Mystery in the Sand

by Gertrude Warner

  “Everything looks so hot and dry,” Jessie said. “Even the weeds look brown.”

  “I suppose we’re just wasting our time,” Violet said at last. “Let’s go and do our grocery shopping, Henry.”

  Henry began to back the car to turn it around on the narrow back road. Suddenly Benny heard something.

  “Hey, Henry, did you hear that? Me-ow! That was a cat. Stop again.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” replied Henry. “The car makes such a racket backing on these stones.”

  “Well, I did,” said Benny. “I heard meow just as plain as anything.”

  The family waited. Nobody else heard anything. And even Benny heard nothing more. They turned around and watched the window again.

  “Was that a shadow?” whispered Jessie.

  “It looked like a shadow,” whispered Benny.

  Then a pure white cat jumped up on the windowsill behind the glass. “Mee-ow,” it cried.

  “There!” exclaimed Benny. “There is one of the hundred cats for you!”

  “What a beauty,” whispered Violet. “Pure white. I wish I could see his eyes. He looks so soft and furry. And look at his big tail.”

  The cat sat down on the windowsill and began to wash its paws. The Aldens could see him plainly.

  Violet said, “I think that is a Persian cat.”

  Benny said, “Now we know there is at least one cat in the Tower House. Maybe there are ninety-nine more hidden away.”

  Henry said, “We’ve been here quite a long time. If anyone besides the cat in the Tower House has seen us, it might not be good. After all, we don’t want Miss Smith to think we are spying on her.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Jessie. “Yes, let’s go.”

  Jessie and Violet did the shopping. The boys walked along Main Street, looking in the windows. There were all sorts of things for the summer people to buy. An art store had oil paintings of the ocean. Then the boys crossed the street.

  Most of the buildings on that side were made of wood, and some were quite close together.

  Henry and Benny came to the fire station. Benny waved at one of the firemen. “Hot, isn’t it?” he called.

  The fireman nodded. “Bad weather for firemen,” he said. “Everything is so dry. This is when a fire can spread fast.”

  “Come on, Benny,” Henry said. “Let’s go back to the car. The girls should have their shopping done now.”

  Jessie and Violet were waiting. “I’m going for a swim as soon as we get back,” Violet said, getting into the car.

  “Let’s just take one more look at the Tower House on our way back,” Benny said.

  As the car came near the old house, Henry slowed down. All at once Benny exclaimed, “Stop, Henry! Stop right here.”

  Before anyone could say a word Benny had the car door open and had jumped out. He was running back along Main Street as fast as he could.

  “What—” Henry started to say. Then he stopped. At that moment Violet said, “Henry, I smell something burning!”

  “Me, too,” Jessie said.

  Henry and the girls jumped out of the car and looked around. The car was safe. But why had Benny run off? Now he had disappeared.

  Suddenly Violet said, “Look, Henry! The grass in the yard is on fire!”

  As she spoke, a flame reached the bushes. The dry leaves blazed up high.

  “Get back!” Henry said. “I’ll go for help.”

  But help was already there. The fire engine pulled in just as Henry started. Benny came racing after it.

  Jessie exclaimed, “Oh, that’s where Benny was. He smelled smoke and ran back for the firemen.”

  Even before Benny reached the girls, a fireman was turning a chemical fire extinguisher on the bushes. Another fireman was beating out the grass fire.

  Everyone was so busy that they did not see the side door of the Tower House open just a crack. No one saw that there were now three cats on the windowsill of the big back window.

  Nobody thought that Miss Smith, inside the house, could hear every word.

  The fire blazed high for a moment, and then it began to die down. Before anyone walking past could call, “Fire! Fire!” the danger was over.

  The fire chief came over to the Aldens. He said, “This was only a small brush fire. Only the bushes and the grass burned. But in fifteen minutes it would have been a big house fire. This house could have burned to the ground. Then the fire could have spread to the next row of houses on the hill. The wind is blowing the right way for that. You saved Miss Smith’s house, and maybe her life, young man.” He looked at Benny.

