The Mystery Bookstore

  “Not a bad idea, Benny,” Jessie said as she swept near the brick wall of the bookshop. “I can’t believe I have to sweep here again. These bricks keep crumbling all over no matter how much I dust and sweep.”

  “Hey,” Benny said, taking a closer look at the wall. “Maybe there’s a mouse hole, and that’s why the pieces keep falling on the floor.” Benny felt some of the bricks to see if they jiggled. “Hey, here’s a loose one.”

  “Watch it, Benny!” Jessie said. But it was too late. Several loose chunks of brick tumbled down after Benny pulled out one of the bricks.

  Benny didn’t care one bit about the mess he was making. “I bet a mouse really does live in there,” he said. He stood on tiptoe and tried to see inside the empty space. “Can I stick my hand in?”

  “Be careful,” Jessie warned.

  Benny reached into the dark hole and felt around. “Somebody just stuffed paper and rags in here to keep out the cold.” He pulled out some bunched-up yellow newspapers and rags. Then he tossed the papers into a can Henry was getting ready to put at the curb for recycling.

  The Aldens went back to work. Soon the bookshop was clean.

  “A couple of coats of paint, some new books, and the Mystery Bookstore will be ready for business,” Henry said. “I’ll take this can out to the sidewalk for pickup.”

  Just as Henry got to the front door of the shop, it opened.

  “Is Miss Chase here?” Rex Phillips asked Henry. “I need to talk to her right away.”

  “She had to meet with somebody about ordering books for her bookstore,” Jessie answered. “Can we help?”

  “I doubt it.” Mr. Phillips shifted from one foot to the other. “Look, you kids tell her I’m going to offer her a good price for all those books out in the courtyard. She can cancel the sale tomorrow. Have her call me right away.”

  “We’ll give her the message,” Henry said. “But I don’t think she’ll cancel the sale after all this work. Everybody’s looking forward to it.”

  “Not everybody,” Mr. Phillips said under his breath. He reached for the door, but Benny was in the way.

  “I need to get by,” Mr. Phillips said. But when he moved sideways, Benny moved sideways too. He kept right on sweeping invisible dirt into the dustpan as if he didn’t even see Mr. Phillips!

  Benny had Mr. Phillips trapped between the counter and the door. Right away, Jessie figured out what to do. She took Violet’s scrapbook and spread out the children’s sightseeing pictures. “Would you like to take a look at our photos of New Orleans?”

  Mr. Phillips’s face almost turned purple. “I’m a businessman. I haven’t got time to look at a bunch of children’s vacation pictures. Now would you move out of my way, little boy?”

  “In a minute,” Benny said, not budging at all. “There are a lot of dustballs down here.”

  “Dustballs!” Mr. Phillips yelled. “I haven’t got time for dustballs, either.”

  “Did you know you were in our pictures?” Violet asked. “Look. Here you are behind me and Benny in the café, then down at the docks, and a few other places, too. That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Nonsense,” Mr. Phillips said. “I was in Lafayette yesterday at a stamp show.” With that, Mr. Phillips practically jumped over Benny and stormed out.

  “He didn’t like our pictures too much,” Henry said.

  Jessie gathered up her photos. “Maybe he was at a stamp show yesterday, but he was also in Jackson Square and at the docks and lots of other places right here in New Orleans. I’m sure of that.”

  “I have to go out to put this recycling can at the curb,” Henry said. “I’ll follow Mr. Phillips for a while the way we planned.”

  The other Aldens went over to the bookshop window to watch Henry watch Mr. Phillips.

  “Hey!” Benny cried. “Why is Henry reading one of those old newspapers instead of staying behind Mr. Phillips?”

  “Let’s find out,” Jessie said.

  Henry seemed to have forgotten all about Mr. Phillips. Instead he was reading an old, wrinkled newspaper that was practically falling apart.

  “Why aren’t you shadowing Mr. Phillips?” Benny asked.

  Henry handed Jessie the newspaper. “Never mind Mr. Phillips right now. Just take a look at this. It’s one of those old newspapers you pulled out from behind that brick wall, Benny. It caught my eye when I put down the can. Read what it says under this picture.”

