Aunt Jane gave the children a smile as they walked into the kitchen. “How did you make out in town?” she asked.
“You’ll never guess what happened!” Benny shouted, running up and giving her a hug.
Laughing, Aunt Jane returned the hug. “What, Benny?”
“We found another fortune cookie!” he told her.
“I have to hand it to you,” said Aunt Jane, looking around at them. “You children really have a way of figuring things out.” She sounded proud.
“We haven’t opened it yet,” Henry said. “We were waiting until we got here.”
Aunt Jane poured some lemonade for everyone, and the children sat down at the table. Henry broke the latest fortune cookie in half and pulled out the fortune. He stared at the little slip of paper for a moment. Then he said, “Looks like a rebus.”
“A what?” asked Benny.
“A rebus,” repeated Henry. “It’s a puzzle with pictures and symbols.”
“There’s a hidden message in it,” added Aunt Jane as she pulled up a chair. “You have to ‘read’ the pictures to figure out what the rebus is trying to tell you.”
Henry passed the fortune to Violet. She studied the puzzle. “It looks like two ants, a cow, a bird, barbells, the number 4, and the letter U.” She turned the fortune over and read aloud the message on the back. “For an answer to a rhyme, Friday evening is the time.”
“Tomorrow’s Friday!” Benny realized.
“That’s true.” Violet took a sip of her lemonade. The ice cubes clinked in her glass. “That doesn’t give us much time to come up with an answer.”
“I don’t understand it,” Aunt Jane said, shaking her head. “Why would someone make up all these codes and clues for you?”
“Did you check out the i’s?” Henry asked. “They’re all dotted with little hearts again.”
Jessie frowned for a moment. “I wonder what it means.”
“What I don’t understand is, how can you read pictures?” Benny said, still unsure about the rebus.
“Maybe I can show you, Benny,” offered Violet. She stood up and got her sketch pad and pencils. Sitting down again, she quickly drew her own rebus. Violet was a good artist. “Can you figure this one out, Benny?” She held it up. “It’s a question.”
“It is?” Benny said.
Violet nodded. “When I point to each symbol, you tell me what it is.”
Benny moved closer for a better look at Violet’s drawing. It showed a tin can, the letter U, the letter C, and a wishing well. Benny spoke as Violet pointed. “Can ... U ... C ... well. Oh! Can you see well? That’s the question.”
“You got it!” said Violet, clapping her hands.
“You catch on fast, Benny,” Henry praised. “No wonder you’re such a good detective.”
“Now, let’s see if we can figure out the fortune cookie rebus,” suggested Jessie.
Benny was eager to give it a try. “Ants ... cow ... bird ... barbells ... 4 ... U,” he said as he looked over Jessie’s shoulder. “What does that mean?”
Aunt Jane couldn’t keep from laughing. “Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
“Well, I know one thing for sure,” Benny said with a sigh. “All this detective work is making me hungry!”
“Everything makes you hungry, Benny!” teased Henry.
Aunt Jane smiled at her youngest nephew. “If you can wait a while longer, I’ll get the barbecue going,” she said. “I thought we’d have hamburgers and salad for dinner. How does that sound?”
“Sounds great!” said Benny, finishing his last sip of lemonade.
“And we’ll help,” said Violet, speaking for them all. The Aldens hurried away to wash up.
During dinner, the children told their aunt everything that had happened in town. “Martin Howard seems to be up to something,” Jessie said as they sat around the picnic table on the back lawn. “We just don’t know what.”
“Auntie Two said the strangest thing,” put in Violet. She remembered Auntie Two’s exact words. “ ‘Soon Howard will be the only name on the door to The Underground.’ ”
Aunt Jane seemed shocked to hear this. “It’s hard for me to believe that Martin would hurt Dottie,” she said with a concerned look on her face. “They’ve always made such a great team.”
“Martin said she’s ruining everything. I guess that’s why he doesn’t want her to be part of the business anymore.” Benny wiped some mustard from the corner of his mouth.
“Well, we can’t be sure that’s what Martin meant, Benny.” Jessie helped herself to a spoonful of potato salad.
“It is a pretty strong case against Martin,” admitted Aunt Jane. “But I hope you’re not going to jump to any conclusions.”
“Don’t worry, Aunt Jane, we won’t,” Henry assured her. He knew their aunt was right. They might suspect Martin was up to no good, but they didn’t have any proof. “But we’re not going to rest until we solve this mystery,” he added.
Benny lifted sliced tomatoes onto his plate. “I just wish we could figure out how Drum Keller fits into the whole thing.”
“You mean, the famous mystery author?” Aunt Jane put down her fork. She looked startled. “The man who wrote the Fortune Cookie Mysteries?”
