The Castle Mystery

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “We can make custard with the rest of this milk and the eggs,” Benny suggested. “Our housekeeper, Mrs. MacGregor, showed me how. It’s easy!”

  “I’ll help you, Benny,” Sandy offered. She looked ashamed. For a change she tried to cheer up the children instead of scolding them. “There are some custard molds up in this cabinet. They have a pretty snowflake pattern on the bottom. I used to make custard with my mother.”

  “How did you know about the custard molds with the snowflake patterns?” Carrie asked.

  When Sandy heard this she dropped the tin molds on the floor. “I … well … the other day I was looking for … uh … something else in that cabinet. They’re like the ones I had when I was a little girl.”

  The children looked at Sandy closely when she rinsed off the custard tins. This wasn’t the first time she seemed to know more than a newcomer would about some of the things in Drummond Castle. Had she been here before?

  Sandy went about helping Benny without saying much. She didn’t speak at all during the skimpy dinner everyone ate. Right afterwards she excused herself and went upstairs. She didn’t even wait for the custard to finish baking. “I’ll be in my room all night,” Sandy said. “I’m sorry about today.”

  “I guess I’ll have to go grocery shopping with her tomorrow unless we all want to go on a diet!” Carrie said.

  “I don’t!” Benny said, as he spooned up the last of the very good custard.

  Carrie ruffled Benny’s hair. “Well you won’t have to. Now why don’t you children run up to your rooms and relax? On your way up, just knock on Sandy’s door. Tell her we’ll leave for town at eight sharp.”

  “Okay,” the children said as they went upstairs.

  There was no light coming from under Sandy’s door when Jessie gave a knock.

  “That’s odd. She doesn’t seem to be there,” Jessie said.

  “I guess we’d better find her if we want to eat tomorrow, right Ben?” Henry joked.

  “Then let’s look for her,” Benny said.

  The children checked some of the other rooms near Sandy’s. All of them were dark or locked.

  “Let’s try the other wing,” Jessie suggested. “You never know where Sandy will show up.”

  The children got their flashlights and took the long passageway that led to the other side of the castle. The hall was dark and cold, and so were the rooms off of it. None of them had been used for many years. Benny and Violet held hands tightly. Suddenly, the children heard faraway notes of sweet violin music.

  Violet hummed softly. She whispered to Benny. “I know this is strange, but when I hear that tune, I’m not as scared.”

  But a moment later all the children were scared. When they reached the spiral staircase to the second tower, they saw a light moving up the stairs. The children stood at the bottom looking up the corkscrew turns. At each turn the light went higher and higher. Finally it disappeared at the top.

  “Let’s go up,” Henry said. “Follow me.”

  The children crept up the stairs without making a sound. The staircase was just like the one to their own room in the other tower. They didn’t need much light. They held on to the twisted iron railing and made their way up, step by step.

  When they reached the landing, they expected anything but what they saw.

  Nothing — except a locked door.

  There was no one at the top of the stairs.

  “How can that be?” Jessie asked. “The door is locked. The light that was here is gone.”

  Henry jiggled the doorknob.

  “It’s no use,” he said. He banged on the door. “Hello! Hello! Is anyone there?”

  No one answered.

  “Beats me,” Henry said, tapping his forehead in amazement. “Let’s see if we can get Mr. Tooner to let us in. He has the key.”

  Going down was less scary. The children turned on their flashlights. They didn’t whisper, and they didn’t tiptoe. It didn’t matter whether anyone heard them now.

  The children followed a path outside that ran along the cliff to Mr. Tooner’s house. They thought they heard violin music again, but it was hard to tell with the strong wind blowing across the lake.

  “Do you think Mr. Tooner will mind our visit?” Violet asked.

  Henry looked thoughtful. “I think he would want to know if anyone is up in the tower who shouldn’t be.

  The path ended at a small stone house. The children peeked in the window. Mr. Tooner was putting away a music stand.

