Mystery in New York

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “We’d better not touch anything,” Mr. Pound told them. “The police will want to check for clues.”

  “Right,” said Mr. Saunders, straightening up. “Well, I’d better get back downstairs.”

  Mr. Saunders hurried out. A moment later, two police officers pushed through the open door. More police officers followed, and soon it seemed as if there were police officers everywhere, taking photographs and asking questions.

  As the officers talked to Mr. Pound, Jessie went to the secret door and looked inside. The glass case stood on a small table. A switch by the door turned on the light that shone directly on the empty blue velvet inside the case where the diamond had been. The top of the glass case was shattered and glass sparkled on the velvet and on the plain wood floor.

  Henry and Violet came up to stand next to Jessie. “No windows,” Henry noted.

  “No,” Violet agreed. “No way in or out except through this door.”

  “Step aside, please,” a pleasant, calm voice said. They turned to see a police officer with a camera. “I have to take photographs of the crime scene,” she went on.

  The Aldens moved away.

  Out in the living room, Mr. Pound was sitting on the sofa, talking to two other police officers. “No,” he said as Jessie, Henry, and Violet approached. “No, I punched in the code and pushed open the door and the alarm went off. That’s when I saw the glass case had been broken.”

  “Maybe the alarm isn’t working right,” suggested Jessie.

  The two police officers and Mr. Pound looked over at her. Mr. Pound’s eyes darted back and forth and he clutched his handkerchief in his fist.

  “Maybe,” said one of the officers. “That’s one explanation.” She looked at Mr. Pound. “And the last time you saw the diamond was when you opened the safe room earlier this evening?”

  “Yes, Officer.” Mr. Pound nodded and motioned toward Jessie. “She was with me and saw the Elizabeth Star. So did her little brother.”

  “Is this true?” the policewoman asked Jessie.

  “Yes,” said Jessie. “It is … it was … a beautiful diamond.”

  The policewoman made a note in her notebook and nodded at her fellow officer. He closed his notebook, too. “We don’t have any more questions right now,” he said. “But we need to dust for fingerprints and take more measurements and photographs and do a thorough search of the apartment and the common areas of the building.”

  “Search?” Mr. Pound’s voice quavered.

  “For evidence, clues. You never know what will turn up,” said the policeman.

  Mrs. Teague, who had been standing to one side with Grandfather Alden, said, “Edgar, why don’t you come back to my apartment for a nice cup of hot tea.”

  “And dessert,” Benny said suddenly. “We still haven’t had dessert.”

  “Oh, Benny,” said Violet, putting her hand on her little brother’s shoulder.

  “It might make you feel better,” Benny went on. “It’s chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.”

  Mr. Pound mopped his forehead and managed a wan smile. “Maybe it will,” he said to Benny. To Mrs. Teague he said, “Thank you. Maybe it would be best if I got away from all this.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” said the policewoman. “We have Mrs. Teague’s apartment and phone numbers so we can reach you if we need you.”

  The Aldens, Mrs. Teague, and Mr. Pound returned to the apartment. Mr. Pound sank down heavily onto the sofa.

  “Just sit down and relax,” said Mrs. Teague.

  Grandfather Alden and Violet sat down with him to keep him company, while Jessie, Benny, and Henry went with Mrs. Teague to help make tea.

  “I don’t feel at all well,” said Mr. Pound. “This is terrible, just terrible.” He mopped his face and tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Maybe a glass of ice water …” His voice trailed off.

  Violet stood up. “I’ll get it for you,” she said.

  “Yes, thank you, Violet. That might help,” Mr. Pound said gratefully. He shivered and looked around.

  “The door to the terrace is open,” said Grandfather Alden. “I’ll close it.” He got up and hurried out.

  A moment later, Mrs. Teague returned with the tea tray. She found Mr. Pound standing in the dining room by the dinner table. He looked almost like he’d been walking in his sleep.

  “Is there anything wrong, Edgar?”

  “What?” he said, surprised to see her. “No … no, nothing’s wrong. Let me help you with the tea tray,” he added quickly.

