Mystery Behind the Wall (3 page)

That day, however, before Mrs. McGregor had put the meal on the table, the two boys met Mr. Alden’s car at the driveway. They ran up to the car and held out the piece of blue cloth.

“What is this, Grandfather?” asked Benny. “It won’t take you a second to answer.”

“Well, well,” said Grandfather. “What’s all the hurry? Give me time to get out of the car and put on my reading glasses.”

Rory said, “I suppose we want to know fast because we are so curious, Granda.”

Mr. Alden and the boys went into the house. Mr. Alden sat down and put on his glasses. He took the piece of cloth. Jessie, Henry, and Violet came over to look, too.

After turning the cloth over, Mr. Alden said, “I really don’t know for sure, boys, but I rather think this is a coin case. It is certainly old. Where in the world did you find it?”

“Rory found it,” answered Benny. “It was hidden in a space between the walls of his clothes closet and the closet in my room.”

Jessie said, “My guess is that Stephanie Shaw made it. The boys showed it to me. How old was she when she lived here, Grandfather?”

“She was about ten, I think.”

Jessie shook her head. “A girl of ten ought to know how to sew better than that—at least in the days when every little girl
had
to sew.”

“Not so fast, my dear,” returned Mr. Alden. “Wait until you hear the whole story.”

“Do you know the story of this cloth?” Henry asked, surprised.

“I will tell you all I know,” replied his grandfather, “if you can all sit still and listen.”

“Oh,” said Rory, “listening is the best thing I do.”

This made everyone laugh, even Rory, for he was always talking.

“I’ll begin with that picture in Rory’s room,” Grandfather said. “That is a picture of the family that you know lived in this very house. They all moved to France, as I told you, and we never heard from any of them. The little girl’s name was Stephanie Shaw. She was the most beautiful child I ever saw. And she was as good as she was beautiful.”

“Just like a fairy princess,” said Benny.

“Exactly!” said Grandfather, very much pleased. “She always made me think of a fairy princess. Her life was sad, though. Her father had special ideas about how she should grow up. He would not let her play with other children. He bought her everything she wanted, but she wanted some friends.”

“Poor little rich girl,” Jessie said.

“Yes, Jessie,” replied Grandfather, “that’s exactly how it was. Stephanie had beautiful clothes—but no friends her own age. Her mother had already gone to France to live when I met Stephanie. Perhaps Mr. Shaw was not sure how to treat a little girl.”

“So you really didn’t know her, did you?” asked Violet. She felt sure her grandfather might have done something for Stephanie if anyone could.

“No, I didn’t,” Mr. Alden said. “But I knew about her because of my friend Professor Nichols. He saw a lot of Mr. Shaw and Stephanie. In fact, Professor Nichols and the little girl had the same hobby.”

“What was it?” asked Rory, smiling. “Certainly not sewing!”

“No, not sewing,” said Grandfather. “Something much more exciting than that.”

“Please tell us,” Violet begged. “I almost feel as if I’ve known Stephanie.”

“The hobby was coin collecting,” Mr. Alden said. “Even today Professor Nichols is the person to ask if you have any questions about coins. In those days, he knew a lot about coins. His hobby then was nickels.”

Benny threw back his head and laughed. He said, “That’s funny! Professor Nichols liked nickels.”

“That’s really funny, Ben,” said Rory. “Nichols and nickels.”

Mr. Alden spoke again. “Mr. Shaw thought it was good for Stephanie to have a special interest like coins. He bought coins for her. It was Stephanie’s idea to get some blue material to make cases to hold her collection. She and Professor Nichols called it the Blue Collection.”

“But there are no coins here,” Rory said. “Just the case.”

“I wonder what happened,” Benny said. “Maybe Stephanie took the coins with her when she went to France.”

Grandfather shook his head. “Andrew Nichols didn’t think so. He thought she left the collection somewhere in the house. You see, Stephanie thought she would be coming back. But she didn’t.”

“Why didn’t the professor write to her and offer to send her the Blue Collection?” Henry asked.

