The Ghost Ship Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Read Free Book Online

her glasses and walked back and forth. “My, my,” she repeated several times. “This is quite a find, quite a find.”
    The children could see how pleased she was, even with the old banged-up spoons. She showed the children a display case of old dishes and silverware. “Look,” she said, “the spoons have the same design.”
    “I wish some coins had the same design as the one in here,” Benny said when he looked into a display case of old money.
    “Tsk, tsk,” Miss Coffin said without looking up from what she was doing. “Everything here will be valuable to people who are interested in history. Now, I wonder what’s under this cloth.”
    “Just a section of a rusty cannon barrel,” Henry said. “Captain Bob tried to get the top off, but it’s stuck.”
    “Oh my! Part of a cannon barrel!” Miss Coffin said, as excited as if the children had brought her a sea chest filled with gold. “We must get it open in case there are any old papers or logbooks inside.”
    “Yes, Captain Bob said sailors used the barrels to keep their papers dry,” Jessie said. “But I don’t know if we’ll have any luck with this one. Captain Bob tried to oil it up and even used some of his boat tools. It’s rusted shut.”
    Miss Coffin couldn’t resist. She put the cannon barrel on its side and twisted the end. “Why, what do you mean? It comes right off!”
    And so it did. In a single twist, the end of the barrel was off, as if someone had barely screwed it on.
    “That’s strange,” Jessie said. “Captain Bob said he’d had no luck with it at all.”
    Henry scratched his head. “I guess it’s the same as when a strong person tries to untwist a lid and then gives up. The next person hardly has to turn it at all.”
    “I’m not so sure of that,” Jessie said. She was puzzled about the way Miss Coffin had managed to open the barrel on the first try.
    “Oh, my!” Miss Coffin cried again. “There are a few things in here—an old book and some documents.” She pulled them out and began examining them.
    Benny never gave up. He shook the barrel to see if anything else was inside. “It’s empty,” he said, disappointed. “Just those old papers.”
    Miss Coffin gathered up the old, yellowed papers at one end of the table. “Yes, that’s all there was in there, just old papers, nothing you children would be interested in.”
    Jessie stepped forward. “I would like to see some of them, Miss Coffin. May I?”
    Miss Coffin seemed a bit nervous. “Well, yes . . . yes, of course. Perhaps tomorrow after I have a chance to look through them. They’re so old, they are extremely delicate.”
    “We’ll be careful,” Violet said. “We’ve found old books and papers before, and nothing bad happened to them.”
    This didn’t convince Miss Coffin. She pushed the papers and books down to the far end of the table, away from the Aldens. “If you want to help, why don’t you children make a list of all these other things you found? There are toys, scrimshaw clothespins, even these little whalebone pie cutters here. Now those are very special.”
    “Oh,” Violet said, delighted with the delicate object with the little wheel. “Mrs. McGregor has one to cut pie dough. Only hers is wooden and not as pretty as these.”
    “Yes, they are pretty,” said Miss Coffin. “The sailors carved many useful items for their families at home—all kinds of kitchen things, toys for their children. See if any of the pieces you found match what’s in those cabinets. Then maybe we can get some idea of who might have carved them. Here’s the key to unlock some of the display cases.”
    Jessie didn’t feel right about taking the key. “Don’t you want to show us what to do?” she asked Miss Coffin. “Not that we won’t be careful. We just want to make sure we take things out properly and know what to look for.”
    Miss Coffin seemed impatient. “Go. Just lay the pieces from the cabinet at one end of the table out there and the pieces