The Boxcar Children Mysteries: Books One through Twelve (103 page)

The room was faintly lighted by a square flashlight on one of the desks in the back of the room. At first Benny could not tell what Freddy Willet was doing. Then he saw. The man was taking the wood out of the woodbox!

“His hiding place!” whispered Mr. Carter. “Now let me look.”

When all the wood was out of the woodbox, Mr. Willet turned the box upside down very carefully and poured coin after coin on the back desk. He swept them quickly into a strong bag.

“The books?” whispered Benny.

Mr. Carter shook his head. Then he was really surprised. Mr. Willet went to the bookcase that held the school books and took them all out. He took out a board in the back of the bookcase. Then he began to take out the old books from the library.

Mr. Carter stepped aside to let Benny look through the hole. Book after book came out of the space behind the shelf. Then came the doll, the buttons, the gold pins, the iron bank—everything.

Benny was thinking hard. “Mr. Willet must have been in the schoolhouse many times before. It took a long time to fix that hole behind the school books. That’s what he was doing when we couldn’t find him. My, what a lot of books! What will he do with them?”

He soon found out. Freddy took six books and began to tie them up with string. He set them on another desk. Soon he had sixty books. Then he put the board back, and fixed the school books just as they had been.

Mr. Carter took Benny’s place at the peephole. He was not a minute too soon, for Freddy took some books in one hand and was reaching to put out the flashlight when he heard Mr. Carter’s voice.

“Hold it, Willet! Don’t move! The front door is locked now!”

Mr. Carter and Benny dashed down the back hall and into the schoolroom. Mr. Willet did the only thing he could do. He put out his light.

But this did him no good, for when his light went out, Mr. Carter’s went on.

“What’s the matter with you?” shouted Freddy. “I haven’t done anything!”

“Oh, yes, you have!” said John Carter. “Just put those books down. What about all the little things you traded? What about the coins?”

“They were fair trades!” shouted Freddy. “Everyone was satisfied. They were glad to trade.”

“That’s because they did not know the things were antiques,” said Mr. Carter. “And what about these books? A trade?”

“I borrowed those books. You just sign your name and take what you want. And I signed mine!”

“Which name did you sign, Freddy?” asked Mr. Carter softly.

Then Freddy knew he was in trouble. He had three or four names, and John Carter knew every one of them. Mr. Carter went on. “The Canadian police want you, Freddy. They will be very glad to see you. You have been smuggling for years. You made a great mistake to try it again. No, leave all the things right where they are!”

Mr. Willet made one last try. “You aren’t a policeman. You can’t arrest me.” He was very angry.

“You’re wrong,” said John Carter. “I was made a special policeman a week ago in Northport. But you’ll be glad to know that the chief of police from Northport is sitting in your red car out in the bushes.”

That stopped Freddy for a minute. Then he said, “Now, listen! I’ve paid these people a lot of money for old coins.”

“Not enough,” said John Carter. “You were going to sell the coins to the Adams College Museum. We can do that for you, and thanks very much for picking out the best ones!”

“You’ll have to pay me back what I paid,” said Freddy.

“We will, in time,” said Mr. Carter. “Nobody is going to cheat you, Freddy. But money won’t do you much good in prison. Ah, hello, Anderson! Benny and I are glad to see you.”

A tall policeman from Northport had come in the back door.

Freddy growled, “The Alden kids did this!”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Carter, “the Alden kids did this. They did their duty as American citizens. They just did what was right.”

Mr. Anderson said to Benny, “We all thank you, and so will Canada. We have tried for years to catch Mr. North.”

“Mr. North!”

“Yes, and Mr. Frederic and Mr. Benson. They are all Freddy Willet. We will go in his own car.”

Freddy Willet was smart. He knew when he was caught. He went with the policeman without another word. It was low tide, just as Freddy had planned, and the road to Canada was straight before the two men.

Standing outside the hotel, Grandfather, Henry, Jessie, and Violet saw the car disappear over the stones and gravel to the mainland.

W
hat excitement there was in Port Elizabeth when the people heard about Freddy! It was hard for them to believe that the Money Man had cheated them. But when Mr. Carter told them that just one of the old valentines was worth many dollars, they changed their minds.

“Oh, it seems wonderful to talk out loud again,” said Benny. “I don’t like to have people hiding and listening and whispering. Now I can yell if I want to.”

“It’s good to talk to you again, Mr. Carter,” said Henry, “and no Mr. Wilder-Smith.”

“What did you find out at Adams College, John?” asked Grandfather.

“They want to buy many of the coins,” said Mr. Carter. “And I found two collectors who want the rest. I am going to call on every family and pay them the right price for their coins.”

“What a job!” said Henry.

“All in a day’s work,” Mr. Carter said with a smile.

“What about the little things?” asked Jessie.

“I will give them all back,” said Mr. Carter. “An honest antique dealer will come up here a little later. The people can sell them or keep them, whatever they wish.”