“That’s easy to answer,” Mr. Alden said. “He didn’t know her address.”

Jessie laughed. “Well, that is a pretty good reason. Rory and Benny found only the empty coin case. Maybe the coins in the Blue Collection were stolen. Then again, maybe the boys didn’t search deep enough.”

Benny and Rory looked at each other. They were both thinking of the small hole in the closet wall.

“That hole isn’t very deep, Ben,” said Rory. “Perhaps the coins are still there! We were so excited to find
anything
that we stopped looking when we found the cloth case.”

The boys raced upstairs followed by all the Aldens, even Grandfather. Benny rushed into the closet while everyone stood still outside. They were wondering if Benny would find anything else hidden behind the wall.

CHAPTER
4

Is That All?

R
ory held his breath as Benny reached into the hole in the closet wall. Benny was so excited that he almost let the pliers fall into the hole.

“Paper!” he said. “Hear it rustle?”

“Don’t tear it, Benny,” said Rory. “It must be very old.”

“There’s a lot of it,” Benny said. By now he was able to touch the paper with his fingers. “It feels like a book without a cover.”

“Pull it out!” Rory said.

“Here, you try,” Benny replied. “It’s not as easy as you think.”

“I’ll try,” said Rory. “But it’s in your house and it belongs to you, whatever it is.”

Rory took the pliers and got a good grip on the papers. Out came a notebook without any cover. It was bent and wrinkled. The paper looked yellowed and old.

The two boys moved into the light. Benny held the papers out for Grandfather and the others to see. He said, “Homemade! Poor Stephanie! She had to make her own book.”

“But what kind of book is it?” asked Violet.

Three rusty pins held together four pieces of school paper folded twice.

“Don’t open it, Ben,” said Rory. “Let’s give it to Granda just as it is.”

Mr. Alden was very careful with the paper book. He sat down at a table in Rory’s room.

On the first page he read in big printing, MY JOURNAL BY STEPHANIE. Inside, the writing was something like an old lady’s and also like a small child’s.

“Please read what it says,” Jessie said.

“Yes,” Benny said. “Maybe there’s a clue about the Blue Collection.”

So Mr. Alden read what had been written so long ago. Rory and the others listened. They tried to imagine the little girl in her room, writing slowly about herself.

“I am ten years old and I think I should start a journal. I will never show it to anybody, so I can write what I choose.

“To begin with, I have dark brown curly hair and brown eyes. I look like my father, and I like the things he likes. My mother loves to go to parties in pretty clothes. I don’t go to parties.

“Once my father and mother and I started to church. A man with a camera came along and took our picture. My father wanted the picture. He bought it and I had it framed to surprise him.

“Now a journal has to know everything. I do not go to school, but my father has a teacher for me. I do not have any playmates, so my father helps me with a collection of coins. I made the case of blue cloth because I like blue. The sewing is not very good because nobody ever taught me how and I just picked it up, and besides I wasn’t ten when I began.

“My father gave me some money and I bought the blue cloth from Miss Rachel. She is a very young woman, but she has a little shop and sells all kinds of things like cloth and pins and needles. I can talk to Miss Rachel. She’s my friend.

“But I like to collect coins. I am always looking around for different coins. Sometimes Miss Rachel watches for a special penny I want, or a nickel or dime. My father gives me coins, too.

“I used to have five dolls. But now I am older, and I have given them away. Sometimes I wish I had them back, especially my baby doll with the long clothes and silk socks. I used to think she was real because she shut her eyes. I wish I hadn’t thought I was too old for dolls. But I suppose coins take the place of dolls as one grows older. Anyway, I still have my dollhouse for little dolls.

“I hope that when I grow up I shall write a wonderful book like
Heidi
and everybody will read it. I can do that and collect coins, too.

“My father said to me, Stephanie, you are a very smart little girl. Why don’t you think up some kind of hard puzzle that nobody can solve? Then hide it somewhere. So that is what I am going to do, a puzzle with hard clues and everything.

