True Identity

I'm no more curious than anyone else, but when I stumbled on an old volume at a used book store I was more than curious, I was downright intrigued. Who could miss that the first section of the book I held was published in 1960, the second in 1961, the third 1962, the fourth 1963, the fifth 1964? Or that the five sections were then compiled into this large volume and printed in 1965 in? To me that meant that the stories were once popular even though I'd never heard of them. And though I wasn't a book freak, certainly not enough to come close to the epithet bibliophile, when I came across the stamp in the front I was really intrigued. It said Stenson Nebraska High School Library, Acc No. 3563, Purchased Oct '65. It was now 1999, thirty-nine years after some librarian had bought, stamped, and shelved the book. When I flipped to the back of the work I changed from being intrigued to being mentally aroused. The card had twenty-one sign-out signatures and an erasure.

My imagination had been piqued. Quickly I counted and found that of the twenty-one legible names, twelve were boys, thirteen girls. I couldn't determine the gender of the erasure. Normally all these names and dates would have meant nothing, but my wife and kids were on vacation, business was slow, so my mind could meander where it would. It urged me to make a call. By the next morning I had a Stenson phone book.

I leafed through to the first name, Peter Crinkle, who'd taken the book out on January 6, 1966. I found no one by that name in the directory. A

little mathematics told me he read, or at least took the book out, thirty-three years ago. Had he been a Senior he'd have been approximately eighteen years old which would make him fifty-seven now. Also, if he was a true home-town boy, there'd be no reason for Pete not to be in Stenson today. I found that the old school had burned years ago with all its records so it seemed there was no way to find this first reader.

Why did Peter Crinkle sign out the work,The Abbot's Omnibus?Before I went further with the names to try to establish any pattern, it was clear to me that I had to read the book. But what a stimulating point of departure: all those names, dates, and even signatures! I am not an expert in handwriting, but I'd matched enough signatures with faces in my business to know that there was some correlation between the way we write and who we are. I couldn't help wondering if a real sleuth, meaning a psychologist at heart, couldn't make a composite profile of all the people who'd taken the book out. And to top that, if there was some relationship between the author and the kind of book it was, and the kind of person who read the work. Like, birds of a feather flock together and like attracts like.

A quick glance at the sign-out card showed me that the work had been read from 1960 to 1965. The due-date of the last reader was June, the month before Stenson High burned down, and that meant that this work could have been saved because of a negligent Senior who'd forgotten to return it amidst all the hubbub of graduating. Naturally I checked the directory only to find that there was no Jerry Hershland, just as there was no Peter Crinkle. I would love to have talked to Jerry to find out the particulars. It seemed strange that he wasn't registered in Ma Bell's directory either. Had been a Senior in 1965 he would be fifty-two or three now. Dideveryonefrom Stenson High leave town after the fire?

I was determined to read the volume, but since I had the phone book in my hand and I'd hit two zeroes in a row, I couldn't help myself so I looked up every single name on the card. I was amazed that not one was listed. I didn't expect to find the girls since the majority had undoubtedly married and changed their names, but out of twelve boys I thought at least one would still be in town. And what about the person who'd erased his name? Was it a he or she? Why'd (s)he do that? I noticed that the date where (s)he'd signed matched the due-date on the paper pasted in the back of the book, so he had taken it out. Mystery upon mystery.

A week later I attended my high school reunion. Twenty years is a long time not to see classmates. I'd been out of the country for several years and had lost contact with my old friends so I hadn't gone to a single reunion. It was by accident that the former class president found me since we'd graduated not in Nebraska where I lived but in Kansas. At a social hour I discovered that one of his chums was an FBI agent. He worked in a laboratory and specialized in identifying objects using high magnification and computers. Did a lot with pieces of hair, kinds of dirt, and signatures. What a break! I whipped out the library card ofThe Abbot's Omnibusand asked if he could tell me the names of the signatures that were blurred. He said no sweat, and a week later I got my card back paper-clipped to an easy-to-read, magnified, computer-enhanced list. The greatest joy was in finding that the person who'd erased his name was Beth Stenson. Interesting coincidence, since that was the school's name, which suggested that she may have belonged to a prominent family.

