’t worry; I’ll get back to that.

One day, Marlo received a letter telling him to stop sticking his nose into other people’s business. If Marlo ignored the warning, he’d be sorry. The actual quote from the letter is, “I’ll shove your face into your belly button.”

The letter wasn’t handwritten, it was typed. While they said that each typewriter typed slightly differently, Encyclopedia and Sally put their heads together and couldn’t really think of a way to trace that letter to one of the many typewriters that could be found in Idaville.

However, on the back of the threatening letter was the sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs,” a sentence that utilizes every letter in the alphabet at least once. Encyclopedia figured out that the person typing this sentence was testing the typewriter out. That meant that the person had either just bought the typewriter or had just had it repaired.

Encyclopedia told his father about the letter. Chief Brown then did a sweep of the town’s businesses that had either sold or repaired typewriters recently. The police then went to the home of each person to see if the type matched the type on the letter, and they found that Tiger member Duke Kelly had typed the threat to Marlo.

The level of dedication that the Idaville PD puts into a case is both inconsistent and unconstitutional. When a man was suspected of insurance fraud, the Idaville PD decided it was easier to leave the evidence where it was and to ignore the one witness who saw the crime take place. When a jewelry collection was reported stolen, the police hinged its entire investigation on one witness who was actually the culprit, arrested an innocent man and called it a day. However, when one child received a threatening letter, it turned into a citywide manhunt.

Let me clarify that threats are serious, and threatening children is even worse. But if a child receives a letter saying, “I’ll shove your face into your belly button,” we could assume from the cartoon-grade violence imagery that the threat is from another child, so those extreme measures don’t seem necessary.

First, let’s revisit the fact that a group of children would report litterbugs to the police. The children would produce license plates of cars with people seen littering. The police wouldn’t track these people down and serve them with a citation for littering. No, instead they would just hand off their personal information to a group of children and let them handle the litterbugs however they seemed fit. They didn’t even have any evidence, beyond these kids, but that seemed enough reason to violate the alleged litterbugs’ privacy.

When one boy from the anti-littering group received a typed letter threatening violence, the Idaville PD took draconian measures in which every single person with a new or recently repaired typewriters were forced to allow the police into their homes to test out their typewriters.

I imagine some of those people let the police in and let them take a look at their typewriters, but I’m sure there must have been a few people who refused without a proper search warrant. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for one empty threat.

However, if the police catch wind that someone lip-read their way into committing a crime, their solution is to round up whatever deaf person happened to be around, no questions asked.

The two detectives and their client, Chauncy van Throckmorton, confront Lindylou Duckworth after she allegedly sexually assaulted him. 

In case you couldn’t tell from his name, Chauncey van Throckmorton was the local fancy pants. He seems way fancier than Percy Arbuthnot. What happened to that kid, anyway?

Chauncey was easy to spot because he was normally dressed in suits. He was easy to hear as well, because the silver dollars in his pocket always jingled together. When he appeared at the Brown Detective Agency, he was dressed only wearing a towel, as a result of sass-mouthing Lindylou Duckworth.

NUMISMATIST’S NOTE: By this time (1974), silver dollars hadn’t been minted in a while. Since the price of silver skyrocketed, silver dollars were collectibles. There’s no way Chauncey just walked around jingling these rare coins in his pockets in a town where property crime was so high. If the story was referring to the silver-colored nickel and copper Eisenhower dollars that were minted throughout the 1970s, then I’ll allow it.

Lindylou was a seventh-grader who started a football team for girls. That’s a nice progression for the town of Idaville, where a girl was kicked off the baseball team based on her gender just a few years earlier.

Chauncey had gotten all dressed up to watch the girls practice when Lindylou asked Chauncey if he could practice with them because they were one player short. Chauncey told Lindylou that he didn’t want to get his clothes dirty. He also threw in a few insults about how women couldn’t play football.

