Mystery of the Melting Snowman (9 page)

Dexter motioned to Cindy. They stepped away from the door. He whispered in her ear. “What if he’s telling the truth? What if Mrs. Wellington is a mixed-up lady? Remember the Usher Rule—just because we like her doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth.”

Cindy bit her lip. “I don’t know who or what to believe anymore. This is scary. But I know he’s lying. I know it, I know it, I know it.”

“You don’t know it. You feel it,” Dexter replied. “And I don’t feel a thing anymore. I’m numb.”

Alex Baxter called from the closet. “Hurry. Unlock this door. I won’t bring charges against you. You meant well. That will count a lot. Now hurry!”

Cindy and Dexter looked at each other. How could they believe him? How could they
not
believe him?

Suddenly they heard shouts and then voices. And other sounds. Footsteps running on the snow, pounding on the front door, and a key turning in the lock downstairs. A rush of people pushing to get inside. And Jay’s voice shouting, “He’s up there!” Cindy swallowed.

All at once lights were turned on and heads appeared coming up the stairway. Three figures ran toward Dexter and Cindy—Jay, Jenny, and Tom. And then right behind them were a man and a woman. Downstairs Melanie Wellington’s voice was calling, “Oh, I’m missing all the excitement. Don’t let anything happen until I get there.” Then she was coming up the stairs and down the hall. Alex Baxter must have heard the noise too. There was a muffled oath from the closet.

J
AY RAN TOWARD
Cindy and Dexter, who were still leaning against the closet door. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Just barely,” answered Cindy. “That man’s still in the closet. He kept telling us we were wrong.”

“We didn’t believe him,” Dexter said quickly.

“Didn’t we?” asked Cindy.

“I knew I had to do something to save you,” Jay said. “I ran in the house and tried to call Mrs. Wellington. No answer. I ran to the front porch. That’s when I saw a car stop at the barricade.”

“And Jay ran over and told us what was going on,” Jenny finished. “You two were brave!”

They were all gathered together in the long hall, the Spotlighters, Mrs. Wellington, Tom and Jenny, and Tom’s parents.

“More lights! More lights!” cried Melanie Wellington. “I declare, this place is like a cellar. And I’ve never heard so much noise.”

“My, my,” Mrs. Foster was saying to Tom. “You certainly are getting married with a lot happening.”

“But our new daughter can manage,” Mr. Foster said, and he put his arm around Jenny.

Cindy blinked her eyes. She didn’t have any tears or anything. She just blinked anyway.

“It’s all over now,” Jay said.

“Not quite,” said Cindy. “There are a lot of things we don’t understand.” She held up her notebook. “I’ve got some questions I’d like to ask.”

Tom walked over to the closet door. “Alex Baxter,” he called. “Would you mind answering a few questions before we call the police?”

There was a moment’s silence. Then Alex Baxter said, “Police? You’ll look like a fool. What are you charging me with? After all, I didn’t get away with the diamonds. I admit I tried. But I didn’t succeed. You can’t arrest me for having big ideas. I haven’t done a thing. Unless you count trying to take that doorstop. And I didn’t even get away with that.”

Melanie Wellington tapped on the closet door. “I’m sure if we called the police, they’d find something or other to arrest you for. But we’ll let you go. On one condition. That you answer some questions.”

Alex Baxter was silent. Then he said, “I will answer questions about the subject at hand. Nothing more. And I must have your solemn promise that you will then open that door and not impede my departure.”

Dexter nudged Jay. “That means we won’t stop him,” he whispered.

“I thought that’s what it meant,” Jay whispered back.

“Very well,” said Melanie Wellington. She turned to Cindy. “The young girl with the notebook may begin.”

Cindy walked to the closet. “How did the iron dog get in the snowman?” she asked.

“I can explain,” Alex Baxter began. “I was just trying to help Aunt Melanie. You see, I’d always suspected there was a secret safe in the house—”

Melanie Wellington interrupted. “My husband built the safe, really just a good hiding place, when we moved into the house. He loved secrets, and he loved diamonds. He collected diamonds, as Alex knew. And he liked to look at them, so he didn’t want to put them away in a bank. After he passed away, I just left them in the safe.”

Alex Baxter spoke again. “When I heard the house was going to be sold, I went to ask Aunt Melanie about the diamonds. I was going to bring them to her. All she had to do was give me the key to the safe and tell me where to find it. I was going to bring the diamonds to you, Aunt Melanie. I really would have.”

“Of course you would have, Alex. But you’d have taken three or four of them first.”

“Never!” said Alex Baxter. “Anyway, Aunt Melanie said that Jenny was going to bring her the key that afternoon. And then later when Tom’s parents came, Aunt Melanie was going to come over to the house with them and open the secret safe.”

Jenny interrupted now. “I didn’t know a thing about a key! When Alex Baxter came over to the house, I couldn’t imagine what he wanted.”

“There was no need for you to know where the key was,” Mrs. Wellington said. “I wanted to surprise you by letting you choose a diamond as a wedding gift.”

Alex Baxter groaned. “To a perfect stranger!”

“She is not a stranger, Alex. She is a lovely friend and a wonderful girl. And I’ve given you plenty, goodness knows. You just want more and more, Alex. You’re never satisfied.”

There was a silence. Then Alex Baxter continued. “Well, anyway, Aunt Melanie said that Jenny was going to bring the key. So I went over to get it. I was going to bring it to Aunt Melanie myself.”

“You were going to do no such thing, Alex, and you know it,” said Melanie Wellington. “You were going to get the key from Jenny and then try to find the secret safe.”

Alex Baxter cleared his throat. “When I got there yesterday and asked Jenny for the key, she was just leaving the house. She said she didn’t know a thing about a key. She said she was only supposed to take the iron dog over, that was all. She didn’t know why Aunt Melanie wanted the iron dog, but she was going to bring it over. So of course I knew the key was in the dog.”

