The Encyclopedia Brown Encyclopedia

A bunch of kids were celebrating the birthday of Benny Breslin, an apparent narcoleptic with a strong interest in architecture and an attention deficiency. The party was going well until someone had stolen Benny’s tool chest – his favorite present in the bunch – during the scavenger hunt.

At this point, we’re encouraged to ignore the fact that Mark Plotz – the weird outsider who expressed interest in the tool chest – is the only one at the party who doesn’t seem to be shocked at this revelation. Instead, Mark was nursing an injured leg.

Mark said that he saw the big mean kid take the tool chest and climb out of the window. He went to chase after the thief, but he ran into the coffee table and fell over. He ran over the window and yelled at the thief, but the thief ran into a black car that sped off.

Benny says Mark’s yelling woke him up. Benny, who had fallen asleep at his own birthday party, had lost interest in the scavenger hunt, so he started making a house of cards on the coffee table when he got tired and fell asleep. Benny showed off the impressive house of cards made from a deck that Sally had given as a gift.

Encyclopedia, at this point, had heard enough. If Mark had actually hurt his leg when he ran into the coffee table, the house of cards would have fallen over.

That’s when Mark admitted that he lied. He had actually hurt his leg after climbing out of the window with the tool chest.

What kind of a low-life steals his friend’s birthday present at the party?

Idaville was getting ready to host the annual meeting of the state’s police chiefs, and Chief Brown was a little preoccupied about making sure this year’s meeting didn’t totally suck. Most years, people would make a bunch of speeches, but Chief Brown wanted to shake things up a bit.

Encyclopedia came up with an idea of having a fake crime committed and seeing how many of the visiting chiefs would be able to solve the mystery. The Chief was into that idea, so he found someone who would play along.

Chief Brown gathered the thirty or so visiting chiefs and went to Mr. Van Swiggert’s jewelry store. Van Swiggert told a story about how his $50,000 diamond necklace was stolen. Van Swiggert walked the chiefs through the scene of the fake crime; the hallway of the store, which had a stone tile-covered floor. He said the thieves knew enough about diamonds to have been able to tell between the real necklace and the duplicate necklace made of glass.

The thieves grabbed the fake necklace from Van Swiggert, saw it was fake, threw it on the floor, took the real one and ran off.

Chief Brown invited the other chiefs to try to write down the solution to the mystery. That solution? The thieves actually made off with the fake necklace. That became obvious because a necklace made of glass would have broken when it was thrown to the stone tile. Van Swiggert was actually trying to say that the $50,000 necklace was stolen so that he could collect on the insurance while keeping the necklace.

The plural form of “thief” is “thieves,” but the plural form of “chief” isn’t “chieves.” Anyone else find that odd?

Anyway, Chief Brown later told Encyclopedia that only four of the thirty visiting chiefs were able to solve the mystery. That’s an abysmal 13%. I guess we shouldn’t worry about Chief Brown’s complete ineptitude, as it appears to be a statewide problem.

When Encyclopedia sped past Mrs. Carleton’s house, she accused him of stealing her purse. He explained that that wasn’t possible because he was in the middle of a bike race, though he noted that he didn’t hadn’t seen anyone around. When she mentioned that she was about to call the police, Encyclopedia made a hard sell for her to use the services of the Brown Detective Agency instead. She accepted.

He looked around and saw Jim Krebs in the toolshed, pouring white paint from one can into another. Carleton explained that Jim was helping her paint her orchid house. He had gone into the shed to switch paint cans because one can had a hole in it. He said he didn’t see the purse get stolen.

Encyclopedia continued the investigation. He went outside and saw the trail of paint drops that Jim left behind. He noticed that about halfway down the trail, the narrow drops turned into round ones and they went from being eight feet apart to two feet apart.

Encyclopedia was able to prove that Jim had started walking to the tool shed and then suddenly started to run, hence the change in the drops. He assumed that this was because Jim did, in fact, witness the purse being stolen, but he ran to the shed because he was scared.

Jim eventually fessed up and we learn that the thief was arrested.

Wait, so does Encyclopedia get paid his quarter? The verbal contract was for Encyclopedia to figure out who stole the purse. Encyclopedia didn’t actually prove who stole the purse, he just proved the witness was being a wuss and got him to speak up about what he saw. Encyclopedia probably wasn’t the guy who chased the thief down, either. The fact that the thief got arrested leads me to believe that the police were eventually involved.

I mean, if I were Mrs. Carleton, I’d give the kid a quarter. Why not? But I hope Encyclopedia isn’t too proud of himself here, because he didn’t actually catch the bad guy this time around.

