The Disappearing Staircase Mystery

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

One of the volunteers called out to the children, “Hey Aldens! Mabel said to meet her in the kitchen.”

  Nan turned around. She pointed to a long hallway. “The kitchen is off that hall. Go ahead without me.”

  After Nan went off, Brian Carpenter appeared, looking for her. “Every time I turn around, Nan’s off someplace. She didn’t go upstairs, did she? Well, never mind. Go check in with Mabel and get out of all this hubbub in here.”

  The children went off. At the end of the hallway, they found themselves facing a wall, not the kitchen.

  “Nan never did say which door led to the kitchen,” Jessie said. “Maybe she meant the hallway off this one.”

  The children retraced their steps partway then headed down another hall. They found themselves in a separate wing of the house, which was empty and silent.

  “This house seems so sad,” Violet said. She opened a closet door. Three empty hangers hung on a rod. Lying on the floor was a broken umbrella someone had left behind.

  “After we fix it up, this house won’t seem so deserted anymore,” Jessie said. “Benny, why don’t you and Soo Lee run ahead. Check those doors off the hallway.”

  Benny liked nothing better than exploring new places. “Come on, Soo Lee.” He leaned on the first door they passed. “It’s locked.”

  Soo Lee tried a different door. “This one isn’t locked. Look, there’s another little hallway. Maybe that’s the one that goes to the kitchen.”

  “Follow us,” Benny yelled back to the other children.

  The door closed behind Benny and Soo Lee. Except for a tiny crack of light coming from under the door, the space was completely dark.

  Benny felt something hit his cheek. “What was that?” He reached up. “Whew! It’s a string to turn on the light.”

  Even with a light on, Soo Lee stayed close to Benny.

  The two children walked down the short passageway.

  Benny discovered another door. “This one’s locked, too,” he said. “Hey, do you hear voices?” He tilted his head to hear better. “I can’t tell who it is.”

  “Can we go back?” Soo Lee asked.

  “I guess it was just some people talking in another room,” Benny said.

  Soo Lee and Benny walked back to where they had started. Benny tried to open the door, but the knob refused to turn.

  “Are you two still in there?” Henry asked from the other side.

  “We’re here,” Benny called out.

  “The door must have locked by itself when you shut it,” Henry said. “I’ll try to find a key.”

  Benny felt a little braver now that his brother and sisters stood on the other side of the door. “We’re going to try the next door down again. Maybe it’s just stuck.

  “When I push, you push me, okay, Soo Lee?” Benny said when he leaned against the door. “One, two, three, push!”

  The door opened! Soo Lee and Benny found themselves just down the hall from the other children.

  “Hey! Over here!” Benny called out.

  Henry came over. “Good thing you found a way out. Mabel said she has no idea where the keys to all the doors are. She lent them to the Gardiners, but no one knows where they went. Oh, good. Here’s Nan.”

  The children explained to Nan how Benny and Soo Lee had found another passageway.

  “Did you get inside any rooms? Or find anything?” Nan asked. “Books, papers, anything unusual? I wish I had time to look around, but Mabel sent me to the hardware store.”

  “The Bugaboo House sure is a mixed-up place,” Benny said. “All we found were doors and more doors.”

  “One of the engineers said there are over sixty doors in the house and different passages and levels,” Nan told the Aldens. “Yesterday I opened one door, and behind it was just a wall.”

  “Wow!” said Benny.

  “Yes, well, there’s no time to explore now,” said Nan. “It’s time for the auction. The Gardiners have spent the last few days getting it organized, so let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Going, Going, Gone!

  All of Greenfield seemed to be jammed into the Bugbees’ old stable for the House and Hands auction. The Alden children strolled through the excited crowd. Unlike the grown-ups, they passed right by the displays of old furniture, mirrors, paintings, tools, dishes, and lamps.

  “There are the toys!” Soo Lee cried, running ahead.

  Off in a corner, the children spied a bookcase and a table with old toys displayed.

