Bobbsey Twins_Mystery at School

by Laura Lee Hope

  “I’ll bet Danny and Jack took Snap I” Charlie exclaimed. “Let’s go get him!”

  The two boys parked their bicycles in front of the Westleys’ house and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Westley answered.

  “Jack’s out with his new dog,” she said, smiling, when Bert asked for him.

  “Do you know where he got the dog?” Charlie inquired casually.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Westley replied. “He bought him from a friend at school.”

  The boys thanked Jack’s mother and walked away.

  “A likely story!” Bert muttered to Charlie as they hopped on their bicycles. “The ‘friend’ was probably Danny!”

  “Let’s ambush Jack!” Charlie proposed. “We can hide behind those bushes across the street and grab Snap when Jack comes along with him.”

  “Okay!”

  The two boys looked around. The street was deserted. They rode across to a clump of shrubbery in front of an empty house. Carefully they hid the bicycles and crouched down behind the bushes. They had a clear view up and down the street.

  Bert and Charlie had been there only a few minutes when Charlie whispered, “Here they come now!”

  About a block away were a boy and a large white dog. The boys watched as they approached. Suddenly Bert gave a groan. “That’s not Snap!” he exclaimed. “That dog has short hair!”

  Charlie chuckled. “I hope Jack goes into his house and doesn’t see us hiding here!”

  Jack was paying no attention to anything but his new pet. Whistling to the dog, he ran around the side of the house and disappeared. Cautiously, Bert and Charlie got on their bicycles and rode off.

  “We’re near the Nelson house,” Bert observed. “Let’s ride past it.” He told Charlie about the face in the window which Nan had thought she saw when they had been there before.

  “Sounds spooky!” Charlie commented.

  In a few minutes they were passing the old house. Bert looked at the windows. All the shades on the second floor were down. Then he glanced at the garage.

  “Say!” he cried, putting on his brake. “The garage door’s open, and I think there’s a white panel truck parked in there!”

  “The same one that was at school?” Charlie asked excitedly.

  “I’m going to find out!” Bert jumped off his bicycle and began to walk up the driveway. When he reached the garage, he took out his notebook and compared the license number of the truck with the one he had jotted down at school. It was the same !

  He ran down the drive and told Charlie. “I must get to a telephone and call Chief Mahoney right away!” he decided. “Perry must be the ice-cream man! I hope he doesn’t leave before the police can get here!”

  “I’ll stay,” Charlie volunteered, “and watch the garage. I’ll follow him if he leaves!”

  “Good!” Bert jumped on his bicycle and pedaled off as fast as he could.

  There were no stores around this residential district, but after a few minutes Bert spotted a sidewalk phone booth. Quickly he dialed police headquarters.

  “Patrolman Murphy and another man will be right over!” the chief assured him when Bert had told his story.

  Bert hurried back to the spot where he had left Charlie. No one was there! Then he heard a pst! and looked around. Charlie beckoned to him from behind a large tree.

  “I decided I’d better get out of sight,” Charlie explained. “Someone might see me watching the house.”

  “The police will be here in a few minutes,” Bert assured him. “Then we’ll see if Perry is in there.”

  He had just finished speaking when a police car slid to a stop on the other side of the street. Two officers got out followed by Nan, Freddie, and Flossie.

  Seeing Bert’s surprise, Nan said with a laugh, “You didn’t think you could do this alone, did you?”

  Officer Murphy spoke up. “If there’s going to be a capture, we thought the other Bobbsey twins should be in on it. We stopped at your house and picked them up.”

  Bert grinned at his brother and sisters. Then he asked the policeman, “What’s the next step?”

  “You children stay here on the sidewalk while Kelly and I go up to the house,” Officer Murphy directed. “I don’t want you in any danger.”

  The twins and Charlie watched as the police officers walked up to the door of the old house. They rang the bell several times without getting any response.

  Then Officer Murphy pounded on the door and called out, “Open up! This is the police!”

  Suddenly Flossie shouted, “There goes someone !” She dashed up the walk to the two officers. “I saw a man run away from the back of the house. He’s in the garage!” Flossie cried, panting.

