Mystery Bookstore

by Charles Tang

  “These are the best doughnuts I ever tasted,” Benny said between bites of warm, powdered doughnuts.

  “Those aren’t just ordinary doughnuts, Benny,” Miss Chase said. “They’re a special New Orleans kind called beignets. I picked them up at the French Market this morning. As for your coffee, James, that’s our New Orleans-style coffee. It has chicory in it.”

  “Grandfather’s coffee has chickens in it?” Benny cried.

  Everyone was laughing so hard, they didn’t hear the courtyard door open down below.

  “Not chickens, Benny.” Miss Chase laughed. “It’s chicory, a special coffee flavoring.”

  It was only later, when Benny and Henry were washing dishes, that Benny saw something move. “Is the bookshop open?” he asked Miss Chase. “I think somebody wearing a blue top is down in the courtyard.”

  But when Benny and the other children ran to the sleeping porch to check, the person in the blue top had vanished.

  “Hey, where did that person go?” Benny yelled. “Nobody went out that door.”

  “Are you sure you saw someone?” Miss Chase asked Benny. “I’m sure I locked the courtyard door. Remember? Maybe what you saw was one of those boxes blowing around from the auction yesterday.”

  “But boxes don’t wear blue tops,” Benny said. “We better go check it out.”

  “Good for you, Benny,” Miss Chase said. “A careful detective follows every lead. You children can go downstairs. Let me know if anything seems disturbed. I’ll be right down. I’m just going to call in an ad to the newspaper. I need a book expert to help us price Mrs. Post’s old books for our book sale.”

  “Then I’ll be off too, Olivia,” Mr. Alden said. “My taxi will be here any second. I’ll be back in a week.”

  The children hugged their grandfather, then raced down to the courtyard. They had just reached the bottom step when they heard the courtyard door click shut.

  “See!” Benny cried. “Somebody was here. They must have left when they heard us.” He pulled at the door, but it wouldn’t open.

  “I guess it locks from both sides,” Henry said. “I’ll get Miss Chase’s key.”

  When Henry returned, he unlocked the courtyard door. Benny raced out to the sidewalk. “See, there’s someone with a blue shirt going down the block! I told you.”

  Violet put her arm around Benny, then pointed to another person on the busy street. “And there’s someone else with a blue top.”

  “There’s that woman who came late to the auction,” Jessie said. She pointed to Sarah Deckle, who was staring into the bookstore window. “She has on a blue jacket.”

  “Even Grandfather is wearing blue today,” Henry said to a disappointed Benny. “Look, he’s getting in his taxi to go to the airport. He has on his blue blazer.”

  “Even I’m wearing a blue shirt,” Benny said. “Today must be Wear-Something-Blue Day.” Then Benny had to laugh.

  The Aldens walked back into the courtyard to begin cleaning up. There was plenty to do before the big book sale.

  “Any luck with the mystery person?” Miss Chase asked when she came down to see how the Aldens were getting on.

  “No,” Benny answered, “but somebody was here all right. And they left in a big, big hurry when they heard us.”

  Miss Chase stopped to look at something under the sleeping porch. “I think Benny’s right. Come here and tell me what you see.”

  The Aldens stared down at the patch of dirt and weeds under the porch.

  “Look! There are clumps of dirt from here to the courtyard door,” Violet said. “And some of the weeds are squished. But couldn’t that be from yesterday? There were a lot of people walking around the courtyard during the auction. Maybe some of them tracked the dirt out.”

  “Good detective work, Violet,” Miss Chase said. “But think some more.”

  Violet’s blue eyes lit up. “Wait! It rained a little bit this morning. If somebody walked through the dirt yesterday, the clumps would have washed away!”

  “Very good,” Miss Chase said.

  “Shh,” Benny whispered when a few people wandered into the courtyard to look around. “There’s that lady again.”

  “Why, hello, Miss Deckle,” Olivia Chase said to the young woman. “What brings you here so early?”

  “I still can’t get over missing out on the auction yesterday,” Sarah Deckle told Miss Chase. “I would just love to look through your bookshop. Couldn’t I take a peek now, please?”