Just as I'm not an avid reader, neither am I a detective, but I did discover this as I read the omnibus: that when you read a work with a purpose you pick up a lot more than when you read just for pleasure. What became clear on the third story -- there were twenty-two, just as there

had been twenty-two sign-outs -- was that they were all mystery stories, each by a different person telling his version of the same incident each had seen. The incident common to all stories had been a great fire complete with people disappearing and no one able to figure out who done it. Now the coincidence was overpowering. Stenson High had burned and I couldn't find a single one of the sign-outers in the phone book. This was becoming exciting.

An inner voice told me that if there was any possibility of a correlation existing between the book and the sign-outers, I'd waste my time knocking the door of each reader. The clues, I intuited, would be found in the book itself. So I read the stories a second time.

I won't say that bells rang, but about the middle of story one, I did sense a whisper of a tinkle. There was something wierd going on. The narrator assumed that an arsonist deliberately torched the Stenson School. Now, even I know that clumsy arsonists usually leave clues, like gas cans and pails holding oil-soaked rags or empty boxes of matches. But the narrator suggested that to keep from getting caught, he crunched up paper to set it ablaze. The word crunched caught my inner ear. My mind raced like a fast-leafed Thesaurus. What are synonyms of crunched when related to paper? Crumbled, wadded, and maybe even crinkled. Naturally my mind did a double-take because Peter Crinkle was the first to take outThe Abbot's Omnibus. What's going on here?

I was reminded that the second story contended that the fire was an accident caused by two smoochers who'd found a way to sneak into school after hours. Was it an accident that the person who signed out the book on February 25, 1962, was Sarah Sparking? Not sparking as in what ignites a fire, that's obvious, but sparking as in the old-fashioned meaning of the word that meat kissing. The story, centered around how the rendezvous

changed from a romantic adventure to a terror-filled escape as the boy lit a match in the strange room filled with paint cans. To me, it was a fascinating coincidence that the cause of the fire in the first story and the name of the person who signed it out were the same. And the same was true with story two. Was this really a coincidence?

It's not necessary to analyze each story and explain the connection of each sign-outer, so I made this abbreviated list to make sure I wasn't hallucinating about my find:

STORY TITLE CAUSE OF FIRE SIGN-OUTER

The Arsonist Crinkled paper Peter Crinkle

Paint-Can Panic Spark while sparking Sarah Sparking

The Burglar Did It Blow Torch Ace Cetyline

An Act of God Lightning Rod Insull

On went the stories, and in each case there was a correlation between the cause of the fire and who signed the work out. It took no Sherlock Holmes to deduce that something was going on. It occurred to me that either the author had created the due-date list and had the publisher include it to enhance the mystery to make it sound more real. That, or there was a group of people, say members of a literary or story-writing club, that had played a prank by making pseudonyms. But that didn't hold water because the sign-out dates ranged over eighteen years, plus the signatures were undoubtedly made before each reader had taken the book out. I could only surmise that Clarence Abbot was a most shrewd author and had deliberately, all mystery intended, added the slip and card.

When I reached that conclusion my inner voice asked, "But why?" Since the collection was not twenty separate stories but one long search for the

cause of the fire, I could only answer, "As a clue."

"A clue to what?" answered Inner Me.

"To how the fire was really started," came the reply.

With that, I nicknamed my inner voice Watson, Sherlock's cohort. It was this Watson who gave me the clue for the whole charade: the real cause of the Stenson High Fire must be found in the January 5, 1963 entry, the one that had been erased by Beth Stenson. I was baffled. No twenty-twenty vision could have read the name because it was so faint. It could only surface with hi-tech instruments. Naturally I reread the sixteenth story again.

The story line followed the verbatim confession of a crazed librarian who happened to have the same name as the school, though there was no relationship except thirty-seven years of unrewarded devotion to books. Beth Thompson, whose real name was Elizabeth Wilder Thompson, claimed she was related to the author of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. She claimed that she'd popularized her relative's works by promoting them to students but never revealed the true or fictitious connection between the author and herself. Through the years, the story developed an increasing resentment for Wilder, books, students, libraries, and schools in general. Since Elizabeth was a librarian, it was aberrantly appropriate that she express her vengeance by burning the school.

