Mystery Behind the Wall

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “That is a little sad,” Jessie said.

  “It was almost as if the Shaws had never lived here at all,” Mr. Alden said. “After a time everyone forgot that this had been the Shaw house once. It seemed as if it was always the Alden house.”

  Mrs. McGregor brought the dessert in. “That’s right,” she said. “It’s been the Alden house for years now.”

  “And yet,” Violet said, “little Stephanie called it home. I do wonder what happened to her.”

  “I suppose it will always be a mystery,” Rory said.

  “Maybe,” Benny added. “With us you never know.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Surprise from the Past

  The next morning it was raining very hard. The sky was filled with black clouds.

  “It’s teeming,” said Rory.

  “It’s pouring,” said Benny. “We can’t play outdoors very well.”

  “That’s OK,” Rory said. “We can work some more on our telegraph.”

  As the boys worked, Rory had an idea. He said, “We made that hole pretty big, Ben. Maybe we could pass messages through it.”

  Benny looked at the hole. He said, “Yes, I think we could. Let’s make the hole a little bigger. If I knock three times, it means I’ve tied a message around the rope. Then you can pull it over to your side.”

  The boys tried out the new idea right away. But they ran into trouble.

  “Ouch!” Rory exclaimed. “The rope is stuck. Look, this hole is full of splinters.”

  “I tell you what we can do, Rory,” said Benny. “Let’s make the hole square and sand the edges. It will be all right with Grandfather.”

  “Let’s do that,” Rory agreed. “We’ll need the tools.”

  “That’s easy,” replied Benny. “We’ll just go down to the cellar and get the tools again.”

  The boys picked out a short saw, a steel plane, a pair of pliers, and some sandpaper. Then they raced upstairs again.

  “Don’t you ever walk, Rory?” Jessie asked, laughing. She was going upstairs to her room.

  “No, I don’t walk when I can run,” answered Rory. “What’s the use of waiting around?” And by that time he was out of sight.

  Mrs. McGregor said, “I do hope Rory isn’t doing anything he shouldn’t.”

  “No, he isn’t,” answered Henry. “I’ve watched the boys. They are just going to make a larger hole between their rooms through the closet wall. It’s all right.”

  Rory was busy sawing the round hole into a square one. “Lots more room, Ben, to let the rope through. And it will look better, too, when we begin to smooth it off.”

  “Let me sandpaper,” said Benny. “When I get tired, I’ll hand it over to you.”

  Benny went to work. Then in a few minutes Rory took his turn.

  It was not long before their arms were tired. It was hard work smoothing off the oak wood.

  “We can rest a while,” said Rory. “Did you notice that the wooden wall is double? There’s quite a space between the two walls.”

  Benny said, “Yes, there’s a grand little hidey-hole between these boards. If anyone wanted to hide a paper or a letter, nobody would ever find it.”

  “Who could hide a paper there?” said Rory. “Girls don’t hide papers.”

  “Oh, don’t they!” exclaimed Benny. “My sisters had a time when they hid the strangest things.”

  “Look if you want to,” said Rory. “You might find an old will or something. I read about somebody finding a will in a mystery story. That would be exciting!”

  “My fingers won’t go in that space,” said Benny after trying for a minute. “My hand is too big.”

  “Make your fingers as flat as you can,” directed Rory. “You might at least touch something.”

  “No,” said Benny at last. “You try. Your hand is smaller.”

  Benny came out of the clothes closet and Rory went in. He made his fingers as flat as he could and slipped them into the space.

  “I can’t feel a thing,” he said.

  “Nothing at all?” Benny asked. “I just feel that there must be something there.”

  Rory made one last try, moving his fingers as much as he could.

  “Oh, Ben!” he cried, “I do feel something! There’s something in here.”

  “What does it feel like? Paper?” asked Benny.

  “Not paper. It feels like cloth. But I simply can’t get it between my fingers,” said Rory.

  “Here, try the pliers. Take your fingers out. The pliers are longer and thinner,” said Benny.

