The Case of the Waltzing Mouse

The fifth book takes place on Lake Carmine, a local vacation resort with log cabins and fishing huts surrounded by miles of woods. The story starts at home in Crestwood, at the local Garden Club, where a Professor Gustave Von Maltbenden has put on a show with his travelling combination trailer-zoo. The sign on the side of the trailer reads "Gustave The Great's Amazing Aggregation of Artistic Animals in Talented Tricks & Turns of Terpsichore"—a colorful circus-like show featuring two trapeze monkeys named Bing and Bang, birds doing a song recital, a snake, a musical seal named Oscar, and finally the star of the show, Xenophon the Waltzing Mouse.

Brains takes the time to explain to Jimmy that "terpsichore" is not pronounced "terp-see-chore" but in fact "turp-sick-o-ree," the Greek name of the Muse of dancing and choral song. Just one example of Brains' ability to pluck useless information out if his encyclopedic cranium.

The Professor is German, and a bumbling eccentric type. He keeps a lot of cash in a secret compartment in the bottom his wicker fishing creel (where he also keeps the fish for the seal) and the entire case centers around this cash. After the show, Professor Gus heads off on vacation—to Lake Carmine, as it turns out, where Brains and Jimmy are also headed with Jimmy's parents and sister. Since Jimmy's sister Ann is old enough to drive and is going to the Summer Camp nearby, she takes Brains and Jimmy with her, ahead of the parents. But as they arrive at Lake Carmine, they spot Professor Gus's trailer-zoo abandoned on the side of the road, with the animals left alone. The Professor is found nearby, dazed and worried; it turns out he's been mugged by a couple of men, one of whom is Blackie, Professor Gus's ex-employee.

The Professor's heavily accented dialogue comes across very convincingly throughout the entire book. "Vell, young lady, like this it is. Mine engagement in Mitteberg, it doesn't start until next Thursday. So, I say to myself, vy don't a short vacation I take on this so beautiful lake? ... Ach, the vacation vill be so wonderful for Oscar. Such goot times he vill have swimming..." Unfortunately it transpires that Blackie knew of the Professor's little vacation, and of the money in the creel, and he and a villainous friend were intent on stealing it. But although this time they were frightened off by a passing car, there's no doubt in Brains' and Jimmy's minds that the nasty men will return.

And so, instead of relaxing with a spot of fishing, water-skiing and swimming, the boys post watch over the old Professor. Although the professor is staying at a cottage quite some way around the lake from their own, the boys have the use of a twelve-foot skiff that proves very useful. And Officer McKeon, a cop from Crestwood and friend of the boys, arrives to teach them a bit of skuba diving. He only stays a day and promises to return mid-week, but he leaves behind the skuba equipment.

A little later, the Professor chugs out onto the lake with Oscar, his seal, and is enjoying himself immensely until Blackie and his pal arrive in a speedboat. This time the Professor attempts to hide the fishing creel over the side of the boat, holding onto it with a dangling hand—but in the excitement he lets go and it sinks to the bottom. Meanwhile, Brains and Jimmy rush to the rescue in their skiff, and Blackie is frightened off once more.

Now the case turns into a treasure-hunting exercise as Jimmy, adept with the skuba equipment, dives time and time again for the fishing creel with the help of an invention that Brains goes all the way home for, an underwater metal detector. All this is carried out under the watchful eye of Blackie, who seems intent on letting the boys and the Professor recover the cash so he can steal it from them (see book cover)...

All exciting stuff, although oddly not very much to do with a waltzing mouse; the Professor keeps his faithful companion in his pocket most of the time, but the mouse—being just a mouse—doesn't really contribute to the story. Oscar the seal does, in some small way, so the novel might have been called The Case of the Musical Seal instead. Anyway, some very nice characterizations, and an exciting but realistic adventure with bad guys that have to change their plans as they go along. The ONLY problem I had with the story was why Brains and Jimmy didn't seek help from the parents, who were close by at all times—but, as Brains argued, they wouldn't very good detectives if they kept running to adults all the time. The author could have used some advice from Enid Blyton here; in order to get the parents out of the way, just have them receive a telegram informing of a terribly ill aunt back home...

Keith Robinson
September 24, 2006