The Case of the Disappearing Magician

By Charles E. Morgan, III

Mysterious explosions in the night get the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency on the job to investigate. The case leads Brains and Jimmy to the Crestwood Fair where they uncover a devious plot to get away with robbing the First National Bank.
Join Operative Three and Operative X on this thrilling ride as the match wits with a conniving magician!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312121560

Book preview

The Case of the Disappearing Magician

THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING MAGICIAN

A Brains Benton Mystery

By

Charles E. Morgan, III

Illustrated by

Shannon Stirnweis

Based on characters created by

Charles Spain Verral. (1904-1990)

Based on stories by

George Wyatt

To my sister, Kim

Thanks for letting me take

The Case of the Missing Message, and never return it.

Copyright © 2014 by Charles E. Morgan, III

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

KA-BOOM!

Chapter 1

We were traveling fast, real fast, causing the wind to blow straight in my face. My hair whipped around wildly making me look for all the world like some type of mad scientist.

The tractor roared like a hungry lion as we sped along the bumpy terrain. My heart was pounding hard, as if it wanted to punch a hole through my chest.

My arms ached and my knuckles were white as I held on for dear life!

I squinted through the darkness on the lookout for any stray branch that might want to knock me off my perch.

Maybe I should stop right here and explain. First, my name is Jimmy Carson and I live in the town of Crestwood. About eighteen thousand people live here according to the last census. Anyway, I have brown hair, brown eyes, and I’m the average height and weight for a kid my age. Even though I am just a student attending Crestwood Junior-Senior High School, I’ve already had a lot of experience as a private detective.

Go ahead and laugh, but it’s true! My mom has a scrapbook full of newspaper articles from The Crestwood Daily Ledger to prove it!

You see, my best friend in the world and I started a detective agency a few years ago. My friend is Barclay Brains Benton. His nickname describes him to a tee. To say that he’s a genius could possibly even be an understatement! He’s brilliant! Truth be told, if it wasn’t for his smarts I’m not so sure we would have ever solved any cases.

If you ever got the chance to meet Brains, you’d never forget him. What a character! He’s tall and lanky with brilliant sunset orange hair. He’d make an ideal scarecrow. Except for the fact that scarecrows don’t need to wear glasses like Brains does!

The name we came up with for our private detective business was the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency. Yeah, I know, it’s not exactly a fancy title, but I like it.

I’ll never forget that night if I live to be a hundred! It was when I stumbled onto one of the most perplexing cases in the history of the Benton and Carson International Detective Agency!

It was a little before 10 o’clock on a July night. Like I said I was on the back of a tractor, holding on for dear life. We were traveling fast down an old dirt road and bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans on a hot pavement.

But the we wasn’t Brains and me. It was Scooter Hedberg and me on that tractor.

You see, Scooter had come to me earlier that day and wanted me to help him investigate something of a mystery. And being that Brains was away on summer vacation, it was up to me to take care of matters for the firm.

Scooter was a kid in my class. He was about my size. He wore glasses, and had braces. Unfortunately he also had to wear headgear along with the braces. It always left his hair sticking up giving him what looked like a perpetual case of bed head.

I felt sorry for the kid. It was bad enough being a four eyes and a brace face, but having to wear headgear too?

Creeps!

Scooter lived northwest of town. His family had a farm out there past the old Gault house. After I’d gotten to their place, Scooter and I had taken off. He had driven the tractor on Old Lake Carmine Road for a bit and then he’d turned off onto a dirt road.

When the road gave out we drove through the underbrush. I’m telling you I had to duck a lot or I would have been eating branches for dessert! Sometimes I think that Scooter was going for them on purpose just for laughs.

But what he’d called me for was no laughing matter. It had started a few days ago. Scooter was sitting outside on his porch when he had first heard it. It was an explosion. A while later he heard it again.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but that didn’t stop Scooter. He walked out into the dark country side armed with a flashlight. I’d told him that was pretty foolish because if someone was firing a gun, he might accidentally get hit. But Scooter told me he was convinced that it wasn’t a gun he was hearing.

Anyway, that first night he tromped around the country side, but couldn’t find anything. He had forgotten about it until he heard the explosion again the next night.

This time he didn’t hesitate, he went into the woods and got closer to the sound. However, the explosions stopped before he could locate where they were coming from.

That’s when he thought of Brains and me. You see, we sort of have a reputation.

The next morning Scooter had gone to Benton’s house. When he found out Brains wasn’t there, he’d hurried over to my house. That’s when he explained the mystery to me.

Since he’d told me that the explosions started around 10 o’clock each night, I told him that I would meet him at his place around 9:30 and we would go to the spot that he felt was the closest.

So that’s why at this moment I was flying over bumpy terrain in a tractor. Scooter was at the helm. I was standing behind him trying to hold on for all I was worth!

It took us about twenty minutes but Scooter finally slowed down and came to a stop. He killed the engine and we climbed down.