“Mr. Willet did give Marie a red necklace,” said Benny slowly.

Mr. Carter smiled. “That necklace cost him twenty-five cents,” he said. “I guess you don’t need to worry about that.”

Violet said suddenly, “Maybe Miss Gray would like to sell her old books to an honest man. Nobody here reads them.”

“Right, Violet,” said Mr. Carter. “That’s exactly what she told me. But she said a lot more. She thought she was foolish to think anybody would read them. She plans to buy a whole library of colored picture books, stories, and other new books. The books will be for both children and grown-ups.”

“Good,” said Jessie. “She has changed, and now she’s really wonderful.”

The Aldens had planned to have a picnic for the school children on the last day. But no—the children wanted to go to school!

“What children!” said Violet. “I never saw any children like them anywhere.”

As the children were singing a last song, someone came in the back door. The children could hardly believe their eyes. They clapped without knowing it. They had seen Miss Gray only from a distance, but they knew who she was.

Henry said, “Miss Gray is going to be your teacher until a new one comes. And she will choose somebody to ring the bell.”

“We won’t say goodbye,” said Benny. “We hate to say goodbye. We never do, we just go.”

It was hard, but everyone did just go. Mr. Alden sat outside in the station wagon. Miss Gray’s gardener took her home. The Aldens piled into the station wagon, and the school children waved and waved. Then the car rattled over the rocks and stones, and the Aldens were soon on their way home.

When they reached home, Benny called up his friend Max.

“Hello, Max! It’s me!”

“Oh, hi, Ben! How about adventures? Did you catch a thief or find hidden treasure?”

“Both!” said Benny. “Come over on your bike and we’ll tell you all about the thief and the money hidden in old socks.”

“Don’t try to fool me, Ben,” said Max. “You couldn’t find all that on such a dull island.”

“Well, we did,” said Benny. “It was so exciting that we could hardly pay attention to our schoolteaching.”

“Schoolteaching! Are you crazy?”

“No,” said Benny. “We did more than that. We met a famous author and we discovered two artists.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Max. But he always believed Benny Alden.

It was not long before Max leaned his bike against the front steps. The Aldens took turns telling him about the schoolhouse mystery.

“It’s too much,” said Max at last. “I’ve been up there two summers. And not a thing happened except that we ate our meals and went fishing. Not a thing! But, Mr. Alden, I thought you were going to take the family somewhere else this summer?”

“Well, so I am, Max,” said Grandfather. He winked.

“Not much time left, sir.”

“There’s enough. There’s all of August and part of September,” said Mr. Alden.

“Almost time to go to the moon,” said Benny.

G
ERTRUDE
C
HANDLER
W
ARNER
discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book,
The Boxcar Children,
quickly proved she had succeeded.

Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car—the situation the Alden children find themselves in.

When Miss Warner received requests for more adventures involving Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden, she began additional stories. In each, she chose a special setting and introduced unusual or eccentric characters who liked the unpredictable.

While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner’s books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens’ independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible—something else that delights young readers.

Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her book. And so she continued the Aldens’ adventures, writing a total of nineteen books in the Boxcar Children series.

The Boxcar Children Mysteries

T
HE
B
OXCAR
C
HILDREN

S
URPRISE
I
SLAND

T
HE
Y
ELLOW
H
OUSE
M
YSTERY

M
YSTERY
R
ANCH

M
IKE’S
M
YSTERY

B
LUE
B
AY
M
YSTERY

T
HE
W
OODSHED
M
YSTERY

T
HE
L
IGHTHOUSE
M
YSTERY

M
OUNTAIN
T
OP
M
YSTERY

S
CHOOLHOUSE
M
YSTERY

C
ABOOSE
M
YSTERY

H
OUSEBOAT
M
YSTERY

S
NOWBOUND
M
YSTERY

T
REE
H
OUSE
M
YSTERY

B
ICYCLE
M
YSTERY

M
YSTERY IN THE
S
AND

M
YSTERY
B
EHIND THE
W
ALL

B
US
S
TATION
M
YSTERY

B
ENNY
U
NCOVERS A
M
YSTERY

T
HE
H
AUNTED
C
ABIN
M
YSTERY

T
HE
D
ESERTED
L
IBRARY
M
YSTERY

T
HE
A
NIMAL
S
HELTER
M
YSTERY

T
HE
O
LD
M
OTEL
M
YSTERY

T
HE
M
YSTERY OF THE
H
IDDEN
P
AINTING

T
HE
A
MUSEMENT
P
ARK
M
YSTERY

T
HE
M
YSTERY OF THE
M
IXED
-U
P
Z
OO

T
HE
C
AMP
-O
UT
M
YSTERY

T
HE
M
YSTERY
G
IRL

T
HE
M
YSTERY
C
RUISE

T
HE
D
ISAPPEARING
F
RIEND
M
YSTERY

T
HE
M
YSTERY OF THE
S
INGING
G
HOST