Mystery Bookstore (6 page)

“Yes,” Jessie said. “Kleenex, a small Thermos, my camera, my wallet, and Violet’s
Little Mermaid
book. She’d brought it along to read. . . .”

Suddenly Violet said, “I’m going to put
The Little Mermaid
back with the other books.” Violet ran up to the sleeping porch.

She was back in a couple of minutes. “The rest of the fairy tales are missing!” Violet cried out.

“When was the last time you saw them?” Miss Chase asked the children.

“I don’t remember,” Jessie said.

“I’m not sure either,” Violet added. “I gave Jessie
The Little Mermaid
to bring along whenwe went out yesterday. I put the rest of the set by my bed. But I can’t remember when I last saw them on the night table.”

“You mean they disappeared last night?” Henry asked.

Benny crinkled his forehead. “Or maybe while we were having breakfast this morning.”

Jessie thought of something else. She leaned over the balcony. “Mr. Bindry, Mr. Bindry,” she called down.

“Why are you calling Mr. Bindry?” Benny asked.

“He was here just a few minutes ago,” Jessie answered. “Maybe he saw someone come up the stairs to the sleeping porch.”

“Or maybe,” Henry said in a low voice, “Mr. Bindry was the someone who came up to the sleeping porch.”

“Guess what?” Benny asked. “Now we have a suspect.”

S
uspect or not, Mr. Bindry was still his grumpy old self when he reappeared an hour later.

“Can we help you carry those heavy books?” Henry asked.

“Hrmph,” was Mr. Bindry’s answer. “These are my price guides, and I can carry them myself.”

“Did you have to go back home to get your guides after I saw you before?” Jessie asked.

“What business is that of yours, young lady?” Mr. Bindry said sharply. “Now let me get on with my job.”

Mr. Bindry went off to the far end of the courtyard as far as he could get from the Aldens.

“I’m going to follow Mr. Bindry so he doesn’t get away again,” Benny announced.

He headed into the bookshop and came out carrying a feather duster. Slowly he made his way across the courtyard, dusting the book tables high and low. Very soon he was where he wanted to be — right by Mr. Bindry.

“These books don’t need dusting,” Mr. Bindry told Benny.

Benny just kept right on with his feather dusting. He was going to track Mr. Bindry no matter what. If the man had Violet’s books, Benny was going to do his best to find them.

A few minutes later, Violet came over, too. When Mr. Bindry saw Violet, he buried his nose in a book.

“How do you decide what to charge for a book?” Violet said to break the silence.

“Because I know what I’m doing!” Mr. Bindry muttered without looking up from his price guide.

“I’ve made some of my own books,” Violet said shyly. “Would you like to see one of them?”

Mr. Bindry looked up over the top of his glasses. “If I take a look, will you and this boy let me work in peace? I trip over him every time I turn around.”

“Sorry,” Benny apologized, even though he hadn’t come quite
that
close.

Violet reached into her tote bag. She pulled out a pretty fabric-covered book. “I made this scrapbook. Would you like to see it?”

Mr. Bindry pushed up his glasses to get a better look.

“Hmm,” he said. He slowly turned the pages to see how she had mounted some of her photos and souvenirs. Mr. Bindry handed Violet back her book. “I’ve got to get to work, little girl. Now take your book away and your brother as well.”

“I made a book, too,” Benny announced. “It’s a flip book of a monkey climbing a banana tree.” He reached into Violet’s tote bag. “Want to see it?”

“The only books I have time for are Miss Chase’s,” Mr. Bindry barked at the children. “That’s the job she hired me to do.”

Benny and Violet looked at each other. It was time.

“How did you hear about this job?” Violet asked, a little nervous about what the answer might be.

Mr. Bindry ignored the question and didn’t look up from his guide.

“The job,” Violet repeated. “How did you hear about it?”

“There was an ad in the paper for anybody to see,” Mr. Bindry said gruffly. “Now would you two run along and leave me be? I can’t do what I was hired to do with kids running around touching everything.”

Violet took Benny by the hand. “Making friends with Mr. Bindry isn’t going to be easy,” she said after they left the old man. “But it’s the only way we’ll ever find out anything. Mr. Bindry didn’t lie exactly. He was right. The job was in the newspaper just as he said.”

“But he showed up
before
it was in the paper,” Benny said. “So it’s kind of a lie.”

“I know,” Violet said quietly. “We’ll just have to get to know Mr. Bindry better so we can find out why he isn’t telling the truth.”

“Did you have any luck with Mr. Bindry?” Jessie asked when Violet and Benny returned to the bookshop. “Miss Chase says she’ll try to talk to him later while they’re working together. She wants to know why he showed up for the job before it was in the paper.”

“We tried, but he didn’t say anything,” Violet said.

“We’ll just have to keep trying,” Jessie said. “Meantime, this bookshop is still a regular dust bowl. I’m just sweeping up. Benny, can you grab that dustpan and help me out?”

While Jessie swept, Benny held out the dustpan. But working didn’t keep him from talking a mile a minute. Today, nothing but Mr. Bindry and Violet’s missing books were on his mind. “First he got his book guides, Jessie. Then he tried to go far away from us, but I didn’t let him. I just kept dusting right near him the whole time. He wouldn’t look at my monkey book, though.”

Jessie smiled down at Benny. “Well, I
love
your monkey flip book. Did you and Violet get a chance to ask about the three missing fairy tales?”

“No way!” Benny said. “He didn’t want us around. Violet said we should try to make friends little by little, then ask about her books.”

“Not a bad idea, Benny,” Jessie said as she swept near the brick wall of the bookshop. “I can’t believe I have to sweep here again. These bricks keep crumbling all over no matter how much I dust and sweep.”

