Mystery in New York (5 page)

The Aldens looked amazed. “A quiet night!” cried Benny. “But the diamond got stolen.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Leed. “Right.”

Henry had one more question. “If you leave the desk, can anyone come in the door?”

“Of course not!” Now Mr. Leed looked indignant. “We lock the door if we have to leave the front desk. And we're never gone more than five minutes.”

“Thank you,” said Jessie. She turned and led the way back to the elevator.

“Where are we going?” Violet whispered as the elevator doors closed behind them.

“Benny and I are going to 6E to see if pizza really was delivered there last night. Because if it wasn't, maybe it was just a trick to get into the building to steal the diamond.”

“Right,” said Henry. “And Violet and I can go to 3W and see if Lydia walked the dogs last night — and why it took her so long to leave. She could have taken the diamond then.”

“We'll meet out front in twenty minutes,” said Jessie as the elevator doors opened on the third floor.

“Okay,” said Henry.

Henry and Violet walked to 3W and knocked on the door. A moment later, they heard small bodies thumping against the door and the muffled sound of barking. But no one answered.

Henry knocked again, harder. The barking grew louder. But still no one answered.

“I guess whoever lives there has gone to work,” said Henry. “We'll have to come back later to ask about Lydia.”

Meanwhile, Jessie and Benny had found someone home in Apartment 6E. A sleepy-looking man with shaving cream on half his face opened the door. He yawned when he saw them and said, “What is this? Halloween trick or treat?”

“No,” said Jessie. “We're visiting Mrs. Teague on the ninth floor.”

“Congratulations,” said the man. He yawned again and started to close the door.

“Wait,” said Benny. “We want to ask you a question.”

“Ah,” said the man. “Trick or
question
. Okay, ask your question.”

“Did you order pizza last night?”

“I did. Everything, hold-the-anchovies. My usual from the corner pizza. Why?” Now he didn't look quite so sleepy.

Jessie explained about the missing diamond. “We're trying to help Mr. Pound find out who took it,” she said. “And we wanted to make sure that someone really delivered pizza to your apartment.”

“He sure did. Leo. He's been delivering pizza to me for a few years now. Paying his way through college. He had to wait while I found money to pay for it. That's why it took him so long,” the man said.

“Thank you,” Jessie said.

“You're welcome,” the man said, and closed the door.

Downstairs, Jessie and Benny found Henry and Violet sitting on the low wall around one of the flower beds outside the building.

“The pizza man didn't do it,” said Benny. “He's a real pizza man, not a diamond thief.”

“No one was home where the French bulldogs live,” reported Henry. “So we couldn't find out if Lyd—”

“Shhh,” said Jessie. She waved. “Hi, Lydia,” she said.

They all looked up and saw Lydia striding down the sidewalk.

“Good morning,” said Lydia. “Can't stop to talk. The dogs are waiting.” She hurried by.

When she passed, Henry said, “I know what we should do. Let's follow Lydia after she walks the dogs. Maybe she will act suspicious.”

“Let's go across the street to the park,” suggested Violet. “We can watch for Lydia there and she won't see us.”

So that is what they did. They waited until Lydia had returned from walking the five French bulldogs. Then they followed her as she left Mrs. Teague's building.

The Aldens trailed after Lydia as she strolled along the park. At the bottom of the park she turned left. She walked across to Fifth Avenue and turned right, heading downtown. A few blocks later she stopped to stare into a window.

“Tiffany's,” said Jessie. “It's a very famous jewelry store.”

Sure enough, even from where they stood, hiding behind a mailbox and lamppost, the Aldens could see lots and lots of diamonds and pearls and all kinds of precious jewels on display in the windows of the store.

“Maybe she is going to try to sell the diamond to them,” said Violet.

But Henry shook his head. “No. A famous store like Tiffany's would never buy a stolen diamond. Lydia would have to sell it secretly to someone dishonest.”

“Maybe she wants to buy fancy jewelry when she sells the diamond and she is just window-shopping now,” Jessie said. “Something even nicer than her crystal necklace.”

“Or maybe she's just trying to figure out how much the Elizabeth Star is worth,” added Violet.

Lydia leaned over to look more closely at something in the window. Then she straightened up and walked into Tiffany's.

The Aldens exchanged glances.

“Come on,” said Henry.

They walked into Tiffany's after Lydia, and stopped.

The whole place seemed to glitter. What seemed like endless rows of glass cases filled the room, each glimmering with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, along with silver and gold.

“Wow,” said Benny, his eyes round.

“Look,” Violet said softly. “That lady has her dog with her.”

A tall, elegant woman was tucking a robin's-egg-blue box into a Tiffany's shopping bag. Over one shoulder was a large square leather purse and sure enough, sitting in the purse, peering back at the Aldens, was a small, silky-haired brown dog with bright button eyes and a bow on its head.

“We could have brought Watch to Tiffany's,” Benny said.

“Shhh! There's Lydia,” whispered Jessie.

Just ahead of them, Lydia had stopped in front of a counter and was leaning down.

“Those are diamonds in that case,” Violet breathed.

But Lydia didn't stay long by the sparkling display. She stepped back and continued to wander up and down the aisles.

“She's looking at the people in here as much as she's looking at the jewels,” said Henry thoughtfully. “It's almost as if she is studying them.”

Violet's eyes widened. “Maybe she's planning another robbery. Maybe she's going to see what someone buys, then follow that person home and steal it!”

A moment later, Lydia walked around a display case that glittered with gold. As the Aldens started to follow her, a large man in a dark suit stepped into their path. “Look at this, dear,” he said to a woman with a bored expression who stood nearby. He didn't even seem to notice the Aldens.