It felt good to be standing on solid ground after being tossed around like a rag doll!

We were standing in the woods. The trees weren’t too thick and moonlight seeped down causing the landscape to appear in black or gray splotches.

Which direction do you think we should go? I asked in a grim voice.

I was trying to sound professional. I had to, you know. After all I was representing the firm on Benton and Carson and I didn’t want to let Brains down!

This way, Scooter said pointing. His braces and head gear had a way of making him sound like Daffy Duck.

We walked carefully for a while picking our way through the forest. I knew a lot of the territory that surrounded Crestwood, but I’d never been in this area before. About as close as I’d gotten was the old Gault place and Boiling Pond, about a mile or two to the south.

After a bit, Scooter said, I really don’t think it’s too much further.

I looked at my Timex watch. The florescent dial glowed softly like ghost fingers. It was almost 10 o’clock.

We kept on moving and the trees thinned even more. Not long after, we came to a clearing.

We just stood there looking over tall grass.

Hey Scooter, do you know this area? I asked.

I wasn’t about to walk out into that field if we didn’t know how to get back to the tractor. It might have been summer vacation, but I still had a curfew and I didn’t want to tick my folks off. Not yet anyway. I needed them in good spirits so that when Brains came back I could do things.

That’s when I would need to use any goodwill I may have earned.

"Yes, I do. I used to hike out here with my older brother when I was younger.

That was good enough for me. I stepped out into the---

KA-BOOM!

I nearly jumped out of my socks!

I knew I should have been expecting it. But when the explosion went off it caught me totally off guard.

Creeps! I said. That’s something. And you have no idea what it is?

Nope, Scooter said emphatically. But I think I now know where it came from.

Scooter suddenly became excited. He was like a kid who had just hit his homerun.

Where? I asked. I was getting excited too.

Across this field is an old barn. The house burned down a long time ago. The owners moved away, but the barn was left. My brother and I use to play in it. That was until mom found out. She said she didn’t want us playing there because we could get hurt.

Well let’s go! I urged.

We started off into the field, jogging. Sure enough, not too far away, I could see light seeping out of the cracks of the old structure. Parked beside it I could see a darkish colored car glistening in the moonlight.

Hold up! I ordered as I raised my hand. We need to approach quietly and cautiously.

I’d learned a lot from my years doing private investigator work. But it didn’t take a genius to realize that we shouldn’t charge into the place like some crazed bulls! After all, something illegal might be happening. Although I had no clue what it could be.

We advanced slowly. The butterflies in my stomach had taken off and were doing loop de loops.

I was starting to miss Brains, too. Big time!

Scooter and I tipped-toed through the tall grass like a couple of really bad ballerinas. The lack of gracefulness caused our upper bodies to sway back and forth like we were balancing on a tightrope. But finally, even though it wasn’t pretty, we made it up to the barn.

I took a second to stop and try to calm my breathing down.

Off in the distance I could make out the remains of a crumbled chimney. Obviously that must’ve been where the house Scooter had told me about had been.

I could hear two voices talking. One was a man, the other a woman.

Scooter looked at me expectantly. I nodded yes and we both knelt down and grabbed a peek through one of the numerous cracks in the wooden structure.

The barn was ablaze with light. I could hear the rumble of an old gas powered generator running like a champ. But what really caught my attention was the big crate at the side of the room.

It was about six feet high. It appeared to be made of a heavy, gray, gunmetal and you could see the rivets holding it together. There was a thick window that ran across the bottom twelve inches of the box in the front.

I could tell it was thick because it was hard to see through it.

I smiled. Brains always told me that that I should look and not just see. He’d be proud that I’d picked up that detail.

The man was an older guy with soft wrinkles around his eyes. He was short and round with rosy cheeks. He had balding gray hair and a fancy mustache. His appearance sort of reminded me of a bowling ball, well a bowling ball with a handlebar mustache!

The girl was something totally different. She was young - probably in her early twenties – not very tall, but slender. The girl wore a broad striped red and white woman’s tee shirt whose cut sort of reminded me of a sailor. The white jeans matched her shirt. She had long, straight, black hair that was pulled tightly back into a ponytail. It shimmered in the light. Her hair dropped down to just below her shoulders.

I had to admit it. She was really pretty.

Look, Grandpa, the girl said in a tone that told me she wasn’t happy, I really want to do the trick! I can do it.

As if to punctuate her statement, she put her hands on her hips and stomped her foot.

No, Carol, the man said. "It’s too dangerous. I could never put you in harm’s way.

The way he said it, he was so nice. You could tell he really cared for his granddaughter. I liked this guy right away.

But! Carol started to protest.

Carol, we’ve already discussed it. Now it’s getting late. I want to run through it one more time before we go. We only have a few more days to prepare and make sure everything is perfect.

Yes, Grandpa, she sighed.

Scooter and I watched as the two started