Mystery Behind the Wall (7 page)

“‘Don’t break the glass,’” Rory said. “Benny, do you think she meant the glass on the front of the picture?”

“I do!” said Benny. “Look—there’s cardboard on the back. We looked before and saw these little nails that hold the cardboard in place. I’m going to take them out.”

Rory held his breath while Benny tried to pull the small nails loose. But they were rusty and would not come out. His fingers weren’t strong enough.

“I’ll get the pliers,” Rory said. “What do you expect to find? Another clue?”

Benny shook his head. “I have another idea. You get the pliers. I’ll wait.”

Benny shook the picture gently. Nothing rattled. But Benny did not look disappointed. He waited, and Rory ran into the room with the pliers.

Violet followed Rory. She said, “I heard you boys come in. What is it?”

“I have an idea,” Benny said. “Perhaps I understand what Stephanie was telling her father.”

He took the pliers. He pulled out the rusty nails as fast as he could. They came out easily.

“Lift out the cardboard, Ben,” Rory said. “Be careful. It’s very old.”

Benny pried off the cardboard. It was not easy to get out. As he lifted it up he caught his breath. There was something under the cardboard.

Benny, Violet, and Rory saw what was behind the cardboard at the same time. “Oh, oh!” they exclaimed. “There they are!”

Nobody moved. They sat and gazed at the back of the photograph as if they were stunned.

The back of the photograph was covered with the same blue cloth as the coin case. The coins were stuck on the cloth in neat rows of five, glued in place.

As soon as they were over the first surprise, Rory said, “They are on the back of the house! And we didn’t have to break the glass!”

“How did you ever think of looking there?” Violet asked.

Benny laughed and said, “You’ll never guess. I got the idea in the Jenny Wren Shop.”

“Tell me,” Violet begged.

“Well, there were buttons like coins sewed on cards,” Benny said. “We’d been thinking about the coins stacked in a little box or something. We never thought how easy it would be to spread them out—just like this.”

Rory nodded. “They don’t take up much room. Nobody ever guessed they were in the picture frame. How many are there?”

Benny counted. There were five rows and ten coins in each row. That made fifty coins altogether. Big ones, little ones, gold ones, and copper ones.

This was the old Blue Collection that Stephanie Shaw had made so many years ago!

Violet was the first to speak. She said, “Of course the first thing to do is to show them to Grandfather. I know he hoped we would find them.”

Benny said, “Here, Violet, you carry the coins. They are sure to drop off if I try it.”

Violet lifted the picture very slowly and the three children went down the stairs to Mr. Alden’s home office.

As they were almost at the foot of the stairs, Benny called out, “Found! Found! We have found the coins, Grandfather!”

Henry and Jessie heard Benny. Henry called, “Ben! You found them? I can’t believe it!”

“You don’t mean the Blue Collection? The whole of it?” demanded Mr. Alden. He got up quickly from his desk.

“I think so,” answered Benny. “They are all stuck on blue cloth.”

“Bright blue,” added Violet. “Like the cases.”

Grandfather sat down again. Violet laid the coins on the desk in front of him.

“I can’t believe it!” said Grandfather. “I just can’t believe that these are the coins from little Stephanie Shaw.”

Grandfather looked sharply at the coins. He tried to lift one to see the back. “Stuck with glue,” he said. “Now where did you children find this?”

“Turn it over, Granda, and you’ll see,” said Rory. He was having the time of his life.

Mr. Alden turned the whole cardboard over and saw the photograph.

Henry exclaimed, “Right on the back of the very picture of our house. Stephanie told the truth. It is on the back of the house.”

“And her father never found it,” Violet said, a little sadly.

“I guess Stephanie thought the Shaws were coming back. Or perhaps something kept her father from following the clues,” Jessie said. “So the coins have been safely hidden all this time.”

Violet said suddenly, “We promised to tell Mrs. Wren if we found the coins. I’ll telephone the shop.”