  They returned to the living room.

  “Here’s your water,” said Violet.

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Pound. “I feel better now.” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand how it happened. Why didn’t the alarm work before, when the thief took the diamond?”

  “Maybe the thief didn’t use the door. Maybe there’s another secret door into the room,” said Benny. “Maybe someone sneaked in through that and took the diamond.”

  “No. There are no secret doors or windows,” said Mr. Pound. “I had that room built especially for the Elizabeth Star. The only way in or out was through that door in the back of the closet.”

  “Have you had the alarm long?” asked Henry.

  “Two years,” said Mr. Pound. “I have it checked once a year. I just had it checked a few weeks ago. It was working fine.”

  “Maybe someone sneaked into the room and hid, and then took the diamond,” suggested Benny.

  But Jessie said, “No. There was nowhere to hide in that room. It was too small.”

  “And how would anyone get out without setting off the alarm?” added Violet.

  “They could if the alarm wasn’t working right,” said Henry. “And it wasn’t. It started ringing after Mr. Pound punched in the code.”

  “That’s true,” said Mr. Pound. “Someone must have tampered with it.” He paused, then said, “The police will know.”

  “We’ll find out,” Benny said. “Don’t worry. We’re very good at solving mysteries. We’ll solve this one for you.”

  Benny had said this before about other mysteries, and he had been right before. But Mr. Pound didn’t know that. He smiled at Benny. “That’s very kind of you, young man. But leave solving mysteries to the police.”

  He wiped his face one last time, then smoothed his handkerchief out and folded it up and tucked it into his pocket. He stood up. “Thank you again for all your help. And for the delicious dinner.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Teague.

  She and Grandfather Alden walked with Mr. Pound to the front door. The children gathered up the plates and saucers and teacups and took them into the kitchen to wash them.

  “I don’t think Mr. Pound believed me when I told him we could solve the mystery,” Benny said. He put a teacup carefully on the counter.

  “I don’t think he did, either, Benny,” agreed Jessie.

  “It’s going to be a hard mystery to solve,” said Violet. “The Elizabeth Star was in a room without windows and only one door. No one went in or out until we got there. And no one went in or out of the building except residents and their guests, according to the doorman.”

  “But someone did go into that locked room without setting off the alarm. And whoever it was took the diamond. We’ll have a lot of work to do, to figure this mystery out,” Henry said.

  “We will,” said Jessie confidently. “We’ll start first thing tomorrow morning.”

  CHAPTER 5

  A Taste for Diamonds

  “Mr. Leed,” said Jessie the next morning when the Aldens came downstairs after breakfast. “May we ask you some questions?”

  “Do you need directions to somewhere in the city?” asked Mr. Leed. He had a fresh newspaper spread out in front of him and was doing the crossword puzzle.

  “No. We’re working on the mystery,” said Benny.

  “Mystery?” said Mr. Leed. “What mystery?”

  “That one,” said Henry, pointing at the headline of the
newspaper. It said, TWINKLE, TWINKLE, ELIZABETH STAR, WE ALL WONDER WHERE YOU ARE.

  “Oh,” said Mr. Leed. “Interesting.”

  “Yes. It is. We were in Mr. Pound’s penthouse when the diamond was stolen,” said Benny.

  “You were?” Mr. Leed looked startled.

  “Not exactly,” Jessie said quickly. “We were there when Mr. Pound discovered it had been stolen. And we want to help him get it back. So we were wondering if we could look at your logbook. You know, the book where everyone who doesn’t live here and isn’t a guest has to sign in and out.”

  For a long moment, Mr. Leed looked at them. Then he pushed the logbook toward them, flipped the pages back, and said, “Here’s the log from yesterday.”

  “We want to look at who signed in and signed out last night,” Jessie said. “Between six-thirty and eight o’clock. That’s when the robbery happened.”

  “Go ahead,” said Mr. Leed. “I don’t know what you expect to find.”

  “You never know,” said Jessie. They bent over the logbook.

  Running her finger down the page, Violet said, “Someone delivered pizza to Apartment 6E at six-thirty and signed out at six-forty-five.”

