Софи Райан - A Whisker Оf Trouble

“I’m going to do a walk-around,” I said.

Mac waved at me over his shoulder. I walked back out to the living room. Along with the pieces of furniture, there were a couple of framed paintings that I was taking back to the shop to sell on commission for Stella. I hoped to get more money for them by putting them on our Web site.

Elvis wandered out from the kitchen. “Let’s go take a look in the bedrooms,” I said.

We went down the tiny hallway. The master bedroom was the starkest room in the house with just a double bed and two dressers. Someone—Stella probably—had long since taken Edison Hall’s clothes. The room had an air of sadness about it. I’d noticed a couple of blankets folded at the end of the living room sofa the first time I was in the house. I suspected Edison Hall had been sleeping there and not in this room.

The next bedroom was almost as large as the master and it was jammed full of stuff. If there was logic or a pattern to what was stored there, I couldn’t see it. At least most of the stuff was in boxes. The downside was that none of them were marked. I looked in the top of one of them. It held six cans of Spam and a large jug of water. Supplies in case of a natural disaster? I wondered. I carried the box out into the living room so I could go through it to see if the food had expired.

I stepped back into the room in time to see Elvis jump onto the seat of a low rocking chair, balance and leap from there to some boxes.

“Hey! Where are you going?” I said.

He meowed at me and started making his way across the stacked cartons. I reached for him, but he was already more than an arm’s length away. He turned and looked over his shoulder at me and then jumped down, out of sight, onto a lower pile of boxes. To the right there looked to be just enough space to squeeze around the piles and get the cat.

The boxes had a musty smell about them and the room was full of dust. I sneezed as I lifted a garbage bag out of my way and dust motes rose in the air. “I hope you’re not back there with anything that has fur and a long tail,” I muttered.

Eventually I worked my way to the back wall of the room. Elvis was sitting on the window ledge. I had dust in my nose, on my shirt and—I was pretty sure—in my hair. There didn’t seem to be a speck of it on Elvis’s sleek black fur. In fact, he almost looked smug. On the windowsill next to him sat what looked to me to be an old model train engine. I picked it up while the cat watched me.

The steam cylinder was painted a dark brown with the word ROCKET stenciled on the side in gold letters. A black stack of a smaller diameter rose maybe four inches above it. The only model train items I recognized were Lionel, and I knew this wasn’t.

“Let’s go ask Mac about this,” I said to Elvis.

His response was to launch himself onto the nearest stack of boxes. The flaps were folded down, not taped shut, and Elvis pawed at one edge.

“Leave that alone,” I said sharply.

He completely ignored me, scratching at the edge of cardboard again.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll look, but if anything in there is alive I’m tossing you inside and closing the lid.”

“Mrrr,” he said, and it almost seemed as if he shrugged.

I set the train engine back on the window ledge and gingerly opened the box. As soon as I’d pulled the flaps apart, Elvis was poking his nose inside.

“Let me see,” I said. I couldn’t hear any noises that suggested anything had set up home in the carton.

Inside the box I found four more train cars. They looked to be the right size and vintage to go with the steam engine.

“Nice work,” I said to Elvis. He blinked his green eyes at me, then began making his way toward the door.

I picked up the engine again and squeezed through the maze of boxes and bags. I left the box with the other train cars behind. I knew I couldn’t squeeze through the narrow space if I was carrying it.

Elvis was already headed to the kitchen, so I followed him. Rose was humming softly while she wrapped a china cereal bowl in newspaper and Mac was standing in front of the large pantry cupboard typing on his iPad.

“Mac, do you know anything about model trains?” I asked, holding up the engine Elvis and I had found.

“Not really,” he said. “Is it Lionel?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s old, whatever it is. I think it might be a replica of some kind of steam engine.” I showed him the word ROCKET lettered on the side of the cylinder.

Rose tucked the paper wrapped bowl into a box at her feet and joined us. “Alfred knows a little about model trains,” she said. “Would you like me to call him?” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and held it up.

Mac looked at me and shrugged.

“Why not?” I said.

Mac took the engine from me, turning it over carefully in his hands. “It looks old, but it’s in decent shape. Where did you find it?”

“That little bedroom, the one that’s piled with stuff.”

Elvis meowed loudly and jumped up onto the only kitchen chair that didn’t have a box on it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “it was actually Elvis who found it. And there’s a box with several cars that I think probably go with it.”

Rose was nodding at her phone. She ended the call and rejoined us. “Alfred thinks it may be a Marklin engine,” she said. “Could we take a photo and send it to him?”

Mac cleared a space on the counter. He set the engine down and Rose snapped a picture of it. It might have been another minute after she sent it to Mr. P. that her phone rang.

“What do you think?” Rose asked. She listened for a moment. “Oh, that would be lovely.” She looked at me and held out the phone. “Alfred would like to speak to you.”

I took it from her. “Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning, Sarah,” Mr. P. replied. “Rose said you found some additional train cars. Could you describe them to me?”

I shared what I remembered from my brief look inside the box.

“Splendid,” Mr. P. exclaimed.

“Does that mean you know what this engine is?” I asked.

“I believe I do,” he said, and I could hear an edge of excitement in his voice. “I think what you have is a Marklin S Rocket, which is a replica of Stephenson’s Rocket, one of the most advanced steam locomotives of the early eighteen hundreds. It wasn’t a big seller in its day for Marklin. A complete set with all the cars would be a very rare find. It sounds as though that’s what you have.”

I looked at the tin engine. “Does rare equal valuable?”

“Indeed it does, at least in this case. The last set, minus one car, sold for more than twenty-five thousand dollars about eighteen months ago.”

“So this set could be worth more than that?” I said.

“To a collector, yes,” he said. “And I should caution you that I’m no expert on this kind of thing. You need to get the train evaluated by someone who knows model trains.”

“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my dear,” he said.

I handed the phone back to Rose.

“You’re smiling,” Mac said.

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the rounded edge of the counter. “If Mr. P. is right, that engine and the train cars I saw in the box could be worth twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Wow.”

I smiled even wider at him. “Exactly.”

By noon Rose and I had packed all the dishes that were going to Stella, and Mac had finished the kitchen inventory.

“I’ll check with Stella about getting these boxes moved before the estate sale,” I said to Mac, indicating the cartons of wine. “Unless they turn out to be evidence.”

“What do you mean, evidence?” he said.

“Michelle told me that the police are looking into the fraud with the wine,” I said quietly.