Mrs. Oliver sighed deeply then put her head in her hands. “Honestly I don’t know what to do.”

  Jessie patted Mrs. Oliver’s shoulder. “Is it possible you could run the magic show?”

  “Don’t you know most of the tricks?” Benny asked.

  “Of course I do,” Mrs. Oliver said. “I grew up in a family that performed many, many magic tricks. All the time. At the breakfast nook before I went to school. At dinner while we had dessert. During Thanksgiving when all our relatives sat around the table. I wore a darling little cape with sparkles. My magic wand glowed in the dark.”

  “That sounds like fun,” said Jessie.

  “It was, actually. As long as it was only in front of my friends and my family. I was terrified of getting up on the stage with everyone looking at me.”

  Henry burst out, “I feel the same way!”

  “I understand completely,” said Mrs. Oliver. “For me, growing up was about magic all the time. So I know the secret tricks.”

  “All of them?” Henry asked.

  “Well, I need to back up a bit there,” she said. “I only know the tricks my family performed. I don’t know other magicians’ tricks. The Amazing Arthur didn’t tell me about his brand new trick. I knew he would magically appear, but I never asked for the details. So I guess to answer your question, Henry, I don’t know all the tricks after all.”

  Violet said, “Maybe you can run the magic show anyway? If you held it here, it could be a smaller affair. Henry’s been practicing so he’ll be ready to perform. He won’t let us see what he’s really doing.”

  “Magician’s code,” Benny said with pride for his brother. “You can trust him, Mrs. Oliver. He doesn’t give anything away.”

  The bell over the entry door rang. Mrs. Oliver and the Aldens looked up to see who might be coming in.

  “More kids,” she said. “I cannot believe parents just drop them off and think I’ll babysit. Listen, nice talking to you four. I need to get up to the counter.”

  Henry volunteered to finish cleaning up the spilled props.

  “I accept. Thank you, Henry. You children certainly are decent. Please stop by the register before you leave, okay? I have some very fine peppermints I like to share with polite children.”

  While Benny picked up the rubber tarantulas, his sisters gathered the plastic mice and frogs. Henry stabilized the display rack. “Here we go. Hopefully it won’t fall over if anyone runs by it now.”

  Jessie spoke in a soft voice. She looked toward the counter where Mrs. Oliver was helping an elderly couple. “You know, I don’t think Mrs. Oliver’s involved,” she said. “She actually seems nice but just stressed out.”

  Henry said, “I think you’re right, Jessie.”

  The bell over the door jingled again.

  Violet whispered, “You won’t believe who just walked in.”

  A man in a pirate costume hobbled up to the counter where Mrs. Oliver stood.

  “It’s Captain Cannon!” Benny said in a loud whisper. “And he’s limping!”

  “Yeah, he sure is,” said Violet.

  “Let’s go talk to him,” said Jessie.

  The Aldens finished tidying a display of trick soda cans. Then they went up to Captain Cannon.

  Violet was rather timid, but she said, “Excuse me, Captain Cannon?”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Violet pointed to the bloody rag wrapped around his hand. “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. I’m just fine!” he grumbled. “It’s an addition to my costume. What do you kids care, anyway?”

  The Alden children looked at one another. Jessie was the first to say what they were thinking.

  “Captain Cannon, were you in the community center this morning?” Jessie asked.

  The magician in the pirate costume gave the children an angry pirate stare. “What’s it to you?” he said.

  “Well, we, uh,” Violet hesitated.

  Then Jessie said, “We were there. We found boxes knocked over. We heard a loud crash, and then we found the big mirror smashed to smithereens. It’s the one that was here the other day, by the front of the store.”

  “What! It’s broken?” said Mrs. Oliver. “What on Earth happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Henry said.

  Captain Cannon stomped his pirate boot. He huffed and blew out his cheeks. “Oh, all right. If you must know, yes, I was there this morning. I was looking through the props. Since I haven’t been able to find the Amazing Arthur, I thought I might be able to figure out his big new trick.”

