Read Online Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits by Michael D. Beil - Free Book Online

up. “But … if Ellie didn’t go in … and nobody moved the trunk
out
 … then how did the kidnapper … And where is Ellie?”
    Sam squeezed his eyes shut. “
Shhh. I’m
thinking.”
    “It’s best if we leave him alone for a while to think,” said Clarence, pulling the curtain closed.
    “Before we go, I … um, there’s something else I forgot to mention. Something Ellie said. I didn’t really believe her, but she was sure there were
criminals
on the train. Supposedly, she recognized them from their pictures in the post office—a man and a woman.”
    “How sure was she?” Clarence asked.
    “She
said
she was positive. She swears that she has a photographic memory. But she couldn’t remember their names, just their faces. When I asked her what they looked like, she said they were ordinary. That’s what we were talking about that first time we met you. She thought we would be famous if we caught them. But we never got the chance to talk about them again.”
    “Mrrraaa,”
said Sam, opening the eye in the center of his “patch.”
“Criminals, you say. Plural. Most interesting.”

    Judge Ambrose, who had taken over the back end of the observation car for his investigation, chewed noisily on a soggy cigar and sneered at me the way I imagined he sneered at career criminals in his courtroom.
    “And you’re certain—absolutely certain—that the last place you saw Miss Strasbourg was in the club car,” he said after listening to my story.
    “Yes, sir.” It was killing me to address him as
sir
, but I could hear my father’s voice in my head reminding me that there would be times in my life when I would have to swallow my pride.
    “I’m having a hard time understanding one thing, Mr.… Shipley, is it? Maybe you can explain to me what a girl like Ellie Strasbourg was doing with the likes of you. You’ve seen how her family lives. Now take a good look at yourself. I’ll bet your dear old mother makes all your clothes for you, doesn’t she? And those shoes—how many times have they been resoled?”
    I shifted nervously in my seat. Ambrose was right on both counts—lucky guess, the big baboon. Mother
did
make our clothes, and she was proud of it. My shoes were hand-me-downs from my cousin Arnold, who was a year older.
    “You see what I’m getting at, don’t you?” Ambrose continued. “It seems hard to believe that she would
want
to spend time with a boy so … well, like you. Why were you pestering her? Did someone put you up to it? Are you involved in this? What did they offer you?”
    “What? No!” I protested. “I wasn’t bothering her. We were friends. For your information, I was minding my own business when
she
started talking to
me
. She told me that she was going to Conneaut Lake Park to ride the Blue Streak. She wasn’t bragging or anything—she just, you know, talked … a
lot
. She told me that there were criminals on board.”
    “Criminals!” said Ambrose, spitting slimy bits of tobacco into my face. “Come now, surely she was pulling your leg.”
    I wiped the spit and tobacco from my face and shook my head firmly. “She recognized their pictures from the post office. She said she checked the photos there every week. It was a man and a woman.”
    Ambrose leaned in and asked, “Did you ever see these so-called criminals?”
    “No. We were going to look for them when she … disappeared.”
    “Did she describe them to you?”
    “Not really. She just said they were ordinary.”
    Ambrose eyed me even more skeptically. “So, theseordinary-looking criminals, who are wanted by the FBI, just walked up to the counter in Grand Central Station and bought tickets on the Shoreliner—that’s what you’re saying?”
    “No, that’s what
Ellie
said.”
    “I’m done with you for now,” said Ambrose, dismissing me with a wave. “I’ll probably need to talk to you again.”
    “Gee, I can’t wait,” I muttered. “I just love it when people spit tobacco juice on