  Henry took a notebook out of his pocket and wrote it down. Jessie said, “And Lydia was here at six-forty-five. She took the dogs out for Apartment 3W at six-fifty. She came back at seven-twenty, but didn’t sign out again until seven-fifty.”

  “That’s a long time,” said Violet as Henry wrote this down, too. “Thirty minutes. Hmmm.”

  “And then no one else,” said Jessie.

  “Sounds like a quiet night. Saunders was lucky,” said Mr. Leed.

  The Aldens looked amazed. “A quiet night!” cried Benny. “But the diamond got stolen.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Leed. “Right.”

  Henry had one more question. “If you leave the desk, can anyone come in the door?”

  “Of course not!” Now Mr. Leed looked indignant. “We lock the door if we have to leave the front desk. And we’re never gone more than five minutes.”

  “Thank you,” said Jessie. She turned and led the way back to the elevator.

  “Where are we going?” Violet whispered as the elevator doors closed behind them.

  “Benny and I are going to 6E to see if pizza really was delivered there last night. Because if it wasn’t, maybe it was just a trick to get into the building to steal the diamond.”

  “Right,” said Henry. “And Violet and I can go to 3W and see if Lydia walked the dogs last night — and why it took her so long to leave. She could have taken the diamond then.”

  “We’ll meet out front in twenty minutes,” said Jessie as the elevator doors opened on the third floor.

  “Okay,” said Henry.

  Henry and Violet walked to 3W and knocked on the door. A moment later, they heard small bodies thumping against the door and the muffled sound of barking. But no one answered.

  Henry knocked again, harder. The barking grew louder. But still no one answered.

  “I guess whoever lives there has gone to work,” said Henry. “We’ll have to come back later to ask about Lydia.”

  Meanwhile, Jessie and Benny had found someone home in Apartment 6E. A sleepy-looking man with shaving cream on half his face opened the door. He yawned when he saw them and said, “What is this? Halloween trick or treat?”

  “No,” said Jessie. “We’re visiting Mrs. Teague on the ninth floor.”

  “Congratulations,” said the man. He yawned again and started to close the door.

  “Wait,” said Benny. “We want to ask you a question.”

  “Ah,” said the man. “Trick or question. Okay, ask your question.”

  “Did you order pizza last night?”

  “I did. Everything, hold-the-anchovies. My usual from the corner pizza. Why?” Now he didn’t look quite so sleepy.

  Jessie explained about the missing diamond. “We’re trying to help Mr. Pound find out who took it,” she said. “And we wanted to make sure that someone really delivered pizza to your apartment.”

  “He sure did. Leo. He’s been delivering pizza to me for a few years now. Paying his way through college. He had to wait while I found money to pay for it. That’s why it took him so long,” the man said.

  “Thank you,” Jessie said.

  “You’re welcome,” the man said, and closed the door.

  Downstairs, Jessie and Benny found Henry and Violet sitting on the low wall around one of the flower beds outside the building.

  “The pizza man didn’t do it,” said Benny. “He’s a real pizza man, not a diamond thief.”

  “No one was home where the French bulldogs live,” reported Henry. “So we couldn’t find out if Lyd—”

  “Shhh,” said Jessie. She waved. “Hi, Lydia,” she said.

  They all looked up and saw Lydia striding down the sidewalk.

  “Good morning,” said Lydia. “Can’t stop to talk. The dogs are waiting.” She hurried by.

  When she passed, Henry said, “I know what we should do. Let’s follow Lydia after she walks the dogs. Maybe she will act suspicious.”

  “Let’s go across the street to the park,” suggested Violet. “We can watch for Lydia there and she won’t see us.”

  So that is what they did. They waited until Lydia had returned from walking the five French bulldogs. Then they followed her as she left Mrs. Teague’s building.

  The Aldens trailed after Lydia as she strolled along the park. At the bottom of the park she turned left. She walked across to Fifth Avenue and turned right, heading downtown. A few blocks later she stopped to stare into a window.