  Henry rang the doorbell. Mr. Tooner came to the window and looked out. He made a face and began to close the shutters. Then he realized the Aldens were at the door.

  Although Mr. Tooner didn’t smile, he didn’t look mad anymore either. “Is there any trouble?” he asked the children.

  Violet stepped up to the door. She had a feeling Mr. Tooner liked her. “We think somebody’s up in the tower room. We followed somebody all the way up the stairs, but the door was locked when we got there.”

  “Turn around! Look up there!” Mr. Tooner pointed up at the tower. “By golly, there is someone up there. A light is on.”

  Before they knew it, the Aldens were following Mr. Tooner to a small door at the back of his house. It opened into a cave passageway.

  “Does this cave lead to the castle?” Jessie asked.

  “See for yourself,” Mr. Tooner said. He turned on two small overhead lights that brightened the passageway.

  “Neat!” Benny said. “You can go back and forth to the castle without going outside.”

  The passageway was quite short. Soon the children were following Mr. Tooner up the tower stairs. At the top, he pulled out his key ring and unlocked the door.

  There was no electricity in this part of the castle. The children and Mr. Tooner used their flashlights to search the cluttered room.

  “Whoever was here must be gone by now,” Henry said. “Sorry to bother you with this, Mr. Tooner.”

  “That’s all right, my boy. I saw that light, too,” Mr. Tooner said. “Somebody must have made a copy of my keys, that’s all I can think.”

  “Come on — let’s go,” Jessie said.

  “I just want to see if I can see the moon through the chimney,” Benny answered, standing in the fireplace and looking up. “But there’s no chimney in this funny fireplace. Whoops — ”

  The other children heard a thud and ran over to see what had happened to Benny. But he had disappeared!

  Then they heard his voice, from the other side of the wall. “This is a fake fireplace! If you push it, there’s another room!” Benny yelled. “Lean hard, like I did, and it will turn around.”

  The children and Mr. Tooner did just that. They managed to push themselves into a moonlit room the same size as the one they had just been in. Like the other room, this one was filled with old furniture, books, and toys. Mr. Tooner and the Aldens poked around as best they could in the dim light. Suddenly, while their backs were turned, they heard the creaking of the revolving wall.

  “Oh no!” Jessie cried out. “Whoever was in here just got out.”

  Everyone pushed at the movable wall, and it revolved again. They were back on the other side. But they were too late. The mysterious person had disappeared.

  “Guess I’ll lock up. Not that it does much good if somebody’s got the key.” Mr. Tooner sounded upset. “I only hope whoever copied this key didn’t copy any others. Mr. Drummond trusted me to keep an eye on things, and that’s what I’ve done. But now …”

  Violet patted Mr. Tooner’s hand. “It’ll be okay. You did a good job. We can help you find whoever it is who got in here.”

  Everyone wanted to cheer up the old man. “We’ll help you put in some new locks,” Henry said. “We’re handy with tools.”

  “A secret room, a secret room,” Mr. Tooner repeated. “I thought I knew every corner of this castle.”

  “There, there,” Violet said. “Tomorrow we’ll try to figure out who really does know every corner of this castle.”r />
  CHAPTER 9

  Vanished into Thin Air

  Carrie Bell was in a hurry. “I wish I didn’t have to go to town with Sandy,” she told the Alden children. “I’d much rather poke around the secret room this morning. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit,” she said with a sigh. “Imagine! A whole roomful of treasures we didn’t even know about!”

  “What didn’t we know about?” Sandy asked when she came in and overheard Carrie.

  Benny’s face lit up. “We found a secret room last night with Mr. Tooner. It’s full of toys and armor and treasures. Carrie said we could go up there this morning.”

  This seemed to upset Sandy. “Alone?”

  “I trust these children with anything in the castle,” Carrie explained. “So does Mr. Tooner. Before he went out for the day with Mr. Alden, he gave me his keys. He trusts the children with them, and so do I.”

  “Well, shouldn’t I stay behind and supervise them at least?” Sandy asked.

