Poison Frog Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Author:Gertrude Chandler Warner [Warner, Gertrude Chandler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-2131-0
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Published: 2011-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

“Oh, my goodness!” she said, putting her hands to her mouth. The others, who had been talking quietly among themselves, turned.

“What’s the matter?” Lindsey asked.

Jessie smiled. “The locks! I think I know what happened!”

“Well, tell us,” Jordan instructed.

She pointed to the rings on the cage. “See these?”

Henry nodded. “Yeah.”

“They should be bent. If the thief really broke the locks off by force, like with a hammer or something, these little steel rings should be bent downward. If the thief hit the locks hard enough to break them open, there’s no way these rings could’ve remained straight. They’d be all beaten up, too.”

Jordan came over and examined the rings. “I think you’re right, Jessie,” he said slowly. “There isn’t even a scratch on them.”

“And I’ll bet there isn’t a scratch on the ones on the black-footed ferrets’ cage, either.” Jessie was really smiling big now. “That means the thief never broke the locks open. He or she had a key!”

Everyone froze. “A key?” Jordan asked. “That’s impossible! Only the people who work here have keys, and I’m sure none of them would steal any animals.”

“Are you positive?” Henry asked, but Lindsey was already nodding.

“Positive,” Jordan said firmly.

“Yeah, I agree,” Lindsey added quickly. “We’ve got a dynamite staff here. I’m just as sure as Jordan is.”

“I had thought about that before,” Violet mentioned, “about someone using a key, but I didn’t think it was possible, either.”

“And besides,” Jordan went on, “the zookeepers only have keys to the buildings in which they work. At least, usually. The young woman who runs the mammal house can’t get into the Bird Barn. Although sometimes if one keeper is out sick, another will fill in for them.”

Jessie nodded. “Whoever did it must have had a key. It’s the only way to explain all this. The thief opened the ...”

Her voice trailed off as her eyes went to the little cluster of nicks and dents in the floor.

“Of course!” she said loudly. Benny, whose attention had wandered toward a pair of parakeets, jumped.

“What now?” Henry asked.

“The little dents in the floor! Jordan, may I see that lock, please?”

She took it from him and turned it upside down. One edge was discolored by some chalky white powder. She knelt down and ran her finger over the dents on the cement floor. Sure enough, she found the exact same chalky powder.

“Okay,” Jessie explained. “First the thief opened the locks with a key! Then, to make it look like he didn’t have a key, he placed the locks on the floor”—she pointed to the dents—“and kept hitting them until they looked as though they’d been broken open. But the thief forgot to bend the little silver rings on the cage where the lock hangs.”

“But now we’ve got an even bigger problem on our hands,” Lindsey cut in. “We’ve got to figure out who has a key to all the cage door locks and who also happens to be an animal thief.”

Jordan got to his feet again. “Well, there are only four people who have keys to all the cages,” he said matter-of-factly.

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