The Candy Factory Mystery

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  A smile spread across Jessie’s face. “We’re not going to come by in a couple of days — we’ll come back tomorrow morning. Mr. Boxer won’t have a chance to hide anything suspicious.”

  “Now it looks as if Mr. Boxer might be causing problems for Mrs. Winkles,” Violet said. “Thank goodness it’s not Tom.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about Tom yet,” Jessie said. “We still have to find out why he tried to make Mrs. Winkles think we had something to do with the broken machine. Don’t forget that. Plus, he said he wasn’t in the factory the other morning when we saw him with our own eyes.”

  Violet bit her lip. “I know there must be a good reason for the way Tom acted. I hope we can find out about him and about Meg, too. After all, she’s the one who always seems to be talking with Mr. Boxer, not Tom.”

  When the Aldens returned to the candy factory, they noticed Tom’s and Meg’s cars in the parking lot.

  “We need to get everybody over to Mr. Boxer’s, that’s for sure,” Henry said. “Mrs. Winkles and Grandfather are coming back tonight. We could tell Mrs. Winkles that we saw some problems at Mr. Boxer’s warehouse.”

  “Good idea, Henry,” Jessie agreed. “We’ll ask her if she can go there to have him show us how the candy gets shipped out.”

  As the children walked closer to Mrs. Winkles’s office, they heard angry voices.

  “We’d better wait a bit,” Jessie whispered. “Sounds as if Meg and Tom are having another one of their disagreements. I don’t want to get caught in the middle.”

  “If you gave me the right directions in the first place, Tom,” Meg was saying, “I wouldn’t have put vanilla in the chocolate batch too early. You never said to add it at the end. I couldn’t find Mrs. Winkles’s recipe book anywhere to help me out.”

  “You’ve been here long enough to know the steps by now,” Tom said.

  Henry knocked on the office door.

  When Tom turned around, the Aldens crowded into the office. “We were wondering when you were coming back,” Tom said. “Not that it matters. The last batch of chocolate’s no good. We have to mix up more. Where did you go?”

  “To Mr. Boxer’s warehouse,” Henry said slowly. “Before Mrs. Winkles left, she told us we could take a look at how Mr. Boxer sends out her candy shipments.”

  The children were disappointed. Neither Tom nor Meg seemed to care a bit that the Aldens had visited Mr. Boxer’s.

  Meg seemed more interested in arguing with Tom than talking with the Aldens. “All I need is Mrs. Winkles’s recipe notebook again. If you had put it back after you borrowed it the other day, I wouldn’t have made the mistake about the vanilla.”

  “You shouldn’t need the recipe to know that the vanilla goes in last,” Tom said.

  At that moment, Meg happened to look down at Tom’s open briefcase. “Why is the recipe notebook in your briefcase anyway, Tom? It’s supposed to stay in Mrs. Winkles’s office when we’re not using it.” Meg reached down and pulled out the bright red notebook. Several pages fluttered to the floor.

  Tom scrambled to pick them up, but Meg got to them first.

  “What are all these copies doing here, Tom?” Meg asked. “You just finished telling me I shouldn’t need to read the recipes anymore. Why do you need so many copies?”

  Tom looked away from Meg only to find the Aldens staring at him. They were wondering the same thing.

  “I … uh … well, I wanted to make sure the Aldens here had some copies …” Tom said, “in case they needed to make up some candy batches.”

  Meg put her hands on her hips. “I don’t think Mrs. Winkles would have them do that without one of us here. You’d better give me those. Everything is supposed to stay in the factory when we’re not using the recipes.”

  Tom tried to get hold of the papers, but Meg was too quick for him. “I guess the pages got mixed up with other stuff in my briefcase,” he said in a quiet voice.

  Benny noticed something odd on Tom’s briefcase. “Hey, somebody made a mistake on the tag. It says T.W. I know my letters now. Shouldn’t it be T.C. for Tom Chipley?”

  Tom flipped over the leather tag with the gold initials Benny had been reading. “This belonged to my grandfather. Tom … um … White.”

  By this time, Meg had gathered up all the recipe copies. She stuffed them into Mrs. Winkles’s notebook and put it safely in the file cabinet. “Okay, everybody out. I’m locking up.”

