A SPEEDY HALF HOUR LATER, the Mayhem Express had pulled back into the station, where Chief Olaf was waiting to pick up Mr. Crowley and take him to the other kind of station, the big one downtown.
Joe, Chet, and I were the first off the train. We’d called ahead and explained to the chief what had happened—or, as Chet had said, we’d dropped a dime with the fuzz to see to it that Mr. Crowley was escorted from one caboose to another. Chief Olaf had sent his officers to collect him in the coffin compartment, and they’d led him, cuffed, down the steps and onto the platform. Mr. Crowley was a bit banged up, but fully conscious. As we watched, an officer slipped the ring of keys into a Ziploc bag, beside another clear sack of the missing cell phones.
Off to the side, a young man in a backward baseball cap and gym clothes appeared to be finishing up a conversation with an officer. Nodding his head nervously, he turned and joined Ravi, sighing a deep breath of relief. The guy gave us a thumbs-up, and then Ravi mouthed us a silent thank-you.
“Guess Ravi’s boyfriend came clean to the Bayport PD about his shoplifting stunt in the gift shop,” I said. “Looks like he got off with just a slap on the wrist.”
Joe motioned to Sebastian, who was being questioned by another cop and looking anything but relieved. “As for Sebastian and his blackmailing,” Joe added, “not so much.”
Nearby, I noticed Charlene talking with the local news crew, who’d set up cameras on the sidewalk, and Karen seated on a bench by an outlet, charging her phone as it was clasped to her ear.
“Safe to say Escape Rumble has nothing to worry about,” she said tiredly into her phone.
Biff clapped us on the back. “Thanks for everything, guys. Knew you could do it.”
I winced. “We’re just glad everyone’s okay.”
Joe gently touched his black eye. “Think the museum gift shop sells ice packs?”
Biff shook his head. “But hey, you can get your name engraved on a rail spike!”
Great souvenir of us almost dying, I thought.
Joe and I exchanged a look as Biff smiled broadly at us before strolling off.
“What?” Chet asked, glancing from me to Joe and back. “Did I miss something?”
“We’ll explain later.” I was too tired to go into the details, and I doubted we’d be visiting the museum gift shop anytime soon. I’d had enough trains for a lifetime.
The rest of the passengers filed onto the platform as the firefighters boarded to examine the writing car. Luckily, it appeared the coach wasn’t totally wrecked. Hopefully, that would warm Heath Crowley’s cold little heart from behind bars.
Across the street, Trent sat in the back of an ambulance (or as Chet called it, the old “meat wagon”) with a mylar first-aid blanket draped around his shoulders.
“Thanks again for saving me,” he said when we joined him. “I should never have followed the instructions on that stupid note.” He gingerly touched the top of his head and winced.
Marigold raced over and threw her arms around her brother. He winced again. “Oops. Sorry,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I love you. But don’t ever tell anybody I said that.”
“You were right,” he admitted. “I never should’ve told anyone in the cast about being related to Mayhem and his fortune.” His clear green eyes met mine. “You know what? I’m going to use some of that inheritance to fix up the Mayhem Express. It seems like the least I can do.”
“Awesome!” Joe said. “That’s very noble of you.”
“See?” Chet chimed in. “Mr. Crowley didn’t need to kidnap you after all.”
Trent chuckled, then sucked in a pained breath as he turned back to his sister. “It’ll only be a matter of time before you turn eighteen and get your share too.”
She put a finger to her lips. “Shh! Not so loud!”
“So you’ll get your piece of the pie after all,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.
“I didn’t want to say anything. Don’t tell anyone, please. I don’t want to be kidnapped next!”
I rolled my eyes. “Your secret’s safe with us.”
As a couple of officers began blocking off the platform with crime scene tape, Chief Olaf marched over, scowling. “You boys—I can’t decide whether to thank you or tell you off.”
“You could tell us what great detectives we are,” Joe said innocently.
The chief shot him an annoyed look but stomped off when he was called away.
Chet sighed. “Talk about ruining our train of thought! Get it? Train of thought?”
I groaned.
Just then the passenger in pink pushed her way past the crowd loitering around the station, toward us. “Hey,” she called, “that was funny, kid.”
Chet glanced around, confused. “What was?”
“Your puns. I’ve been listening to you all night. You’re a firecracker! The news cameras were eating up everything you said.” She pulled an oval business card from her bag and handed it to him. “I’m a talent scout. I was hoping to I’d find my next star among the actors in tonight’s production, but they’re all”—she leaned in, lowering her voice—“less talented than the Kardashians. But you… you’re something else. I’d love to represent you.”