Quickly, they ducked around the large man, just in time to see Lydia vanishing through a side door that led onto the street.

“She's getting away,” gasped Jessie. They rushed to the door and out—and stopped.

Lydia was gone. She had vanished into the crowds that streamed past them on the sidewalk.

“Do you think she knew we were following her?” asked Benny a little while later.

Henry shook his head. He couldn't answer because he had a mouthful of hot dog and mustard.

“Me either,” Benny agreed, taking a bite of his own hot dog. “She never even looked back once. Have you ever noticed how people never look back? That's why they're so easy to follow.”

The Aldens were eating lunch. They had bought hot dogs from a park vendor and found a spot on a bench above Wollman Rink in Central Park. As they ate, they watched the people roller-skating and blading in the rink below and talked about the mystery.

“Lydia is our best suspect,” said Jessie. “And she
was
acting a little oddly in Tiffany's.”

“But that doesn't make her a thief,” Violet said.

Henry said, “If she's not the thief, then someone else is. But there were no strangers in the building last night, according to Mr. Saunders. And no one else signed in or out.”

They munched on in thoughtful silence. Benny had finished his hot dog and was watching Violet finish hers when Jessie broke the spell.

“What if Mr. Saunders isn't telling the truth? What if he let someone in?”

“Maybe he did,” said Henry.

“Or maybe he did it himself,” said Benny.

“I don't think so, Benny. He can't leave his desk for very long, because he locks the front door when he does. If he did that, someone would have noticed.”

“That's true,” agreed Violet. “I don't think Mr. Saunders could have been away from his desk long enough to break into Mr. Pound's apartment, get into the secret room, and steal the diamond.”

“What about Mr. Pound? Maybe he did it. Maybe he took the diamond earlier in the evening and then just pretended that it was stolen when we got there,” said Jessie. She paused, then shook her head. “No, that couldn't have happened. We saw it when we went upstairs to get Mr. Pound for dinner.”

“Right,” said Benny.

Henry finished his hot dog and stood up. “We don't have many clues. I think we need to ask more questions. And I think we need to start with Mr. Pound.”

CHAPTER 6

View from the Harbor

H
enry called Mrs. Teague from a pay phone on a corner and told her that they were going to Mr. Pound's office to ask some more questions about the mystery of the missing diamond. Then he called information and got Mr. Pound's office address. Finally, he looked in his guidebook and discovered that a nearby bus would take them to Wall Street, near Mr. Pound's office.

“Wall Street is named after a real wall that used to be where the street is today,” he told the others as they sat down on the wide seat at the back of the bus. Fortunately, it wasn't very crowded. “It was made by the Dutch settlers out of big wood planks.”

“Why?” asked Violet.

“To protect the early settlers from attack,” Henry said. “That was in 1653 and New York wasn't a big city like it is today. It was just a settlement with a few dozen people.”

“And now it has so many,” said Jessie in amazement.

“In a very small area,” Henry said. “My guidebook says that the island of Manhattan is only 13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles wide at the widest point.”

The bus was driving down a street that was narrow, with buildings so tall they seemed to lean over it. It was almost as if the bus had driven into a tunnel.

“This is Wall Street, our stop,” said Henry.

They got off the bus. The men and women hurrying by seemed to all be wearing dark suits and worried expressions. Most of them carried briefcases. When the children reached Mr. Pound's office, a guard made them sign in at a desk in the lobby. Then they rode an elevator up to the twenty-third floor. They stepped off the elevator and saw a pair of glass doors with silver handles in front of them. POUNDSTAR was written in golden script across the door.

Jessie led the way, pushing open the doors and stopping in front of the receptionist's desk. “We're here to see Mr. Pound,” she announced.

“Do you have an appointment?” asked the receptionist.

“No,” said Jessie.

“We're here to help him find his diamond,” Benny said.

The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Really?” she said. “And which detective agency shall I tell Mr. Pound's secretary you are from?”

“The Alden Family Detective Agency,” said Henry firmly. “We'll be glad to wait.”

He went and sat down on one of the plush wine-colored chairs in the reception area. He folded his arms. Jessie, Benny, and Violet did the same.

The receptionist picked up the phone. “Some children who say they are from the Alden Family Detective Agency are here to see Mr. Pound. They say it is about the stolen diamond.”

A moment later, the receptionist's expression of polite scorn changed to one of surprise. She put down the phone. “Mr. Pound will see you now,” she said. She pointed. “Go down the hall, then up the stairs. He'll meet you at the top.”

“Thank you,” said Violet.

The receptionist just stared at them.

“What's this? You've found my diamond?” Mr. Pound called from the top of the stairs where he was waiting. He smiled, but his eyes looked worried.

“No,” said Jessie. “Not yet.”

“Ahh,” said Mr. Pound. “Well, why don't you step into my office.”

In the office, which had windows that went from the floor to the ceiling, the Aldens sat down in chairs facing Mr. Pound across his large desk. On the wall behind him hung a familiar-looking portrait.

“That looks like the same lady as in the painting in your apartment — and she's wearing the Elizabeth Star,” said Benny.

“Yes,” said Mr. Pound quietly. “That's my late wife, Kathryn. She wore the Star as often as she could. She always said it was one of nature's lovely things and shouldn't be shut up. She thought everyone should have a chance to see it.”

“But
no
one will have a chance to see it again if we don't solve this mystery,” said Violet softly.

Mr. Pound looked at Violet. Her words had made him suddenly quiet and thoughtful, and the children waited a moment before speaking again.