“This is just terrible,” Ms. Connally said when the Aldens gave her the bad news. “I’ve never had this happen before. An author no-show! I hope he’s okay.”
“We’ll find out what happened to him,” Jessie said confidently.
“If you can’t, I’ll have to call Mr. Van Buren,” Ms. Connally said.
“He’s the man who was here before, right?” Violet asked.
Ms. Connally nodded. “Right. He was the one yelling by the front desk before he stomped out. He doesn’t seem to like Gilbert Finch or his books.”
Henry said, “You should’ve seen what he did to that display of Mr. Finch’s books we put together yesterday.” He told her the story.
“Why would he do something like that?” Benny asked.
Ms. Connally shrugged. “I have no idea, Benny.”
“I’ve never heard of any of Mr. Van Buren’s books,” Violet said.
“They’re very good, actually,” Ms. Connally said. “But they’re for older children. Henry, you might like them.”
“Maybe he had something to do with Mr. Finch’s disappearance,” Jessie said.
“We should keep him in mind,” Violet said.
Jessie checked her watch again. “Okay, let’s finish eating and get back to this mystery.”
“Right,” Henry said. “We don’t have much time.”
“Thanks very much for looking into this, kids,” Ms. Connally told them. “I appreciate your efforts, but if Mr. Finch doesn’t show up by, say, tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to plan for Mr. Van Buren to be here instead.”
“A lot of people will be disappointed if Mr. Finch doesn’t make it,” Jessie said as they walked along one of Greenfield’s sunny sidewalks. There were big, beautiful homes on either side of the street. “And I don’t think Mr. Van Buren will draw as big of a crowd. He’s such a grouch.”
The Aldens stopped at the house of Mrs. Blake, the woman who left behind the copy of The Secret of the Pyramids they had found on the train. There was a swing on the porch that could hold two people, and a sign by the front door that read, “All Friends Welcome.”
The Aldens rang the bell and waited. The door swung back to reveal an elderly woman in a floral dress. The Aldens smiled, and Mrs. Blake smiled back.
“Well, it’s so nice of you to visit me on this lovely day. Is your grandfather with you?” Mrs. Blake said.
“No, ma’am,” Jessie said. “Not today.”
“Probably snoozing in his easy chair,” she said with a playful look in her eye, “when he should be in the backyard cutting the lawn or something.”
The children laughed. They always loved the way Mrs. Blake joked about their grandfather.
Jessie took Finch’s book out of her back pocket. “Mrs. Blake, I think you left this on the train this morning.”
Her face changed from happy to surprised. “Yes, I did! I was wondering where it went!” She opened the screen door and motioned for them to come inside. As they stepped in, Jessie handed her the book. “I was reading it during my trip, and then I thought I put it in my bag. I didn’t realize I’d lost it until I got home.” She looked at it fondly. “Oh, thank you so much.”
“You really like his stories?” Benny asked.
“I sure do!” she replied. “Hey, if you kids can enjoy them, I can too! And I can’t wait to meet him at the library tomorrow night!”
“Well … there might be a problem with that,” Jessie told her reluctantly. “It seems as though Mr. Finch has disappeared.”
Mrs. Blake looked stunned. “Disappeared?”
“That’s right.” Henry told her what they knew so far—that Mr. Finch definitely got on the train in Clairmont but wasn’t there when it arrived in Greenfield.
“Oh my goodness!” Mrs. Blake said.
“That’s why we came over,” Jessie told her. “To return your book, and to ask if you saw him.”
“No, I didn’t,” Mrs. Blake said right away. “I would’ve recognized him.”
“That’s what we figured,” Violet said with a long sigh.
“Did you notice anything unusual?” Henry asked. “Anything that might be a clue?”
She thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so … Let’s see. I got on at Briarwood. I decided to read his book on the trip, to pass the time. I bought it at a little store up there. I remember getting on the train and trying to read it, but it was too noisy. There was a dog barking somewhere. Can you believe that? A dog on the train? So anyway, I went to the very back, where it was quiet.”
“The third car,” Jessie said.
“Right, the third car. And then I started reading—” She stopped, and her eyes widened. “I managed to read in peace for a little while. And then … you know what? I do remember something unusual.”
“Really? What was that?” said Violet.
“We went into a very bad thunderstorm …”
“Yes,” Jessie said. The children remembered the conductors’ wet uniforms.
“We stopped at one of the stations,” Mrs. Blake continued, “and I heard someone yell ‘Hey!’ behind me. I was surprised because it sounded like it was coming from the very last car, and no one was supposed to be in that one.”
“Because it was closed,” Violet said.
“Right,” Mrs. Blake told her. “They didn’t have enough people to fill it. Anyway, I heard this person yell, and I got up to see who it was. I looked through the window and I saw someone jump off just as the train was pulling away!”
“Wow, just like that police detective did in Diamonds in the Dungeon,” Benny said.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Blake said. “I was thinking the same thing when I saw it.”
“Which station stop was it, Mrs. Blake?” Henry asked. “What town?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It was one or two stops before Greenfield.”
“What did this person look like?” Jessie asked. “Did you get a good look at them?”
“No, it was raining too hard. But whoever it was, he or she was definitely in that fourth car.”
“So there was someone back there!” Benny said.
“It looks that way,” Henry said.
But if it was Finch, why would he jump off a moving train in the middle of a thunderstorm?
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