  Benny and Soo Lee were excited. The older children looked at one another, puzzled.

  “Somehow I thought there would be lots more toys,” Henry whispered to Jessie and Violet. “I heard a lot of people saying the Bugbees had a huge toy collection.”

  “I see what you mean,” Jessie agreed. “Still, Benny and Soo Lee seem happy with what’s here.”

  Jessie joined Soo Lee. She was crooning over some old dolls, several of them with china heads. But the one Soo Lee fell in love with was a small stuffed doll made of faded cloth.

  Over on the table was a collection of train cars and metal trucks, including a horse-drawn fire truck, a milk wagon, and even a toy ice wagon.

  “Look,” Benny said when he spotted a small train set. “This locomotive looks just like a real one.”

  Violet wandered over to a bookcase, where several toy music boxes were lined up on the shelves. “I like these,” Violet said. One of them had a dancing bear that spun around when the box was wound up. “Listen. It plays ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ Do you think I could bid on this?”

  At that moment, Brian came over. “No one is supposed to touch these toys,” he informed the Aldens. “George will show the audience how they work—that train set, this music box. Just leave it there.”

  “Brian!” a volunteer yelled from the doorway. “We need you to sign for some materials that just arrived.”

  Brian looked at the Aldens and sighed. “See you later. I never get a free minute around here.”

  “We’d better get to our seats,” Henry told the other children when the Gardiners seemed about to begin the auction. “Grandfather saved us places in the third row.”

  George Gardiner stood in front of the crowd. He explained how the auction worked. Then he had one of the volunteers bring up an old painting to get the bidding started.

  The Aldens followed the bidding carefully though it moved very quickly. George put up one item after another for people to bid on—everything from vases to eggbeaters. As soon as an item was purchased, it was whisked away to a storage room in front of the stable.

  The Alden children waited and waited, until finally it was time to auction the toys. One by one, the Gardiners held up each toy for the bidders.

  “Here we have a small antique train set,” George Gardiner announced finally. “Who will start the bidding?”

  Benny jumped from his seat and waved his hand. “Fifty cents!” he shouted.

  The whole crowd laughed. The set was definitely worth more than fifty cents.

  “Never mind, Benny,” Grandfather whispered. “I’ll add a bit to your birthday money. You can go up to twenty-six dollars.”

  In no time, the Aldens were on the edge of their seats. George Gardiner raised his auction hammer for the final bid. “Twenty-five dollars. Going once, going twice…”

  Benny stood up and shouted out, “Twenty-six!”

  “Twenty-six dollars,” George said to the crowd. “Going once, going twice…” He banged down the auction hammer. “Sold to the boy in the third row.”

  “That’s me!” Benny said happily. “I won the train.” He couldn’t wait to see what the next item for sale would be. “There’s the music box Violet wanted,” he said.

  George Gardiner wound up the dancing bear music box. The crowd quieted down to hear the pretty tinkling sound of “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”

  “Who will start the bidding on this fine old music box?” George asked the crowd.

  Violet could hardly sit still.

&n
bsp; Grandfather leaned down to tell her something. “It’s a good idea to wait for someone else to get the bidding started,” he advised. “That way you’re not running up the price too fast. Plus you get to see who else is bidding.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” Violet whispered. She clasped her hands on her lap. “I’m so nervous.”

  A child in the front row called out a bid: “Three dollars.”

  Violet held her hands even tighter. “Should I bid now, Grandfather?”

  “Not just yet.”

  “Three-fifty,” a grown-up’s voice said down the Aldens’ row.

  Pretty soon three more bidders called out bids for the music box. The bids went all the way up to seven dollars and fifty cents.

  Violet still sat there patiently.

  When no other bidders spoke up, George Gardiner called out, “I have seven dollars and fifty cents. Do I hear eight?” He waited, but no one said a thing.

  “Going once,” George began, “going twice…”

  Grandfather gently poked Violet’s elbow. “Now.”

  “Eight dollars!” Violet called out, loud and clear.