  “But what if I drop them?” Rory said.

  “Let me tie a string on them first,” said Benny. “Like this.”

  Then both boys held their breath as the long, slim pliers went into the slot.

  “I’ve got something, Ben!” shouted Rory after several tries.

  “Well, pull!” commanded Benny. “Try and pull it out, Rory. What could be in there?”

  Rory twisted the pliers this way and that. He twisted his face the same way, too. He was a comical looking sight. But Benny did not laugh.

  Then very slowly Rory drew out the pliers holding something strange made of thin blue cloth.

  “What in the world is it?” asked Rory, holding it up by the pliers. “It’s but a wee bit of cloth.”

  Benny answered, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  The boys smoothed the cloth out on the floor and found it was old and torn in some places. But across the cloth in neat rows were bands of darker blue cloth sewed on very carefully by hand with odd uneven stitches.

  The stitching seemed to make a row of little pockets. It was a big puzzle.

  Benny turned the cloth over. He looked at the back and ran his finger along the stitches. What could this be for? Who could have made it? And why was it hidden between the closet walls?

  Rory looked at the cloth, too. For once he did not find a thing to say.

  At last Benny said, “I can guess just two things about this. It’s been hidden for a long time. It must have been important to the person who made it.”

  “How do you know?” asked Rory.

  “Because someone took the trouble to hide it,” Benny said. “Oh, I wish I knew what it was for.”

  Jessie walked past the door and the boys called, “See what we found, Jessie!”

  Jessie turned the cloth over and looked at it for a while. She said, “Looks like a man’s sewing. No woman ever sewed like that.”

  “But what in the world is it?” Rory asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Benny. “But Grandfather might. This thing was surely hidden or we wouldn’t have found it in such a funny place. Nobody would look for anything pushed down between the boards.”

  “I’d dote on knowing what it is,” Rory said.

  “Grandfather will know,” said Benny. “He knows just about everything. I’ll ask him at dinnertime.”

  “What time is that?” asked Rory.

  “Well, at different times. When Grandfather gets home from work, Mrs. McGregor has dinner all ready to put on the table.”

  That day, however, before Mrs. McGregor had put the meal on the table, the two boys met Mr. Alden’s car at the driveway. They ran up to the car and held out the piece of blue cloth.

  “What is this, Grandfather?” asked Benny. “It won’t take you a second to answer.”

  “Well, well,” said Grandfather. “What’s all the hurry? Give me time to get out of the car and put on my reading glasses.”

  Rory said, “I suppose we want to know fast because we are so curious, Granda.”

  Mr. Alden and the boys went into the house. Mr. Alden sat down and put on his glasses. He took the piece of cloth. Jessie, Henry, and Violet came over to look, too.

  After turning the cloth over, Mr. Alden said, “I really don’t know for sure, boys, but I rather think this is a coin case. It is certainly old. Where in the world did you find it?”

  “Rory found it,” answered Benny. “It was hidden in a space between the
walls of his clothes closet and the closet in my room.”

  Jessie said, “My guess is that Stephanie Shaw made it. The boys showed it to me. How old was she when she lived here, Grandfather?”

  “She was about ten, I think.”

  Jessie shook her head. “A girl of ten ought to know how to sew better than that—at least in the days when every little girl had to sew.”

  “Not so fast, my dear,” returned Mr. Alden. “Wait until you hear the whole story.”

  “Do you know the story of this cloth?” Henry asked, surprised.

  “I will tell you all I know,” replied his grandfather, “if you can all sit still and listen.”

  “Oh,” said Rory, “listening is the best thing I do.”

  This made everyone laugh, even Rory, for he was always talking.

  “I’ll begin with that picture in Rory’s room,” Grandfather said. “That is a picture of the family that you know lived in this very house. They all moved to France, as I told you, and we never heard from any of them. The little girl’s name was Stephanie Shaw. She was the most beautiful child I ever saw. And she was as good as she was beautiful.”

