The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery Read online

  The paper had crease marks and showed other signs of wear. Somebody had sloppily folded it into four sections at one point. It appeared to have been created sometime ago and perhaps carried around for a while. It hadn’t always been in the binder.

  I read what it said. “N hidden in blue box in the hayloft, southwest corner, hole in the floor under the bales.” The map clearly labeled the “N” that marked the necklace as being in the southwest corner also.

  “But Eddie told us the necklace was hidden in the northwest corner of the hayloft,” Kate said.

  I had spotted that discrepancy at the same time.

  “Eddie lied to me—to us. I’m not surprised. He’s always lying.”

  “Is that your mother?” I asked, hearing the sound of a car in the driveway.

  “She’s home early. Quick. Put the notebook back where you found it.”

  I complied, closing the notebook and placing it under the nudist magazines. Then I slid the drawer shut. We scurried out of the room. As we did, I saw the magazine Kate had been looking at sitting on the bed. I picked it up.

  “There isn’t time to put it away,” Kate said. “Hide it and take it with you.”

  She shut the door to Ed’s room. The only place I could think of to hide the magazine was under my shirt and undershirt, stuck into my belt. It felt cold against my stomach. I quickly tucked my shirt back in and realized that I had to be careful how I moved or the pages of the pulp magazine would crackle.

  “Will your mother be okay with me being here with you?” I asked, belatedly, as we heard her at the front door.

  “Sure. You’re my cousin. You’ve been helping me with my homework.” She pulled me into the living room and sat me down beside her on the sofa. She flipped open one of her schoolbooks.

  “Besides, you’re taking me to the autumn dance.” She gave me a quick kiss just as the door opened.

  ***

  Aunt Dorothy got home before I did. She parked her car in a garage-like room at the end of the barn beside the road. I saw her car through a barn window as I walked past, after parking my car in the shed on the side of the barn nearest the railroad track. Uncle Jeff parked his car in the old carriage house, located at the end of the driveway where it curved behind our house and became the start of the lane. One advantage of living on an old farm was that there were lots of buildings in which to park cars.

  I walked around the house and went in via the kitchen door, which Aunt Dorothy had left unlocked. She had changed from her good clothes into a housedress and was already preparing dinner. I said hello to her and took a cookie from the cookie jar. Now that I was convinced Ralph had created the paper that told about hiding the necklace, I had more questions.

  “Did you ever talk to Ralph about the diamond necklace?” I began, tentatively.

  “I might have mentioned it once or twice,” she said, “but I think I told you that I never put any stock in those stories. I don’t believe there ever was a necklace in the family, or if there was, it’s long gone.”

  “So there is no reason to believe that the necklace actually existed.”

  “No reason. In fact, I had forgotten all about it until the Drucquers showed up a year ago and started talking about it. If there are any rumors being spread, you can credit them with doing the spreading.”

  She said this so positively that it was hard not to believe her. And I had never known Aunt Dorothy to lie. So how did Ralph find the necklace, if indeed he did? And if not, why did he draw the map and write about the location of the necklace?”

  “By the way, I’ve asked Kate to the autumn dance a week from Saturday.”

  “Kate Drucquer? Well, she is a sweet girl, although perhaps a little young for you. But didn’t Tom take a liking to her? Of course, he’s only seen her the one time.”

  Tom. I had forgotten all about him. Well, it was too late to do anything now. I needed to make a phone call to Barney, to talk him into asking Sylvia to the dance. I took the top off the cookie jar and extracted another cookie.

  “What’s that rustling noise I hear whenever you move?” Aunt Dorothy asked. “It sounds like somebody turning the pages of a newspaper.”

  It was the magazine. I made some lame comment about my underwear being too stiff and headed for the stairs, which I took two at a time. Once up in my room, I removed the magazine and slid it through the crack between the bottom of my dresser and the floor. I hoped Aunt Dorothy wouldn’t find it there. I needed to examine it more closely to get some answers to questions I had.