Interestingly, both the police and insurance reports revealed that the fire had actually begun in the library, and ironically, the only work that was not destroyed was the Little House in the Woods. This finding was interesting, that is, until fiction and reality twirled in my head. Watson screamed from within, "Go catch the arsonist!" So I drove to Stenson with the FBI acquaintance who carried a pistol and badge.

Harold and I were amazed to find an eccentric old lady, close to a

hundred, who lived on a small estate called simply, Big Woods. And, true to the story in the omnibus, she really did live in a little house. How senseless it would have been to confront her with our suspicion that she was the arsonist. What good would it possibly do by accusing her? Harold and I were content that we'd solved the mystery: that the whole thing wasn't a figment of our imaginations.

The old girl was a pleasure to visit. By now all vengeance had vanished and had been replaced by senile smiles and chuckles. She alluded to have been Shakespeare's mistress, Hemingway's puta, and the real Scarlet O'Hara. She was totally amusing as well as harmless.

But while Harold and I amused ourselves, Watson interrupted by asking a bludgeoning question. "How had Arthur Abbot, the author, known Elizabeth Stenson the librarian, and how had he known she was the true arsonist since the book was written several yearsbeforethe fire?"

Again, mystery upon mystery. With the help of the FBI we traced the career of the author, the buried-in-the-stacks former librarian. Naturally we hoped to find where their paths might have crossed. But Abbot stayed in a cabin in remote New Hampshire far from the Nebraska plains. No matter how hard we sought we found no clue that would link author and librarian. Until the obvious presented itself. It didn't take Watson to whisper because the clue was right in front of us.

So I returned to the little house in Big Woods. With a little teasing, some coaxing, even a bit of flattery, the old lady came through: she alluded to her letters. She said she'd saved letters from all her lovers, all lay peacefully in a scented cedar chest underneath her bed. I swallowed my pride and flirted with the centenarian until she let me haul a wooden box from beneath her bronze bed. Though partially disoriented most of the time, Elizabeth became perfectly lucid as she raised the lid. What a heaven

for a criminologist/psychologist I thought! Here is hard evidence that will reveal an the identity of an aged arsonist and an unsolved crime.

The old girl couldn't see past her nose, but she made up letter after letter anyway. This was from Arnold Toynbee, that from Thomas Woolf -- "And he really was, you know." Here was the supposed love letter from Jack London who was a neophyte when she was still in pigtails. There was Daniel Defoe's missive he stuffed in a bottle just for her. Of course I glanced at each return address and saw a gas bill, request to renew her Reader's Digest subscription, and Christmas cards she'd never sent. But near the bottom of the chest I struck gold. A letter whose writer was clearly AA.

I slipped the envelop adroitly in my pocket, humored the old lady some more, and returned the cedar chest under the bed. At home I sat with doors locked, phone off the hook, and curtains drawn. I knew I was about to discover the connection between Arthur Abbot, author, and the lady who had to have caused the Stenson High School fire thirty-four years before. To make a long letter short, I burst into spasms of pure ecstasy when I studied the contents of that stuffed envelop.

It turned out that Arthur Abbot was a pseudonym for the old girl herself. That she, not he, had written the omnibus! That all the time she seemed vengeful toward students and authors she was really trying to keep them from bothering her while she wrote mystery novels. And she'd conjured the entire twenty-three stories from watching the students from under her thick glasses as they signed out book after book by the pseudonymous author. What a twist that the joke was on the students, not on her, because all the time they read Abbot they snubbed her, the real Abbot. The find certainly explained everything: the due-date card and sheet at the end of the book, purchase date complete with Acc Number, the exact time the

school burned, and her name as the sixteenth reader so faint only FBI equipment could detect it. It amazed me that some authors are that guarded about their identities.

My conclusion to the entire mystery: three cheers for old lady Stenson! She carried two secrets nearly to her grave and both veritable barn burners.