  “Just like a fairy princess,” said Benny.

  “Exactly!” said Grandfather, very much pleased. “She always made me think of a fairy princess. Her life was sad, though. Her father had special ideas about how she should grow up. He would not let her play with other children. He bought her everything she wanted, but she wanted some friends.”

  “Poor little rich girl,” Jessie said.

  “Yes, Jessie,” replied Grandfather, “that’s exactly how it was. Stephanie had beautiful clothes—but no friends her own age. Her mother had already gone to France to live when I met Stephanie. Perhaps Mr. Shaw was not sure how to treat a little girl.”

  “So you really didn’t know her, did you?” asked Violet. She felt sure her grandfather might have done something for Stephanie if anyone could.

  “No, I didn’t,” Mr. Alden said. “But I knew about her because of my friend Professor Nichols. He saw a lot of Mr. Shaw and Stephanie. In fact, Professor Nichols and the little girl had the same hobby.”

  “What was it?” asked Rory, smiling. “Certainly not sewing!”

  “No, not sewing,” said Grandfather. “Something much more exciting than that.”

  “Please tell us,” Violet begged. “I almost feel as if I’ve known Stephanie.”

  “The hobby was coin collecting,” Mr. Alden said. “Even today Professor Nichols is the person to ask if you have any questions about coins. In those days, he knew a lot about coins. His hobby then was nickels.”

  Benny threw back his head and laughed. He said, “That’s funny! Professor Nichols liked nickels.”

  “That’s really funny, Ben,” said Rory. “Nichols and nickels.”

  Mr. Alden spoke again. “Mr. Shaw thought it was good for Stephanie to have a special interest like coins. He bought coins for her. It was Stephanie’s idea to get some blue material to make cases to hold her collection. She and Professor Nichols called it the Blue Collection.”

  “But there are no coins here,” Rory said. “Just the case.”

  “I wonder what happened,” Benny said. “Maybe Stephanie took the coins with her when she went to France.”

  Grandfather shook his head. “Andrew Nichols didn’t think so. He thought she left the collection somewhere in the house. You see, Stephanie thought she would be coming back. But she didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t the professor write to her and offer to send her the Blue Collection?” Henry asked.

  “That’s easy to answer,” Mr. Alden said. “He didn’t know her address.”

  Jessie laughed. “Well, that is a pretty good reason. Rory and Benny found only the empty coin case. Maybe the coins in the Blue Collection were stolen. Then again, maybe the boys didn’t search deep enough.”

  Benny and Rory looked at each other. They were both thinking of the small hole in the closet wall.

  “That hole isn’t very deep, Ben,” said Rory. “Perhaps the coins are still there! We were so excited to find anything that we stopped looking when we found the cloth case.”

  The boys raced upstairs followed by all the Aldens, even Grandfather. Benny rushed into the closet while everyone stood still outside. They were wondering if Benny would find anything else hidden behind the wall.

  CHAPTER 4

  Is That All?

  Rory held his breath as Benny reached into the hole in the closet wall. Benny was so excited that he almost let the pliers fall into the hole.

  “Paper!” he said. “Hear it rustle?”

  “Don’t tear it, Benny,” said Rory. “It must be very old.”

  “There’s a lot of it,” Benny said. By now he was able to touch the paper with his fingers. “It feels like a book without a cover.”

  “Pull it out!” Rory said.

  “Here, you try,” Benny replied. “It’s not as easy as you think.”

  “I’ll try,” said Rory. “But it’s in your house and it belongs to you, whatever it is.”

  Rory took the pliers and got a good grip on the papers. Out came a notebook without any cover. It was bent and wrinkled. The paper looked yellowed and old.

  The two boys moved into the light. Benny held the papers out for Grandfather and the others to see. He said, “Homemade! Poor Stephanie! She had to make her own book.”

  “But what kind of book is it?” asked Violet.

  Three rusty pins held together four pieces of school paper folded twice.

  “Don’t open it, Ben,” said Rory. “Let’s give it to Granda just as it is.”