  The Aldens squinted at a faded picture of a smiling, middle-aged woman. She was holding open a little album of some kind with a small rectangular stamp in the middle. Jessie began to read:

  “Local resident, Mabel Post, holds up a rare Costa Rican stamp showing a reversed flag. Mrs. Post, owner of the Old Treasures Bookshop, found the album in a one-dollar box of children’s books she bought at a local yard sale. She would not discuss what she planned to do with the valuable stamp.”

  Benny was puzzled. “What does that mean? How come if a stamp is reversed it’s worth more than one that’s the right way?”

  Henry, who knew a little about stamp collecting, had heard about the famous backwards flag stamp. “Because when the post office found the mistake, it stopped printing the wrong ones. I think they only printed a sheet of a hundred stamps of the backwards flag, so each stamp is worth a lot.”

  “I wonder what happened to this one,” Violet said. “Miss Chase said Mrs. Post could hardly keep her shop going. Wouldn’t she have been rich if she had sold the stamp?”

  Chapter 9

  Some Very Old News

  That afternoon, Benny looked for Miss Chase from the parlor window. Finally, very late in the day, she came around the corner. Benny flew downstairs, through the courtyard, and out to the street.

  “Goodness, I didn’t know we were expecting Hurricane Benny,” Miss Chase said with a laugh. “What’s up? Watching the bookshop get painted can’t be that exciting!”

  “This is what’s exciting!” Benny handed Miss Chase the old newspaper with Mabel Post’s picture.

  “Phew, you’re going awfully fast for me, Benny,” Miss Chase said. “Let’s go upstairs so I can get my reading glasses. Then I can see what you have here.”

  “It’s . . . it’s about Mrs. Post buying a stamp with a flag that’s the wrong way. And Henry said wrong-way stamps are worth lots more than right-way ones.”

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” Miss Chase said. “And Rex Phillips has been bothering me all day. He tracked me down to the office where I was meeting with some book people and waited for me until I came out. I only got rid of him by telling him that we have our book sale tomorrow, rain or shine.”

  “Oops, I almost forgot,” Benny said. “He told us to tell you he wanted to buy all the books all by himself and not have the book sale. But Henry said no way. And know what else?”

  Miss Chase laughed again. “No, what?”

  “He said he wasn’t in our pictures and that he went to a stamp show.”

  By this time, Benny and Miss Chase were back in the apartment with the other Aldens.

  Miss Chase rummaged in her purse for her reading glasses. Then she took a good long look at the old newspaper Benny handed her and read the headline: “FLOODWATERS DAMAGE HISTORIC FRENCH QUARTER.”

  “No, not that side.” Jessie flipped over the page so Miss Chase could see Mabel Post’s picture. “This side.”

  “My goodness, doesn’t Mabel look young here?” Miss Chase said. “This is way before I moved to New Orleans, of course. Ah yes, I’d heard these stories about her buying a valuable stamp in a box of old books at a yardsale. But Mabel never admitted to it, and I never bothered to track down the story. Now I see why people didn’t really remember the facts too well.”

  “Why’s that, Miss Chase?” Henry asked.

  Miss Chase flipped over the newspaper page. “Mabel’s picture appeared on the same day as a terrible flood here in New Orleans. We get many of them during hurricane season. The day Mrs. Post’s picture was in the pape
r was one of the worst floods ever. No wonder people don’t remember about the stamp.”

  “Did Mrs. Post ever mention the backwards flag stamp to you?” Jessie asked.

  Miss Chase thought a bit. “Not really. Sometimes when Rex came around, she’d joke about having lots of valuable stamps hidden away. But she always wound up telling Rex that stamp collecting was just child’s play or that stories about her having a valuable stamp were nothing but fairy tales. Of course, this upset Rex to no end. Pretty soon he’d try to get something out of her. But as far as I know, he never had a bit of luck.”

  “Speaking of luck, we didn’t have any luck finding the missing books,” Violet said.

  “It’s just the oddest thing the way those books just disappeared off the sleeping porch,” Jessie said. “I bet Mr. Bindry had something to do with it. He was in the courtyard this morning.”

  “And after that he shooed me and Violet away,” Benny complained. “Anyhow, at least I found this boring old newspaper in the mouse hole.”