  Meg waved Tom and the Aldens out the door. She pulled it firmly behind her.

  Tom snapped his briefcase shut and locked it with a small key.

  The Aldens weren’t sure why. His briefcase was completely empty.

  CHAPTER 10

  2 Good 2 B True

  The day after they returned from the food show, Grandfather and Mrs. Winkles joined the children for breakfast up in the loft.

  “I have a surprise,” Mrs. Winkles announced as soon as the children cleared the breakfast dishes. She spread out all kinds of candy on the table. “You children are in for a treat—in fact, you’re in for a lot of them. I brought back wonderful, old-fashioned candies that other candy makers have been making in this area for a long time. Help yourselves, now that you’ve had a good breakfast.”

  “Some of these candies have been around since I was a boy,” Grandfather told his grandchildren. “Peanut butter buckeyes, chocolate jelly sticks — those are a hundred years old.”

  “Is it still okay to eat them?” Soo Lee asked.

  James Alden laughed. “Well, only the candy brands have been around for over a hundred years. The candies themselves are all freshly made.”

  As the children enjoyed their treats, they took turns helping Mrs. Winkles catch up on the news around the factory.

  “What about the strange candy hearts that wound up in my shipment?” Mrs. Winkles asked.

  Benny hated to set aside his chocolate jelly stick, but he was bursting with news. “We have lots of clues. Not just about hearts, either. You know those little candy ghosts that go in those chocolate pumpkins you send us on Halloween? Some of them got mixed in with the little candy chicks. But don’t worry. We found all of them.”

  Mrs. Winkles put down her cup. She felt too upset to enjoy her morning coffee. “Oh, my. Thank goodness for that.”

  “We haven’t quite figured out who mixed up the candies or messed up the mice,” Jessie said. “We have a feeling Mr. Boxer has something to do with it — and that Meg or Tom might be working with him.”

  Jessie paused. She didn’t really want to give Mrs. Winkles any more bad news. “We think Mr. Boxer might be making candy, also. The inspector went there and—”

  “Mr. Boxer making candy?” Mrs. Winkles asked. “My goodness, perhaps that’s why he never allows me past his office and always tells me to call ahead before I visit.”

  “If it’s okay with you,” Henry said, “we want to go over there with Meg and Tom but not tell them why.”

  Violet could see that hearing Tom’s name upset Mrs. Winkles. “I don’t think Tom’s done anything wrong. He just gets upset sometimes.”

  Mrs. Winkles was grateful to Violet. “Oh, I do know what you mean. He’s usually so friendly and helpful. Other times … well, if we get talking about personal matters, he just clams right up. I’ll just tell him and Meg I need them to come on some errands with me — that I have some business to do and it can’t wait.”

  When everyone arrived at Boxer’s Shipping Company, the air was filled with the smell of chocolate.

  The Aldens watched Meg and Tom closely. Did they know what was going on?

  “Why did you bring us here?” Meg asked Mrs. Winkles. “I need to get back to the candy factory. I don’t want to fall behind.”

  “We’ll go back soon,” Mrs. Winkles told Meg. “Right now, I’d like to find Mr. Boxer.”

  The Aldens hurried over to Mr. Boxer’s candy-making building.

  “I want to catch him making candy,” Henry whispered.

  Jessie crept up to the window of t
he candy kitchen first. She stood on her tiptoes. “Mr. Boxer has the chocolate sprayers going. Look.”

  That was enough for Henry. He walked to the door, knocked on it, and pushed it open.

  Mr. Boxer rushed over. “You kids again?” he shouted. “You can’t come in here. I’m busy right now.” When he started to push the door shut, Mr. Boxer spotted Mrs. Winkles. “Oh, excuse me, Mrs. Winkles. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Mr. Boxer didn’t scare off Jessie. She stepped into the candy kitchen right after Henry. “You’re making candy.” She looked around at the dozens of metal egg molds slowly moving along a conveyor belt.

  Benny picked up an egg carton that was already filled with chocolate eggs. “These are just like Mrs. Winkles’s chocolate eggs, too.”

  “Well, they’re not. They’re Boxer’s chocolate eggs,” Mr. Boxer blurted out.

  Meg pushed her way past the Aldens. She took a closer look at the chocolate egg carton Benny was holding. “I gave you the name of the place that makes those cartons.”

