The Encyclopedia Brown Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia and Sally had just left the hospital. They had been visiting Benny Breslin, who had recently had his tonsils removed.

Suddenly, a blue car sped by them. Shortly after that, they heard a scream coming from the block where the car had come from. They ran to the screaming and saw a woman shouting for someone to call an ambulance. They also noticed a man sitting on the curb, holding his back, obviously in pain.

An ambulance appeared with its siren blaring and the woman stood in front of it, telling it to stop. The driver slammed on the brakes and told the woman to get out of the way. She explained that the man on the ground had just been hit by a car. The ambulance driver told the woman that they were on their way to picking up someone having a heart attack and they didn’t have time to stop.

At this point, the injured man told the woman to let the ambulance go because he was able to walk himself to the hospital, which was only two blocks away. The woman wasn’t having any of it and she proceeded to make a big stink about the ambulance drivers not helping the injured man. The EMTs then decided to pick this man up and the heart attack patient.

As the EMTs were getting him on the stretcher, a few police cars turned down the block, but they were blocked by the ambulance. Chief Brown stuck his head out of the first police car, telling the ambulance to move. As it was moving, Chief Brown noticed his son. Encyclopedia filled him in on what was going on.

Chief Brown explained that he was chasing some bank robbers. A bunch of men wearing masks and long black capes held up the First City Bank. Chief Brown reasoned that the blue car may have been the robber’s getaway car and he asked the man and the woman for a description of the car. While that was going on, Encyclopedia watched the EMTs, wearing crisp, white uniforms, roll the man into the back of the ambulance, feet first. Chief Brown returned to Encyclopedia, telling him that they were no help in describing the car and that it may be a while before they’ll be able to catch up with the robbers.

Encyclopedia calmly told him that finding the robbers wouldn’t be as difficult as he thought and that he’d be able to arrest them right away. What did Encyclopedia mean?

He meant that the men in the ambulance weren’t real EMTs. They had worn hospital uniforms under their capes when they robbed the bank, and they used a stolen ambulance as a getaway car. I’m not getting the capes. Why would they wear capes to rob a bank? It’s not as if it would effectively hide what they were wearing underneath. Oh sure, someone from behind wouldn’t get a clear view of what they were wearing, but someone looking at them from the front would just see a bunch of weirdoes wearing capes and hospital uniforms.

Actually, using a stolen ambulance is a pretty good idea, because they could speed through town and people would get out of their way. It does have its disadvantages, like if they were to accidentally come upon a medical emergency, like what had actually happened in this story.

The fact that these weren’t real EMTs became apparent when they saw them wheel the patient into the ambulance feet first. Patients get wheeled in head first because the equipment is right behind the front seats.

Were there any reports of a stolen ambulance? Wouldn’t anyone who happened to be outside of the bank think it was odd that a few men wearing capes ran out of the bank carrying bags of money and into an ambulance?

Oh, and also they caught the driver of the blue car who hit the man, based on Encyclopedia’s description. So, I guess that’s good, too.