  But the next thing I did was to compare the typed sample from Ed’s typewriter to the copy of the limerick, using the magnifying glass. I was becoming an expert at this. Within a couple of minutes, I found four distinct differences in the typing. So the limerick definitely hadn’t been typed on Ed’s typewriter.

  CHAPTER 24

  As I got out of my car the next morning in the high school parking lot, Sylvia came striding up, looking upset. I had arrived later than usual, and her bus had beaten me. I quickly glanced around to make sure that Dr. Graves or somebody who might be one of his spies wasn’t watching us.

  Without preamble, she said, “I need to know what’s going on with us.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, suddenly feeling guilty without knowing exactly what I was feeling guilty about.

  “First you stand me up at my house without telling me you can’t come. Then Barney calls me and asks me to the autumn dance and says it’s all right because you’re taking Kate Drucquer. Kate Drucquer. Who the hell is Kate Drucquer? The only thing I know about Kate Drucquer is that she’s Ed’s sister. I’m not sure I would even recognize her if I tripped over her in the hall.”

  “She’s my cousin.”

  “The whole damn world is your cousin. Don’t tell me she’s your cousin. I know about kissing cousins.”

  I had some explaining to do. First I apologized for not telling Sylvia I wasn’t going to her house. It had completely slipped my mind. Then I explained to her that it was my idea of how we could be together without arousing Aunt Dorothy or Dr. Graves. I didn’t tell her that Kate had extorted the promise that I would take her to the dance in exchange for helping me find the necklace map. That would make it sound as if I had justified my actions after the fact by rationalizing that it would get Sylvia and me together. Although of course this was close to the truth.

  After some talking, Sylvia seemed to soften a little. I asked her if she had said yes to Barney.

  “Of course I did. I’ve never missed the autumn dance, and I don’t intend to start now in my senior year. And Barney’s a good dancer. Besides, I have to keep an eye on you and Kate Drucquer. I remember who she is now. She doesn’t look a thing like Ed. She’s much too good looking to be your cousin.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “My pleasure. Now give me a kiss before we are again torn asunder by the winds of fate.”

  ***

  Ed tackled me at lunch time. He had no sooner set his tray of food down opposite mine when he said, “You’d better be nice to Katie.”

  Surprised because he had never shown an interest in her welfare before in my presence, I said, “I’ve always been nice to her.”

  “You know what I mean. I know what you and Natalie were doing in the hay fort and it wasn’t math homework.”

  I looked around to see if anybody was close enough to hear Ed speak Natalie’s name. It was a good thing that the noise level in the cafeteria was high and that the haunting strains of “Where is Your Heart?” from the movie Moulin Rouge, issued forth from the jukebox and made it even higher. Could that song be an indictment of me? I shushed Ed and told him I would take good care of Kate.

  I had something I wanted to talk to Ed about. “We agreed to wait until the hay bales are gone before we look for the necklace, but I wonder if that’s a good idea. Anything can happen to it. The bales may get taken out when I’m not around and one of the farmhands may find it. Maybe you and I should continue what I
started and dig down to the northwest corner.” I accented the word “northwest.”

  Ed looked off into space. He fidgeted. He put a bite of the goulash on his plate into his mouth and took his time chewing and swallowing it. Finally he spoke. “It’s supposed to be well hidden. That would be a lot of work. I think we can wait until spring.”

  So he wasn’t willing to admit his lie. He didn’t trust me. Actually, it was more than that. All he wanted me for was to alert him when the hay bales were removed. Then he would sneak up to the hayloft when nobody was there and find the necklace. And keep it for himself. And lie to me about finding it.

  I prompted him several times, giving him a chance to admit the truth, but he didn’t break character. I had found out what I wanted to know.

  ***

  “I thought you brought me up here to neck with me, but now you want to put me to work.”