  “Meg!” Mrs. Winkles cried. “How could you do that?”

  Meg leaned against the counter. Her face was pale. “Mr. Boxer said he sometimes needed extra cartons in case yours got dented or there were other problems with them. I didn’t know he would put his own name on the cartons!”

  Mr. Boxer exploded. “Problems, Meg? My only problem was hiring someone who never had a real job before, who kept giving my men the wrong directions, mixing up orders, taking down the wrong phone messages. There was no end to the problems. Getting you to spill information about Mrs. Winkles’s factory was easy — like taking candy from a baby.”

  Meg swallowed hard. She went from being pale to red-faced. “You planted me at Winkles Candy Factory to spy for you?” she said, her voice rising. “That’s why you were always asking me questions and bothering me about how Mrs. Winkles did things? So you could start your own business?”

  Mr. Boxer put his hands up as if to push away Meg and her words. “Out of here, everyone. This is nobody’s business but mine. And there’s plenty of candy business for everyone. Selling candy to schools, for example. There’s enough room for me and my candy.”

  “As long as you do it fair and square,” Mrs. Winkles said. “Sending a young person out to spy for you isn’t the way to do good business, Mr. Boxer.”

  For the first time, Mr. Boxer looked a little ashamed. But only a little.

  “I don’t care what you think of me,” he said angrily. “And I don’t care what a bunch of kids have to say.” And with that, he turned away from them.

  Realizing they weren’t getting anywhere with Mr. Boxer, the Aldens turned their attention back to Meg. They weren’t done with her, either. “You gave us the wrong key and wrong information about things — like you didn’t want us to see what you were up to,” Jessie said.

  “And what about not wearing your gloves when the inspector came?” Henry added.

  “And letting a cat in while he was there?” Benny pointed out. “Don’t forget that.”

  Meg looked at the Aldens, then at Mrs. Winkles. “I didn’t do any of those things on purpose. Sometimes, when I try too hard, I make mistakes,” Meg confessed. “I was afraid to ask questions or ask for help, so I kept messing up. It got worse after all the Aldens showed up. They watched every single thing I did and asked a million questions.”

  Mrs. Winkles looked right at Meg. “That’s how you learn, Meg — by watching, asking questions, and paying close attention. You didn’t have to pretend you knew things you didn’t know. That just made your job much harder.”

  Meg looked miserable. “I was worried you’d fire me and give Tom my job. He seemed to know everything.”

  “Why did you talk to Mr. Boxer on the phone so much?” Jessie asked.

  Now it was Meg’s turn to look angry. She turned to Mr. Boxer. “You kept calling me all the time as if you were still my boss. Sometimes I couldn’t think straight — I even forgot to put my gloves on when the inspector came. You made it so hard for me to keep my mind on my work.”

  Mr. Boxer didn’t look a bit sorry anymore, just impatient to get rid of everybody.

  No one budged until Henry noticed someone was missing. “Where’s Tom in all this?” he asked.

  “Outside,” Violet said. “He just left. Where are you going, Tom?” Violet called out the door.

  Henry moved toward the door as well. “If Meg isn’t the one who helped Mr. Boxer, then Tom must have something to do with all the problems.”

  “Not Tom,” Violet and Mrs. Winkles said at the same time.

  “That guy?” Mr. Boxer said. “He’s just a snoop, always checking around here until I told him to stay away. Don’t worry, he doesn’t work for me. I could’ve used a smart guy like that, too. But he only wanted to work at Winkles — like it belonged to his family or something.”

  “The briefcase!” Jessie smacked her forehead. “The initials on Tom’s briefcase said: T.W. Remember?”

  “Let’s get out of here and go find Tom,” Henry said, glaring at Mr. Boxer. “We’ve done what we came here to do.”

  “You’re right,” said Mrs. Winkles. “I don’t think Mr. Boxer will be causing any more trouble.”

  The Aldens caught up to Tom out in the parking lot.

  Tom turned away from everyone. “Leave me be,” he said. “Not that I blame you for looking at me like that — like I hurt Mrs. Winkles’s business on purpose.”

  “Did you?” Violet asked. “Somebody put candy hearts with scary messages into Mrs. Winkles’s shipments. And mixed in Halloween ghosts with the sugar chicks.”