  By this time the other children had caught up with Flossie. Motioning them to stay behind, the policemen started toward the garage. As they approached the old barn, there was a roar, and the truck motor started up.

  “Halt!” Murphy shouted, running into the garage.

  In his haste to get the truck running, the driver stalled the motor. At the sight of the police, he shrugged and climbed out of the vehicle.

  “What’s the big idea?” he blustered. “I’ve got a right to leave this place if I want to!”

  Officer Murphy called the children. “Have you seen this man before?” he asked them.

  “Yes!” they chorused, and Nan said, “It’s the ice-cream man!”

  The officer turned to the man. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Ernie Perry. I work for Mr. Nelson, who lives in this house,” he said defiantly.

  “Then what are you doing with this truck, and where is the statuette you stole from the school?” Murphy asked sternly.

  “I don’t know anything about any statuette!” Perry insisted. “I was just trying to make a little money by selling ice cream while my boss is away. There’s no law against that, is there?”

  “Open up the truck!” Officer Murphy said. “We’ll take a look around for that statuette.”

  “I’ll have to go in the house and get the key,” Perry said sullenly.

  “Maybe not,” the policeman said. “Try that one on your key ring!”

  With a glare at the smiling officer, Perry unlocked the back of the truck. “Go ahead!” he snarled. “Look until you’re blue in the face! You won’t find anything!”

  The two officers searched the truck carefully. They found nothing except a small supply of paper spoons.

  “Satisfied?” Perry asked with a sneer.

  CHAPTER XVI

  A VALUABLE FIND

  “THE snake goddess must be in the truck!” Bert said desperately.

  The officers examined the vehicle again. Still they did not uncover anything suspicious.

  “I told you there was nothing hidden!” Perry said triumphantly. “I don’t know why these kids are picking on me!”

  Bert did not know what to think. Perhaps Perry was not the thief after all! The embarrassed boy was about to walk out to his bicycle when he had a sudden thought. He stood back of the truck and studied it closely. Then he whispered something to Officer Murphy.

  “You’re right, Bert!” the policeman exclaimed. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that!”

  He motioned to the other officer. “Come on, Kelly,” he called. “Let’s pry up the floor of this truck!”

  Ernie Perry turned pale. “You can’t do that!” he protested. “You’ll ruin the truck!”

  “Okay,” the policeman said. “If you don’t want us to do it, take up that false bottom yourself!”

  Still protesting, Perry pushed two concealed buttons, then lifted a portion of the truck’s flooring. Beneath it was a space filled with packages.

  “Good!” Officer Murphy said. “Now we’ll make sure that you don’t leave us suddenly!” He took a pair of handcuff’s from his pocket, fastened one end to Perry’s wrist and the other to a support in the doorway of the garage.

  Then the police officers began to remove the packages from the bottom of the truck. I
n a few minutes there were six spread out on the grass next to the driveway.

  “Is the snake goddess there?” Nan asked eagerly.

  “We’ll see!” Murphy picked up a brown paper bag and peered into it. He handed the package to Bert, who opened it quickly.

  “It’s the statuette!” he cried happily.

  Perry smirked. “I know valuable art when I see it,” he boasted. “That’s the best thing Mr. Nelson ever bought! It belongs to him. I didn’t steal it for myself.” The others doubted this.

  “What’s in the other packages?” Flossie asked curiously.

  While the children watched with interest, the bags were opened. All contained Greek art objects. There were two vases. One of them was like the vase in the school museum collection.

  “That’s an amphora!” Freddie announced. He was very proud that he had remembered the name Mr. Tetlow had told the children.

  The remaining three objects were ornamental gold cups with designs hammered into the sides. Nan exclaimed, “How lovely!”

  “Those are Vaphio gold cups!” Perry told her. “They were made in Crete thousands of years ago. And they are Mr. Nelson’s. I was afraid to leave them in the house with nobody home, so I carried them around with me.”

  Officer Murphy scowled. “I believe they were stolen from the museum at Sanderville!” he said. “It wasn’t a gang from New York taking all the art objects around this area. It was you!”

