Caswell Philpott went to the Brown Detective Agency and immediately started prattling on about yoga. He went on to say that he has taken to practicing his headstand. He mentioned that while fishing at Mill Pond, he decided to do a headstand there at the pond. While he was doing that, he overheard two men walking by. One of the men was talking about stealing Blue-Point Blackie’s overnight bag at the bus station that afternoon.
No one knew who Blue-Point Blackie was, but it sounded like an important bit to overhear. Caswell didn’t get a good description of the men, because he was upside down. Sally asked Encyclopedia if he wanted to get his father involved, but he decided to leave the police out of it, because there weren’t enough facts. After all, they didn’t even know if Blue-Point Blackie was getting in on a bus into Idaville or not, so they just decided to go to the bus station themselves.
Yeah, that seems like a good idea. The Blue-Point Blackie was in danger of being robbed, there was no reason to bother the police. There was no reason to waste police resources on finding out whom or where this man was and ensure his safety. There are better ways the police could spend their time, like staking out for a fictitious creature or investigating something that may not even be illegal. This Blue-Point Blackie would be fine under the watchful eyes of a few 10-year-olds.
Also, I think it’s a really good idea for children to hang out at a bus station; especially when there was a possibility of someone being robbed.
Caswell was really annoying Encyclopedia by suspecting everyone he saw at the bus station. First, it was a man in a tan hat at looking through a magazine on the rack. He eventually bought a paper and sat down. Caswell thought he wasn’t really reading it, but looking out for Blue-Point Blackie. Then it was two men he saw at the soda machine. Then it was two men in dark suits near the ticket window who wasn’t actually buying ticket; no one wore dark suits in Idaville in the summer.
Encyclopedia kept an eye on the men in dark suits, but lost sight of them when the 2:00 bus from Glenn City came in. That’s when he heard a woman scream. Encyclopedia ran over to the source and saw a dark-haired man unconscious on the ground. He didn’t seem to have an overnight bag, so it had probably been stolen.
Encyclopedia found Caswell who admitted that he got bored looking for people, so he started doing headstands and didn’t see anything. How did Caswell go from being completely interested in looking for possible suspects to being so bored that he decided that his time was better spent doing headstands in a crowded bus station? This kid’s attention span seems dangerously low. He explained that he saw the man in the tan hat. He had folded the newspaper in half and was reading the bottom half. Caswell said he got distracted by trying to read the headlines that were facing him, but he was having problems because it was upside down.
This kid’s a complete idiot.
At this point, Officer Carlson arrived on the scene and recognized the victim as Blue-Point Blackie. He was surprised that a “Chicago crook” was in Idaville. Why was a Chicago criminal so well-known in Idaville? If he was known for being a crook, then why was he not in jail?
Also, this serves as good example why Encyclopedia should have told his father what he knew. Chief Brown would have responded, “Blue-Point Blackie, the very famous criminal from Chicago who is not currently serving time, is possibly coming to town? And people plan to rob him when he gets off his bus? We should probably look into that.” The Idaville PD would have arrested Blue-Point Blackie, who had apparently been eluding the Chicago PD, as soon as he got off the bus and they may have even apprehended his would-be robbers.
No one actually saw Blue-Point Blackie get attacked, but Encyclopedia knew that something Caswell saw was helpful. Caswell said that he was having trouble reading the headlines on the man’s newspaper were upside-down. However, since Caswell was doing a headstand, the headlines should have appeared right-side up to him. That meant that the man wasn’t actually reading the paper, he was just pretending to, but keeping an eye for Blue-Point Blackie.
Encyclopedia remembered that this man was looking through a magazine, so the police got fingerprints from the magazine. The assumption there was that this man was the only person who handled that magazine in a crowded bus station. And with that, they were able to eventually arrest him. The man was actually in a rival gang who caught wind of the fact that Blue-Eyed Blackie was coming to town with a bag full of stolen diamonds. The gang wanted to steal the diamonds from him.
But that actually doesn’t make any sense. Encyclopedia figured out that the man was holding the newspaper upside-down and that he was probably just pretending to read it. But what he didn’t consider was the fact that at the time of the attack, Caswell was trying to read the headlines on a newspaper that this guy was reading. How could this man be pretending to read the newspaper and attacking Blue-Point Blackie at the same time?
So really, this guy’s crime was doing a shitty job of pretending to read a newspaper at the wrong place at the wrong time.
