The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

of formation, was to get Barney to take Sylvia to the dance. Barney liked Sylvia, but I didn’t see him as a threat to me. Sylvia knew that Kate was my cousin, so she shouldn’t have a problem with me taking her. That way, we could both go to the dance. We could even dance together. Dr. Graves couldn’t ding me for doing that, could he? Besides, I doubted that Dr. Graves would be at the dance. I would be safe—unless he had people spying on me the way he had wanted me to spy on Sylvia.
    We walked up the cracked concrete path to the house. Kate produced a key and let us in. She dumped her books on the coffee table in the living room and took off her jacket. She wore a pink sweater underneath that went well with her hair. I had seen her in that sweater before.
    “Would you like something to drink?” Kate asked, playing hostess.
    “I think we’d better get to work,” I said. Now that we were in the house, I was nervous. What if Mrs. Drucquer came home?
    If Kate had qualms about going through Ed’s belongings, she didn’t let them show. She led the way into a small bedroom. In addition to an unmade single bed, it contained a desk piled high with papers. A big and black old Royal typewriter sat in the middle of the desk. Ed must use it to write articles for the school paper.
    Every newspaper reporter had a typewriter. Mine was an Olympia portable. Recently, I had been using it only for schoolwork. But I had an idea. I grabbed a sheet of scrap paper from a waste basket and inserted it in the typewriter. Then I typed the first line of the mysterious limerick I had received.
    “What are you doing?” Kate asked.
    “Just checking to see how good a typewriter this is.” I quickly pulled out the paper, folded it, and stuffed it in my pocket.
    Kate opened a drawer of the desk and said, “Eddie keeps his girlie magazines hidden here. She reached under some papers and pulled out a nudist magazine. She began leafing through it and said, “This is funny. I see naked girls all the time in the locker room.”
    I didn’t see naked girls in the locker room, and Ed didn’t either. To us, this was educational material. Sure it was. I casually glanced over her shoulder.
    She said, “This girl would look good in a bathing suit.”
    I thought the girl looked good without a bathing suit. I’d better not look any more. I turned my attention to the desk. The paper had been in a black, three-ring binder. A quick search told me that it wasn’t on the desk. I sat in Ed’s chair and went through several desk drawers, but I couldn’t find it.
    “Maybe the binder is in that drawer,” I said, referring to the one from which Kate had extracted the magazine.
    “I didn’t see it,” Kate said.
    I quickly riffled the papers in the drawer and didn’t see it either.
    “Maybe it’s under the magazines,” I said.
    I lifted them, avoiding the temptation to open them, and looked underneath. Sure enough, there was the binder. I pulled it out and replaced the magazines. With nervous fingers, I opened the binder. There were a number of papers in it, which had once belonged to Ralph. School papers. Math homework, mostly. Signed and dated by him. With marks, many of which were A’s. He had been a good student.
    The necklace sheet of paper had been in the middle of the binder. I started leafing through the papers, with Kate looking over my shoulder. I turned the pages slowly, being careful not to enlarge the holes where the paper went through the rings of the binder.
    “This is it,” I said, turning over a page to reveal a sheet that looked familiar. It had to be. I felt a thrill, as if I were discovering a treasure map. In fact, there was a map and it was of the hayloft. It was drawn in pencil and referred to something with a capital N. That had to be the necklace. The first thing I noticed was that the handwriting looked the same as that on the other papers. Small and neat.
    “Do you think this could have been written by Ed?” I asked.
    “No way. Eddie’s handwriting is big and scrawly.”
    Samples of Ed’s handwriting abounded on the papers on the desk. I also glanced at the other papers in the notebook, written by Ralph. I had to agree with Kate. This couldn’t have been written by Ed, but it could easily have been written by Ralph. The map was the genuine article.
    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