Stuffed Bear Mystery (5 page)

“Know what, Henry?” Benny asked. “When we have those costumes on, we can walk around and search for the Herr Bear. Nobody will know it’s us.”

“Good plan,” Henry agreed. “Now let’s find a booth—a restaurant booth that sells sandwiches, not bears. I’m hungry. What are you going to have?” he asked his brother and sisters.

“Honey!” they all said at the same time.

“Miss Sayer had one of your pattern books in her tote bag,” Henry told Peggy before he even looked at the menu. “Mrs. Keppel told her to put it back.”

Peggy sighed. “Oh, dear. That may be my fault. This morning I told Miss Sayer that if she needed anything, she could help herself to supplies from my booth. I didn’t mean my pattern book, though. I thought she would know better than that.”

“Did she put it back?” Benny asked before deciding on a grilled cheese sandwich.

“She sure did,” Henry said. “We’ve got enough to look for. We’ll be plenty busy searching for the Herr Bear and the person who took it.”

“Starting right after lunch,” Jessie told Peggy. “Unless you have plans for us.”

Peggy looked up from her menu. “Well, I was hoping you children could help me and Doc do some bear repairs at the toy hospital.”

The children wanted to be in two places at the same time.

Then Jessie figured out a way they could be. “I know. We need to find out more reasons someone might want to steal the Herr Bear. Didn’t Doc say he has lots of books about collectible bears? We could get information and maybe even search on the computer at the toy hospital. Would that be okay, Peggy?”

“Of course,” Peggy said. “At the same time, you could take turns helping stuff and sew up the last of my Peggy Bears—along with Mister B., of course.”

“Hey,” Benny said. “Look who just walked by.”

“Professor Tweedy.” Henry swiveled around to see where the professor was headed. “He’s two booths back.”

“Then that’s where I’m going,” Jessie said. “Our napkin dispenser is empty. I’ll get some napkins from Professor Tweedy’s booth and see what he’s up to. He’s got that big briefcase he always carries everywhere. I wonder what he’s doing here.”

Jessie waited a few minutes, then got up. The other children pretended to eat their food. They glanced up every few seconds to see what Jessie was going to do.

When she came to Professor Tweedy’s booth, Jessie saw his open briefcase on the seat. She was disappointed there was no bear inside. In front of him, the professor had spread out his notebook, some papers, and a magazine opened to bear photographs. He was copying something into his notebook.

“Oh, hi, Professor Tweedy,” Jessie said, not hesitating a bit. “I’d like a few napkins from that dispenser,” she said before the professor had a chance to protest. “The one at our booth is empty. Thanks so much. See you later.”

Jessie scooted back to her own booth with a fistful of napkins. “Guess what. Professor Tweedy didn’t have the Herr Bear, but he was definitely taking down notes about bears. I saw it for sure.”

“Then for sure we’re going to find out why,” Henry said before biting down on his double-decker turkey sandwich.

When the Aldens strolled over to the toy hospital after lunch, the CLOSED sign was posted on the door.

“Don’t worry,” Peggy said. “Doc closed early. He needs to finish all the work he has on the bears people dropped off for the jamboree. He told me he’ll be in the workshop.”

Peggy and the children walked around the back. They were surprised to see Miss Sayer’s yellow van backing out. The passenger with the familiar red furry head wasn’t in the van.

“Oh, dear, Chatter Bear must be inside,” Peggy said. “That must mean Doc is working on him again. He fixed him as best he could. Finally he told Miss Sayer her bear is far from ready to be presented.”

Peggy unlocked the back door for the Aldens. When they stepped inside, Chatter Bear lay on the worktable.

Doc was bent over him, adjusting some buttons. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here, everybody. I could sure use some help. Miss Sayer said this fellow now talks when she doesn’t want him to and won’t speak when she does want him to. I’ve spent more time on this patient than all my other ones put together.”

“That’s why we came over,” Jessie said. “Peggy’s going to show us how to fix some of the bears.”