  He took another deep breath. “I really want the magic show to go on.”

  “We do too,” said Henry. “I’ve been practicing my act.”

  “Then you understand,” said Captain Cannon. “That’s why I like to stay in my costume. To keep in the mood. So anyway, this morning I went to the community center before it opened. The side door was unlocked. I thought I was alone until I heard you kids. I hope you realize how loud you are, by the way.”

  “We need to practice whispering,” Benny said in a quiet voice to Violet.

  “I was so startled to hear you kids wander into the auditorium and get on the stage that I got flustered. I didn’t want you to see me. When I tried to hurry away, I crashed into the boxes. It was bad enough that I knocked them over and banged my knee. Man that hurt! Then I bumped into that big mirror. I watched it fall. It felt like slow motion. I tried to catch the mirror, but it broke. That’s how I cut my hand.”

  Mrs. Oliver crossed her arms. She looked angry. “I’ll have you know it was a very expensive mirror, Captain Cannon. My grandfather left it to me.”

  “It was an accident. I’m very sorry, Mrs. Oliver. I’ll work to repay you.” Captain Cannon looked at his bandaged hand. “Do you have another mirror I can purchase? One I can take to the community center, to replace the one I broke?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Mrs. Oliver answered.

  “Oh, never mind!” said the pirate magician as he limped out of the shop.

  Mrs. Oliver said, “Well, that was interesting.”

  Jessie said, “Mrs. Oliver, do you know any tricks the big mirror could be used for?”

  “Why do you ask?” the woman said.

  Jessie checked her little notebook of clues. “I wonder if we can figure out the trick. Maybe then we can find a way for the Amazing Arthur to reappear. I bet that’s why Captain Cannon is looking for another mirror.”

  “You might be right,” said Henry. “He really seems to want the show to go on.”

  Henry’s Theory

  After Captain Cannon stomped out of the magic shop, Mrs. Oliver groaned. “Sorry to say this, but he makes me nervous. I’m glad you went to the community center. If you hadn’t heard him crashing around, I might never have known what happened to my grandfather’s mirror.”

  “He did come to see if he could replace the mirror,” Jessie said. “He seemed genuine about it being an accident.”

  “I hope he pays you back, Mrs. Oliver,” said Benny.

  “Even if he does,” she said, “he’ll never be able to replace that mirror. It was a family heirloom, priceless. I grew up watching my grandparents create illusions with it.”

  “Did you ever see them appear and disappear?” Henry asked the store owner.

  “Oh my goodness, yes!” Mrs. Oliver replied. “Many, many times. It became their most famous trick. People in the audience would clap and yell with surprise. I was proud to watch.”

  Henry turned his attention to the front of the shop, where the mirror had stood. He asked, “Did your grandparents show you how they did it?”

  “Never,” said Mrs. Oliver. “They stopped performing by the time I thought to ask. Oh…gosh…you know what? I did see my father perform that trick once at the house. But he used a hidden door we had. Most buildings don’t come with those these days.”

  “So what do we do now?” Benny asked. “How can we find the Amazing Arthur?”

  Jessie opened her little notebook. She flipped through the pages and read the clues they had found. With her pen she checked off each one. “So here we are,” she said. “We know Captain Cannon knocked over the boxes at the community center. And we know he broke the mirror.”

  “And we know he left the trail of dripping blood,” Benny said.

  “I used to think Captain Cannon was guilty of causing the Amazing Arthur to disappear,” said Violet. “But now I think Captain Cannon is just jealous. He’s definitely trying to be the best magician in Greenfield.”

  “Then where did the Amazing Arthur go?” Jessie asked. “The newspaper reporters haven’t come up with any tragic stories. No crime that anyone knows of.”

  Henry shrugged. “That’s the big question,” he said. “Since everything with magic is an illusion, maybe we can solve this. We just need to figure out which illusion the Amazing Arthur was trying to master.”

  “One minute he wasn’t anywhere in the shop. The next minute,” Benny snapped his fingers, “there he was.”

