The Poetry Mystery

Brring!  Brring!

That telephone signals danger—your guide to adventure every week at this same hour!  Or so Jack Barnes liked to imagine.  In reality, most calls that came over it had nothing to do with mysteries.  Why would they?  Well, he was in charge of a Detective Club which had solved several puzzles around Tacoma.  Thus, it was not necessarily unusual when a case came over the phone.  It just wasn’t most of the time.

However, he could tell right when he picked up the receiver that this would be different.  “You’ve got to come over right away!” implored a woman’s voice on the other end.  “My husband’s disappeared!”

She sounded like she was about to hang up, so Jack said, “Hold it, hold it!  Where is here?”

Realizing her mistake, the woman gave Jack the address.  Jack was about to ask for more information about the case when she hung up.

“Hmmm,” thought Jack.  “Odd.  But a case.  This’ll be fun.”  Promptly, he dialed up the other members of the club, Kurt Morris and Robbie Ransom, and told them to get over to that place as soon as possible.

[Note: Some sources (one specifically) include Emma Barnes in the club.  However, she somehow did not hear about this case—ahem.]

Robbie was the first one to get to the address, though he was soon followed by Kurt.  Jack was hurrying over, but his residence wasn’t as close, which gave Robbie and Kurt time to size up the address.  It was a large mansion, only one story tall but a very long one story.  The sprawling residence just kept going and going.  To photograph the house, one needed a panoramic camera.

“Imagine if that were a hall of mirrors,” said Kurt.  “You’d never get out of the place.  Oh, here’s Jack.”

“Sorry I’m late,” said Jack.  “The chain on my bike broke, and I had to walk the rest of the way.”

“Ouch,” said Kurt.  “Did you get hurt?”

“No, I just slowed down.  This is the house, right?”

“Yes.  Let’s go in.”

The boys walked down the (long) driveway, marched down the (long) sidewalk, and knocked on the (normal) front door.  Before Jack could finish knocking, it swung open on smooth hinges, revealing a butler.

“Good afternoon,” he said.  “Whom shall I tell Mr.—er, Mrs. Lawrence—is here?”

“I’m Jack Barnes,” said Jack, “and these are—”

“Ah, yes,” said the butler.  “Good.  You must be the Detective Club.  Mrs. Lawrence is expecting you.  Follow me,” he said.

The butler led the boys down a long hallway, which led to another long hallway, which led to another—they finally made it to a large room.  “There you are!” cried a woman, whom Jack assumed had made the phone call.  “Thank goodness you’ve come,” she exclaimed.  She wore a large, green dress which looked a little out of place considering that this was not a formal occasion.  (Or is any occasion informal here, wondered Jack.)  Anyway, she was clearly agitated about something.

Jack introduced the group and asked for the details.  “Last night, I retired around 11,” said the woman.  “Johnny, my husband, was still awake.  He’s a literary critic, and he was writing a review of a new book that just came out.”

“What book was it?” asked Robbie.

“I don’t know,” said the woman.  “All he told me about it was that it was terrible and he was going to ensure that no one ever read it.”

“If I may volunteer, Mrs. Lawrence,” said the butler, “most of his reviews were like that.”

“That’s quite true,” she replied.  “Johnny could be a bit negative.”

The butler coughed on “a bit.”

“No doubt he has a few enemies.”

The butler coughed on “a few.”

“But I don’t know who would want to make him disappear!”

“Has there been a ransom note, or anything like that?” asked Jack, while the butler went into a fit of coughing.

“No, nothing!” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “I’m afraid—”

“Genevieve!” exclaimed a man entering the room.  “I flew over as soon as I heard the news.  What a terrible thing this is!”

“Oh, let me introduce Charles Custis,” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “He’s in charge of publishing Johnny’s magazine.”

“If Mr. Lawrence isn’t found,” said Custis, “I’m in trouble.  Big trouble.  Who else could scald an author like he could?  No one!  My readers would be so disappointed—and it would be terrible for me, as well.”

“There is a clue, though!” said Mrs. Lawrence.

“A clue?” said Jack. “Show us.”

“It’s in the library,” said Mrs. Lawrence, “where he disappeared.  It wasn’t there last night, I’m sure.  Right there on the table,” she said, pointing.

Sitting on the table was a piece of paper with a poem handwritten on it.  Jack went over and inspected it.  The poem read:

 

In the far North, in Labrador,

Dwelt Evangeline.

She lived with her old father,

In a land where she was queen.

 

She waited through the years,

For a lover that sought elsewhere.