  I was gratified to realize that Sylvia wasn’t entirely joking. Sure, there was some work involved, but if things went according to my plan, we would have time for necking later. Aunt Dorothy had a League of Women Voters meeting after she finished teaching school. It involved some sort of dinner, and she wouldn’t be home until nine. It was an ideal day to bring Sylvia back to the hayloft.

  My ulterior motive was that I wanted to see if the necklace was actually in the southwest corner of the loft, as Ralph’s map indicated, or whether the whole thing was a hoax. And I wanted Sylvia with me because I had been shaken up by my previous experience trying to get to the necklace, even with Sylvia present. She was levelheaded and a good person to have looking out for me.

  Without giving her the details of how I knew, I told her that I had reason to believe the necklace was not where I had been looking, in the northwest corner of the barn, but in the southwest corner instead. I even told her that it was a necklace we were looking for. Then I told her my plan.

  “I want to remove the topmost bales from this corner, until we get below the crossbeam. I think there may be a gap between the bales and the wall below that.” I pointed out the solid wooden beam, part of a series that extended around the perimeter of the barn at the point where the roof and the wall came together. By shining my new flashlight down from the corner of the loft, I could see that the bales abutted the beam.

  I took two hay hooks and started moving bales around. I could do it faster by myself than with Sylvia’s help.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked. “I feel about as useful as an appendix.”

  “Make sure I don’t kill myself. You did a good job of that before.”

  The bales weren’t stacked as high on this side as they had been initially on the other side. I hadn’t gotten down to the crossbeam on the other side, even after I had spent some time moving bales.

  I went to work. In twenty minutes, I had cleared enough bales so that I was below the beam. I stopped and panted for a bit and then shone my flashlight down the crack in the corner.

  “There’s more space here than on the other side,” I told Sylvia. “And I’m starting lower. Come and look.”

  She peered down the hole for a few seconds and then said, “I don’t think it’s safe to go down there, Gary. You’ll get stuck again.” She looked some more. “What’s that? It looks like another beam.”

  It was another beam. This beam and others went around the wall, midway between the floor and the roof. Although I hadn’t completely forgotten about it, I had hoped it wouldn’t constitute a problem. However, there didn’t appear to be any space between the bales and this beam. And it was far enough down that it would take forever for me to dig out all the intervening bales.

  “I’m going to lower myself to that beam and investigate,” I said, bringing over the end of the rope that hung from the rafters. “There’s room enough so that I won’t get stuck. I can always pull myself up with the rope.”

  Sylvia wasn’t as convinced of that as I was. But she wasn’t going to let me do it without her there, either. And she was clearly afraid that I would do something dangerous later if she didn’t allow me to try it now.

  I placed the flashlight in my pocket and, holding onto the rope, lowered myself until I was standing on the lower beam. There was a little more room between the bales and the wall than there had been on the other side of the loft where I had gotten stuck. I took out the flashlight and knelt on the beam on one knee, placing the foot of my other leg awkwardly in front of that knee. I wouldn’t be able to maintain this position long. I shone the light along the beam, looking for cracks.

  Right at the corner of the barn there appeared to be a gap in the bales. That’s where I wanted to be, anyway. I edged myself along the beam the few feet to the corner and felt the area around the beam with one hand. I also used the flashlight. I thought there was enough room for me to slide between the beam and the bales and get down to the floor of the loft. Although I couldn’t use the rope for this maneuver, I kept it nearby so that I could help pull myself back up, if necessary.

  I worked my way around the beam and reached down with one leg. I was gratified to feel the floor under my feet. Then I lowered my other leg to the floor. I had made it, but I couldn’t stand in this position, because the beam wasn’t high enough above the floor to give me headroom. It was too tight to be comfortable, but I should be able to survive for a few minutes. Carefully, I lowered my whole body to the floor, so that I could reach the corner with my hand.

  “I can’t see you,” Sylvia called from above. “Where are you?” Her voice sounded muffled.