“I think I can make up a puzzle that nobody can solve, not even my father. I will make it easy at first and that will fool him.”

Mr. Alden stopped and looked around.

“Don’t stop,” Benny said. “Go on.”

“That’s all,” Mr. Alden said. “I have read it all to you. There is nothing more.”

Jessie said, “Well, it does sound like a little girl’s diary. I wrote some things like that once, too.”

“Oh, dear!” said Rory. “I thought we were going to learn some great secret about the house and my room.”

“So did I, Rory,” said Mr. Alden with a rather sad smile.

“What shall we do with the journal?” Benny asked. “It won’t do any good to put it back where it came from.”

Violet said, “Let me keep it. I’ll put it in a safe place.”

Grandfather handed Violet the papers held together with the rusty pins. Then he went downstairs.

Rory said, “I guess we can put the pliers away. We won’t need them.”

Benny nodded. “There isn’t any use in looking for the coins in the wall. I’m sure someone found them and stole them, just the way Jessie said.”

“But we can’t be certain the coins were stolen,” Rory said. “I don’t think they were. I think those coins are still hidden someplace. But what good is that if we can’t find them?”

Benny said, “Well, let’s think for a minute. How did Stephanie put the things in the wall in the first place?”

“She didn’t saw a hole the way we did,” Rory said.

“No, I’m sure she didn’t do that,” Benny said. “Let’s take another look.”

So Benny got his flashlight again and both boys began to look carefully at the back wall of Rory’s closet.

The wall was made of narrow boards fitted together. Small nails held the boards in place.

Suddenly Benny said, “Look, Rory!” and pointed to a place where a nail was missing. The empty nail hole was easy to see. And the nail at the other end of the board was very loose.

Rory ran his finger around the small nail. It wiggled a bit, just like a loose tooth. He tried to pull the nail out, but it was a little rusty.

“Here,” Benny said. “Use the pliers to hold the head of the nail. Maybe if you try that it will come out.”

And the nail did! After that it was easy to pull the narrow board away. There was the empty space that held the coin case and the sheets of the journal Stephanie had written. The hiding place was near enough to the hole the boys had made to let them reach into it.

Benny looked thoughtfully at the loose board. He said, “I guess Stephanie must have discovered this hiding place and decided to use it for a secret place of her own.”

“And somebody else found it and took out the coins,” said Benny. “Too bad.”

“I tell you what we can do,” said Rory. “Let’s look all around my room before we go to dinner.”

Benny began to smile. He said, “You are right, Rory. If a board was loose in the closet, maybe there’s some other hiding place.”

The boys got down on their hands and knees. They began to crawl along the floor, looking for a loose board.

“Can we roll up the rug?” Rory asked.

“Sure,” Benny said.

But there were no loose boards.

“We could see if anyone had nailed a loose board down,” Benny said thoughtfully. “I think the nail would be different. But how about under the bed, Rory?”

“It’s probably all dusty,” Rory said.

Benny laughed. “You don’t know Mrs. McGregor then! Come on, help me push the bed over. You’ll see.”

“It’s more fun to crawl under the bed,” Rory said. “Hold up the edge of the spread.”

“Here we go,” Benny said.

Pretty soon there were two pairs of boys’ shoes sticking out from under the bed.

“See anything?” Benny asked.

“Not even dust,” Rory said. “You’re right about Mrs. McGregor.”

“No dust, no sneezes,” Benny said. “And no hiding place for coins, either.”

The boys crawled back out from under the bed. They stood up and stretched.

“Where else shall we look?” Rory asked.

“I think the furniture is new,” Benny said. “At least I think Grandfather had it put in here.”

“But what about the picture?” Rory asked. “That is old.”

Benny said, “You’re right. Maybe there’s a secret place in the wall behind the picture.”

Rory went over and looked. Then he said, “Oh, Benny, you’re trying to fool me! You know there is nothing to find. We would have seen anything when we looked at the picture the other day.”