  Henry walked up to the front of the store where the mirror had been. “Jessie, do you remember exactly where the mirror was? Was it here?” He tapped the floor with his foot.

  “Yes,” she answered. “I think it was right there. But how does that help our investigation?” She held her pen, ready to jot down more details.

  “It’s sort of like working backward,” Henry explained. “If we can figure out how the illusion is done, maybe we can find the Amazing Arthur.”

  Henry looked carefully at the wall, up and down. Now he snapped his fingers too. “Mrs. Oliver, would you happen to have another big mirror somewhere? Since the one at the community center is broken? You told Captain Cannon you don’t sell them.”

  “That’s true,” she said. Then her face registered surprise, as if she just remembered something. “You know what? It’s almost closing time. After everyone’s gone I want to show you something.”

  ***

  Mrs. Oliver went to the front of the shop. A sign dangled in the window. She turned it so that anyone walking along the sidewalk could read it: “Closed. Please come back tomorrow.” Then she said, “Come with me, kids. I have something that might interest you.” She motioned for them to follow her.

  She led them into the storeroom. It was smaller than the magic shop itself, but it was packed floor to ceiling with shelves and boxes. She went over to a large crate the size of a refrigerator. “Can you help me move this please?” she asked.

  Henry and Jessie helped Mrs. Oliver ease the crate away from the wall. Propped behind it was what looked like a large painting. It was covered in paper made from brown grocery sacks.

  “How will a painting help a magic trick?” Violet asked.

  “It’s not a painting, Violet. Look.” Mrs. Oliver carefully peeled away the protective paper.

  “A mirror!” cried Jessie. “It’s so pretty.”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Oliver was smiling now. She stepped back to admire it. “It’s from my grandmother’s dressing room.”

  “Wow,” said Benny. “It’s the fanciest mirror I’ve ever seen.”

  An elegant mirror stood before them. It was as tall as Mrs. Oliver and two feet wide. Roses and daisies had been engraved into the wood frame. The flowers had been painted in swirls of pink, white, and purple. Vines in shades of green swirled along the sides, up to the top and down to the bottom.

  “It’s beautiful, Mrs. Oliver,” Jessie said.

  “Indeed, it is,” the woman said. “I had completely forgotten about this. I put it out of my mind when the old family house was sold. So many treasured antiques and thick rugs were packed up and put here for storage. I was quite sad to see the empty rooms and bare floors.”

  Henry glanced around the storeroom. “It looks like you put a lot of those things in here. I can see the boxes of props and costumes. And over there is a rolltop desk. And fancy chairs.”

  “You’re right, Henry,” Mrs. Oliver said. “And under that tarp over there is a maple dining table from Revolutionary War days. As children my brothers, sisters, cousins, and I made forts under that table. We played hide-and-seek in that grand old house and practiced tricks. We loved trying out practical jokes on one another.”

  “That sounds like a lot of fun,” said Violet.

  “Oh, it was. I had a charmed childhood,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Anyway I remember my grandmother—I called her Nana—insisting I take care of this mirror. In addition to being a magician, she was an artist. She was extremely creative. As you can see she painted this frame with red and white roses and with lots of purple. It was her favorite color.”

  Mrs. Oliver glanced at Violet with affection. “I can see you favor the color too,” she said, gesturing at Violet’s purple hair ribbons and T-shirt.

  “I do!” Violet cried. “I really like purple. My sleeping bag is lavender, and so is my bathing suit.”

  “Even her toothbrush is purple!” Benny exclaimed.

  Mrs. Oliver smiled. “This mirror brings back happy memories,” she said. Then she turned to the children. “Now where were we?”

  “May we borrow this for our experiment?” Henry asked Mrs. Oliver.

  “It’s not as big as the other one,” Jessie observed. “The mirror that broke.”

  “True,” said Mrs. Oliver. “My Nana was smaller than my grandfather. Rather petite, you might say. She gazed at herself every morning before she got dressed. I remember helping her fasten her cape on many occasions before magic shows. People often said that Nana and I looked alike. She had gray curly hair like I do now.”