  Ernie Perry shrugged his shoulders. “You have no proof.”

  “Maybe we have,” Bert spoke up. “You put on a bald wig and pretended to be an electrician when you took the statuette from school.”

  The suspected man looked surprised but said nothing. He took a stick of gum from his pocket and began to unwrap it nervously.

  Flossie watched with interest and suddenly spoke up. “That’s the same kind of gum wrapper Freddie found in the museum room.”

  Perry glared at the little girl. Officer Murphy was about to say something when Freddie cried, “Here’s the wig!”

  The little boy had climbed into the truck and searched in the comers under the floor. Now he held up a piece of a bald wig! I

  “I guess that’s proof enough,” said the officer. Perry slumped to the ground, too weak to stand. In a trembling voice he confessed everything.

  “How did you expect to dispose of all this valuable stuff?” Murphy asked him.

  The thief explained that he had a friend in the West who planned to sell the things to a small museum. “We’d have had a good thing going if these kids hadn’t snooped around!” he said fiercely.

  “That’s right!” Officer Murphy agreed. “It’s lucky they did.”

  “We wouldn’t have done if it you hadn’t been so mean to our dog Snap!” Freddie spoke up.

  “Your dog Snap!” Perry repeated scornfully. “You mean the mutt that jumped up on the seat after me? That was Bob, Red Rankin’s trick dog!”

  “How did you know that?” Bert asked, puzzled.

  “I worked at the Hayden circus before I went with Mr. Nelson. That dog never liked me, and I never liked him!”

  Officer Murphy motioned to the other policeman. “Come on, Kelly, we’ll put these things in the trunk of our car and take them down to headquarters along with Perry.”

  Bert looked pleadingly at the officer. “Do you think I could take the snake goddess back to school? After all, I’m responsible for it, and I’d like to see it safe in the museum.”

  The officer patted Bert on the back. “You’ve done a good job catching this fellow. I think we can let you take the statuette. I’ll explain to Chief Mahoney.”

  Bert’s face shone. “Thanks a million, Officer Murphy!” he cried. He carefully rewrapped the little figure in the paper and placed it in the basket on the handlebars of his bicycle.

  “May we get out at school too?” Flossie asked as she, Nan, and Freddie climbed into the police car.

  “Yes, let’s!” Nan said eagerly. “I’d like to see Mr. Tetlow’s face when Bert gives him the snake goddess!”

  By this time Bert and Charlie had ridden off on their bicycles. “We’ll take Perry to headquarters first, then drop you children at the school,” Officer Murphy decided as he drove away from the Nelson house.

  Bert and Charlie had just arrived at the school building when the police car drew up and the other children jumped out.

  “It’s pretty late,” Bert observed. “I hope Mr. Tetlow is still here!”

  The principal was still in his office working on some reports when the five children walked in. He looked up in surprise.

  “Well, what brings you to school so late?” he asked, taking off his glasses and leaning back in his chair.

  Bert’s voice shook with excitement as he cried, “We’ve brought the statuette !”

  Mr. Tetlow jumped to his feet. “You have?” he exclaimed. “Where did you find it?”

  When the story of Ernie Perry had been told, the principal looked amazed. “So it was Mr. Nelson’s man after all!” he exclaimed. “Of course, he would know the value of the museum pieces!”

  “And he was the pretend ’lectric light man!” Flossie piped up.

  Mr. Tetlow smiled at her. “Without you Bobbsey twins,” he said solemnly, “I doubt if we could have recovered the statuette so quickly. I’m certainly very happy to have it back.”

  “May we put it in the museum again?” Nan asked.

  “By all means,” Mr. Tetlow replied. “And I’m sure Mr. Carter will take special care of it!”

  So the little figure was once more placed on the shelf in the museum room. Bert heaved a sigh of relief as the children left the school.

  “Boy! Am I glad that mystery is solved!” he said thankfully.

  “And now if we could only find Snap!” Flossie sighed.

  “And his owner!” Freddie reminded her. “Then maybe Daddy could buy Snap for us!”