  “Tiffany’s,” said Jessie. “It’s a very famous jewelry store.”

  Sure enough, even from where they stood, hiding behind a mailbox and lamppost, the Aldens could see lots and lots of diamonds and pearls and all kinds of precious jewels on display in the windows of the store.

  “Maybe she is going to try to sell the diamond to them,” said Violet.

  But Henry shook his head. “No. A famous store like Tiffany’s would never buy a stolen diamond. Lydia would have to sell it secretly to someone dishonest.”

  “Maybe she wants to buy fancy jewelry when she sells the diamond and she is just window-shopping now,” Jessie said. “Something even nicer than her crystal necklace.”

  “Or maybe she’s just trying to figure out how much the Elizabeth Star is worth,” added Violet.

  Lydia leaned over to look more closely at something in the window. Then she straightened up and walked into Tiffany’s.

  The Aldens exchanged glances.

  “Come on,” said Henry.

  They walked into Tiffany’s after Lydia, and stopped.

  The whole place seemed to glitter. What seemed like endless rows of glass cases filled the room, each glimmering with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, along with silver and gold.

  “Wow,” said Benny, his eyes round.

  “Look,” Violet said softly. “That lady has her dog with her.”

  A tall, elegant woman was tucking a robin’s-egg-blue box into a Tiffany’s shopping bag. Over one shoulder was a large square leather purse and sure enough, sitting in the purse, peering back at the Aldens, was a small, silky-haired brown dog with bright button eyes and a bow on its head.

  “We could have brought Watch to Tiffany’s,” Benny said.

  “Shhh! There’s Lydia,” whispered Jessie.

  Just ahead of them, Lydia had stopped in front of a counter and was leaning down.

  “Those are diamonds in that case,” Violet breathed.

  But Lydia didn’t stay long by the sparkling display. She stepped back and continued to wander up and down the aisles.

  “She’s looking at the people in here as much as she’s looking at the jewels,” said Henry thoughtfully. “It’s almost as if she is studying them.”

  Violet’s eyes widened. “Maybe she’s planning another robbery. Maybe she’s going to see what someone buys, then follow that
person home and steal it!”

  A moment later, Lydia walked around a display case that glittered with gold. As the Aldens started to follow her, a large man in a dark suit stepped into their path. “Look at this, dear,” he said to a woman with a bored expression who stood nearby. He didn’t even seem to notice the Aldens.

  Quickly, they ducked around the large man, just in time to see Lydia vanishing through a side door that led onto the street.

  “She’s getting away,” gasped Jessie. They rushed to the door and out—and stopped.

  Lydia was gone. She had vanished into the crowds that streamed past them on the sidewalk.

  “Do you think she knew we were following her?” asked Benny a little while later.

  Henry shook his head. He couldn’t answer because he had a mouthful of hot dog and mustard.

  “Me either,” Benny agreed, taking a bite of his own hot dog. “She never even looked back once. Have you ever noticed how people never look back? That’s why they’re so easy to follow.”

  The Aldens were eating lunch. They had bought hot dogs from a park vendor and found a spot on a bench above Wollman Rink in Central Park. As they ate, they watched the people roller-skating and blading in the rink below and talked about the mystery.

  “Lydia is our best suspect,” said Jessie. “And she was acting a little oddly in Tiffany’s.”

  “But that doesn’t make her a thief,” Violet said.

  Henry said, “If she’s not the thief, then someone else is. But there were no strangers in the building last night, according to Mr. Saunders. And no one else signed in or out.”

  They munched on in thoughtful silence. Benny had finished his hot dog and was watching Violet finish hers when Jessie broke the spell.

  “What if Mr. Saunders isn’t telling the truth? What if he let someone in?”

  “Maybe he did,” said Henry.

  “Or maybe he did it himself,” said Benny.

  “I don’t think so, Benny. He can’t leave his desk for very long, because he locks the front door when he does. If he did that, someone would have noticed.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Violet. “I don’t think Mr. Saunders could have been away from his desk long enough to break into Mr. Pound’s apartment, get into the secret room, and steal the diamond.”