  “I’m on the floor in the corner.”

  “Are you all right? I can’t hear you very well.”

  “I’m fine. I’m going to look for the necklace.”

  If she’d just shut up, I could do my job. If I could breathe. The air smelled stale. Was there enough oxygen? I shone the flashlight into the corner where the floor and the two walls came together. Sure enough, there was a hole in the floor. My heartbeat accelerated even beyond what it was already because of my exertions.

  I carefully reached my hand into the hole. I felt the wisp of a spider web and hoped that a spider wasn’t the next thing I’d feel. A few inches below the hole, my hand touched wood. I moved it in each direction. More wood. The space was enclosed on the bottom and sides, as if it had been deliberately built as a hiding place. That may or may not be true, but one thing was definitely true. There was nothing in it except an old spider web.

  I felt around the space several more times to make sure. Then I pulled my hand out of the hole and shone the flashlight along the edges where the floor and walls met, to see if there were any more holes. There weren’t. No place to hide anything. If the necklace had ever been here, it was gone now.

  My knees hurt. My leg muscles were cramped from being bent like pretzels. It was time to go back up. As I raised my hand to locate the wooden beam, the flashlight hit the beam and went out. I shook it and cursed at it, but the darkness was absolute.

  “What’s going on?” the muffled voice of Sylvia called from above.

  “My flashlight went out.”

  “I’ve heard that song before. Are you coming up?”

  “Yes.”

  I was in the dark, in an enclosed space. My mobility was extremely limited. What if I became trapped? What if I couldn’t get out of here? I was too young to die. My heartbeat felt like a drum roll. I panicked and tried to stand. My head hit the beam. I fell back to the floor with a grunt, feeling the reverberation, and wondering whether I had been knocked out.

  I must have lain there for at least thirty seconds. All I saw was black. Was this what it felt like to be unconscious? Then I heard Sylvia call from above.

  “What are you doing? I can’t hear you or see you.”

  If I could hear her, I must be conscious. But I didn’t have the energy to answer her. I mentally shook myself. I could work my way out of this. I just had to move slowly and carefully. And Sylvia would go for help if I really got stuck.

  Sylvia. I couldn’t show her that
I was panicked. I called out to her that I was coming up. I took several deep breaths. Could I crawl along the floor to where the bales ended and get out there? I had to crawl backward, because I didn’t have room to turn around. I managed to move a few inches, but the bales were too close to the wall and I could go no farther. I had to climb back to the top.

  I reached up and found the beam with my hand and carefully raised my body, edging my head past it. I worked my way up onto the beam by feel and great effort, as my heart pounded in my aching head. If this was what mountain climbing was like, it wasn’t for me. Actually, it might be more like cave exploring, because of the dark and close quarters.

  I slowly stood up on the beam, my legs shaky. Sylvia could see me now, and I could see her. If I hadn’t hit my head, I would have the strength to climb out from here. But right now it seemed like an impossible task. The rope was out of my reach. I asked her to hand it to me. I took hold of it and during an eternity worked my way up the remaining bales, with Sylvia giving me encouragement. She grabbed me and pulled. I finally rolled out onto the flat tops of the lowest bales beside the wall, dazed and panting.

  “Are you okay?” Sylvia asked, concern in her voice.

  “Yeah. But I hit my head on the beam. It hurts.” My heart was still racing.

  “Where?”

  I pointed to the back of my head, near my crown. She parted my hair and looked at it.

  “Gary, you’ve got a big bump on your head. No wonder it hurts.”

  I tried to make a joke. “Does that mean no necking?”

  “You better believe it means no necking. You’re in no shape to do anything. I don’t even see how you can drive me home.”

  “I’ll be fine. I can drive. Give me a few minutes.”

  “All right. But then you’ve got to come back and rest. And make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  ***

  Somehow I drove Sylvia safely home, although I was nauseated and glad to get back to the farm where I could lie down.