  Miss Chase finally gave in. “I guess you can look around. But I can’t sell a thing until our book sale on Saturday.”

  “Thank you! Thank you!” Sarah Deckle said. As soon as Miss Chase opened the bookstore door, the young woman disappeared inside the store without another word.

  Chapter 3

  Violet Gets a Present

  The hours flew by. Miss Chase spent her time making business calls. The Aldens carried books from the shop out to the tables in the courtyard where the book sale would be held. And Sarah Deckle spent the morning buried in the children’s book section where she seemed to be reading every book from cover to cover.

  “This is practically the hardest job I’ve ever done,” Jessie said.

  “Harder than cleaning up a boxcar or working in a pizza restaurant?” Henry asked in amazement.

  “These books are just so tempting,” Jessie said. “I keep wanting to stop work so I can read them. I wish we were living in the bookshop instead of above it.”

  “Me, too,” Violet confessed. “Here’s a neat old book on needlepoint. It’s full of patterns I’ve never seen before.” Then Violet showed the others something else she had found. “This beautiful boxed set of fairy tales was mixed in with some stamp collecting books in the hobby box. There are four stories in the set, Tom Thumb, Goose Girl, Briar Rose, and, my favorite of all, The Little Mermaid. I’m going to show it to Miss Chase.”

  Violet found Miss Chase working in the bookstore. “Look at this pretty set of fairy tales, Miss Chase. Should I put it aside? It’s got beautiful illustrations.”

  Miss Chase came over and put her arm around Violet. “The books are lovely. I never noticed them in Mabel Post’s shop before, but I guess it’s because they were jumbled up with the hobby books. That Mabel. She liked to just throw everything together! Anyway, you found the set, so I’d like you to keep it, Violet.”

  Violet shook her head. “No, I couldn’t, Miss Chase. What if the set is valuable? You need every penny to buy new books for the Mystery Bookstore.” Violet handed the boxed set back to Miss Chase.

  “It couldn’t be that valuable if Mabel just threw it in with the hobby books. Take it as a thank-you present. You children are saving me many, many more pennies with all your help than this set could possibly be worth,” she said.

  Violet ran her fingers over the beautiful fairy tale collection. “Thank you. I’ll take very good care of them.”

  Violet and Miss Chase then went back out to the courtyard to see how the work was coming along.

  “What else can we do, Miss Chase?” Jessie asked. “We organized all the books out here. We’ll put out the children’s books after Sarah Deckle leaves.”

  “I really must get her out of the store,” Miss Chase whispered. “She just won’t budge.”

  “I’ll go tell her it’s lunchtime,” Benny suggested. “Because it is!”

  Miss Chase laughed. “Good idea, Benny. Nobody would keep a hungry boy from lunch.”

  But Miss Chase was wrong. When Benny told Sarah Deckle it was lunchtime, the young woman tried to send him away. “Oh, no problem, little boy. Run along. I’ll just be a little while longer.”

  Now Benny Alden liked just about everything, but two things he didn’t like were being called a little boy and having to wait for lunch. Those doughnuts seemed an awful long time ago.

  “I meant lunchtime for everyone,” Benny said in his nicest voice.

  Sarah Deckle still didn’t move.

  “Closing time, closing time!�
� Miss Chase said in her no-nonsense voice.

  “But, but, I’m not finished,” Sarah Deckle complained.

  “You’ll have more than enough time this weekend when the book sale starts,” Miss Chase said. “Besides, everything is all dark and musty in here. You can hardly see a thing. By Saturday, we’ll have all these books out in the courtyard where it’s nice and bright. There, there, Miss Deckle. Now run along and enjoy a good lunch.”

  “Can we have lunch now, too?” Benny asked.

  “We sure can,” Miss Chase answered. “Let’s go to Mama’s Restaurant. It’s a couple of blocks away on Magazine Street. It’s one of your grandfather’s favorite lunch places.”

  “Then I know it will be mine, too,” Benny said.

  They were just about to leave when Sarah Deckle turned around one last time.

  “I’m going, I’m going,” she began, “but I . . .” She stopped talking when she noticed Violet putting the boxed set into Jessie’s green backpack so it wouldn’t get lost. “May I just look at that set?” she asked.