  Miss Chase patted Benny’s hand. “Now, Benny, a good detective like you knows that a clue doesn’t have to look exciting to be exciting.”

  This got Benny thinking. He picked up the old newspaper and went over to the mirror with it. Holding it up, he said: “Now the stamp doesn’t look backwards. It looks like a regular old stamp now. But everything else in the picture looks backwards.” Then he put the newspaper on the table and ran over to Miss Chase’s desk. “Can I borrow the magnifying glass?”

  “Sure,” Miss Chase answered. “Do you want a better look at the stamp?”

  “Not the stamp!” Benny cried. He slid the newspaper under the light over the kitchen table.

  “What do you see?” Violet asked when she looked over Benny’s shoulder. “Omigosh! Look what else is in the picture! Mrs. Post is holding the boxed set of fairy tales on her lap with one hand and the stamp album with the other!”

  Now everyone crowded around to see what Benny and Violet were hollering about.

  “You’re quite right, children,” Miss Chase said when she got a good look at the photo, too. “Mabel Post has her other hand resting right on The Little Mermaid.”

  Chapter 10

  Benny and Violet Hide Out

  By seven o’clock on Saturday morning, the sun was up. It was a perfect day for an outdoor book sale. In just a couple hours, the Mystery Bookstore would be ready for its first customers.

  “It’s almost your last day in New Orleans, so I don’t want to work you children too hard,” Miss Chase said as she enjoyed a cup of her favorite chicory coffee. “You’ve all done so much already. Now that your grandfather is back, he’s offered to take over some of the work so you children can do some last-minute sightseeing.”

  Mr. Alden put down his coffee cup. “If I know my grandchildren, I have a feeling they’d rather be at the bookstore sale than go sightseeing, Olivia.”

  “That’s right, Grandfather,” Benny agreed. “We’re going sightseeing right here. Today’s the day we find the rest of Violet’s set and maybe that funny backwards stamp, too.”

  Mr. Alden laughed. “You’d better bring me up to date on all your plans, Benny.”

  “Violet and I thought up everything last night,” Benny said. “We’re going to hide under the children’s book table and listen to who snoops around too much.”

  “I see,” Mr. Alden said. “And who might be snooping about?”

  Benny took a deep breath. “Well, first there’s Mr. Bindry. He came for the job before it was in the newspaper.”

  “Don’t forget Sarah Deckle,” Henry reminded everyone. “She always shows up at odd times.”

  “Her, too,” Benny said. “And Mr. Phillips ’cause he likes stamps, and the backwards stamp is missing. If anybody else gets too snoopy, we’re going to watch them, too.”

  “You’re going to be very busy,” Mr. Alden remarked.

  “And know what else?” Benny asked. “We tied one end of a spool of thread to The Little Mermaid. You can hardly see it. If anybody tries to take it away, we’ll be able to tell.”

  “Just don’t sell it by mistake,” Miss Chase reminded the children.

  “Oh, we won’t,” Violet said.

  “It’s almost nine o’clock,” Miss Chase said. “Now I want you children to have some fun today and not work too hard. Promise?”

  “Promise,” Jessie said. “But work is fun for us.”

  Working at the book sale was fun for the Aldens, just as Jessie said. Since they loved reading mysteries — and solving them — Jessie and Henry decided to work at the mystery table.

  “People sure get up early when there’s a sale,” Henry said, after he let the first customers into the courtyard. “We’re going to be very busy.”

  “So are we,” Violet giggled from under the children’s book table nearby. “All I can see are feet, Benny. Jessie said she’d tap on the top of the table if one of our suspects comes in.”

  Violet and Benny didn’t have to wait long.

  “One tap!” Benny whispered to Violet when they heard Jessie rap the table once. “That means Mr. Bindry is coming over. Do you have the spool end of the thread?”

  “I’m holding it.” Violet tugged the thread gently from under the table.

  “Good morning, Mr. Bindry,” the younger children overheard Jessie say only a couple feet away. “Can I help you with anything this morning?”

  “Hrmph,” Mr. Bindry said before moving over to the children’s table.

  Violet and Benny could hardly sit still when they saw Mr. Bindry’s shoes just inches from where they were hiding. Violet held tight to the thread.

