Read Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits for Free Online Page B

look for Ellie. I’ll be back in a while.”
    Clarence stopped outside the door to compartment D and pressed his ear against it. “It’s quiet.”
    He knocked twice, and when there was no response, he turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. Sam slipped silently past his feet, and I followed, holding my breath and feeling my heart pound.
    The smell of stale cigar smoke filled the cramped room, and Clarence pointed at the ashtray, where two thin cigars and a single hand-rolled cigarette had been snubbed out.
    Taped to the window were a story and photograph neatly clipped from a newspaper. “Holy cow! Look at that!” I said, pointing at it. “That’s Ellie, with her parents.”
    From deep within a vest pocket, Clarence dug out his reading glasses and put them on. “Pittsburgh newspaperfrom last summer. The family was at an amusement park for some kind of groundbreaking, it looks like.”
    “The Blue Streak!” I cried. “That’s where she said she was going.”
    Sam’s silence and Clarence’s blank look told me that they had no idea what the Blue Streak was, hard as that was for me to believe.
    “The Blue Streak is a roller coaster,” I explained. “But not just any roller coaster—it’s the fastest one ever, and it opens tomorrow! Ellie told me that she was on her way to Conneaut Lake Park. Her father is a friend of the man who designed it. She gets to be one of the first people to ride it.”
    “Our kidnapper has been planning this for a long time,”
said Sam.
“He knew she’d be on this train, and he knew exactly where she was going.”
    “Why would he just leave all this here?” Clarence wondered aloud. “First the tile samples, which he must have known would lead us right here. The handkerchief. This article. Never heard of a kidnapper—or any kind of crook, for that matter—being so sloppy, leaving so many clues behind.”
    “He doesn’t care if we find it. In fact, he
wanted
us to find it, all of it,”
said Sam.
“But something still doesn’t add up. I never heard of a kidnapping without a—”
    “Ransom note?” I said, kneeling down to unstick an envelope that had gotten jammed beneath the compartment door. Printed in primary school lettering across the front was the name Doris Strasbourg. “Betcha this is it. It must have gotten caught when we opened the door.”
    “Let’s see it,”
said Sam.
“Open it very carefully.”
    My hands were shaking as I followed Sam’s directions and removed a single sheet of paper that had been folded in half. Large, all-capital letters spelled out the kidnapper’s demands:
    IF YOU WANT ELLIE BACK ALIVE, PUT THE BLUE STREAK IN A MAILBAG AND MAKE THE DROP AT THE DUNKIRK STATION. WHEN MY ASSOCIATES CONFIRM PICKUP, ELLIE WILL BE RETURNED SAFELY TO CONNEAUT LAKE PARK AT NOON TOMORROW. THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS .
    “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “How can you put the Blue Streak into a mailbag?”
    “There’s a
lot
about this case that doesn’t make sense,”
remarked Sam.
    “We need to get this to Mrs. Strasbourg right away,” said Clarence, motioning to Sam and me to exit the compartment. “I guess it’s up to me to tell her that her daughter’s been kidnapped, and she has a little over five hours to pay a ransom I don’t understand. I’m not looking forward tothat, not one bit. Poor woman. She’s going to be hysterical, and I can’t blame her. Ever since that Lindbergh case, folks are …” He closed the door, making certain that it was locked, and then shook his head. “That poor kid. She must be terrified. Henry, would you mind carrying Sam? Thank you. I want him to hear everything, but some passengers are afraid of cats, and if they see one wandering around, there’s no telling what they’ll do. He’s caused a panic on more than one occasion.”
    “Are people really afraid of cats?” I asked.
    “There’s a lot of old wives’ tales out there,” said Clarence. “My own granny, rest her soul,