Lindylou then punched Chauncey, and forced him into the wooded area near the football field where she forced him to remove his clothing. Chauncey was down to his socks, shoes and underwear when he ran away. I wish I was making this up. I have no idea what Lindylou had planned, but it was gearing up to look like a underaged-girl-on-underaged-boy rape scene. You don’t see too many of those in light-hearted children’s mysteries.

He ran to the Brown Detective Agency, picking up a towel along the way, which is where we picked up the story. Encyclopedia, Sally and Chauncey walked to the park where the girls were practicing to confront Lindylou.

Lindylou claimed that Chauncey was annoying everyone by jingling the silver dollars in his pocket. When asked how she knew that Chauncey had silver dollars in his pocket, she explained that everyone in town knew that he always had silver dollars in his pocket.

She then explained that she asked Chauncey to leave, but he told her that he was going to go for a run. At that point, he removed his clothes because he didn’t want them to get sweaty, and he disappeared. Lindylou then said that she folded the clothes and left them at the side of the field.

Chauncey checked the pockets. There was one silver dollar in the pocket, a handkerchief and an empty billfold. Chauncey said that a five-dollar bill was missing along with eighty cents and that Lindylou had stolen it. Lindylou denied it. Someone was lying, but who?

Encyclopedia reasoned that it was Lindylou; and the logic he used to come to the conclusion has some serious flaws.

Lindylou claimed that Chauncey was driving everyone nuts by jingling the silver dollars in his pocket. But he only had one silver dollar. One coin can’t jingle on its own.

Except that silver dollar wasn’t the only coin he was carrying. He also had eighty cents, which means he had at least five coins (a silver dollar, three quarters and a nickel) in his pocket. It wasn’t as if Lindylou specified that she recognized the sound of multiple silver coins hitting each other and that that was what she heard. She heard change jingling, and she assumed it was silver dollars because Chauncey always carried silver dollars around.

If anything, her claimed proved that she didn’t go through Chauncey’s pockets. If he normally carried silver dollars around, it would be safe for people to assume that the jingling coins were silver dollars. However, even after she went through his pockets and saw only one silver dollar, she still claimed that she thought she heard him jingle silver dollars together. This either meant that she didn’t go through his pockets, or that she was good at lying – a trait NO ONE in Idaville seems to have.

Based on Lindylou’s story, I can’t really say she has proven her guilt. That’s actually pretty scary, because based on how she forced another child into the woods to undress, I’d have to say that she is one of the most dangerous children in Idaville.

Encyclopedia and Sally were at Hector’s Department Store when a bull passed the two detectives.

It was actually a bull made of papier-mâché being carried in two pieces. The bull was followed by people carrying bullfighting costumes and a bullfighting poster. Behind them were people carrying female figures and petticoats.

Encyclopedia and Sally followed them and saw that they were decorating a display window to sell women’s toreador pants. Apparently in this world, toreador pants were all the rage with women that year.

While they were watching the display window decorating, which sounds just riveting, two gunshots were fired.

Sally disappeared. While looking for her, Encyclopedia found his father. Chief Brown explained that no one had been hurt and that over $100,000 worth of diamonds were taken from the jewelry department. Sally then showed up, explaining that she had chased the thieves. They had gotten away, but she wrote down the getaway car’s license plate number.

When asked how Sally knew who did it, she got really snotty with Encyclopedia, saying that only a girl would have figured it out. She explained that a bunch of people had passed by with decorations for the toreador pants display, but one of the items that were carried by wasn’t necessary: the petticoats. Sally reasoned that the man carrying the petticoats was able to get to the jewelry department undetected. Only a girl would know what petticoats are and that they didn’t fit with the bullfighting scene.

Okay, that may be true. You say to me “hey, while you’re at the store, could yet get me a petticoat?” and without any follow-up questions or research on my end, I’d probably bring back the wrong thing. Also, I’m not sure where you can get petticoats nowadays.

However, the scene wasn’t being narrated for Encyclopedia. He was there. He saw the petticoats being carried by, and by simply looking at petticoats, anyone (male or female) should know that it doesn’t really go with toreador pants because they’re undergarments that go under dresses or skirts.

