Mystery of the Stolen Sword (3 page)

Benny did not want to leave the horses, but the others were eager to continue exploring the farm.

Seymour led the way to a long, low building. “This is a shed and junk room,” the farmer explained as he pulled open the wooden door and held it for the Aldens.

“Wow!” Henry exclaimed when his eyes had adjusted to the dim light.

Inside was a large wagon. It was old and rusted now, but Seymour told them it had been used as a horse-drawn buggy. The wagon was piled high with old trunks, bundles of yellowed newspapers, and wooden crates filled with glass jars and old rusty tools.

Half the shed held modern farm equipment: tractors, ladders, buckets, hoses, pitchforks, fertilizers, and pesticides. But it was the buggy that interested the Aldens the most.

“How old is it?” Henry wanted to know.

“What’s in all those trunks?” asked Benny.

“One question at a time,” Seymour advised, laughing. “That buggy dates back to Gideon’s time, I dare say. As for what’s in those trunks, I suggest that some rainy day you all have a look.”

“Oh, we’d love to do that,” Jessie answered for all of them.

“I’ve rummaged around in one or two of them,” Seymour continued. “As far as I can recall, I found some old clothes, some hats, and even some books. Just about all the Curtises are collectors. We never seem to throw anything away.”

“Is the secret passageway in this shed?” Benny wanted to know.

“Ah, young man, I was saving the best part for last,” Seymour said. “We need to go back up to the house to find the secret passageway.”

“Okay,” said Benny, racing outside.

Once in the house, Seymour led the Aldens downstairs to the basement — a long, low room with stone walls and a dirt floor.

The children looked all around the basement. The only door in any of the walls was one at the top of a short wooden staircase that obviously led to the outside.

“How can there be a secret door?” Henry asked. “It would have to be made out of this stone that’s in the walls, and that would be awfully heavy.”

Violet spotted a tall wooden cabinet that stood against one wall near a corner. “Is the door behind this cabinet?” she asked.

Seymour chuckled. “You’re pretty darn close!” he answered as he walked over to the cabinet and opened it. There was little inside it besides two flashlights and an old kerosene lamp on the top shelf.

Seymour moved the lamp aside, handed one flashlight to Henry, and switched on the other. Holding it in one hand, he took hold of one shelf, jiggled it slightly, then pushed on it.

To the Aldens’ amazement, all the shelves and the back of the cabinet swung backward like a door, revealing a narrow opening. A cold draft blew out at them.

“The secret passageway!” shouted Benny.

T
he Aldens peered inside the opening. The passageway looked so dark and spooky with cobwebs hanging overhead that Benny was suddenly afraid to step inside, even after Seymour handed him a flashlight.

“Come on, Benny. This is one of the things you came all this way to see,” Seymour said.

“I’ll go after Henry,” Benny said in a quavery voice.

Henry had to bend down to go through the opening. He shone his flashlight against the walls and gave a gasp.

“What’s the matter?” asked Benny, who was right behind his brother.

“It’s a...it’s just that I thought I saw a person in here,” Henry explained, sounding a little sheepish. “Now I see that it’s a suit of armor.” Henry shone his flashlight all around. He saw not just one but six steel suits of armor, complete with helmets, lining the walls of the narrow passageway.

“Neat,” Benny said as he came inside. The others crowded in behind him.

Besides the armor, there were lots of old weapons: knights’ swords, a battle-ax, a crossbow, and two big shields.

“Wow!” said Benny. “Did they really fight with all this stuff?”

“No, Benny,” said Seymour with a chuckle. “For one thing, not all of it is real equipment from the Middle Ages. This suit, for example, is stage armor. It was used in a play in Boston many years ago. It looks real, but it’s much lighter than the other suits.”

“Are these swords all real?” asked Henry.

“Yes, Henry, they are indeed. This one is from the fifteenth century,” the farmer said, shining his light on it. “And this curved one is from Turkey, and here is a naval cutlass from Colonial times here in America.” Seymour beamed the flashlight on a short, heavy, curved sword. Then Seymour looked around the passageway and said nothing more for a few moments.

“Is something the matter?” Jessie asked.

“It’s strange, but I can’t find Gideon’s officer’s saber from the Civil War. It was down here the last time I was.”

Jessie and Henry exchanged glances. “You don’t think it was stolen, do you?” Henry asked.

The farmer scratched his head. “I don’t know what to think. I’d find it hard to believe a burglar would know how to get inside this secret passageway. It’s too well hidden. It was built before the Civil War to help runaway slaves escape north. After the Civil War, my ancestor, Gideon, used this passageway to store his sword and armor collection. His collection has been down here ever since, pretty much just the way you see it, though my children and grandchildren have sometimes borrowed some of the armor to use as Halloween costumes.”

“Maybe someone borrowed that Civil War sword for a costume,” Jessie suggested hopefully.

Seymour sighed. “I hope so. I must ask Rose if she knows anything about it.”

Violet shone her flashlight on the dirt floor to look for clues. But there weren’t any, just lots of indistinguishable footprints.