  “And somebody squished the little chocolate mice,” Soo Lee added.

  Tom looked completely confused. “I wasn’t that somebody.”

  Meg’s eyes widened. “It must have been Mr. Boxer again! One time I found him with some open boxes from other candy factories. He said the deliveryman dropped some shipments and candy fell out. But he was the only one who could have mixed up the Halloween candies with the candy hearts and eggs.”

  “And he must have been the one who put the hearts with scary message into Mrs. Winkles’s shipments,” said Henry.

  Violet smiled at Tom. “I knew it wasn’t you.”

  Violet’s words didn’t seem to make Tom feel any better. “I didn’t lie about the candy, but I wasn’t completely honest about something else,” Tom said miserably.

  “You’d better explain what you mean by that,” Henry said.

  “I’ve often had the feeling you were holding something back, Tom,” Mrs. Winkles said. “What was it?”

  “And who’s T.W. anyway?” Benny asked. “Jessie saw that on your briefcase, but you’re T.C. I know how to read.”

  The Aldens thought they saw Tom smile a little bit.

  “I guess I never should have come to Mrs. Winkles’s factory,” Tom said when he saw everyone waiting for an answer. “I’d better come clean about who I am and who I’m not.”

  “You’re not Tom Chipley?” Violet asked.

  Jessie’s jaw dropped, and before Tom could answer, she said: “The W on your briefcase stands for Winkles, doesn’t it? I’ve been wondering and wondering about that ever since we saw you in Mrs. Winkles’s office with her candy recipes.”

  “They’re family recipes,” Tom said. “My family’s recipes as well as yours, Mrs. Winkles. I’m Tom Winkles, Junior.”

  Mrs. Winkles took a deep breath. “What do you mean?”

  “My dad and my aunt are Seth Winkles’s brother and sister. We all live in Lititz now,” Tom began. “They went into the baking business after Uncle Seth left the candy factory to you and not them. I started to tell you that’s what I did, but when you thought I said banker, not baker, it made it easier than telling you who I really was. I’m so sorry.”

  “Your father and aunt always told Seth they didn’t want the business. That’s why he left it to me.” Mrs. Winkles looked more upset than the Aldens had ever seen her. “I even wrote to them saying
I wouldn’t mind sharing some of the old family recipes and such. But they never answered my letters.”

  Tom put his hand on Mrs. Winkles’s arm. “The two of them are too darn stubborn and proud. But once the factory was gone, they decided they wanted it after all. Go figure.”

  “I told my daddy I didn’t want my red wagon, but when he gave it away, I did want it,” Soo Lee announced.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Winkles said. “That’s the way these things often go. What I don’t understand, Tom, is why you didn’t just tell me who you were — why you were so secretive. And why you turned up now, after so many years.”

  Henry answered before Tom. “I have a feeling I know. It’s like when Grandfather tried to find us. We wanted to stick together with each other — to be our own family.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Tom agreed. “My dad and Aunt Millie are getting older now. They depend on me. They’d be upset if they knew I was here. I gave myself six months to learn all about candy making. I just thought I could find some of the old recipes and add some new items to our line of baked goods. I want to make a success of our business for them — expand it.”

  The Aldens believed Tom, but they still had a question.

  “What about the broken part on the chick machine?” Jessie asked. “And not talking to us the morning we saw you?”

  Tom looked down at his shoes. “I’m sorry about that, Jessie. Like Meg, I wanted to handle any problems myself. I guess I was hoping if Meg left, Mrs. Winkles would hire me to manage the factory, and I’d get around to telling her the truth.”

  “It gets harder to do that the longer the lie goes on, doesn’t it?” James Alden said.

  “It sure does,” Tom answered. “I went back early in the morning to try to fix the machine, but I didn’t have enough time. I was hoping to get away before anybody saw me. But you Aldens were too quick.”

  “And Mr. Boxer was too quick getting away from us,” Jessie said. “I’d like to find him and get him to admit all the things he did.”

  “I don’t want to see him again,” Mrs. Winkles said. “It doesn’t matter to me what Mr. Boxer says or does from now on. Now I know why Meg was so nervous around the factory. With Mr. Boxer out of the picture, I know she’ll do a great job. The most important thing is I found my nephew, Tom.”