Educational Galaxy

Chapter 7: The Case of the Fifth Word — EG's own notes, in simple words

Book: Poorvi (CBSE, Class 8)  |  Chapter 7  |  Unit 3: Mystery and Magic  |  Medium: English

Diagram (labels are printed on the image): Diagram (labels are printed on the image): A detective desk with a magnifying glass, notebook, and word cards. A general picture about solving a puzzle; it is not a scene from the book.

A curious child solving a word puzzle at a table with books. A general picture about word puzzles, not a book scene.

What the lesson is about

This story, adapted from Donald J. Sobol, introduces Encyclopedia Brown — real name Leroy Brown — a young boy in Idaville, USA, whose father is the Chief of Police. Encyclopedia reads more books than anyone in town and never forgets a fact, so his friends say he is like a library and a computer rolled into one. When his father meets a case he cannot solve, he clears his desk, puts on his hat and goes home to dinner — and Encyclopedia solves the case before dinner is over.

The case begins at the dinner table. Tim Nolan has died. Five years earlier, two masked men held up the Diamond Mart on Sixth Avenue and got away with a million dollars' worth of jewellery. Nolan was questioned but never arrested, and Chief Brown always believed Nolan and his friend Daniel Davenport, whom Nolan met in prison in South Carolina, had pulled the hold-ups. There was no proof, and the jewellery was never found.

The trail is a dying message. Nolan had hidden the jewellery, then changed its hiding place. Unable to reach Davenport by telephone, he wrote four words as a code to tell Davenport where it was. The four words were written on a sheet from a desk calendar, and they were the key: each word stood for a day of the week, with the letters d-a-y dropped. So Nom stands for Monday, Utes for Tuesday, Sweden for Wednesday and Hurts for Thursday.

Encyclopedia's leap is to ask for the fifth word. If four words name four days, the unwritten fifth word must be Fir — Friday. The jewellery is found inside a twenty-gallon jug of earth from which a young fir tree grows in Nolan's palm-tree nursery, exactly as Encyclopedia foresaw. The story's lesson is observation plus logic: facts are checked, opinions are weighed, and a pattern, once seen, solves what force could not.

Chart / Table: Cracking the code

Item	Detail
Nom	Monday, with d-a-y dropped.
Utes	Tuesday, with d-a-y dropped.
Sweden	Wednesday, with d-a-y dropped.
Hurts	Thursday, with d-a-y dropped.
Fir (unwritten)	Friday — the young fir tree in Nolan's nursery.

Language focus — Let us learn

• Phrasal verbs: match phrasal verbs from the story to their meanings — put on means to wear; cooled down means became normal or calmed; turned up means appeared or been discovered; make of means to have an idea or understanding of something; figure out means to solve a problem; got away with means escaped without being punished. Then fill blanks with them, for example: important evidence has turned up.
• Homophones: words that sound the same but are spelt differently and mean different things — week/weak, peace/piece, dying/dyeing, break/brake, fore/four. Practise choosing the right one, for example after running fifty kilometres last week, I felt weak for two days.
• Fact or opinion: sort statements from the story — for example, that Encyclopedia's father was Chief of Police is a fact, while that he must be the smartest chief in the country is an opinion.

Listen, Speak, Write, Explore

• Listen: a podcast about improving observation skills; mark statements true or false as you listen, noting what each speaker actually claims.
• Speak: read words from the text aloud with the pronunciation guide in brackets, taking care with sounds that are easy to misread.
• Write: a report of an event that has already occurred, giving first-hand details in order — who, what, where, when and what happened next.
• Explore: observation games — read words, observe images, and check whether your answers match. Practise looking before concluding, as Encyclopedia does.

Practice set — try it yourself

1. Why does Chief Brown go home to dinner when he cannot solve a case?
   Hint: Think about who is waiting at the dinner table, and what the chief never tells the town.
2. Why was Nolan never arrested for the Diamond Mart robbery?
   Hint: Think about proof: what did the police believe, and what could they show?
3. How does a desk calendar become the key to the code?
   Hint: Think about what the four words have in common once d-a-y is dropped.
4. Why is the fifth word more important than the four written words?
   Hint: Think about what is missing: the unwritten word points to the place.
5. What is the difference between a fact and an opinion in this story?
   Hint: Think about proof: which statements could be checked, and which are judgements?

Questions with Answers

1. Who is Encyclopedia Brown, and why is he called that?
   Leroy Brown, a schoolboy in Idaville whose father is Chief of Police. He reads more books than anyone in town and never forgets a fact, so he is like an encyclopedia — a set of books filled with facts from A to Z.
2. What was the Diamond Mart case?
   Five years earlier, two masked men held up the Diamond Mart on Sixth Avenue and escaped with a million dollars' worth of jewellery. Nolan was questioned but not arrested, and the jewellery was never found.
3. How did Nolan try to tell Davenport where the jewellery was hidden?
   He wrote four words as a code on a sheet from a desk calendar, after failing to reach Davenport by telephone, having first hidden the jewellery and then changed its hiding place.
4. How does Encyclopedia crack the code?
   He sees that the four words stand for days of the week with d-a-y dropped: Nom for Monday, Utes for Tuesday, Sweden for Wednesday, Hurts for Thursday. The unwritten fifth word must therefore be Fir, for Friday.
5. Where was the jewellery found?
   Inside a twenty-gallon jug of earth from which a young fir tree grew in Nolan's palm-tree nursery — exactly where the fifth word pointed.

Extension questions — go further

1. Order the events: (a) the Diamond Mart hold-up (b) Nolan dies (c) Encyclopedia finds the fifth word (d) the jewellery is found in the fir jug.
   (a), (b), (c), (d).
2. True or false: Nolan was arrested for the robbery.
   False. He was questioned, not arrested.
3. Which word stands for Wednesday in the code?
   Sweden.
4. Which word stands for Tuesday?
   Utes.
5. Match: turned up — (a) disappeared (b) appeared, been discovered.
   (b).
6. Match: got away with — (a) escaped without being punished (b) arrived late.
   (a).
7. Choose the correct homophone: After running last _____, I felt _____. (week/weak)
   Week, then weak.
8. Is this a fact or an opinion: 'Everyone thought Chief Brown must be the smartest police chief in the country'?
   Opinion — it is what people thought, and it cannot be proved true or false.
9. Why did Nolan's message have to be a code at all?
   Because a plain message naming the hiding place could be read by anyone, including the police; a code speaks only to Davenport, who holds the key.
10. Write a four-word code of your own on the same pattern, for four days of the week, and give its key.
    Open answer — checked for a consistent rule, like Nolan's, and a key that explains it.

• Read the summary and say the Key Terms in your own words.
• Try the practice set without looking.
• Check yourself with the Questions with Answers.
• Attempt the extension questions for full NCERT coverage.
• Ask your teacher or parent to check your answers.

How to use this page: Read the summary, say the Key Terms in your own words, then try the practice set without looking. Use the Questions with Answers to check yourself afterwards. Ask your teacher or parent to check your answers.