Free The Case of the Crooked Carnival by Michele Torrey Page A

and pedal like mad toward home. However, being the professional that he was, he merely said (and a bit too loudly), “Nice place.”
    “I suppose,” sighed Edgar.
    Just then, something brushed against Drake from behind. He gave a little yelp, much relieved when he saw it was only a dog.
    “That’s Poe,” said Edgar.
    Poe’s license tags jangled as Drake patted him. “Good doggie.”
    Nell whipped out her notebook and pencil and began to take notes. “Dogs can often sense ghosts and ghouls. Has Poe noticed anything unusual?”
    Edgar shook his head. “He’s almost blind, and mostly deaf. Plus, he stopped sleeping with me in my room on the same night the ghosts and ghouls started howling. Now he sleeps next to our new furnace in the basement. I’m all alone.”
    Ignoring the chill in the air, Drake whipped out his notebook and pencil as well. “The haunting started one month ago, you say?”
    Edgar nodded.
    “Has anything else happened in the past month?” asked Nell. “Anything unusual?”
    “Well, not unless you count the chandelier crashing to the floor, and my pet tarantula dying. Now it’s just my grandmother, Poe, and me.”
    Drake jotted furiously: Poe won’t sleep in Edgar’s room anymore, chandelier crashed, tarantula died, house could use a little cheering, new wallpaper maybe….
    Edgar licked his lips nervously. “Do you … do you think it’s a ghost? A real ghost?”
    “Impossible to tell at this point,” said Drake.
    “Let’s take a look around,” said Nell.
    And so they did. They shone their flashlights in this corner and that one. They stole up and down the rickety stairs. They opened the creakity door to the attic and peered under sagging beds and in cluttered closets. They inspected the broken chandelier. They said “hello” and “nice day, isn’t it?” to Edgar’s grandmother, who sat knitting in the living room, listening to the radio. And finally, they headed down the stairs and into the basement, where Poe was already taking a nap.
    “Nothing supernatural so far,” said Drake, tripping on a step.
    “Roger that,” replied Nell, catching Drake by his lab coat. “Even the chandelier appears to have fallen because the cord was old and frayed.”
    “Well,” said Drake, “at least it’s warm and toasty down here.”
    Edgar nodded gloomily. “Like I said, we got a new furnace. Now I have to add wood to it twice a day. It’s such a chore.”
    “Better than being cold,” Nell said, as she shone her flashlight about, illuminating cobwebs, old open pipes, dusty boxes, and rusty bicycles.
    “I suppose,” sighed Edgar.
    Then, just as Drake was warming his hands near the furnace, a strange thing happened. A strand of music floated through the air like a wisp of cobweb.

    Drake stopped warming his hands.
    Nell stopped shining her flashlight around.
    Edgar stopped sighing.
    Poe snored, moaning a wee bit.
    And they all stared at each other (except Poe, who had his eyes closed).
    “Great Scott!” whispered Drake.
    “What is that?” whispered Nell.
    “It’s the ghosts,” whispered Edgar. “They’re singing.”
    Now, if one could have used a heart-o-matic meter at that moment, one would have seen three hearts hammering like crazy.
    Edgar’s heart was hammering especially hard. He wrung his hands, his face turned white as glue, and he moaned, “Oh, gloom and doom! Oh, spiders and bats! Now the ghosts are haunting us during the day, too!”
    But Drake Doyle and Nell Fossey were science detective geniuses. And, like all science detective geniuses everywhere, they had a job to do, hammering hearts or not. They had no time to waste on gloom and doom.
    Drake scribbled in his notebook, ghost music, not bad, bebop maybe, and then he drew a quick chart. (In a pinch, all good scientists draw charts.)
    Meanwhile, Nell put her ear next to one of the open pipes. “Mr. Glum, where do these pipes go?”
    “Oh, woe!” wailed Edgar. “I—I don’t know where they go. I only live