  Benny said slowly, “People don’t seem to like Miss Smith. Do you think somebody started the fire?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” the fireman answered. “Maybe someone threw a cigaret in the bushes.”

  “Here you are,” said another fireman. “Here’s the end of a cigaret right at the edge of the grass.”

  “People are so careless,” the first fireman said. “If this had happened at night, the whole town of Beachwood could have burned.”

  There was still a smoky smell in the air, but the fire was out. The firemen went back to their truck.

  “Good work,” the fire chief said to Benny. “You ran for help. You didn’t waste any time trying to put the fire out by yourself.”

  Violet looked toward the Tower House, then she said, “Quick, look over there!”

  The door was open just wide enough so that Miss Smith could look out. When she saw Violet, she called, “Who saved our house?”

  “That boy, Benny. My brother,” Violet said. “He ran to get the fire department to come.”

  “Which boy is Benny?” asked Miss Smith.

  “Right here. Me,” said Benny.

  Miss Smith looked at him and said, “Good!” Then she went in and shut the door. The Aldens looked at each other.

  Henry said, “Miss Smith isn’t very friendly.”

  Jessie said, “I told you it would be slow. It will take more than a fire to make friends with Miss Smith. She has been shut up alone too long.”

  “Well, Ben, you didn’t do it to be thanked,” Henry said.

  “No,” answered Benny. He was very quiet. He was thinking.

  As the Aldens drove back to the beach trailer, Jessie said, “I’m glad nobody set that fire. After that boy told us about breaking that window for nothing, I could believe almost anything.”

  “Right,” agreed Henry. “I can’t blame Miss Smith for not being very friendly.”

  Then Benny burst out, “You know what? I think there are two people living in Tower House! I don’t think Miss Smith lives there all by herself.”

  “We know she has cats,” Jessie said slowly.

  “I don’t mean the cats,” Benny said firmly. “I think another person lives there, too.”

  “Everybody says she lives alone, Ben,” argued Henry.

  Violet asked, “What makes you think that, Benny?”

  Benny answered quickly, “Don’t you remember she said, ‘Who saved our house?’ Not my house. When she said that, she didn’t mean the cats. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, you may be right,” said Jessie.

  “Maybe I am,” Benny agreed. “And maybe that locket belongs to this mysterious person, and that is why Miss Smith wouldn’t take it.”

  “I begin to see!” Henry said, nodding. “If she took the locket, that would give her secret away!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Violet’s Adventure

  Benny woke very early next morning. He looked out and saw that the weather had changed. It was very windy. The waves were high and the sand was blowing.

  Benny pulled on an old pair of pants and a sweatshirt. He wanted to race along the beach, barefoot, and have the whole place to himself.

  Without waking Henry or the girls, Benny opened the door and slipped outside.

  The very first thing, he stubbed his toe on a stone.

  “Ow!” he exclaimed. “That stone wasn’
t there last night. Now who in the world would put a stone right in my way?”

  Then suddenly he saw a piece of white paper blowing away. He raced after the paper.

  The wind blew it high, then low. At last it dropped on the sand.

  “Got you!” said Benny. He put his foot on it, until he could pick it up. “That stone I stepped on was holding you down.”

  Benny soon saw that the paper was a sheet of writing paper, folded in half. On the outside something was written in old-fashioned writing. Benny could hardly read it in the dim light, but at last he made out the words, “Thank you.” Then he opened the paper and looked inside. He read the message twice. It did not seem to make any sense. It said, “All thanks you. We all thank you.”

  That was it. Benny turned the paper over. He folded it again. “Who wrote this?” he thought. “And it must be for us, right in front of our trailer. That sentence, ‘All thanks you,’ isn’t even good English.”

  He started back to the trailer house. Now he looked around to see if anyone was in sight. The beach was empty from one end to the other.

