“I’m so full, I can hardly walk up these stairs,” Benny said as the children climbed up to Miss Chase’s apartment. “And guess what? I’m not even hungry! That jumble dish we had for dinner sure filled me up.”
“You mean the jambalaya,” Violet said.
Jessie stepped into the apartment first. “It’s so dark in here. Miss Chase was nice to leave the door unlocked, but I sure wish she had left a light on. I can’t see a thing. She must have gone to bed early.”
Henry felt around in the dark for a light switch and flicked it on. “Hey, what’s that?” He pointed to a crumpled note lying near the front door and smoothed it out. He read it aloud:
“Dear Aldens,
I hope you’ve had a wonderful day and evening out in New Orleans. I went out to dinner, too. I have locked the door. I’ll be back around ten o’clock. I have my key, so be sure to lock up when you get home.
’Night all,
Olivia Chase.”
Henry lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’d better go back out.”
“Come along, Violet. You, too, Benny,” Jessie whispered.
Thinking about the cozy cot on the sleeping porch, Benny wasn’t too happy about turning back. “Why can’t we go in?”
“You shouldn’t go into a house if the door is unlocked when it shouldn’t be. There might be a burglar inside. Miss Chase said she locked the door,” Jessie said. She took Benny by the hand and led him back downstairs and into the courtyard.
“Let’s go out to the street and find a phone booth. It can’t hurt to call the police to make sure no one is prowling nearby,” Henry said. “There’s something strange about Miss Chase’s apartment being unlocked. Just yesterday, the courtyard was unlocked when it wasn’t supposed to be.”
Henry unlocked the courtyard gate, and the children stepped onto the sidewalk. Then Benny saw someone step from the shadows of the bookstore doorway.
“Look!” Benny pointed to a figure who darted down the street. “I think that person just came out of the bookstore.”
The children ran to the shop doorway. Jessie pulled and pushed the door, but it wouldn’t budge. When everyone looked down the street again, the shadow had vanished.
“Benny, are you sure you saw someone come out of the shop?” Jessie asked.
Benny scrunched his forehead. “It was so dark, I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even tell if it was a she or a he.”
The children heard footsteps on the sidewalk. They belonged to Miss Chase. “Are you just coming home, too?” she said, surprised to see the Aldens. “You must be tired out. Let’s get you off to bed after your long day.”
“But . . . but,” Violet began, “we think there was a prowler in the bookshop or in your apartment. The back door was unlocked, and your note was bunched up on the floor.”
“And know what else?” Benny broke in. “A person jumped out of this doorway but then disappeared. Henry was just about to call the police.”
Even in the dim street light, the children could see that Miss Chase looked worried. She checked up and down the street and inside the bookshop windows. “You children did just the right thing. Calling the police is a good idea. I’ll make the call.”
Less than five minutes later, a cruiser arrived in front of the bookshop. Two police officers got out carrying flashlights.
“We got your call, Miss Chase,” one of them said. “First, let’s check out the shop.”
With that, the police examined the bookshop door lock. “Well, it doesn’t look forced or anything. Can you unlock it, Miss Chase?”
“Do you see anything missing or disturbed?” one of the police officers asked Miss Chase when they got inside the shop.
“Not that I can tell. You see, we’ve been unpacking books and cleaning and throwing things out,” she explained. “Everybody’s been so busy, if someone touched or took anything, it would be hard to tell.”
The police led everyone out to the courtyard and flashed their lights up and down the brick walls and book tables. “How about out here? Is everything in order?”
Miss Chase sighed. “Again, it’s impossible to say, Officer. Everything looks fine. The children said they found my apartment unlocked. I’m sure I locked it, before I left.”
Everyone trooped upstairs to check the apartment. Henry handed the police officer Miss Chase’s crumpled note. “Maybe somebody saw this on the door and somehow got into the apartment when they figured out no one was here.”
“We saw a person run from the bookshop doorway when we went out to the front sidewalk,” Jessie added. “Maybe the person went up to the apartment, down the stairs into the bookshop, then out the front door to the street.”
“Man or woman?” the police officer asked.
“It was too dark to tell,” Henry explained. “And the person was halfway down the block by the time we put two and two together. Sorry.”