“Have you heard of him, Aunt Jane?” Violet asked.
“Drum Keller was one of my favorite authors. He wrote a whole series of books about a detective who keeps finding mysteries in fortune cookies. Oh!” Aunt Jane suddenly gasped. “What a strange coincidence.” Her eyes widened as she looked around at them. “You children found a mystery in a fortune cookie, too!”
“What else do you know about Drum Keller?” asked Henry.
Aunt Jane took a sip of her iced tea. “I remember how shocked I was when Drum Keller disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” the Aldens echoed in unison.
Nodding, Aunt Jane said, “It was almost as if he vanished into thin air.”
Henry was baffled. “But he couldn’t just ... vanish!”
“Apparently he did, Henry,” insisted Aunt Jane. “That was about fifteen years ago. And as far as I know, he stopped writing books and hasn’t been heard from since.”
“I can’t believe it!” said Violet.
Henry spoke up. “Remember that customer in The Underground? Didn’t he mention a mysterious disappearance?”
Benny looked over at his aunt as she dished up the fruit salad. “But ... exactly why did Drum Keller vanish, Aunt Jane?”
“Some people think his disappearance was all about money,” she told him. “But nobody knows for sure.”
“Now I’m really confused,” Benny said. “What did money have to do with it?”
“Well, it was rumored that Drum Keller wanted more money for his books. When the publishing company refused, he decided to quit writing and — ”
“Disappear,” finished Henry.
Aunt Jane nodded. “And when he did, he left behind a lot of disappointed readers. His mysteries were always very popular.”
Jessie shook her head slowly. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Nothing about this mystery makes sense,” said Henry.
Later that evening, the children sat out on Aunt Jane’s front porch. They discussed the case while they watched the stars come out. “I can’t stop thinking about Drum Keller,” said Violet. “Why would a famous author decide to just vanish?”
Jessie sighed. “We have so many questions. And so few answers. We still have no idea who’s behind this fortune cookie hunt.”
“Or the reason for it,” put in Benny.
“That’s true,” said Henry. “But there’s somebody else we might want to include on our list of suspects.”
“Who is it?” Violet and Benny asked at the same time.
“Drum Keller,” Henry said.
Jessie, Violet, and Benny were so surprised, all they could do was stare at their older brother.
Then Violet spoke up. “You think Drum Keller wrote those weird fortunes, Henry?”
“Could be.” Henry leaned forward in his chair. “Isn’t he the author of a whole series of fortune cookie mysteries? And didn’t we find the strange messages inside fortune cookies?”
Everyone agreed Henry had a point. It would be easy for a mystery writer to make up codes and clues.
All of a sudden, Jessie said, “Do you realize what this means? Drum Keller might be living right here in Elmford!”
“He would have changed his name, of course. He might even be someone we know,” Violet said in an awestruck voice. After a moment’s thought, she added, “But why do we keep getting the mysterious messages?”
“Because we’re detectives. We already decided that,” Benny reminded her.
Henry spoke slowly, as if uncertain about what he was saying. “I can’t help wondering if the messages in the fortune cookies were never meant for us at all.”
Jessie looked puzzled. So did Violet and Benny.
“Think about it for a minute,” Henry instructed. “Where was the first message hidden? Wasn’t it inside Dottie’s fortune cookie?” he said, answering his own question.
“It was a special cookie for the birthday girl,” recalled Benny. “But Dottie gave it to me.”
“And that’s not all,” Henry went on. “Dottie goes to the Elmford Ice Cream Parlor every week. And she always gets the mystery flavor.”
“That’s right!” Violet cried in surprise. Her mind was racing. “Benny and Dottie both ordered the mystery flavor at about the same time. Maybe the ice-cream cones got switched around.”
This got Jessie thinking. “Now that you mention it, even the cellar clue led us right to The Underground, where Dottie works.”
Violet said what they all were thinking. “So the messages were meant for Dottie, not for us.”
“We just keep getting them by mistake,” realized Benny. He thought for a moment, then he added, “That reminds me of what Martin said to Auntie Two. Remember him saying, ‘I don’t want any more mix-ups’?”
“That’s right,” said Jessie. “And he wasn’t very happy when Dottie gave away her special fortune cookie on her birthday.”
“He stopped smiling,” Benny remembered. “We thought he was just in a bad mood that day.”
“Then ... maybe Martin’s the one who left those messages for Dottie,” suggested Violet.
Jessie said, “That’s an interesting theory, but ... why would he do such a thing?”
No one had an answer to that.
“No, I still think Drum Keller’s behind everything,” argued Henry.
“Unless ... ” A sudden thought came to Violet.
“Unless what?” Benny questioned.
Violet’s eyes were huge. “Unless Martin Howard is Drum Keller!”
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