She went at once to the telephone. Soon the family heard her say, “Yes, Mrs. Wren. We’ll come over soon to tell you the whole story. You’ll hardly believe it.”

Then she came back and sat down with the others.

“What are we going to do with the coins?” Benny asked his grandfather.

“Well, I think the time has come to call my friend, Professor Nichols,” he said.

“Will he come?” asked Benny.

“Oh, he’ll come all right if he hears the word ‘coin,’” said Mr. Alden. “You children will have to get another room ready for a guest.”

“That’s nothing,” said Benny. “Getting a room ready is the best thing we do.”

“When will you call him, Granda?” asked Rory. He wanted to see this professor who knew so much.

“This very minute,” said Mr. Alden with a smile. “When he comes, you must all be ready for his strange looks. He is a rather odd person. His hair is snow white, although he is not any older than I am. He never wears a hat, not even in winter. He is a wonderful person. You will be lucky to meet him.”

Mr. Alden found the telephone number and in a moment he was saying, “Hello, Andrew. This is James Alden.”

“You don’t say so!” answered a booming voice. The children could hear every word. “What’s the trouble?”

“No trouble,” replied Grandfather. “Just a few old coins turned up. My—”

“Say no more,” interrupted Professor Nichols. “I’ll come as soon as I can get a plane. You knew I’d say that, didn’t you?”

Grandfather laughed and answered, “We’ll meet your plane. You’ll know me because I will have five young people with me.”

“I’d know you anyway, anywhere,” said the professor’s voice. “Without any children at all.”

As Mr. Alden hung up the telephone he said, “Same old friend! Same old Andrew!”

“It’s lucky that you know Professor Nichols, Grandfather,” Benny said. “I don’t know anyone at all who could help us with the coins. But I guess we could have gone to the library for a book on coin collecting.”

“Yes, I’m sure the library has many books on coins,” said Grandfather with a quick nod. “But Professor Nichols is a real expert. He is just the man to ask about the hidden coins. After all, he knew Stephanie and her father many years ago.”

A day later Henry drove the station wagon to the airport. The Aldens could hardly wait for the plane to come in. When they saw Professor Nichols leaving the plane, they knew that Mr. Alden was right. People stared at the great man. His long white hair blew in the light breeze.

“I came right away, James,” said Professor Nichols. “You know I will go almost anywhere if I can find a new coin.”

Mr. Alden said, “I know that very well, Andrew. I’m glad to get some coins together just to get you to come here to visit me. We have about fifty coins.”

“I can hardly wait to see them,” said the professor.

Henry had already turned the car around and was driving out of the airport.

“And the coins? Shall I see them at once?” asked the visitor.

“Just as soon as we get home, Andrew,” said Grandfather, smiling at Jessie. “I told you he would not pay much attention to anything but coins.”

The minute the car stopped in the driveway in front of the Alden house, they all took the professor into the dining room. The blue card was on the table before him.

CHAPTER
10

What It All Meant

P
rofessor Nichols sat down at the dining room table and began to look at the coins. From an inside pocket he took a magnifying glass like one Benny had seen a watchmaker use. He fitted it into his eye.

Rory and the Aldens leaned excitedly on the table, watching the professor.

“What a sight! What a sight,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Oh, my, oh, my!”

Suddenly Professor Nichols put his finger on a gold coin.

“Look here!” he exclaimed, speaking to Benny who was nearest. “There are only ten coins like this in the whole wide world! You can see it is a four dollar gold piece. And here is one of the ten!”

“That makes the collection valuable, doesn’t it?” Benny asked.

“Valuable? Valuable? Oh, yes. It is priceless! Now look. Here is a twenty-cent piece. Did any of you ever hear of a twenty-cent piece?”

“No,” they all answered. They were fascinated by the professor and all he knew about the coins.