“The children also want to find out more about Herr Bears,” Peggy said. “I’m letting them use our computer to get the information they’re looking for.”

“Even bear detectives use computers,” Benny told Doc.

Chatter Bear continued to stare at the ceiling. For once, he had nothing to say. Doc had taken out all his batteries. “I found it too strange having his eyes blink at me while I worked on his voice box,” Doc explained. “Oh, one more problem. You know that pile of old bear-collector magazines we were going to try to sell, Peggy? Now some of those are gone, too.”

“Lots of things are walking out of the toy hospital,” Peggy said. “Not just bears.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask, but did you children have any luck tracking down Herr Bear?” Doc asked. “His owner gets here tomorrow afternoon. I don’t even want to think about telling her he disappeared. I could try tracking down another one, but it won’t be the same.”

Benny touched Chatter Bear’s red nylon ears. “We saw some brown furry ears sticking out of Mrs. Keppel’s bag. Only we couldn’t tell if they were Herr Bear’s ears.”

Doc snapped some batteries into Chatter Bear’s voice box. “Is Mrs. Keppel that lady who was here the morning you children arrived? With the gray hair in a braid? I never had a chance to help her with her bear. Now I wonder what she wanted.”

“What bear?” Jessie asked.

“She had a bear in a blue bag, if I remember correctly,” Doc said. “I thought she left after that, but I guess she waited for me in the Bear Den.”

“That’s when we saw her,” Henry said. “I wonder if the bear she brought you was the one Benny saw in her booth.”

Doc was done. He pressed a button, and Chatter Bear began to speak: “I’mmm Chaaaattter Baaaaar. Annnnnd IIIII like toooooo talkkkkkk.”

The children covered their ears until Doc turned off the bear.

“Can I put the eye batteries in?” Benny asked Doc.

Doc smiled. “Sure. Then you can help me look for a glass eye for Mister B. How’s that sound?”

“Like a good idea,” Benny said. “Now it’s Mister B.’s turn to see the doctor.” After he got Chatter Bear’s eyes flashing again, he went off with Doc.

Peggy brought the other children back into the office where the computer was. She clicked the computer mouse a few times. “Here’s a list of our favorite places on the Internet for finding information about stuffed bears.”

“Thanks,” Jessie said. “We’re going to look up Professor Tweedy’s name and Mrs. Keppel’s and Miss Sayer’s, too. Maybe we can find some clues about them.”

Peggy laughed and clicked on another list. “The professor has probably written a few articles about the presidents for his college. If you type in his name on any of these places, perhaps you can learn more about him. I don’t know about the other two people, though. They’re not well-known, except to us, of course.”

“Thanks, Peggy,” Jessie said. “After I finish with the computer, I’ll come back and help you with your bears.”

After watching Jessie work for a few minutes, Henry and Violet decided to go back to the workroom. They found Doc and Benny sifting through small drawers of glass eyes.

“Here’s one that’s just right!” Benny cried when he found a golden glass eye for Mister B.

“A perfect match,” Doc said. “Let’s set it aside. After you kids make a new covering for him, we can attach this new eye and his old one.”

Peggy showed the three interested children how to slip off Mister B.’s old wool coat. Then she helped them take it apart to use as a pattern to cut pieces for a new wool covering.

“He looks so sad and pale now, lying there in his thin lining with no nose, or eyes, or mouth,” Violet said a few minutes later.

“He looks like a ghost bear,” Henry said as he carefully traced a pattern on some stiff paper from the outline of Mister B.’s old wool cover. “Here, Violet. Why don’t you cut the pieces now? You have steady hands.”

For the next hour, the two older children cut and trimmed and stitched a new woolly cover for Mister B.

“While you two are stitching, I’m going to have Benny stuff Mister B.,” Peggy said. “I did manage to find some grade-A fleece. Goodness knows what happened to the fleece we sheared in the barn.”

The children worked quietly, stuffing, sewing, threading, and snipping. They only stopped when they heard Jessie call them into the office.

“Come here!” she cried. “You won’t believe what I found out about Professor Tweedy.”

