Jane and the Fire – Part XIX

In 1958, young Jane has just moved to the city of Chicago, Illinois with her parents and cousins Billy. Nefarious neighbor Mr. Bennet and his gang of Thugs were incapacitated by a fall – but seemingly fully recover and return to their suspicious plotting. Uncle Wallace is involved, somehow, and a neighbor, Mr. Almond appears to implicate himself in the mess too. But he wins the lottery and disappears. Jane and her friends are curious – and confused.

Jane took a big step forward and gasped. Mr. Bennet, Mr. Peele, and Mr. McCawley stood huddled around the top of the staircase.

The Three Thugs looked at the kids standing frozen on the stairs.

“Well?” snapped Mr. Bennet. After a prolonged, doctor-required recovery period, neither he nor Mr. Peele nor Mr. McCawley were much in the mood for delays. Jane got over her surprise enough to speak.

“It is good to see you up and about, Mr. Bennet, but didn’t you break your leg?”

“It was a sprain, and it was my wrist. You seem misinformed, as do all the occupants of this apartment. Children ought to be not seen and not heard. Now be off!!!!”

The Thugs continued their conversation in low voices and walked on.

“Did you see that?” asked Paige. The children exchanged looks. “The Thugs are back!”

The children hurried across the corridor of their floor, and up the stairs on the opposite side of the floor where the Thugs had been talking. They crept quietly down the shadowy corridor, watching for the Thugs. They were almost too late to hear a door close nearby, and see a dark-coated figure disappear behind it.

“Mr. Almond’s apartment!” Jane whispered. “What could they want in there?”

She tiptoed to the door and pressed an ear to the cold dark wood. She heard a murmur of voices deeper in the house.

Paige and Don looked at her expectantly. “No use,” she whispered, “and anyway it seems bad to eavesdrop.”

“Hearsay doesn’t hold up in court anyway,” said Don with a shrug.

“What does Mr. Almond do for a living?” asked Paige. None of them knew.

“While they’re here,” said Don, “why don’t we explore the old mansion by the park? We can have a quick look inside and try to find out why they bought the house.”

They walked quickly down the stairs and across the busy main road to the boarded-up building. In the faint winter light, even Jane’s busy apartment building resembled a silent, empty brick prison. The boarded-up building was a grim, forbidding mass of wood. They walked quickly, creeping single-file into the backyard of the abandoned shack, in case the Thugs were looking out the corridor window which pointed toward the house at that very moment.

“The back door is padlocked too,” said Jane gloomily.

“No, it isn’t,” said Don. “The lock isn’t attached to anything.” They stepped closer to the door and Jane realized that he was right.

“The padlock is just there to discourage people from entering?”

As they stood examining the rusty padlock and the scuffed door, Jane heard Paige give a start of surprise from the other side of the porch.

Before she could ask what the matter was, Paige had hurried to the paperboy distributing the last copies of the morning paper across the little alley between the house and the row of shops. Paige held the paper out as she joined Don and Jane on the porch. “Look at this!”

It was Mr. Almond on the front page, smiling at the camera next to a row of town councilmen. The article read, “Head Banker Retires.”

Mr. Almond worked for the bank? What will happen next?