He cleared his throat again, then continued. “When Jenny went upstairs, I took the iron dog out of its box and put an old vase in its place. I picked up the box and the dog and called to Jenny that I’d meet her on the porch. I just had time to hide the dog behind a bush and get back to the porch to meet Jenny and hand her the box. She walked toward her car, but I pretended I wanted to check something at the back of the house. I picked up the iron dog and hid it under my coat. Imagine my horror when I saw Jenny coming back to the house!”

“I’d forgotten my car keys,” explained Jenny. “I hardly looked at Alex Baxter but he said something about the snow being just right to make snowballs. Then I saw snow on his coat. He began to roll a big snowball and that seemed funny—but he always does funny things that don’t make sense.”

Alex sounded hurt when he continued. “It was a good idea. I rolled the dog into the snowball and set it on top of a snowman someone had started. The children were too busy to notice. Then I waved at Jenny and went to my own car.”

Dexter turned to Tom. “But Amy and Randy were sure that you had helped them with the snowman, not Alex Baxter.”

Tom frowned and then smiled. “I remember now. I was going over to organize the garage for Jenny. And the kids were playing around, putting a face on the snowman. I gave them a scarf for it. And I told them to get a carrot for the nose. We always had carrots for noses on our snowmen, remember, Dad?”

“What about the scarf?” asked Cindy. “You told Jenny you’d lost it a long time ago.”

“Oh, that,” said Tom, blushing. “An old girlfriend had knit that scarf for me. Jenny was always jealous of that, weren’t you, Jen?”

“Well, I can’t knit,” said Jenny. “And every time you wore it I thought you were thinking about that other girl.”

“Silly,” said Tom. “Anyway, I told Jenny I’d lost it a long time ago so she wouldn’t fuss about it. And then when I was on the way over to clean up the garage I realized I was wearing it. So I gave it to the kids for the snowman.”

“What about the mirror sunglasses?” asked Cindy. “You took them off when you saw Amy.”

Torn frowned. “Did I? Oh, I remember. She had been frightened of them at first the day before, when I was helping with the snowman. It had taken me a while to show her that it was like a game—she could see herself twice in the glasses. But I didn’t want to frighten her again, so I took them off when I saw her coming.” Tom looked at everyone and smiled.

“I don’t like those glasses either,” said Jenny. “I like to see your eyes.”

Cindy made a couple of checks in her notebook and wrote a few words. “Then it was Alex Baxter who put the iron dog in the snowman and Alex Baxter who came back for it.”

“Please don’t talk about me as if I were deaf,” said Alex Baxter. “Just because I’m in this closet doesn’t mean I’m not here. Yes, I came back in disguise to get the doorstop when I thought everyone was in bed. There was a whole row of snowmen! I didn’t know which was the right one. I started to smash the snowmen, but I heard a car. Then someone passed, walking a dog. I decided to go away and come back later.”

“We saw you leave,” Jay said.

Alex Baxter ignored that. “When I did come back, the iron dog was gone! I thought Jenny must have guessed where I’d hidden the doorstop and found it.”

“It was us, we found it,” said Dexter.

Alex Baxter’s voice rose in anger. “You little—you little whippersnappers!”

Cindy wrote the word
whippersnappers
in her notebook. Then she looked at her notes. “Tell about when I met you,” she said. “Why were you hiding in your car?”

“I had reason to think Jenny had the iron dog in the box I saw in her car. Her car was locked, so I was waiting for her.”

The Spotlighters looked at each other. They were sure Alex had planned to break into Jenny’s car. But Jenny and Cindy had appeared, so he’d been quick to hide.

“But I gave the box to Tom,” Cindy said. “And you saw it had nothing but the vase in it.”

“Yes. Then I thought Jenny might have taken the dog upstairs after she found it in the snowman. It would have been too late to give it to Aunt Melanie. I was looking for it when you, young lady, came spying on me. So I used my detective identification to get you on my side. I told you Jenny and Tom were playing a confidence game.”

“Confidence game!” snorted Melanie Wellington. “Alex!”

Alex Baxter said, “Please, Aunt Melanie. I was trying to help you. I could see the dog probably wasn’t upstairs. I had a new idea. I thought Jenny had put it in the trunk of her car and was planning to take it to the North Star after she left her apartment. I had to find her car and look in the trunk. I wanted to get rid of the junior detectives.”

No wonder he was in such a hurry to get us out of the way, Cindy thought.

“And did you open my car trunk?” Jenny asked.

“Well, yes, I did. But it was empty. I didn’t have much time left. Of course I knew the riddle in the sampler. It is too easy. I guessed the safe was near the mirror. I came back here to—”

“To break in, but you were too late!”

“Yes! Somebody told these children where the key was and where the keyhole was.”

“No,” said Cindy. “We found the key. We found the keyhole for ourselves. But I have one question left. Didn’t you get the message from your answering service? We told the operator we had the iron dog.”

There was no answer, and Mrs. Wellington unlocked the closet door.

Alex Baxter stumbled out and blinked in the hall light. In a voice they could hardly hear he muttered, “I never called in. If I had…”

“I hope you’ve learned a lesson, Alex,” his aunt said. “A dozen lies won’t do you any good.”

“I’ve learned not to tangle with junior detectives.” He tried to smile and then started for the stairs. “I won’t stay for the party,” he said.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Illustrations by Seymour Fleishman

Copyright © 1974, 2013 by Albert Whitman & Company

978-1-4804-4959-6

Published in 2013 by Albert Whitman & Company

250 South Northwest Highway, Suite 320

Park Ridge, Illinois 60068

www.albertwhitman.com