“Well, no wonder. These twenty-cent pieces didn’t last long. You can see that they would get mixed up with quarters. That made a lot of trouble. Nobody liked the coins. Very soon they weren’t made anymore. I haven’t seen one of them for years, and I don’t own one myself.”

“How can you tell if it is a real twenty-cent piece?” asked Benny. “We don’t know a thing about coins.”

Professor Nichols took the magnifying glass from his eye and smiled at Benny. “Of course you don’t. I’m glad to tell you. Look here. Feel the edge of this coin. It has a smooth edge for one thing. I’ll take a quarter out of my pocket. You see, the edge is milled. That means it has little ridges.”

“I see,” Rory said. “The edge of the twenty-cent piece is smooth.”

“That’s right,” the professor said. “Now look at the figure of the woman on the coin. She’s the goddess Liberty and she is often on older U. S. coins. But here on the twenty-cent piece she is sitting down. A coin collector calls this ‘Liberty Seated.’ If there were only Liberty’s head shown, it would be a different coin altogether.”

“Are all these coins valuable?” asked Mr. Alden.

“Oh, yes. Even the pennies are valuable. Somebody knew what he was doing when he collected these. However, the gold piece and the twenty-cent piece are the best of all.”

“What about that Indian-head penny?” Jessie asked.

Professor Nichols smiled. “A lot of people like to collect pennies. Some pennies are very hard to find and that makes them worth a lot. But most of the pennies here are worn. That makes them of less value. They’re interesting to people just beginning to collect coins.”

Henry said, “All of these coins are forty years old at least.”

The professor said, “This may surprise you. Sometimes the oldest coin is not worth the most. I have coins from Roman times that are not worth as much as some of these U. S. coins. That’s because the fewer there are, the more each one is worth.”

“I see,” Benny said. “That’s interesting.”

Rory nodded. “Aye,” he said softly.

Professor Nichols turned to Mr. Alden. “James,” he said, “this is an unusual collection. And it is put together in an unusual way. There must be a story behind it. Who owns it?”

“I really don’t know,” said Grandfather. “But we know who used to own it. The children found the coins after a great hunt. They followed a lot of false clues. One clue said ‘Look on the back of the house.’
You
look, Andrew, on the back of that coin card.”

Professor Nichols carefully turned the cardboard over and saw the photograph.

“This very house!” he said. “I’m beginning to get some ideas.”

Grandfather looked at Violet and asked, “You still have the coin case, don’t you? Will you get it for the professor?”

Violet went to the hall stairs and ran up to her room.

The professor could not sit still. He pushed back his chair and walked back and forth, waiting for Violet. He did not wait long. She was soon back and put the blue case into his hand.

The professor could not speak for a minute. He said, “Of course I know this! A little girl—Stephanie Shaw—made this. I knew her father. I helped her a little on this collection myself.”

Mr. Alden said, “Then we are right. This is the Blue Collection.”

“It certainly is. I never knew what became of it after the Shaws went to France. Has it been hidden here all this time? I can’t understand why no one ever claimed it.”

“The children learned that the Shaw family died in France many years ago,” Mr. Alden said. “Benny found Stephanie’s journal hidden behind a loose board in a closet wall.”

“Rory helped, too,” Benny said.

Rory added, “The empty coin case was there, Granda.”

“We’ll show you all the clues,” Benny offered.

Professor Nichols said, “What a story! It is a wonderful collection that might easily have been lost forever. Oh, I don’t like to think that I might have missed this collection entirely!” He shuddered. “I would indeed like to see all of the things you found.”

“Here is Stephanie’s journal,” said Violet. “I brought that down, too.”

“It is her writing,” said Professor Nichols. “And you children worked out the mystery? I never could have done it.”

“What do you think we should do with this collection?” asked Henry. “Should we keep it or sell it? Would anybody buy it?”

“
I
would!” said Professor Nichols. “There are valuable coins in this collection. It would give me great happiness to own it. However, I don’t want to take the famous Blue Collection away from you children.”