  “Perhaps there are footprints,” Benny thought.

  But all he found were his own barefoot tracks he had just made chasing the paper.

  Near the door Benny found what he was looking for. There were three small footprints on the hard sand. “They look like a child’s shoes,” he thought.

  Two footprints pointed toward the trailer, and one was made as the person turned to go toward the water. But that was all. Everything else was washed away by the tide. There was nothing to show where the nighttime visitor had come from or gone.

  But Benny still had the note. He read it again. Then he opened the door of the trailer and found Henry and the girls just waking up.

  “Look!” Benny called. “A new mystery!”

  Everyone took turns looking at the note, reading it, and then looking out at the beach.

  At last Jessie said, “Well, I don’t know what to make of this.”

  “We can show it to Mr. Lee,” Benny said.

  “If he’s out on a windy morning like this,” Henry said. “The weather has changed.”

  “Let’s have breakfast inside,” Jessie suggested. “Ben, you sit where you can watch for Mr. Lee.”

  But although everyone watched, Mr. Lee and Richard did not come down the beach. There was not a sign of them. Jessie let the hot water for the tea grow cold. Everyone felt a bit sad and uneasy.

  Benny still thought about the note. “‘All thanks you,’” he said. “That bothers me.”

  Henry said, “Let me see that note again. The writing is hard to read. Do you think it really says ‘all’?”

  “I don’t know what else it could say,” Benny answered. “I would really like to know what it means.”

  “We all would,” Jessie said. “But I give up. I don’t think we’ll ever know what the message means or who was supposed to read it.”

  Benny folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Let’s go to town,” he said. “It’s too stormy to go swimming. There isn’t much to do here.”

  Nobody else really wanted to say this, but they were restless not doing anything.

  “Something may come up,” Benny said. “But it is more likely to come up in Beachwood than out here.”

  “We’ll just wait until after lunch, Benny,” said Jessie. “Then we’ll go up to Beachwood.”

  After the lunch dishes were done, they all changed their clothes and climbed into Henry’s car.

  They were soon on Main Street in Beachwood, but Henry had a hard time parking the car.

  “I forgot this was shopping day,” said Henry, looking everywhere for a parking place. “I guess the windy weather made everybody decide to come to town.”

  At last, far down the Main Street, almost at the very end, Henry found room to park. In fact, there was space for two or three cars along the curb.

  “One place is all I need,” Henry said, laughing. He put a coin in the meter.

  “Look at the crowd,” Benny exclaimed. “Let’s just walk down the street with the crowd. I didn’t know Beachwood had so many people.”

  “It doesn’t, Ben,” Jessie told him. “You’ll notice half this crowd comes in from the beaches. The town people are all pale, and the visitors are tanned.”

  “And the town people take their time and drive along slowly,” Benny said. “But look at some of the beach people!”

  “That’s right,” Henry agreed. “Those drivers expect you to keep out of their way. If you don’t, too bad!”

  The Aldens had worked their way down Main Street as far as the drugstore. The street was thick with cars, and people were looking for parking places and honking their horns. What a racket!

  Henry and Benny, with Jessie between them, walked along quickly. But Violet stopped to look in a window.

  Suddenly Violet cried out, “Oh, look! Look at that cat!”

  And before Henry or anyone else could stop her, she ran out into the street. She threw her left hand high in the air to stop the cars coming toward her. There was a noise of grinding gears, and all the cars stopped with a jerk.

  Paying no attention, Violet bent over and picked up an enormous gray cat. He was crouching in the dust of the street, and trembling all over.

  With the cat safe in her arms, Violet ran back to the sidewalk.

  “Did you see that?” a man asked his wife. “That girl risked her life for a cat. She could have been killed!”

  Jessie and Henry took Violet between them and led her through the crowd. Violet had the big cat safe in her arms, and indeed the cat did not try to get away.

  The drugstore clerk had come to the door of his store. He watched as the postman spoke to Violet.