Henry sat down next to Jessie and began to read the computer screen.

“Skip to the last paragraph in this article about him,” Jessie said. “The rest is about some kind of special history project he’s working on.”

Henry read the last paragraph aloud:

“Professor Tweedy’s hobbies include bird-watching, stamp collecting, and rare-book collecting. For this article, his wife reported that he has also become an expert on antique bears. When asked about this unlikely hobby for a professor of historical research on presidents, all Professor Tweedy would say is, ‘Indeed!’”

“Wow!” Benny said. “Now he sounds like someone who might want Herr Bear.”

Jessie handed Henry a few sheets of paper that she had printed out. “Maybe, maybe not. Here’s an article about Herr Bears that I found on the computer when I looked up antique bears. And guess the name of the daughter of the man who designed the Herr Bear twins. Just guess.”

The other children could hardly stand it.

“Is it Miss Sayer’s first name?” Benny asked.

“Hazel?” Violet guessed.

Jessie shook her head from side to side. “
Nein!
” she said. “That means ‘no’ in German. The designer’s daughter’s name is Elsa. That’s Mrs. Keppel’s first name.”

Peggy looked over Henry’s shoulder to read the sheet of paper. “Elsa
Berne
.”

“Maybe
Berne
was Mrs. Keppel’s name before she got married,” Henry said. “The article says another child’s name was Kurt Berne, but he died about thirty years ago.”

Jessie sank back in her chair. “I couldn’t find anything about Elsa Keppel or Hazel Sayer. But I learned a lot about Herr Bears. Some of it is sad. Herr Bears were the most popular bears in Europe a long time ago. They stopped being made after the factory burned down.”

“It did?” Violet said. “How awful.”

“Yes,” Jessie went on, “that made Fritz Berne, the designer, lose his business. I even found an article from an old newspaper about the fire and how the Bernes had to sell their house and almost everything they owned.”

Violet was curious about this sad end to the Herr Bears. “Did you find out anything about the twin bears, Jessie?”

“That’s the saddest part,” Jessie said. “In the article about the fire, it mentioned that some of the family’s things were stolen around the time the Bernes moved away. But no one was ever caught. Apparently the twin bears either disappeared or were stolen.”

“You mean Doc’s Herr Bear could’ve been stolen before?” Benny asked.

“Looks like it,” Jessie said. “The twin Herr Bears were valuable even back then. Fritz Berne used pictures of them in his advertisements and everything. The bears were famous.”

“That’s so sad,” Violet said. “If Mrs. Keppel is related to Fritz Berne, maybe the Herr Bear is hers. I wonder how we can find out.”

The Aldens grew quiet now. Stories about children separated from their homes always made them think about when they left their own home after their mother and father died.

Violet went back to the workroom. She brought something for Jessie. “Look!” she told her sister. “This will cheer you up.”

“Mister B.!” Jessie broke into a huge smile. “You have a new covering. Or you almost have a new cover anyway. Plus, you look as if you’ve been eating too many blueberries. You’re nice and chubby now. Grandfather isn’t going to recognize you. You’re almost as good as new.”

Just as the other children began to explain how they had fixed Mister B., they heard a loud thud in the book room. Everyone ran over at once.

“Professor Tweedy!” Peggy said. “What are you doing up there? Please come down.”

Professor Tweedy was tottering on a step stool and looking very confused. Above him stood a bookcase with a half-empty shelf. On the floor lay a pile of books.

A large picture book rested on top of the heap. The title said:
Antique Bears.

Benny clicked the seat belt over his furry stomach. “Now Chatter Bear isn’t the only bear wearing a seat belt,” he announced to everyone in Peggy’s car. “Are you sure Miss Sayer and Professor Tweedy didn’t see us in our costumes?”

Peggy couldn’t help smiling at the sight of the two furry heads in the rearview mirror and the one next to her in the front seat. “I’m sure, Benny,” she answered, starting the car. “Miss Sayer left early without even eating any breakfast. She wanted to get the best position in the Teddy Bear Parade.”