  Miss Chase finally ran out of patience. “Those books are not for sale, Miss Deckle. For that matter, none of these books are for sale until this weekend. Now these children must have some lunch. I suggest the same for you.”

  There was no mistaking Olivia Chase this time. She held the courtyard door open until Sarah Deckle finally walked out.

  “Whew! I thought it would be dinnertime before she left,” Jessie said as they walked down the street. “I could eat two lunches now.”

  “I could eat two hundred!” Benny said, skipping ahead of everyone.

  They were almost at Mama’s Restaurant when Miss Chase remembered something. “Henry, would you do me a big favor? Please run back to the courtyard and see if I left my notepad on one of the tables. I have to stop at the office supply store, but I can’t remember what was on my list. Here’s the key to the courtyard. We’ll save a place for you.”

  “Be back in a flash,” Henry said, taking Miss Chase’s keys.

  When Henry reached the courtyard door he looked down and noticed that the door was opened slightly.

  “What?” he said to himself.

  Henry pushed the heavy door slowly so it wouldn’t squeak. He looked around. Right away he saw that some of the plastic rain sheets on the book tables were folded back.

  “Looking for someone?” a man’s voice called out.

  Henry jumped.

  “How did you get in here, Mr. Bindry?” Henry asked the gray-haired man.

  “How did you know I was Mr. Bindry?”

  “Miss Chase told us at the auction,” Henry answered. “She said you were a rare-book expert and that you had known Mrs. Post.”

  “Olivia should keep her business to herself instead of talking so much to every tourist who passes through,” Mr. Bindry said angrily.

  “I’m not a tourist,” Henry explained. “I mean, I am a tourist, I guess. But I’m here with my brother and two sisters to help Miss Chase get her mystery bookshop ready for business.”

  “A mystery bookshop!” he shouted. “What nonsense! Olivia should stick to writing books, not selling them.”

  “How did you get in here?” Henry repeated. “Do you have a key, too?”

  “Don’t need a key when fool people leave the door wide open,” Mr. Bindry said. “I just walked right in.”

  Henry scratched his head. He was pretty sure they’d locked the door, but he wasn’t about to argue with Mr. Bindry. Looking around, Henry spied Miss Chase’s notepad lying on one of the tables.

  “This is what I came for,” Henry explained. “So I guess I’d better lock up. Miss Chase is waiting for me.”

  Henry waited for Mr. Bindry to leave, but the man didn’t seem to want to go. Finally, Henry said, “We’re getting all those books ready for a big book sale on Saturday. You can buy anything you want then, Mr. Bindry.”

  “Hrmph!” was all Mr. Bindry had to say before he was finally good and ready to leave.

  Out on the street, Henry double-checked that the courtyard door was really locked this time. He was so busy locking up, he didn’t happen to see what Mr. Bindry had tossed in the backseat of his car.

  It was a blue jacket.

  Chapter 4

  Snooping Around

  “These book tables are as well organized as a library,” Miss Chase told the Aldens the next day. “I’m glad to see Violet reading one of her fairy tales because some of these books have been sitting in this shop unread for decades.”

  Henry laid down an armful of books on a sale table. “We’re almost done!” he said. “Now we can clean up the inside of the bookshop before the painters come.”

  Jessie checked each table to make sure the books were in alphabetical order. She turned to Miss Chase. “I hope you make lots of money on these dusty old books. Then you can order some brand-new ones for your brand-new shop!”

  “All that’s left is to hire someone who knows a lot about these books to help me price them,” Miss Chase said. “I do hope someone will answer my newspaper ad.”

  “How come you didn’t . . .” Jessie started to say before she stopped. She didn’t want to be nosy.

  “. . . hire Ezra Bindry?” Miss Chase said, finishing Jessie’s question. “I’d like nothing better. But Ezra goes out of his way to say he doesn’t like mystery books — or the people who write them! He’s a strange one. He doesn’t really read the words in books. He just looks at how they’re made, not what they say. They could be shoes or hats or loaves of bread.”

  “I wish some of these books were loaves ofbread,” Benny said when he heard this.

