The Homerun Mystery (8 page)

“We should be going,” Mike Percy said, clearly nervous. “The council meeting will be starting.”

He and his wife started to leave.

Benny tugged on Carl Soper's sleeve. When the older man bent down, Benny whispered something in his ear.

“Isn't the meeting in the old factory?” Henry asked the Percys. “That's what Danny Jenkins told us.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Mrs. Percy. “Why would the council meet in that run-down old place? Now, if you'll excuse us —”

“We think somebody ordered Danny to get us out of the way,” Jessie concluded. “So we won't upset the vote.”

Mrs. Percy snorted. “How ridiculous. You're just children. You can't vote!”

“No, but these children can find out things,” said Carl. “Like Benny here.”

Jessie was surprised. “Benny, what did you find?”

“Nothing yet, but I think it's in the factory, in Herman's locker,” Benny said. “I'm not sure what it is, but I think it's important.”

“But I looked there!” Mrs. Percy blurted out. Mike Percy stiffened.

“Please let the boy show us what he's thinking of,” Carl Soper said to them.

Reluctantly, the couple followed Benny and the others to the factory.

Once inside, Benny walked straight to the break room where the old workers' lockers lined the walls. He passed right by the locker labeled
H.S.
and looked at all the others carefully.

“I bet this is it!” he cried in front of one of the lockers. “I bet what they are looking for is in here. See, H.W.S. — Herman Wash-burn Soper. He had a funny middle name, didn't he?”

Everyone was shocked.

“Benny,” Jessie asked, “how did you know Herman's middle name was Washburn?”

“I saw it in the clubhouse. On the old team photograph. I started to get the idea about the initials and the lockers, but the idea sort of got stuck. When I heard the Percys talking in the clubhouse about some letter they were looking for, the idea just kind of got unstuck.”

“It certainly did!” exclaimed Henry, and they all laughed, all except for the Percys.

“I think we'd better see if anything's in here,” Carl Soper said, and he opened the locker. He drew out an old newspaper, laid it carefully on the floor, and peered long and hard into the top shelf and the larger bottom part of the locker. He reached his hand in and ran it carefully up and down the sides. “That seems to be it,” he said.

The Percys breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wait,” said Carl. “I think I feel something. It seems to be stuck between the shelf and the back of the locker.” Slowly he drew his arm out. In his hand was a letter.

Everyone gathered around.

“Who's it to?” Violet wanted to know.

Carl squinted at the faded handwriting. “It's addressed to Herman Soper! And it's dated June 4, 1908! That was the year my uncle disappeared!” Carl Soper said. He turned the envelope over. “Why, it's still sealed!”

Carl's hands shook as he opened the letter. He read the document silently for a while. “Listen: ‘Dear Mr. Soper,' it says. ‘It has come to my attention that I have unknowingly been the cause of some injustice done to you and I am writing this letter to fix it. I took your name from the newspaper. Your address was not reported, but the Pikesville Hat Company was mentioned as your place of employment, so I am directing my letter to you there. Please feel free to forward my letter to your local newspaper so they may print the true story of your generosity. I will guarantee the truth of this letter in person should the paper so wish. But as I plan to leave next month on an extended trip …' This is incredible! According to this, Herman didn't throw the game!”

“This is all very interesting, but we need to get to that meeting,” Beverly Percy said crisply.

“Not so fast,” Carl told her.

Jessie noticed both Percys had become jittery since Benny's discovery. They acted like they knew something about this mysterious letter.

Carl took a deep breath. “It was written by Mrs. Daisy Pettibone from Eddington, New York.”

“Who is she?” asked Benny.

“She's the lady my uncle stopped to help on the way to the big game,” said Carl Soper, scanning the paper. “It confirms everything Home Run Herman said. He came upon a lady whose Model T was stuck in the mud.”

“Model what?” asked Benny.

“The Model T was an early Ford car,” answered Henry.

“Automobiles were pretty new in those days,” Carl went on. “And roads weren't very good. Mrs. Pettibone asked Herman to push her car out of the ditch. After he helped move her car, she noticed he was rubbing his shoulder. According to the letter, Mrs. Pettibone was in a terrible rush to get home to Eddington. She offered Herman twenty dollars to pay for his assistance. Herman refused. But she insisted and he stuck the bill in his pocket. When he hurried off to the game, he probably forgot about the money.”

“Did Mrs. Pettibone go to the game?” asked Emily.

Carl shook his head as he scanned the letter. “No, she got in her car and drove home to the party she was late for. It says here that she didn't know what happened at the game until she got her local newspaper later that week.”

“Boy, the news sure was slow in the olden days,” Benny commented.

Henry smiled. “Only big cities had daily papers,” he said. “Small towns like Pikesville and Eddington had papers that came out once a week.”

“It's too bad,” Carl Soper remarked. “If Mrs. Pettibone had known sooner, my uncle wouldn't have left town in disgrace.”

“Why?” asked Violet.

Carl Soper returned to the letter. “According to this, Mrs. Pettibone was very upset to learn he was accused of throwing the game because he had her twenty dollars in his pocket. She wrote to Herman so he could show the letter to the president of the ball club and the newspaper, and be cleared of any wrongdoing.

“But I don't think he ever received the letter,” Carl said sadly. “It was sealed. It was probably delivered after he left town in disgrace.”

Mike Percy cleared his throat. “We'd like to hear about old baseball games, but we really have to get to that meeting.”

“Yes. The council needs my vote,” stated Beverly Percy.

Jessie looked at her. “Why were you in the clubhouse?”