The two officers turned on the lights and led everyone through the apartment. “Just walk through and tell me if you see anything out of place since you left,” one of the officersadvised.
Miss Chase and the Aldens checked each room. Nothing seemed disturbed in any way. The drawers were all shut. Miss Chase’s jewelry box and silverware were neatly in their places. Even Benny’s stuffed animal, Stockings, was propped up on the cot on the sleeping porch, exactly where Benny had placed him that morning.
“We’ll cruise around the block a few times during the night,” one of the officers told Miss Chase, “just in case.”
“Good night. Thank you for coming,” Miss Chase said.
“No problem,” one of the police officers said. “Often kids see things that turn out to be nothing. And everybody forgets to lock their doors once in a while. Why, if I had a dollar for every time somebody called up. . . .”
“Good night, Officer,” Miss Chase said, this time a little more firmly.
“The police didn’t believe us,” Benny said after they had gone. “Just because we’re kids.”
Miss Chase patted Benny’s hand. “Well, I believe you, Benny. I can see the police have made up their minds that I left my apartment unlocked. We’ll just have to be extra careful about keeping our eyes and ears open to see if there really is someone snooping around here. We’ll be very busy with the book sale and all, but that would be a good time to be on the lookout.”
“I learned lots of detective tricks from your books,” Jessie said. “We can try them out first thing tomorrow morning.”
“How about tonight?” Benny said, suddenly as wide-awake as could be.
“Aren’t you tired?” Miss Chase asked, smiling at Benny’s liveliness.
“Me, tired?” Benny said. “I’m never tired when there’s a mystery to solve. I want to find out if somebody’s following us around.”
“Well, I’m ready for bed,” Miss Chase said. “Good night.”
“Where do we start?” Violet asked Henry and Jessie after Miss Chase left.
“Let’s check the bookshop again, then the apartment,” Henry suggested. “Where are you going, Benny? The stairs to the bookshop are down the hall.”
“You’ll see,” Benny said with a big smile. “Wait for me, okay?”
When Benny came back, he was carrying a small white-and-pink can of baby powder.
“Where did you get that?” Violet asked.
“From the bathroom. It’s for dusting for fingerprints. When Jessie reads me Miss Chase’s books, the detective always uses powder to look for fingerprints where the bad guy was.”
Henry smiled at Benny. “That works okay in books, but the bookshop will be covered with so many fingerprints from all the customers, we’d have to stay in New Orleans our whole lives before we could check out each print.”
“Oh, well,” Benny said. “I’ll go put it back in the bathroom.”
“Wait,” Violet said. Then she bent down and whispered something in Benny’s ear.
“Goody!” Benny cried, leading the way downstairs.
When Jessie unlocked the inside door of the bookshop, Benny raced over to the front door. He sprinkled powder on the floor. When he was done with that, he sprinkled more powder on the windowsills.
Jessie smiled at Benny. “I bet Violet told you about how Miss Chase’s detective used to put down powder to see if anyone returned to the scene of a crime in The Streetcar Mystery. Good work, Benny!”
The children checked the bookshop carefully for any signs of a prowler.
“I can’t remember what was over here and what was over there since this morning,” Jessie said, after about half an hour of checking the room inch by inch. “We moved everything around so much.”
Henry put down one of the books he’d been examining from a box of books in the corner. He yawned. “We ought to call it a night,” Henry said, “and start looking again in the morning.”
“There’s one more thing we can do,” Jessie said, handing Benny and Violet some sheets of paper from a notepad. “Tear these in tiny pieces and hide them in different places — inside some of the books that are left and in those boxes of odds and ends.”
“I know!” Benny cried. “Those little pieces will fall out if someone picks up stuff with the paper scraps inside. Then we’ll know for sure if somebody touched anything. Neat!”
The Aldens went around hiding the small paper scraps in as many places as they could.
As soon as they were done, they went upstairs to get ready for bed.
Jessie went over to tuck Benny under his covers. “Would you like me to read you one of Violet’s fairy tales?”
Benny’s answer was a big yawn and lots of eye rubbing. He hugged Stockings, then flopped back on his cot. “No stories tonight. I’m too tired.” |