  Carrie handed Sandy the grocery list. “First things first. We simply must get supplies and groceries this morning. The sooner we get to town, the sooner we can help the children.”

  This didn’t stop Sandy. “Well maybe the children should come with us,” she said to Carrie. “We could split up the errands and get them done faster.”

  Carrie shook her head. “That’s just what Tom Brady suggested this morning. He wanted to take them along to visit some antique dealers. I had to tell him the same thing. Mr. Tooner and I feel fine about leaving the Aldens here alone until we all get back. That’s really final, Sandy.”

  “I guess now we’re kings of the castle, right Benny?” Henry joked after Carrie and Sandy finally left. “What do you say we put on some armor and go jousting!”

  “What’s jousting?” Benny asked.

  Violet explained. “Jousting is a horseback-riding sport that knights played in the olden days, Benny. I read about it in my King Arthur book. Sometimes this castle reminds me of those times.”

  “Especially the tower,” Benny said. “Can we go up there now?”

  “Sure Ben,” Henry said. “But let’s clear up the table first, okay? Even knights need clean dishes.”

  The children carried the breakfast dishes to the sink. When Benny got to Tom’s place at the table he noticed something. “Isn’t this Tom’s notebook?”

  “It is,” Jessie said. “We can drop it off at his office when we finish in here.”

  Once the children had tidied up everything, they stopped off at the room Tom Brady used as an office.

  “Should we leave the notebook in front of the door?” Benny asked. “Grandfather says we shouldn’t go into someone’s room unless the person is there.”

  Jessie shook her head. “This time we have to, Benny. The hall is so dark I’m afraid someone might trip over the notebook. Let’s put it on Tom’s desk with a note saying that we found it.”

  The children opened the door to the jumbled office. For someone who was so careful about old things, Tom Brady was careless about everything else. His wastebasket was overflowing with papers. Several half-empty mugs of cold tea were still on the desk. There wasn’t an inch of empty space to put down the notebook.

  Jessie tried to make some room on the desk to write Tom a note. She moved over several books and picked up some bunched-up balls of paper.

  “Wait a minute!” she cried. “Look at these!” She held up two colored cellophane candy wrappers. “Aren’t these the wrappers from the candy Violet and I hid yesterday?”

  Benny found one or two other wrappers in the wastebasket. “Lemon, cherry.”

  “Lime and grape,” Violet finished. “Those are exactly the same flavors Jessie and I hid by the blue door because we knew they were your favorites!”

  “The ones that were missing along with the key!” Henry realized. “Do you think Tom took them, Jessie?”

  Jessie didn’t answer. She ran out of the room and came back a few minutes later. She waved a piece of notebook paper at her brothers and sister.

  “Look at this! It’s the map!” She laid the paper next to Tom’s notebook. “I can’t say for sure that the candy wrappers came from the candy we hid. But this map exactly matches the paper in Tom’s notebook.”

  “So does the handwriting,” Violet added.

  “It is the same,” Benny said proudly. Even though he hadn’t been reading for long, he was sure of that.

  The children looked at each other. What was going on with Tom Brady?

  Jessie made up her mind about something. “Let’s show the map to Tom. Maybe there’s a good reason he drew it. It could be a set of directions he wrote up for someone, then put in that book by mistake. He might be glad to get it back.”

  Henry agreed. “Jessie’s right. Let’s see what Tom has to say when we show him what we found.”

  “Aw, shucks,” Benny said. “I thought we solved a mystery.”

  “Sorry, Benny, not just yet,” Jessie said with a laugh. “Now let’s get up to the secret room. Maybe there’s a mystery to solve up there.”

  “I sure hope so,” Benny said as he raced ahead up the tower stairs.

  When they got to the top, the children waited for Henry to open the door with Mr. Tooner’s keys.

  “Here we are,” Henry said.

  Benny paid no attention to all the treasures in the room. “Can we go to the secret room first, Henry?”

  Henry laughed. “Why not? Carrie said we could go anywhere in the castle today. We might as well start sorting things out in there as well as in here.”