So, Sally really needs to dial back the sass a bit, because it’s pretty unnecessary in this case.

I also don’t understand the thief. In this case, it worked out pretty well. But does he normally go to the department store carrying a few petticoats on the off-chance that he was going to come across people on their way to decorating a store front window? If so, how many times has he shown up to the store carrying a bunch of petticoats for what turns out to be no reason? I imagine a lot, because those windows are normally decorated when the stores are closed.

Armand Jenks was a young bird watcher who was concerned for the future of birds. He believed that they were becoming greedy and more humanlike. He brought his evidence to the Brown Detective Agency, where Encyclopedia looked at the bird’s nest that was made with a $20-bill.

Encyclopedia explained to Armand that the bird that made the nest didn’t use the $20-bill because it was money; it was just what was around. Armand conceded that that made sense.

Armand mentioned that he can sometimes tell where a nest was found based on what it was made of. For example, movie ticket stubs were often found in nests around the theater.

After looking at the $20-bill through a magnifying glass, Encyclopedia noticed that it was counterfeit. He asked Armand to show him where the nest was found, and the two of them were on the next bus to Glenn City with Sally.

There were three houses near the tree where the nest was found. Encyclopedia was going to take it upon himself to find out who the counterfeiter was. There were three of them and three houses, so they split up.

At the house where Encyclopedia visited, a man in a police uniform answered. Encyclopedia noticed that the shield above the officer’s right breast pocket identified him as #14 from the Glenn City PD.

Armand’s house served as a dancing school for young girls. The girls in the front were dancing to The Dance of the Sugar Plums, while a few women were in the back, playing cards.

Sally couldn’t really get close to the house she was assigned for because an angry duck chased her out of the yard.

It seemed as if no one turned up anything, but Encyclopedia had a hunch. He went home and asked his dad about the officer from the Glenn City PD. Chief Brown told him that the Glenn City PD had recently had a uniform stolen from their station, #14. Encyclopedia knew something was up by the fact that the shield was over his right breast pocket and not his left.

When the police raided the house, they found a counterfeiting ring with millions in fake money.

Good job, Encyclopedia. If I was in his shoes and someone in a stolen police uniform answered the door, I would have told the fake cop everything, which probably would have gotten me killed. No, actually that’s not true. If I had been in Encyclopedia’s position, and I suspected that a counterfeiting ring was stationed in one of three houses, I wouldn’t have taken matters into my own hands; I would have have told my police chief father.

I’m unclear as to why the counterfeiting ring needs someone in a fake police uniform in the first place. Did this guy wear the police uniform around his house on the off-chance that someone would come by for an unrelated reason? That seems like it would be an unnecessary precaution.

What if someone from the police department were to happen to come by? They would notice someone they didn’t recognize wearing their uniform – the same uniform that had been stolen.

In case you were curious about what a skunk ape costume looked like, here you go.
The Case of the Skunk Ape 

Gus Sarmiento came to the Brown Detective Agency after his cello case had been stolen. It wasn’t that big of a deal that his case had been stolen. What was most noteworthy about this was who (or what) stole it. The Skunk Ape.

For those cryptozoology nuts out there, the Skunk Ape was much like Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest or the chubacabra of Mexico. It was a foul-smelling apeman that lived in the wilds of Florida that somehow eluded capture and photography.

You would think its stench would make it easier to find. Even if it was sneaky enough to avoid being seen, anyone near it would be able to smell it. It would figure that even the mythical beasts of Idaville are lame.

Gus was practicing his cello in his backyard when he saw the Skunk Ape take the cello case. It took Encyclopedia and Sally about a few seconds to realize that Gus lived just a few houses away from Wilma Hutton, so she probably had something to do with it. Wilma was the 17-year-old cello player who was the cousin of Bugs. Clearly, this was one of Bugs’ stupid plans.

They went to Wilma’s house where they saw the cello case near her garage. As they approached it, Wilma drove up in her car and got out of the car yelling for the police. She could barely walk in her tight skirt.