Chet’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish gulping air.
She smiled. “Call me soon to talk shop. Not now, though. I’m too exhausted.” Then she turned and rejoined the line of passengers.
Chet pumped the business card in the air. “Forget YouTube! Hello, Hollywood!”
“Mr. Morton, may I have a selfie?” Joe asked, batting his eyelashes.
I offered Chet a fist bump. “Nicely done.” A flash of red lights caught my attention. “Hey, let’s go check out what’s happening over there.”
Joe, Chet, and I wandered over to watch as the officers guided Mr. Crowley into the back of a squad car. Served him right.
He stared at us through the window as the cruiser rolled off. “Looks like the coppers are gonna throw him right in the big house!” Chet said.
I rolled my eyes and fought back a laugh. “Chet, you are so ready for your close-up.”
“Yeah, Morton, the talent scout’s clearly gone to your head,” Joe teased. “That being said, the line does sound like it came straight from the show’s script. It’s funny how everything came full circle—a man who was ‘off the track’ and ‘a wrong number’ ended up in ‘nippers.’ ”
“I can see the headline now,” Chet piped up. “ ‘Sleuths Send Kidnapper to the Caboose.’ ”
“With the help of their trusty apprentice!” I added.
“Yeah, Morton,” Joe chimed in. “We seriously couldn’t have done it without you.”
Chet flushed. “Aww, thanks, guys.”
As I patted Chet on the shoulder, Charlene wandered over from the news crew setup. “Nice going,” she said to me. “I knew you had it in the bag from the get-go.”
“Well, uh, thank you for the assist back there.”
She smiled. “You didn’t need it.”
I went a little pink. “I hope this didn’t ruin your story for the paper.”
“What? Are you kidding? Now it’s sure to get picked up!” she exclaimed, giving me a wink.
My heart did a backflip. “Hey, now that this is all over, maybe you’d want to, uh, see a movie sometime? With me? I mean, uh, there’s nothing better to do.”
I tried to ignore Joe clinging comically to Chet’s arm as they looked on.
The corner of Charlene’s mouth curled upward. “Sure. I’d like that. I’ll send you a text. As soon as I get my phone back.”
I laughed, shoving my hands into my pockets in a way that I hoped looked nonchalant, and my fingers brushed something. I pulled it out: the diagram page I’d caught during our scuffle with Mr. Crowley. Examining it now, I saw it depicted the deluxe suite car.
Chet leaned in, curious, and then he murmured, “Hey, uh, Frank and Joe. I… umm… I need to talk to you. Privately.” He looked a little pale but tapped his foot, whistling, before pointedly walking over to a nearby bench.
I looked at Charlene, slightly embarrassed, but she just chuckled. “Go for it,” she said. “But I want an exclusive later on.”
“Well? What is it?” Joe asked Chet impatiently when we joined him.
“I think I figured it out!” he said, holding the other diagrams we’d taken from Ravi. He pointed to a compass sketched inside a little box. “If there’s a treasure on the Mayhem Express, it’ll be here.”
“Still on about the old treasure hunt, I see,” Joe replied, with a roll of his eyes.
I decided to humor Chet. “What makes you think that a treasure would be there? The wooden compass rose carved in the ceiling? Is ‘compass’ old-timey for ‘gold,’ or something?”
“Seriously,” Joe said. “Every car has elaborate woodwork in fancy designs.”
“At first I thought ‘safe passage to the parlor car’ might have been referring to a hidden safe, but that wasn’t right. And it would have been too obvious. Then, since ‘box’ had been underlined twice in the diagram for the cab, I thought the treasure might have something to do with the firebox,” Chet explained, shuffling through the papers before pulling one out and pointing at the note. “ ‘Box’ is also an old-timey way of referring to a safe. But I checked the firebox after you guys rescued Trent, and it was pretty empty.” He flipped to another page, the one labeled For a moss corpse, see Diagram No. 7. “I would have just chalked up the woodwork to decoration except for this note. All the other ones make sense except this one. See, the pages are full of numbered diagrams, but none of them have a diagram seven. So, I thought, what if it meant to look in car seven… and then, when I saw the deluxe suite car diagram, the code seemed so obvious! Or, rather, the anagram.”
“A moss corpse… compass rose!” I exclaimed.
Joe bounced excitedly. “Like the compass rose in the ceiling of that train car! Chet, you’re a genius!”
“Your love of wordplay seriously paid off tonight,” I added.
We glanced over at the train. There were no cops standing guard at the moment.
Joe flashed his mischievous grin. “Let’s go see if you’re right!”