  Benny got right inside the fake fireplace. He leaned against it just the way he had the day before. Nothing happened. He turned around then pushed so hard he grunted. “This wall is stuck!”

  “Here, Benny. You give a push on the bottom, while I push hard on top,” Henry said.

  But try as they might, the boys couldn’t get the fireplace to turn. Then Benny noticed something. Right at his eye level, there was a keyhole. He looked in.

  Just a few feet inside was Tom Brady! And in Tom’s hand was a violin. “Tom?” Benny called through the wall.

  Suddenly the wall panel gave way and the Aldens pushed through into the secret room. There was Tom Brady — but his hands were empty.

  “I was wondering when you children would find me,” Tom said with a laugh. “This was a good game of hide-and-seek, wasn’t it?”

  The children were confused. One minute Tom had been trying to keep them out of the secret room. Now he was telling them he had been playing a game!

  “Carrie said you left to meet some antique dealers this morning,” Jessie said. “Why are you here instead?” Now that she was facing Tom, Jessie wasn’t so sure it was the right time to mention the notebook. She decided to wait.

  “Umm … well, yes, I was going to do just that but … uh, first I had to get something up here,” Tom said without looking at Jessie.

  “Like a violin!” Benny said. “I saw you holding a violin when I peeked in the key-hole. Is it the famous one?” Benny asked as he scooted behind Tom.

  “What violin?” Tom asked. “There are many musical instruments in this house. We all know William Drummond collected quite a few of them.”

  By this time Benny had opened the doors of an old cabinet. “Like this one?” he cried when he spotted the neck of a violin.

  Tom Brady whirled around. “Don’t touch that!” he yelled at Benny. “It’s priceless.”

  Jessie stared at Tom with her steady brown eyes. “How do you know that violin is priceless?”

  “Well, everything up here is priceless until we catalogue it and get estimates from antique dealers,” he said. “That’s all I meant. We must get experts in here.”

  This did not stop Jessie Alden. “You said you were an expert when we first came here. Remember? You said you didn’t want us touching anything or working with you.”

  “True, true,” Tom looked nervously around the room. “We do have to go about things in a certain way. I can’t have p
eople poking around all over the castle. These valuable things must be handled with care.”

  “Then why did you just shove the violin in this cabinet?” Benny asked. “Violet always puts hers carefully away in its case.

  Tom took the violin from the cabinet. He cradled it in his arms as if to protect it. “How did I have any way of knowing who was at the door? Many dealers have been after the violin for years, coming to the castle and wanting to look around.”

  Violet stepped forward. “Then this is the Stradivarius, isn’t it? Look how beautiful it is!”

  Tom pulled a violin case out from behind a bookcase. “I won’t know until I study it and compare it to photos of other violins of this type. Why, I can do that this afternoon.” He carefully laid the violin in its case and snapped the lock shut before the children could get a closer look.

  “Why don’t we let Carrie decide what to do about this violin and some of the other things in here?” Henry asked. “After all she’s part of the restoration group at the castle, too.”

  Tom didn’t answer right away. But when he did, his whole mood had changed. He smiled at Henry and the other children. “You’re quite right, quite right, young fellow. This will be a feather in Carrie’s cap if the violin is the missing one. I think we should all surprise her at dinner tonight. That will give me time to look up my notes and find out if this is the Drummond Stradivarius.”

  “Are you going to look in your notebook?” Benny asked.

  Jessie grabbed Benny’s hand before Tom had a chance to answer. “Come on, Benny. Let’s go downstairs and wait for Carrie. I think Tom has a good plan. We can surprise Carrie tonight if the violin is the one we’ve all been looking for.”

  Benny didn’t like this idea one bit. Why did Jessie want to go along with Tom’s plan? It didn’t make sense.

  “Benny and I have a few things to do downstairs,” Jessie told Henry and Violet. “Maybe you can stay here and help Tom organize some of these things until we get back.”

  Henry and Violet had a feeling Jessie had a plan of her own. What was it?