‘Till one day he returned

And died miserably on her stair.

 

“Why that’s Evangeline,” said Jack.  “I had to memorize it.”

“What a lousy poem,” said Kurt.  “Who wrote it?”

“Longfellow,” said Jack.  “And yes, I agree, it was lousy.  I wonder what it could mean, though.”  He held the paper up to the light, but all he saw was a watermark.

“That watermark’s on all the paper Johnny uses,” said Mrs. Lawrence, watching.  “PFT Paper, Inc.”

“I was just seeing if there was a hidden message,” said Jack.

“Wait a minute,” said Robbie.  “Mrs. Lawrence, did your husband ever criticize poetry?”

“Yes, on many occasions,” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “Johnny loved poetry.”

“Unless the author was still alive,” said the butler.

“What poets did he criticize?” asked Robbie.

“Get ready,” said the butler.  “You have a long list coming!”

Actually, the list only consisted of five people.  Their names, along with their most famous works:

 

Luis Freehold: Author of Five Hundred Love Poems

Rufus P. Tinkley: Author of The Cat’s Tongue: Poetry for a Starlit Night

Doug Gates: Author of Maggots!

Arthur W. Hines: Author of Glasses Half Empty

Martin Gladsworth: Author of Tubes of Ethyl Acetylene

 

“Their works sound intriguing,” said Kurt.  “Remind me not to read them.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “but what’s the connection between the poem and those authors? Surely they didn’t all have to do with Lawrence’s disappearance.”

“We don’t even know if any of them did,” said Kurt.  “We’re just guessing.”

“I think we’re on the right track,” said Jack, “but there’s got to be something in that poem that points to one of them.  Only who?”

“Those are strange titles,” said Robbie.  “What are those poems all about?”

“Different things,” said Mrs. Lawrence.  “I haven’t read them myself.”

“Nor have I,” said Custis.  “I just focus on getting his stuff published, though I have to take his word for it that these aren’t any good.”

“In Mr. Lawrence’s eyes, nothing is any good,” said the butler.

“I think we get the general idea,” said Kurt.  “Hey!  I’ve got an idea.  Maybe one of these authors is married to someone named Evangeline!”

“Oh my goodness!” said Jack.  “That might be what Lawrence meant with this poem.”

Lawrence’s copies of the poets’ books were quickly procured and the boys scanned the author descriptions, but to no avail.  Four out of the five were married, but not to Evangeline.  They didn’t have any other relatives named Evangeline, either.

“It’s not a common name,” said Robbie.  “I doubt the clue’s in the name itself.”

“The region!” said Jack.  “Maybe one of these authors is from Canada!”

A good idea, but an incorrect one.  None of the authors had ever been to Canada (where Labrador is located), although they all lived on the West Coast.  Jack commented, “Hah!  They live over here.  I’ll bet one of them did it.”

“Perhaps not Tinkley, though,” said Kurt.  “He lives in Los Angeles.  I know you can get flights from there to Seattle, but that’s still a long ways away.”

“Wait,” said Jack.  “Maybe the Labrador clue is referring to a dog.  Check those bios again!”

They did, and yes, three of the poets owned dogs.  Unfortunately, none of them were Labradors.  One owned a Great Dane, one owned three beagles, and one owned “the world’s most delightful mutt named Ernest.  I was walking one night, and…” blah, blah, blah.  Robbie just sort of skimmed through that description, then looked back up the rest of the bio.  This was the book by Hines, Glasses Half Empty.

“Wonder why he picked the title,” thought Robbie to himself.  Then, his eyes widened.  “Hey!  Guys!  Take a look at this!”

“What?” asked Jack.

“Is it a clue?” asked Mrs. Lawrence, watching the boys in their search.

“A death threat, most likely,” the butler wryly observed.

“Read the first sentence of Tinkley’s biography,” said Robbie excitedly.

“Arthur Wadsworth Tinkley was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1962.”

“So?” said Kurt.

“Jack gets it, don’t you?” asked Robbie.

Jack snapped his fingers.  “Of course!  That’s what Lawrence meant by the poem?”

“What?” asked Mrs. Lawrence.

“Oh, I do hope this is a break!” said Mr. Custis.

“Don’t keep us waiting,” said the butler.  “There are other books waiting to be criticized.”

“The clue is not actually in the poem, but in the author,” said Jack.  “Longfellow’s full name was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.”

Within an hour, Johnny Lawrence was safely returned to his house.  Arthur W. Tinkley’s writing career, meanwhile, was put on hold, though we all expect his next poem to involve jail.