  George nodded at Violet. “We have a new bidder in the third row at eight dollars. Do I hear eight-fifty?”

  “Eight-fifty!” said the girl who had started the bidding. Soon she and Violet bid against each other all the way up to ten dollars and fifty cents. They were the only two bidders left.

  “I have eleven dollars from the dark-haired girl in the third row,” George called out after Violet’s last bid. “Going once, going twice…” He raised his auction hammer in the air then banged it down on the table.

  “Twelve dollars!” a man’s voice in back yelled out.

  The Aldens turned around. The man’s voice belonged to Brian Carpenter.

  “Too late, Brian. I already brought the hammer down. That’s the rule,” George yelled back. “Violet Alden is the high bidder for the music box. Sold for eleven dollars!”

  After Brian heard that, he turned and left the stable.

  Violet bit her lip. “Oh, dear. I hope Brian isn’t too upset, Grandfather. I’m glad I won the box. I just wish he didn’t want it, too.”

  “Not to worry,” Grandfather told Violet. “That’s how auctions are. It’s a contest. I wonder why a big fellow like that wants a child’s music box.”

  The Aldens went back to enjoying the auction. At the end of it, they each had won something they wanted.

  “I’d been looking for another sturdy rake for a long time,” Grandfather said as he and the children went to pay for their items. “Now I have one.”

  Soo Lee tugged on Jessie’s arm. “Did I win my dolly?”

  Jessie smiled down. “You sure did, Soo Lee. And I won a beautiful antique photo album that I can put pictures in. Let’s go out to the storage area where we have to pay. Then you can pick up your doll.”

  Henry was pleased with his purchase, too. “Now I have a penknife to carve things with.”

  “I’m glad I won the dancing bear music box,” Violet said. “That was close. I just hope Brian doesn’t mind too much that I won it instead of him.”

  The Aldens strolled out to the storage area at the front of the stable. All the auction items people had bid on had stickers showing the final bid prices. The Gardiners seated themselves behind a table where the successful bidders lined up to pay.

  “But it can’t be the end of the auction,” the Aldens heard a man say to Louella Gardiner. “I drove all the way from Maplewood to bid on Mr. Bugbee’s collection of rare books. Why weren’t they in the sale?”

  “All you had for sale was fake jewelry,” someone else complained. “My great-aunt told me Mrs. Bugbee had inherited some valuable jewels from her family. But this was just junk.”

  Several other people in the crowd murmured that the auction wasn’t what they had expected.

  The Gardiners waited for everyone to calm down.

  Finally George spoke up loudly. “We put up everything that was left in the Bugbee House. You’ll recall that the house was sold to another owner. Anything could have happened to the Bugbees’ collection. We only had a few days to get everything organized. We did our best. We’ve raised a great deal of money for the House and Hands group today.”

  After the crowd scattered, the Aldens paid for their items. Some of the fun of the auction was gone.

  “At least I got my train set,” Benny said.

  “Louella,” Violet asked. “Did you see the music box I bid on? I came to pay for it.”

  “Which music box?” Louella asked sharply. “There were several in the sale. I can’t be expected to keep track of everything. Look where the toys are.”

  Violet checked the shelves. There wasn’t a single music box on it. She swallowed hard. The dancing bear box was nowhere to be seen.

  “Maybe somebody stole it,” Benny said. Now that the auction was over, he was ready for more excitement.

  “Nonsense!” George Gardiner told Benny. “That box was barely worth what your sister bid on it. Thousands of those boxes were made years ago.”

  “It was worth more than money to me,” Violet whispered, but the Gardiners didn’t hear her. “I love the tune it played.”

  Soo Lee held out her new toy. “You can play with my doll, Violet.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out for that box,” Henry told Violet after he and the other children left the stable.

  Violet looked back. Maybe someone would come running out with her music box after all. But the auction was over. Mr. Gardiner was pulling the doors closed. He and Louella were inside. There was no chance now that they would come out with Violet’s music box.