This didn’t really come as much of a surprise to me, but 1960s Idaville is a little bit racist. Every year, the boys of the town take part in the Indian trials. Participants are challenged to three events – setting up a tent, boiling water and the bitter drink challenge. The winner gets to ride with the mayor in the Idaville Day Parade.

Mort Liveright, also known as Fangs because he could open a bottle of root beer with his front teeth, nearly won the previous year. He believed that Melvin Hoffenberger cheated at the bitter drink challenge and he wanted Encyclopedia to check it out.

The following day, Encyclopedia got there and watched the trials. All of the participants were dressed like Indians. Keep it classy, Idaville. Melvin won the tent event, and Fangs boiled the water the quickest.

Then for the bitter drink challenge. Melvin, trying to cool down in the summer heat, had put ice on the back of his neck and had been sucking on a few ice cubes. When it was his time to go, he spit the ice out and drank the drink without any reaction.

Fangs took a drink too. He tried to hold back his reaction, but he couldn’t do it completely. Encyclopedia said it was good enough because he had proof that Melvin cheated.

Encyclopedia said that by sucking on the ice, Melvin had temporarily deadened his taste buds, so the prize should really go to Fangs.

But wait, how is that cheating? Is there anything in the rules saying a participant can’t do that? There was no mention of it and it’s not like Melvin was hiding the fact that he was sucking on ice cubes, he was doing it in plain sight.

I don’t know, it sounds like me that Melvin won fair and square. If the people running the competition think that that’s cheating, then they can’t change the rule after the fact and retroactively give the prize to Fangs. And if they don’t change the rule, then there’s nothing keeping Fangs from showing up the following year with a mouth full of candle wax, like Homer Simpson did to eat the Guatemalan Insanity Peppers in the Springfield Chili Cook-Off.

Charlie Stewart visited the Brown Detective Agency after his tooth collection was stolen.

Miguel Sebastian was putting on a bullfighting show in his backyard. Charlie showed up a bit early in hopes that he could pay for his admission with a gopher’s tooth. That was when Miguel said something Spanish to his dog and the dog attacked him. Charlie dropped the cookie jar full of teeth started to run, but the dog bit the seat of Charlie’s red pants off. When he realized what was going on, he noticed that his cookie jar was gone.

Encyclopedia and Charlie went to Miguel’s to see what the story was. They got there just as the show started. I should probably clarify that, there were no bulls in Miguel’s backyard. No, instead of using a bull, Miguel tied two sharp knives to his dogs head.

Miguel and his dog put on a whole show with a red blanket. Then after a while, he pulled out the part of Charlie’s pants that the dog had bitten off and did the whole bullfighting thing with that. Then the show was over.

Encyclopedia approached Miguel. He was worried about the dog attacking him, so he periodically tossed some chocolate at it to keep it occupied. He accused Miguel of getting his dog to chase Charlie so that he could get the tooth collection. Miguel denied it and said that his dog chased Charlie because he was wearing red pants.

Encyclopedia didn’t buy it, because he knew that dogs were color blind and couldn’t see the color red. He knew that dogs are color blind.

As an adult, I’d have to say that I’m concerned about the kid who has his dog attack another child so that he could steal a tooth collection. While I find it weird that Charlie has a tooth collection, he came by the collection without maliciously attacking others.

Regardless of whether Miguel told the dog to attack Charlie or not, Miguel is at fault. It’s his dog and it attacked someone. If Miguel’s not careful, he could get sued one day after his dog attacks someone. Of course, I don’t think anyone who ties sharp knives to his dog’s head and lets it run around in a backyard full of children spends too much time thinking about getting sued.

I know I’ve asked this before, but where are everyone’s parents?

No mention if we see Miguel again in The Case of the Poisoned Dog.

That would be where we learn that Miguel’s dog is dead because Encyclopedia gave it chocolate. The evidence doesn’t look very good for Encyclopedia either, because someone who knows enough about dogs to know that they’re color blind should also know that chocolate can kill them.

I’m sure Encyclopedia doesn’t have too much to worry about. He’s the only one in town who would probably be able to figure out what had really happened to the dog. And I’m sure dog murder isn’t all that serious of a crime in Idaville.

Officer Carlson drove up to the Brown Detective Agency with Bugs and Mrs. Meany with some pretty serious news. Charges were being brought against Encyclopedia. Bugs went on and told a story of how he had been kidnapped the evening before.

He had been minding his own business when, at about 5 p.m., he said he was hit over the head. When he woke up, he was in a dark room with no windows. He said he had overheard the kidnappers call his mother about leaving $1,000 with Encyclopedia for ransom. Bugs also said that he heard them say that Encyclopedia was getting $100 for the deal.