“Hey,” Benny said, taking a closer look at the wall. “Maybe there’s a mouse hole, and that’s why the pieces keep falling on the floor.” Benny felt some of the bricks to see if they jiggled. “Hey, here’s a loose one.”

“Watch it, Benny!” Jessie said. But it was too late. Several loose chunks of brick tumbled down after Benny pulled out one of the bricks.

Benny didn’t care one bit about the mess he was making. “I bet a mouse really does live in there,” he said. He stood on tiptoe and tried to see inside the empty space. “Can I stick my hand in?”

“Be careful,” Jessie warned.

Benny reached into the dark hole and felt around. “Somebody just stuffed paper and rags in here to keep out the cold.” He pulled out some bunched-up yellow newspapers and rags. Then he tossed the papers into a can Henry was getting ready to put at the curb for recycling.

The Aldens went back to work. Soon the bookshop was clean.

“A couple of coats of paint, some new books, and the Mystery Bookstore will be ready for business,” Henry said. “I’ll take this can out to the sidewalk for pickup.”

Just as Henry got to the front door of the shop, it opened.

“Is Miss Chase here?” Rex Phillips asked Henry. “I need to talk to her right away.”

“She had to meet with somebody about ordering books for her bookstore,” Jessie answered. “Can we help?”

“I doubt it.” Mr. Phillips shifted from one foot to the other. “Look, you kids tell her I’m going to offer her a good price for all those books out in the courtyard. She can cancel the sale tomorrow. Have her call me right away.”

“We’ll give her the message,” Henry said. “But I don’t think she’ll cancel the sale after all this work. Everybody’s looking forward to it.”

“Not everybody,” Mr. Phillips said under his breath. He reached for the door, but Benny was in the way.

“I need to get by,” Mr. Phillips said. But when he moved sideways, Benny moved sideways too. He kept right on sweeping invisible dirt into the dustpan as if he didn’t even see Mr. Phillips!

Benny had Mr. Phillips trapped between the counter and the door. Right away, Jessie figured out what to do. She took Violet’s scrapbook and spread out the children’s sightseeing pictures. “Would you like to take a look at our photos of New Orleans?”

Mr. Phillips’s face almost turned purple. “I’m a businessman. I haven’t got time to look at a bunch of children’s vacation pictures. Now would you move out of my way, little boy?”

“In a minute,” Benny said, not budging at all. “There are a lot of dustballs down here.”

“Dustballs!” Mr. Phillips yelled. “I haven’t got time for dustballs, either.”

“Did you know you were in our pictures?” Violet asked. “Look. Here you are behind me and Benny in the café, then down at the docks, and a few other places, too. That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Phillips said. “I was in Lafayette yesterday at a stamp show.” With that, Mr. Phillips practically jumped over Benny and stormed out.

“He didn’t like our pictures too much,” Henry said.

Jessie gathered up her photos. “Maybe he was at a stamp show yesterday, but he was also in Jackson Square and at the docks and lots of other places right here in New Orleans. I’m sure of that.”

“I have to go out to put this recycling can at the curb,” Henry said. “I’ll follow Mr. Phillips for a while the way we planned.”

The other Aldens went over to the bookshop window to watch Henry watch Mr. Phillips.

“Hey!” Benny cried. “Why is Henry reading one of those old newspapers instead of staying behind Mr. Phillips?”

“Let’s find out,” Jessie said.

Henry seemed to have forgotten all about Mr. Phillips. Instead he was reading an old, wrinkled newspaper that was practically falling apart.

“Why aren’t you shadowing Mr. Phillips?” Benny asked.

Henry handed Jessie the newspaper. “Never mind Mr. Phillips right now. Just take a look at this. It’s one of those old newspapers you pulled out from behind that brick wall, Benny. It caught my eye when I put down the can. Read what it says under this picture.”

The Aldens squinted at a faded picture of a smiling, middle-aged woman. She was holding open a little album of some kind with a small rectangular stamp in the middle. Jessie began to read:

“
Local resident, Mabel Post, holds up a rare Costa Rican stamp showing a reversed flag. Mrs. Post, owner of the Old Treasures Bookshop, found the album in a one-dollar box of children
’
s books she bought at a local yard sale. She would not discuss what she planned to do with the valuable stamp.
”

Benny was puzzled. “What does that mean? How come if a stamp is reversed it’s worth more than one that’s the right way?”

Henry, who knew a little about stamp collecting, had heard about the famous backwards flag stamp. “Because when the post office found the mistake, it stopped printing the wrong ones. I think they only printed a sheet of a hundred stamps of the backwards flag, so each stamp is worth a lot.”

“I wonder what happened to this one,” Violet said. “Miss Chase said Mrs. Post could hardly keep her shop going. Wouldn’t she have been rich if she had sold the stamp?”

T
hat afternoon, Benny looked for Miss Chase from the parlor window. Finally, very late in the day, she came around the corner. Benny flew downstairs, through the courtyard, and out to the street.

“Goodness, I didn’t know we were expecting Hurricane Benny,” Miss Chase said with a laugh. “What’s up? Watching the bookshop get painted can’t be that exciting!”

“This is what’s exciting!” Benny handed Miss Chase the old newspaper with Mabel Post’s picture.

“Phew, you’re going awfully fast for me, Benny,” Miss Chase said. “Let’s go upstairs so I can get my reading glasses. Then I can see what you have here.”

“It’s . . . it’s about Mrs. Post buying a stamp with a flag that’s the wrong way. And Henry said wrong-way stamps are worth lots more than right-way ones.”