  “I think there’s something strange about those two,” Jessie said. “You’d think they would be interested in finding out more about the Bugbee collections from people who grew up here. They didn’t even ask any questions.”

  “Maybe we should look around and see if there’s anything in the house that should have been in the auction,” Henry said.

  “And maybe we’ll find Violet’s music box, too, in case somebody stole it,” Benny said, still hoping for an adventure.

  “Well, let’s look around when we’re working in the big house,” Jessie suggested. “We always find things when we’re doing jobs.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Footsteps Overhead

  The next morning Jessie woke up with cold feet. She was used to Watch sleeping at the end of her bed and warming her feet. Only now Watch was at home while Jessie was in her sleeping bag in the Bugbee playhouse.

  Soon everyone else’s eyes were opening, too. It took a few minutes for the children to figure out where they were.

  “It’s so cozy in here now,” Violet told Jessie as she stretched her arms out of her sleeping bag. “I like the way we fixed up this playhouse with the little table and our camp lamp. Maybe tonight Soo Lee can stay here, too.”

  The playhouse soon filled with sounds of sleeping bag zippers being unzipped and clothes being zipped,

  “Brrr,” Henry said. “It’s always hard to get out of my sleeping bag. Let’s hurry to the main house. Brian told Nan that they got the furnace working yesterday.”

  “I hope they got the hot chocolate working, too,” Benny added.

  The Aldens got dressed and hurried from the playhouse to the main house. It was cold and damp outside.

  When they arrived, the kitchen table was piled high with good things to eat and drink for breakfast.

  “Help yourselves to whatever you want,” Mabel told the volunteers. “Don’t be shy.”

  “We won’t be,” Benny said when he came to the table. “Yum, these look just like Mrs. McGregor’s corn muffins.”

  “Those are Mrs. McGregor’s muffins,” Grandfather said with a laugh. “I brought them with me along with Soo Lee this morning. Mrs. McGregor and Watch miss you.”

  “Finish up, everyone,” Mabel called out. “You’ll find our job assignments on the work list.” She turned to the Alden children. “I
have a special job for all of you.”

  “What is it?” Benny and Soo Lee asked.

  “I saw what a tidy job you did in the playhouse. Now I need helpers on the top floor of the nursery wing,” Mabel said. “There are odds and ends to clear out before the electricians get to work. The third-floor nursery rooms are small. You children are just the right size for the job.”

  Soo Lee stood on her tiptoes. “But I’m big. My mommy said so.”

  Mabel smiled. “Yes, you are just the kind of big girl I need as a helper. Here are some cleaning supplies and a vacuum cleaner. Now off you go.”

  The Aldens were just gathering up everything when Nan came over.

  “Did I hear you say the Aldens are to clean out the nursery wing?” Nan asked Mabel.

  Mabel nodded.

  Nan’s mouth tightened into a frown. “But, but I heard the Gardiners say they need help outside.”

  “Fine,” Mabel said. “The children will help them after the nursery rooms are cleaned. See you later, Aldens.”

  The children climbed several sets of creaky, winding stairs before they finally reached the third floor. Each of the small nursery rooms was decorated with painted figures on the walls, though most of them were faded away. Some broken pieces of child-sized furniture stood in the corner along with a few torn children’s books yellowed with age. Everything lay under a thick coat of dust.

  The children spent the next couple hours sweeping, scrubbing, and gathering the odds and ends scattered about.

  “It must have been so pretty when the Bugbee children lived here,” Violet said as she swept some paper scraps into a dustbin. “Someone hand-painted all these clowns and animals on the walls. Now it’s all going to be covered over. Let’s save the different things we’ve found just in case the Bugbee children come back someday.”

  “Even if they did,” Henry told Violet, “they’d be all grown up by now.”

  Jessie swept some cobwebs from the ceiling with a broom. “But guess what. Mabel told Grandfather that these will be kept as playrooms. When children come to visit their grandparents after House and Hands fixes up the house, they can play up here and in the playhouse.”