Bugs emerged from Wilma’s house with Officer Carlson. We’ve seen Carlson before. Though it seems his sole purpose in the Idaville PD is to follow up with every single one of Bugs’ false claims, we actually haven’t seen him in a while. Even compared to the rest of the Idaville PD, Carlson is a lousy police officer. I say this because Carlson had fallen for Bugs’ fake claims before, yet he was still devoting police resources to staking out a house to look for the non-existent creature that Bugs reported.

Wilma claimed that they saw the children put an ape costume in the cello case beside the garage. Carlson opened the case and the awful smell hit everyone like a punch to the face. Bugs claimed that the Skunk Ape, or someone dressed as the Skunk Ape, had been bothering Wilma for days. They picked on Wilma because, as Bugs explained, “She’s an artist on the cello. Artists are very high-strung and nervous.” Since Wilma’s parents were out of town, that made her an even nicer target.

Wilma claimed that she had just gotten back from cello practice when she saw the children playing with the Skunk Ape costume. When they saw her pull into her driveway, they quickly stuffed it into the cello case.

Encyclopedia pointed out that since Wilma could barely walk in her tight skirt, there was no way she had just come from playing cello, since the cello goes between the cellist’s legs when it’s being played.

When Encyclopedia cracked the case wide open, Bugs and Wilma explained their whole scheme. First, they’d get a police officer to come over to Wilma’s house when Gus would be practicing his cello. This was easy, because 1) Gus practiced every day at the same time, and 2) the Idaville police officers have nothing better to do.

While Bugs and Carlson were waiting at Wilma’s house, Wilma would put on the ape suit, steal the cello case, put the case next to her house, put the ape suit in the case and fill the case with rotten eggs to stink it up. Then Wilma was going to go down the block and wait in her parked car. When the children appeared and found the case, she was going to drive up and call for Carlson to come out.

Now, hold up. This plan calls for bringing a police officer over to Wilma’s house and hope that the officer wouldn’t question why the person he was supposed to be protecting wasn’t even home at the time. They were also hoping that the officer, who was there specifically to keep an eye on the surrounding areas, wouldn’t notice 1) Wilma 2) in an ape suit 3) leaving a cello case in a random spot in her yard 4) taking off the ape suit, 5) stuffing it in the case and 6) running away. What was the point of having the police watch the area if the officer on duty is going to miss all of that happening just outside?

For this plan to work, Bugs would also have to assume that Gus, either on his own or with help, would suspect Wilma. What if Gus didn’t do that? What if he just ran inside and called 911? Assuming the cops came and launched an investigation to find the stolen cello case in Wilma’s yard. Case closed.

And what was Bugs trying to accomplish here? He went through the trouble of buying an ape suit – I say buy, because there’s no way he’d be able to return a rented ape suit stinking of rotten eggs – and getting both his cousin and the police involved, all so that he could frame Gus for pretending to be the Skunk Ape? Why Gus? What did he ever do to Bugs?

I’m guessing Bugs was hoping that Gus would get Encyclopedia involved, so that he could get into some sort of trouble. If so, that adds another step to the already convoluted plot and he’s actually pretty lucky that it worked out that way. At the same time, Bugs had yet to actually get Encyclopedia into any trouble, so why he was still trying is beyond me.

And it’s not clear as to why Wilma was involved. What did she have to gain from all of this? She was a 17-year-old girl whose parents were out of town. She had the house to herself. Anyone in her position would be either having her friends come over to drink beers or making out/having sex with her boyfriend.

Yes, boyfriend. Call it a hunch, but I’m doubtful that circa 1974 Idaville had any homosexuals.

Not Wilma. She was helping her 10-year-old cousin get some other 10-year-old in trouble, for some reason.

The way I see it, that rotten egg smell isn’t going to magically disappear from Gus’ cello case, so Wilma and Bugs owe him a new one. In the meantime, Bugs needs to simplify his plans a bit more. The crazier they get, the easier they are to shoot down.