  Mrs. Oliver looked at the children. “Oh, listen to me carry on. I’m sorry! Henry,” she said, “do you think you can experiment with my grandmother’s mirror without breaking it? I can’t bear another catastrophe.”

  “Yes. We’ll be super careful, Mrs. Oliver,” he assured her. “And since the shop is closed, no little kids can run into us.”

  “All right then,” she said. “Can you four get it from here without dropping it?”

  “We’re good at stuff like this,” Benny said. He and his siblings regarded one another with hopeful grins. Then Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny each carefully took one side of the mirror. They lifted it, hanging on tight, and shuffled it out of the storeroom.

  A New Surprise

  With the magic shop closed, it was quiet. No restless children ran around the aisles. There were no customers.

  The Aldens carried Mrs. Oliver’s beautiful mirror from the storeroom. It was heavy. They set it down to rest a moment, then continued up to the front of the store. There they gently settled the mirror into its upright position as Mrs. Oliver watched.

  “Right here,” said Jessie. “I’m sure this is where the other mirror stood.” She and Henry took hold of the top of the mirror until it rested safely on its stand.

  They stood thoughtfully.

  Henry looked down the main aisle toward the stage. Then he looked up at Mrs. Oliver’s mirror. The distance was short, about the length of a school bus.

  “This is interesting,” he said. “Somehow it looked like the Amazing Arthur came out of the front mirror the other day. Hey, Jessie, I have an idea.”

  Jessie followed Henry to the back of the shop. The stage butted up against a wall of pine paneling. When Henry ran his fingers over the wood, she did the same. Together they inspected the wall.

  “Hmm,” said Jessie. “I think I know what’s here.”

  “What? What?” cried Benny. “I want to help too.” He hurried to them and copied what they were doing. He touched the wall down by his feet then as high as he could go on his toes. “Hmm,” he said, mimicking Jessie.

  Now Violet hurried down the aisle to the stage. She touched the wall too. “What are you looking for, Henry?” she asked.

  As Henry ran his fingers over a narrow section of the wall, he leaned closer. He squinted. “Look at this!” he said. He drew his thumb over a narrow up-and-down crack. He quickly pressed it, and the tiny crack revealed itself to be the edge of a door. With a quiet whoosh the door slowly—very slowly—slid open.

  “A pocket door!” he cried. “And a hidden room.”

  Mrs. Oliver said, “My goodness. I had no idea this was here.”

  “Why is it called a pocket door?” Violet asked.

  “Because the wall is like a pocket,” Mrs. Oliver answered. “It keeps the door hidden. The one my grandparents had in their house was beautiful carved wood. It separated their parlor from their den.”

  “How did you know this was here, Henry?” Jessie asked.

  “It was something Mrs. Oliver said,” Henry replied. “She mentioned hidden doors aren’t common these days.”

  Violet gasped. “But since the magic shop has been around so long, you thought it might have one?”

  Henry nodded.

  Benny peeked into the hidden room. “Guys, look!” he cried. “Is this another mirror?” He waved his hand in front of a full-length piece of glass. The glass reflected his hand, then it reflected the curious faces of his siblings. It was indeed a mirror.

  Now the children turned to look up the aisle. Mrs. Oliver’s mirror at the front of the store showed the four children waving. They smiled at their reflections. It appeared like they were magically standing inside of the mirror.

  Henry breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s it! It’s an optical illusion,” he said. “I thought so.”

  Now Violet stepped into the dark space behind the mirror. “I wonder what’s in here,” she said. Henry followed her, then Violet and Benny. Just as Mrs. Oliver joined them, there was another soft whoosh. The secret door was closing behind them! They were now shut inside a dark passageway.

  “What just happened?” Jessie whispered. “It’s pitch black.”

  “Where are we?” said Violet.

  “I wish I had my flashlight,” Benny said. He grabbed Violet’s hand for comfort.