  The twins waved good-by to Charlie and turned toward home. “Want a ride?” Bert asked Flossie.

  When the little girl said, “Yes,” Nan lifted her into the basket on her brother’s bicycle. Flossie was a bit big for the basket even though she sat with her knees up under her chin.

  “You’re getting big!” Bert teased her as he pretended to puff and pant with the effort of pedaling. “Sit still, or I’ll dump you off!”

  Flossie giggled. She sat very quietly for a few minutes. Then she saw Susie Larker. Susie had her white kitten on a leash and was walking along the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

  Forgetting she was on a bicycle, Flossie turned quickly to get a better look at the strange sight. At the same moment Bert hit a hole in the pavement and lost his balance.

  Crash! The bicycle fell to the street and Bert and Flossie were thrown off! When Bert got untangled from the wheel he ran over to his little sister, who was seated on the curbstone rubbing her knee.

  “Are you all right, Flossie?” Bert asked anxiously, kneeling down beside her.

  “I—I guess so!” Flossie quavered. “But I skinned my knee!” A few tears welled up in her blue eyes.

  At that moment Nan and Freddie ran up. They had seen the spill from a distance. Nan took Flossie’s hand. “Come on, honey,” she said comfortingly. “We’ll hurry home and fix your knee.”

  By the time Flossie’s knee was bandaged, Dinah was sounding the dinner chimes.

  When the Bobbseys had gathered around the supper table, Bert told his exciting story.

  “I’m proud of you all!” Mr. Bobbsey said when his son had finished. “You did very well to solve the mystery of that stolen statue!”

  Just then a shrill whistle sounded. Everyone stopped talking and listened. Then two more whistles came.

  “It’s a fire!” Freddie shouted, springing from his chair.

  As the others jumped up too, they heard the clang of fire engines rushing down the street. Bert ran to the window. A glare lighted the sky.

  “I think it’s near the lake, Dad!” Bert cried.


  Mr. Bobbsey dashed to the telephone and called the firehouse. His face was white when he turned back to his family.

  “Our boathouse is on fire!” he said grimly.

  CHAPTER XVII

  HELPING THE FIRE FIGHTERS

  “OUR boathouse!” Bert repeated in horror. “Your boats, Dad, and my canoe will be ruined!” He dashed toward the door.

  “I’ll put out the fire!” Freddie shouted, running after his brother. “Let me get my pumper!” Freddie loved playing fireman and had an engine that sprayed real water.

  “Just a minute!” Mr. Bobbsey called. “I’m not sure you children should go down there! It may be dangerous!”

  “Oh, please, Daddy!” Nan begged. “It’s our boathouse that’s on fire!”

  “They can stay in the station wagon with me, Dick,” the twins’ mother suggested.

  “Very well,” Mr. Bobbsey relented. “We’ll all go. You may be able to help, Bert. The wood in our boathouse has been treated and will resist fire for a short time.”

  When the children and their parents had finally piled into the car, the streets were full of people hurrying toward the lake front. As another fire engine roared past, the glow in the sky grew redder.

  “Hurry, Daddy!” Freddie urged, standing up and leaning over his father’s shoulder.

  Mr. Bobbsey drove as fast as he dared through the increasing traffic. When they were half a block away from a busy intersection, the Bobbseys heard a loud crash!

  “What happened?” Flossie cried.

  “That hook and ladder that just passed us has hit something!” Bert exclaimed.

  Mr. Bobbsey stopped the station wagon, and they all ran up to the intersection. The hook and ladder had struck a parked car and skidded across the street, completely blocking it!

  “We have to get to the fire, Daddy!” Freddie cried desperately. “How can we pass?”

  By that time the firemen and several passers-by were surveying the wreck. The rear bumper of the car had caught under the front of the fire truck, and the driver of the hook and ladder could not back away!

  “I think we can lift this car from under the truck,” Mr. Bobbsey observed. At his direction two men stood on the bumper while he and two of the firemen pulled the car loose. Then with a wave of thanks the firemen backed the truck and clanged away toward the lake. The Bobbseys ran back to their car.