  The postman said, “That’s Miss Smith’s cat. She lives in Tower House. But I don’t think she’ll let you in.”

  “She’ll let you in this time—when she sees you coming with her cat,” said the clerk.

  People turned to look and smile at Violet. She was a pretty picture in her lavender shorts, a lavender scarf over her hair. And against the lavender was the great gray cat, with long soft fur and beautiful big eyes.

  The cat lay still in Violet’s arms, although she could feel its heart beating fast. He seemed to know that he was safe from all the noise.

  The Aldens walked across to the Tower House, and this time Benny rapped. He did not have to rap again, for the door opened at once. There stood a new Mary Smith. She was very much upset and frightened.

  “Oh, come in! Bring the cat in. I let him out! I am to blame,” Miss Smith said all in one breath. “To think he could have been run over in the street!”

  The cat seemed to be comfortable in Violet’s arms. It did not move or try to get down.

  When Miss Smith told Violet and Benny to go into the house, they did so. They looked quickly around the room. They both noticed a long black velvet curtain which hung from the ceiling to the floor at the end of the room. But they were amazed at Miss Smith. She was shaking, really shaking.

  Violet said, “You’d feel better if you made a cup of hot tea. Why don’t you get one? We’ll be careful when we go out and not let your cat out again.”

  Miss Smith actually smiled at Violet. “Oh, I believe I will,” she said. “That cat is Ali Baba the Third, and to think I nearly lost him! You stay just a minute. I don’t want any tea.”

  Miss Smith went through the black curtain at the end of the room. She was careful not to let any light shine into the room beyond.

  Violet looked about and noticed that the furniture was old and fine and the carpet was an oriental one. She still held the big cat.

  Jessie and Henry had been a few steps behind Benny and Violet. When Miss Smith had asked them to come in, she had been too excited to notice Henry and Jessie. They were left out, on the other side of the door.

  “We sure were left out in the cold,” Henry said. “I wish we knew what was going on inside the Tower House.”

  “I thought V
iolet and Benny would be right out,” Jessie said. “But I am sure they are all right.”

  “We’ll wait, then try knocking,” Henry decided.

  Inside the house, Miss Smith soon came back to her guests. She was still upset. “I let him out!” she repeated. “I just opened the door a crack and out he went, flying. I let him out.”

  Benny and Violet could not understand this. But they were not going to leave Miss Smith until she felt better. Nobody could be less like a witch than Miss Smith!

  “I love cats,” said Violet. “And so does Benny.”

  “I see you do. I never saw that cat go to anybody, not even me. You must have a way with you. Do you have a cat?”

  “No, we have a dog,” replied Violet, smiling.

  Benny said, “I can just see Watch if we brought home a cat. He’s a dog that doesn’t like cats.”

  “Most dogs don’t,” said Miss Smith, still trembling.

  If Violet and Benny had known it, Miss Smith had talked more in the last five minutes than she did in most weeks. She couldn’t seem to stop saying, “I am to blame. I’m the one who let him out.”

  Violet still held the cat. She said, “Don’t blame yourself so much. Look, here is the cat, safe in the house. And he’s beginning to purr. Nobody else, surely, is blaming you.”

  But Miss Smith certainly acted as if someone else was blaming her. She stared at the cat and said, “I never saw Ali Baba friendly with anyone before. He’s a very wild cat.”

  Benny said, “He knows Violet loves him. Animals know when anyone really likes them.”

  It was odd that neither Benny nor Violet thought once of the locket and the picture of the cat in it. But they were too busy thinking of Miss Smith and her troubles. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Benny saw the black curtain move.

  “That is no cat,” Benny thought. “I’m sure there are two people here, just as I thought.”

  Violet had the same idea. Miss Smith disappeared behind the curtain again for a minute. When she came back, she said, “Would you do something for me, little girl?”

  Violet did not feel that she was a little girl, but she said, “Of course. I hope it is something I can do.”