  “What if Mr. Bindry answers your ad?” Violet asked Miss Chase.

  “Why, I guess I’d give him the job,” Miss Chase answered. “Maybe now that Mrs. Post doesn’t stand between us, I can start fresh with Ezra.”

  Everyone was surprised to hear someone trying to open the courtyard door.

  “That’s funny,” Violet said when she went to see who was there. “I put a sign up saying we’re closed until Saturday.” But before she could unlock the door, Violet felt it push open.

  “Why, Rex!” Miss Chase said when she saw who was there. “What brings you here?”

  Mr. Phillips’s answer was a frown. He shifted from foot to foot and dropped his keys. Violet put down her copy of Tom Thumb to pick them up.

  “I’ve got them,” Mr. Phillips snapped, stepping on his keys. He picked them up and handed Violet her book. “Where’d you get this book anyway?”

  “It’s a present from me, Rex,” Miss Chase said. “I’m sorry, but the shop isn’t open for business yet.”

  Mr. Phillips explained his visit. “Since I’m an old friend of Mabel’s, too, I wanted to look around before the sale. I expected to be the owner by now, but you seem to have arranged to get the bookstore for yourself.”

  Miss Chase blushed at Mr. Phillips’s rude remark.

  “I didn’t arrange anything of the kind, Rex. Mr. Alden is renting me the bookstore. I expect to pay him back shortly. I certainly don’t have to explain things any further.”

  “All right. All right,” Mr. Phillips said. “I just want a quick look.”

  Miss Chase stepped between Mr. Phillips and the book tables. “I’m sorry, Rex. The Aldens have put these books in perfect order for my sale. Everything is all set to be priced. Our sale starts Saturday morning at nine sharp. I will see you then.”

  With that, Miss Chase guided Mr. Phillips out.

  “What a difficult man! He was always pestering Mabel Post, too,” Miss Chase explained. “The only thing they had in common was stamp collecting. Rex was convinced Mabel had a valuable stamp she had hidden away. In any case, Rex already bought all her albums. What more could he want?”

  “I’m sure glad he left,” Henry said. “Now we can get started washing down these shelves before the painters get here.”

  “Good idea,” Miss Chase said. “With all of us pitching in, we’ll be done in a snap.”
r />   They got right to work. Henry started with the top shelves while the younger children washed the bottom ones.

  Benny was full of questions. “Are the painters painting the walls black? Can we keep those cobwebs up on the ceiling? Maybe the shop should look like a haunted house!”

  Miss Chase laughed. “I don’t know about black walls and cobwebs, Benny, but I love Violet’s idea to decorate the store windows and walls with black paper footprints. Oh my, there’s someone staring in the window.”

  The children turned around.

  “It’s Mr. Bindry,” Henry said. “I bet he wants to snoop around like he did yesterday. I told him to come back on Saturday.”

  Miss Chase opened the bookshop door. “Come in, come in, Ezra,” she said, giving the grumpy man a big smile. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “I’d like to speak with you privately, Olivia,” Mr. Bindry said as he gave the Aldens a disapproving look.

  “Oh, these are my helpers, Ezra,” she explained. “This is Jessie, Violet, and Benny. Henry told me you met yesterday. I’ve been so busy I must have left the door unlocked.”

  “Yes, why yes . . . that’s right,” Mr. Bindry said. “Anyway, I’m here for the job of pricing the books. Nobody knows more about books in these parts than I do. You couldn’t go wrong since I’m already familiar with most of the books from Mabel’s shop.”

  “I’d like that,” Miss Chase said.

  “Well, these children can’t do everything,” Mr. Bindry said. “Anyway, children and old books don’t mix.”

  The Aldens looked at each other.

  Miss Chase straightened herself. “That’s quite enough, Ezra. I’ll have you know that the Aldens are completely responsible for getting Mabel’s books — I should say my books — in perfect order. Just take a look at those tables out there. There’s not a book damaged or out of place.”

  “Hrmph,” Mr. Bindry said, making one of his favorite sounds.

  “I simply can’t hire you if you’re not willing to work with the Aldens,” Miss Chase informed the old man. “I plan to repay their grandfather for investing in the shop. I need plenty of help.”