  Mr. Alden was very careful with the paper book. He sat down at a table in Rory’s room.

  On the first page he read in big printing, MY JOURNAL BY STEPHANIE. Inside, the writing was something like an old lady’s and also like a small child’s.

  “Please read what it says,” Jessie said.

  “Yes,” Benny said. “Maybe there’s a clue about the Blue Collection.”

  So Mr. Alden read what had been written so long ago. Rory and the others listened. They tried to imagine the little girl in her room, writing slowly about herself.

  “I am ten years old and I think I should start a journal. I will never show it to anybody, so I can write what I choose.

  “To begin with, I have dark brown curly hair and brown eyes. I look like my father, and I like the things he likes. My mother loves to go to parties in pretty clothes. I don’t go to parties.

  “Once my father and mother and I started to church. A man with a camera came along and took our picture. My father wanted the picture. He bought it and I had it framed to surprise him.

  “Now a journal has to know everything. I do not go to school, but my father has a teacher for me. I do not have any playmates, so my father helps me with a collection of coins. I made the case of blue cloth because I like blue. The sewing is not very good because nobody ever taught me how and I just picked it up, and besides I wasn’t ten when I began.

  “My father gave me some money and I bought the blue cloth from Miss Rachel. She is a very young woman, but she has a little shop and sells all kinds of things like cloth and pins and needles. I can talk to Miss Rachel. She’s my friend.

  “But I like to collect coins. I am always looking around for different coins. Sometimes Miss Rachel watches for a special penny I want, or a nickel or dime. My father gives me coins, too.

  “I used to have five dolls. But now I am older, and I have given them away. Sometimes I wish I had them back, especially my baby doll with the long clothes and silk socks. I used to think she was real because she shut her eyes. I wish I hadn’t thought I was too old for dolls. But I suppose coins take the place of dolls as one grows older. Anyway, I still have my dollhouse for little dolls.

  “I hope that when I grow up I shall write a wonderful book like Heidi and everybody will read it. I can do that and collect coins, too.

  “My father said to me, Stephanie, you a
re a very smart little girl. Why don’t you think up some kind of hard puzzle that nobody can solve? Then hide it somewhere. So that is what I am going to do, a puzzle with hard clues and everything.

  “I think I can make up a puzzle that nobody can solve, not even my father. I will make it easy at first and that will fool him.”

  Mr. Alden stopped and looked around.

  “Don’t stop,” Benny said. “Go on.”

  “That’s all,” Mr. Alden said. “I have read it all to you. There is nothing more.”

  Jessie said, “Well, it does sound like a little girl’s diary. I wrote some things like that once, too.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Rory. “I thought we were going to learn some great secret about the house and my room.”

  “So did I, Rory,” said Mr. Alden with a rather sad smile.

  “What shall we do with the journal?” Benny asked. “It won’t do any good to put it back where it came from.”

  Violet said, “Let me keep it. I’ll put it in a safe place.”

  Grandfather handed Violet the papers held together with the rusty pins. Then he went downstairs.

  Rory said, “I guess we can put the pliers away. We won’t need them.”

  Benny nodded. “There isn’t any use in looking for the coins in the wall. I’m sure someone found them and stole them, just the way Jessie said.”

  “But we can’t be certain the coins were stolen,” Rory said. “I don’t think they were. I think those coins are still hidden someplace. But what good is that if we can’t find them?”

  Benny said, “Well, let’s think for a minute. How did Stephanie put the things in the wall in the first place?”

  “She didn’t saw a hole the way we did,” Rory said.

  “No, I’m sure she didn’t do that,” Benny said. “Let’s take another look.”

  So Benny got his flashlight again and both boys began to look carefully at the back wall of Rory’s closet.

  The wall was made of narrow boards fitted together. Small nails held the boards in place.

  Suddenly Benny said, “Look, Rory!” and pointed to a place where a nail was missing. The empty nail hole was easy to see. And the nail at the other end of the board was very loose.