The Niagara Falls Mystery (9 page)

Authors: Gertrude Chandler Warner

BOOK: The Niagara Falls Mystery

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Will couldn't believe it. “That's fantastic, Angus. I knew both our families were connected to the hotel. But I can't let you give this stand away. It belongs to your family.”

Angus took a Navy Island cane and rapped it on the floor. “Who said anything about giving it away, young man? Not me. No, sir. You can borrow the stand for as long as this place stays open. Just make sure everybody knows it came from the Drummonds, that's all.”

The Aldens were curious.

“Why did you take the guest book? And when?” Henry asked.

Angus tapped the floor with the cane again. “I didn't take the guest book. I borrowed it to see how it would look on this stand. Will's grandpa gave me a key to the display room a long time ago. He said I could go in anytime, so I did. But then you kids showed up before I could borrow the guest book. When I saw you, I went right out the front door and to my spot across the street, cool as you please.”

“So it was you that first day,” Jessie said. “You were quick.”

“Well, I've been climbing the hills around Niagara Falls for a lot of years,” Angus said. “I finally got hold of the guest book the day the McKenzies started work. All I wanted to do was look up some names from the olden days. I couldn't do that with everybody snooping on me, now, could I? So I borrowed the book. Pretty soon everybody's gone off their heads about it. The book was safe and sound the whole time.”

The Aldens just had to know something else.

“We saw you on a hill near Whirlpool Rapids this morning,” Henry began. “At least we think it was you. What were you doing there?”

Angus smiled. “Same thing I always do there â visiting my fishing shack in the woods. My shack was a good place to look at the book in peace.”

Everybody looked relieved.

“The book is back now,” Will said. “That's all that matters. And everybody can see the Prince of Wales's signature even better now that it's displayed on this stand. Thanks so much, Angus.”

Benny wasn't the least bit interested in the guest book now that it was back.

“Hey, Benny, what are you doing?” Will asked when he saw Benny writing something in a book on the counter.

“Signing this new guest book, that's what.”

The children came over to see what Benny was up to. Everyone laughed when they saw what he had written:
Benny Alden was here!

Angus Drummond laughed. “That'll be a valuable souvenir a hundred years from now!”

G
ERTRUDE
C
HANDLER
W
ARNER
discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book,
The Boxcar Children
, quickly proved she had succeeded.

Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car â the situation the Alden children find themselves in.

When Miss Warner received requests for more adventures involving Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden, she began additional stories. In each, she chose a special setting and introduced unusual or eccentric characters who liked the unpredictable.

While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner's books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens' independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible â something else that delights young readers.

Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her books.

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.

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