Mrs. Meany confirmed that she did get the phone call telling her to meet Encyclopedia with the $1,000, but when she went to the drop-off point, he wasn’t there.

Bugs wasn’t going to have any of that. He found a crowbar in the room and had planned to use it to take the hinges off of the door, but the hinges were on the other side. Just then, the door swung open with such force that it knocked Bugs over. The men took Bugs and drove him to where he had been picked up. That was at about 9 p.m.

I’m not sure why Carlson, and not the Chief, was handling this case. Carlson never thinks twice about interrupting the Chief’s dinner to tell him about some robbery. Here, the Chief’s own son was being implicated in a kidnapping, and Carlson decided to handle it himself.

To make matters worse, Carlson seems to be terrible at his job. I’ve seen enough episodes of Cops to know that when the police are called to the scene for anything, the first thing they do is separate everyone to hear everyone’s version of the story. They certainly don’t drive the accusing parties to the suspect’s house and have the supposed victim tell the story in front of everyone.

Now, let’s get back to the case. Encyclopedia pointed out that Bugs’ story didn’t make sense because he said the hinges were on the other side of the door. If that were true, then the door wouldn’t have swung into the room, knocking him down. Again, Bugs gave too much information which ended up exposing his lie. What’s even dumber is that he didn’t even have to mention anything about hinges if, in his version of this story, he had a crowbar. He could have tried to pry the door open with a crowbar, regardless of where the hinges were.

One thing in Bugs’ story that wasn’t contested was the fact that he had supposedly been hit in the head so hard that he was knocked out for several minutes. Did anyone bother giving Bugs some medical attention? Because that’s a pretty serious injury, and anyone who cares about the welfare of this boy – maybe his mother, or an officer of the law like Carlson – would want to make sure he didn’t sustain any permanent damage. I suppose that didn’t occur to Mrs. Meany, and that doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me. I say that because when her son had apparently been kidnapped and then returned, she waited until the next day to go to the police.

It’s probably just as well Bugs didn’t see a doctor, because anybody with a semi-decent amount of medical training would take one look at Bugs and see that he hadn’t been hit over the head, which would tip off some people that Bugs was lying. What’s the matter, Mrs. Meany? Didn’t want to miss Johnny Carson?

Look, boys will be boys. Kids get into trouble. However, it’s one thing to steal a tent that has been set up in a junkyard and something completely different to fake your own kidnapping. Bugs is clearly crying out for help. I’m guessing Idaville doesn’t really have much in the way of social services.

Johnny Landis went to the Brown Detective Agency to report another crime perpetrated by Bugs Meany. Johnny and his father had just finished painting their front door, front railing and the three steps leading to their porch. His father went to put away the painting supplies when he saw Bugs run into the yard, take a rubber pillow that was hanging from the clothesline and run away.

Encyclopedia and Johnny went to the Tigers’ clubhouse to talk to Bugs about it. Bugs denied taking anything, going so far to say that he had never been to Johnny’s house. Encyclopedia lied and said that Mr. Landis saw him take it and that he wanted to talk to him about it.

When the three went to the Landis residence, Bugs jumped over the three steps, onto the porch, and knocked onto the window. When no one answered, he jumped past the steps again, and that’s when Encyclopedia caught him.

If he had never been to Johnny’s house, then how did he know to avoid touching the wet paint?

This story is upsetting to me. In the past, Bugs had a motive for every petty crime he committed. Even if the crimes were executed poorly, he always had a motive. It was usually to steal something of value.

Bugs didn’t seem to have a reason to steal a rubber pillow. I mean, it’s a rubber pillow. It’s never even explained why the Landis family even had a rubber pillow, but they’re not the ones on trial here. What use would Bugs have with a rubber pillow? This means that Bugs is getting into stealing just for the thrill of stealing.

I think this is a sad territory to be straying into. The Bugs Meany problem is going to get worse before it gets better.

Mr. Clancy, a local plumber, was robbed and his assistant, John Morgan, saw the whole thing. Morgan said that he and Clancy were driving Clancy’s truck when it broke down. Morgan stayed in the car while Clancy popped the hood to take a look.

That’s when, according to Morgan, a hobo came out of nowhere, ran up behind Clancy, hit him over the head with a lead pipe, robbed him and ran for the woods. Chief Brown was sure that the tramp and the money were far from town.

Encyclopedia pointed out that Morgan probably did it. First of all, it was a little fishy that he was able to describe every detail when he was sitting in the passenger seat with the hood up. He probably wasn’t able to see anything.

Not mentioned in the story: is it a complete coincidence that a homeless dude happened to possess a lead pipe and that he used it to hit a plumber? Where would this guy have gotten a lead pipe?