Throwing caution to the winds, the three of us sneaked up the steps of the train and tiptoed through the cars. Fortunately, the power had been turned back on, and everything was once again well-lit.
“I bet the treasure is gold! We’ll be rich!” Chet cheered, racing ahead.
In the deluxe suite car, I stopped under the compass rose carved into the ceiling, studying it carefully for the first time. I hadn’t noticed before how the E and the W were swapped. Clockwise, it read N, W, S, E. How odd.
Joe pushed an old velvet brocade sofa across the floor so that it stood under the compass rose. “Get on up there, treasure hunter!”
Chet climbed up excitedly felt around the ceiling, his fingers brushing against the points of the compass rose, pushing upward. He grunted. “What do I do?” he called down.
Joe scratched his head. “What would Easton Mayhem have thought of—”
“Easton! East! ” I said, clapping my hands. “Chet, press the E!”
There was a satisfying click as the E pushed cleanly up into the wood. But nothing happened. Chet tried pushing upward on the ceiling again. It didn’t budge.
I sighed, staring up at the other letters: N, S, and W.
The swapped E and W gave me another idea. W looked like an upside-down M…. “Chet, try twisting the W so it becomes an M for ‘Mayhem.’ ”
He fumbled with the wood for a moment, then pushed the letter upward.
It vanished into the ceiling with another soft click.
Joe gaped at me. “Frank, you’re brilliant!”
Chet pushed again, and a square of ceiling slid sideways. “We did it! We did it! We found the gold smugglers’ treasure!”
“Can you see anything?” I leaped onto the sofa for a better view. My mind was racing. What would we find…? Gold doubloons. Diamond necklaces. Silver goblets.
Inside the space were… old bottles—cobwebbed, cracked, and dusty.
Chet’s face fell as his dreams of gold faded to dust.
“Apparently, the only thing the Phantom Express was smuggling in the twenties was liquor,” I quipped.
“Or ‘coffin varnish,’ ” Chet said, looking miserable. “That’s what they called it back then.”
“More like the Speakeasy Express,” Joe teased. “The only spirits haunting the Phantom Express were of the liquid variety.” We all laughed. At least Chet was being a good sport about the whole thing.
“Mr. Crowley got it wrong,” he said. “This train was always a party train. It’s the way Mr. Mayhem wanted it. I think he would have hated the idea of it sitting around collecting dust in some drafty hall beside a little informational placard. Although I do love reading those placards.”
After shutting the panel so the “treasure” would remain hidden, we disembarked the train and collected our phones from one of the officers. By then, just about everyone was gone. Doing our best to avoid puddles, we wandered through Trainsville to the parking lot, passing the log statue of Easton Mayhem.
“ ‘So we beat on, boats against the current.’ ” Chet sighed.
“Huh?” Joe asked. “F. Scott Fitzgerald?”
I nodded. “Deep, Morton. Look at you, dishing out quotes from the classics.”
“Speaking of dishing…,” Joe began. “I wanted to revisit dish duty.”
“I knew it! I knew you wouldn’t let it go.” I stopped beside a park bench. “What about it?”
“How about we split it?”
“Really?” I asked, brightening.
“Well, we boarded this train to solve a fake mystery and ended up solving a real one together. And as dangerous and wild as it was, I’m glad I came along. It was fun. Minus the almost dying, of course. And getting this black eye.”
I laughed. “Deal.” We started walking again.
“But you still owe me eighty bucks.”
“What?” I yelled.
“Fine. Sixty.”
“Forty.”
Joe smiled. “Deal.”
“What do you think will happen to Trainsville?” Chet looked around at the collection of old trains. Beyond the lampposts’ glow, I could just make out some of the names emblazoned on their sides: the Flying Express, Blue Moon Canyon Express, Denali Express.
“Any publicity is good publicity,” I said. “I’m sure it’ll survive.”
“Especially after my soon-to-go-viral YouTube video!” Chet cheered. “I thought of the perfect clickbait title for my review: Mystery on the Mayhem Express. Catchy, right?”
“It’s the bee’s knees!” Joe said with a theatrical finger waggle, and I couldn’t help laughing. Everything had turned out great, even if Joe had lost his hat and our good suits had been ruined—how were we going to explain that to Mom, Dad, and Aunt Trudy? Plus, we were at least an hour past curfew. (I was sure once we told them about the trip, they’d understand.) And I was still over the moon about asking Charlene out to the movies and looking forward to getting that text from her….
As for the rest of our summer, I had a feeling we’d be happy resting our mystery muscles for a few more weeks. At least until we got bored again. And when that happened, we’d be ready to take on the mystery of the future together.