  Then the children heard another pair of feet march over to the children’s table. Jessie tapped the table twice.

  “It’s Sarah Deckle,” Benny whispered.

  Violet felt a tug on the thread.

  “What are you doing with that book, Miss?” Mr. Bindry asked. “I was about to buy it.”

  “Well, I picked it up first,” Sarah Deckle answered.

  Benny and Violet heard more footsteps. Then they saw a familiar pair of white and black sneakers.

  “It’s Henry,” Benny whispered.

  “Sorry, folks,” Henry said. “This book isn’t for sale. It belongs to my sister. The rest of the set is missing, and we’re hoping someone will come by who knows about the set it belongs to.”

  Violet and Benny saw Sarah Deckle kick her toe at the ground. “Well, maybe your sister would like to sell it. I’ll pay a hundred dollars just for this book.”

  Before Henry could answer, Mr. Bindry had some angry words for Miss Deckle. “A hundred dollars? What do you know about books, anyway? This volume may be part of a limited edition set illustrated by Arthur Plumbrush, a famous painter. They were the only books he ever illustrated. The first printing completely sold out long ago, and the original art was destroyed in a fire. So the books could never be reprinted. A complete set would be nearly priceless.”

  “But Mr. Bindry, you told Violet her book wasn’t worth much,” Henry said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “What I remember is saying children and old books don’t mix,” Mr. Bindry snapped. “I’m going to check with Olivia to see why this book is just lying around in the first place.”

  Sarah Deckle looked as upset as Mr. Bindry. “Yes, do that,” she said. “I’ll be right here until you get back.”

  After Mr. Bindry left with Henry, the book sale got crowded. Benny and Violet could see many pairs of feet surrounding the book tables. Sarah Deckle’s feet, though, never moved.

  A few minutes later the younger children heard a familiar voice talking to Jessie. “Hello, young lady. I came by to buy a signed copy of The Streetcar Mystery,” Mr. Phillips said to Jessie. “But I see there are none left. Can you check if Miss Chase has any more copies inside the shop?”

  “Uh, maybe,” Jessie said, “but I really can’t leave until my brother Henry returns. He’ll be back any second.”

  “I’ll
wait here,” Mr. Phillips said. “You see, I’m in a bit of a rush today, and I’d like to get the signed copy. If you could just get Miss Chase to sign a book, I can be on my way.”

  “Well, okay,” Jessie agreed. “Oops, I have to tie my shoe.”

  When Jessie bent down, she whispered to Benny and Violet: “I have to run into the shop for another book. Just make sure to hold onto that thread. Now Mr. Phillips and Sarah Deckle are here. I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as Jessie was gone, Benny and Violet heard Rex Phillips talking in a low voice to Sarah Deckle. This time he didn’t sound so polite. “Drop the book into my briefcase. Quick, before those two nosy kids get back. Did you find the rest of the set in the apartment this morning?”

  “No,” Sarah Deckle whispered. “But if we’re lucky, maybe the stamp is in this one. We can look for the rest of the set later when all these kids are busy working. Open your briefcase slowly, and I’ll slip the book in.”

  Violet and Benny could hardly sit still in their hideout. Miss Deckle and Mr. Phillips were going to steal Violet’s book together! The children felt the thread pull, so Violet let out the spool.

  “Good,” Mr. Phillips said in a low voice. “Now let’s get out of here before anyone comes back and figures out the book is missing.”

  Violet broke the thread so Mr. Phillips wouldn’t notice it was attached to the book. She grabbed Benny’s hand. “Here’s what we do. I’ll sneak over to the courtyard door and close it so they can’t get out that way. You go to the bookshop and tell Miss Chase what happened, okay?”

  After Benny ran off, Violet didn’t have to wait long for her two suspects.

  “Excuse me, we have to leave.” Mr. Phillips tried to get by Violet. “Just open the door.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” Violet said. “Everybody has to go out through the bookshop.”

  Sarah Deckle’s face got red. “Rex! You’ve got a key. Open up.”

  Rex reached into his pocket and pulled out the same key chain Violet had seen him drop a few days earlier. “Move out of the way,” he said to Violet.