Now Mrs. Percy's tone became frosty. “That is none of your business, young lady.” Glancing one last time at the letter Carl Soper held, she turned on her heel and marched out.

Mike Percy was right behind her. The kids heard a car start and drive away. The Percys must have had their car parked on the street behind the clubhouse.

“Those people are strange,” Benny commented.

“Not strange,” said Henry, an idea forming in his head. “They are very smart.”

“How so?” asked Carl.

“The ‘ghost' we kept seeing in the old factory,” Henry said. “That was either Jenkins or the Percys. They were all searching for that letter.”

“Why would they be hunting for this?” asked Emily.

Now Jessie caught on. “Because it's somehow connected to the ballpark, I bet. The council should know about it.”

“The council is going to vote on making this land into a parking lot in ten minutes,” Carl Soper announced.

“We've got to get to that meeting!” Violet declared. “Maybe the letter will make a difference in how people vote.”

Mr. Soper gave the letter to Benny. “I won't be able to move as fast as you. Now hurry!”

Benny tucked the letter carefully in his pocket. Then he and the other kids sped out of the clubhouse.

“I know a shortcut,” Emily told the Aldens.

They dashed across the ballpark and down a side street.

Henry was the fastest runner, but he stayed beside Benny.

The town hall sat in the middle of a green lawn. Revolutionary War cannons flanked the wide steps. The gilded dome glowed like pure gold in the summer sun.

The children flew along the brick walkway and up the granite steps. Henry pulled the heavy double doors open and let Benny enter first.

Benny's sneakers squeaked loudly on the marble floor. Inside, the building was cool and hushed, like a library. He heard voices from the first room on the right. A paneled oak door was propped open.

“In there,” Jessie said.

Benny raced to the doorway. He saw men and women sitting around a large wooden table. At one end of the room, Beverly Percy was talking as she stood beside an easel. The drawing on the easel showed a modern parking lot and pretty flowers around the factory building.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said Beverly. “Shall we take a vote on this new project?”

Benny wasn't sure what to do. Then he saw Grandfather. At the same time, Grandfather saw him and the others in the doorway behind him.

“Benny!” exclaimed James Alden. “What are you children doing here?”

“I have something to show you,” said Benny, handing the letter to his grandfather.

Mrs. Percy's face turned as purple as the dress she had on today. “Pay no attention to that child! He doesn't know anything about my great-aunt's letter!”

CHAPTER 10

Benny's Home Run

S
ilence fell over the room.

“What did you say?” Emily asked Beverly Percy.

“Nothing,” she answered briskly. “Clear these children out so we can get down to business —”

Her husband broke in. “They have the letter, Beverly. We have to tell them.”

“Tell us what?” said the man sitting at the head of the table.

“The truth,” Jessie stated. Then she added, “We know the Percys have been looking for this letter. Fortunately, our little brother found it in the factory first.”

Now James Alden put on his reading glasses and looked at the letter Benny handed him. “It's addressed to Herman Soper.”

“Home Run Herman?” said the man at the head of the table. “I'm Paul White,” he added, introducing himself to the Alden children, “president of the town council. You say Mr. and Mrs. Percy were looking for this letter?”

Henry nodded. “We saw lights in the old factory. Danny Jenkins told us the factory was haunted. But it was his brother, looking for that paper. The Percys were hunting for it, too.”

Mr. White turned to Beverly Percy. “What connection do you have with an old letter addressed to Home Run Herman?”

“It's a long story.” Mrs. Percy smiled falsely. “Let's vote first and afterward go have coffee. I'll tell you about the letter then.”

“I think now would be better,” said Grandfather. “These children made quite an effort to get the letter here
before
the vote.”

In the momentary silence Carl Soper entered the room and with a heavy sigh, Beverly Percy slumped in her chair. “The woman who wrote that letter was my great-aunt, Daisy Pettibone,” she began. “I grew up in Eddington, a small town north of here. That's where Aunt Daisy lived, too. I didn't know my great-aunt very well. But when she died, she left me some money.”

“When we went through Mrs. Pettibone's belongings, we found a copy of that letter,” Mike Percy put in. “Apparently Mrs. Pettibone made and kept copies of most of her correspondence.”

“Why was the letter important?” asked Carl Soper.

“It has to do with the ballpark, doesn't it?” guessed Violet.

Beverly shot the kids a dark look. “Yes,” she replied. “You see, my aunt had an old newspaper clipping in her files, too. It was about that old baseball game, the one Home Run Herman supposedly lost on purpose. Mike and I were curious about Pikesville, so we drove down to see the town.”

Mike took up the story. “We wanted to make a quick profit. A real estate agent in Eddington told us about the problems in Pikesville and a property that might be coming up for sale.”

“What property?” asked Mr. White.

“The ballpark,” Beverly Percy answered. “The way we understood it, the ballpark was next to the old factory. We knew you all were thinking about renovating the factory into shops. If we bought the ballpark, we knew we could sell it back to the town at a profit. You'd need that land around the factory.”

“So Bev and I moved here,” Mike said, taking up the story. “I got a job and became coach of the baseball team. Bev was elected to the town council a few months ago.”

“That was part of your scheme,” Jessie said. “You got on the council so you could tell people to tear down the ballpark.”

“You convinced everyone that the town would be better off without it,” Henry added. “Home Run Herman brought shame to Pikesville. If the ballpark was gone, people would forget what happened.”

“You kids are pretty smart,” Beverly acknowledged. “Yes, I used the old scandal to convince council members to tear the ballpark down. They didn't know Mike and I had an agreement to buy the land.”