By now the Aldens and Seymour were at the end of the passageway Seymour shone his light on the wooden trapdoor above them. “That door goes right into the barn,” he said. “When we go through it, we’ll be right next to Elvira’s stall.”

Jessie giggled. “Won’t she be surprised.”

Seymour fetched the ladder that was resting behind one of the suits of armor.

“Want to go out this way?” he asked.

“Sure, why not,” Jessie answered for all of them.

Henry was the first one up the ladder.

“Just push the door out,” Seymour advised Henry.

“It’s heavy,” Henry answered, panting.

“I know,” said Seymour. “It’s part of the floor. I never go out this way because I’m getting too old to fool with that heavy trapdoor.”

“I know what you mean,” Henry said, huffing. “Aha, finally it’s out!” Henry climbed out into the barn. Elvira came over to greet him.

“Your goat is here, Jessie,” Henry called into the passageway.

When they were all in the barn, Seymour lowered the trapdoor, then scattered straw to conceal it. Then the Aldens insisted on helping Seymour with the animals. They brought the horses in from the pasture and fed them oats. The cows got hay that Henry pitched into their stall.

The sun was low in the sky when the Aldens walked back to the house with Seymour. Flocks of geese flew overhead, forming a pattern that looked like the letter V.

As soon as they were in the house, Seymour and the Aldens lost no time asking Rose if she had seen Gideon’s sword.

“No, I haven’t,” Rose said, wiping her hands on her blue-and-white-checked apron. “I haven’t been in that passageway in months.”

“Neither have I.” Seymour was scratching his head. He sighed heavily. “You don’t know of anyone borrowing that sword for a Halloween costume, or some such getup?”

Rose frowned. “Well, no. I don’t remember telling anyone they could borrow a costume this year.”

The Aldens looked at one another. “Do you think someone might have borrowed that sword without telling you?” Jessie asked gently.

Seymour sighed and looked at his wife. “It’s possible,” he said, almost as if he were trying to convince himself. “I mean, we certainly don’t keep things under lock and key here. We’ve never had to.”

“That’s true,” Rose agreed. “We’ve never had to — until now.”

T
hat evening, after an early dinner, the four Alden children met in Jessie and Violet’s room.

“We just have to help Seymour and Rose solve this mystery,” Violet was saying as she leaned back against two of the lacy white pillows piled on the bed.

“All this is very upsetting for them,” Henry agreed, “especially since they think the burglar may be someone who works for them.”

“I hope it’s not,” Violet said.

“I hope not, too,” said Henry. “But a burglar who works here would be easier to catch.”

“True,” Jessie agreed. She pulled a notebook and pencil out of her blue duffel bag. “We should make a list of all the people who work on this farm and who know about the entrances to the passageway.”

“Well, there’s Jeff and Mike,” Violet said, “the ones we met at lunch.”

“The ones who’ve been working on the farm since they were in high school.” Jessie was busy scribbling in her notebook.

“Mike seemed awfully quiet once the robberies were mentioned,” Violet remarked.

“I don’t think Mike and Jeff are really suspects,” Henry said.

“What makes you so sure?” Jessie said, holding her pencil poised over her notebook.

“Seymour has known them too long, and nothing has ever been taken from the farm before,” Henry answered.

“That’s true.” Jessie tapped her pencil on her notepad.

“Well, that leaves Veronica and Martin, the two high school kids who just started working on the farm this year,” Violet said.

“The ones we haven’t seen yet,” Jessie said, looking up from her notebook.

“We should ask Seymour if we can meet them tomorrow,” Henry said.

“And we should also try to find Benny’s ghost. Right, Benny?” Jessie looked over at her brother, only to find that Benny had fallen sound asleep and was snoring gently.

“It’s been a long day,” Jessie whispered.

Henry nodded as he carefully picked up Benny to carry him off to bed.

The next morning the Aldens woke up just before sunrise. “It was the rooster,” Benny told Grandfather at breakfast. “It was the rooster that got me up so early.”

“That’s his job,” Grandfather said, laughing.

As soon as breakfast was over, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny hurried to the barn to help Seymour feed the animals.

They watched carefully as Seymour milked the cows. “I do it the old-fashioned way,” he said as he sat on a pail beside one of his cows and began pulling at her teats. Milk squirted into another pail under the cow.

“Many farmers use milking machines now,” Seymour explained. “But I don’t have enough cows for a machine. It’s easier for me to milk them this way.”

“I’d like to try to milk a cow before I leave,” Henry said.

“Oh, I trust you’ll have the chance,” said Seymour, chuckling. “But right now, if you like, you can brush down the horses.”

“Sure,” said Henry, grabbing a brush.

“Hey, that’s my job.” A tall, thin girl with shiny brown hair tied back in a ponytail strode into the barn. “I always brush the horses,” she said haughtily. “They’re used to me.” The girl wore blue jeans, a red-and-black-plaid wool jacket, riding boots, and a red bandanna around her neck. Her blue eyes flashed as she glared at Henry.