The Mystery of the Gold Coins (3 page)

“I still think it was Linda’s brother. That Baker family must really love science prizes.”

Cam shook her head and said, “No. I don’t think Linda or her brother would want to win that way.”

Cam sat there and thought for a while. Then she said, “Whoever took the camera must have wanted what was on that film. That’s why he took the film and left the camera. But the only picture I took was of you standing next to your sundial. Why would anyone want that?”

Cam closed her eyes and said,
“Click.”
She shook her head. Then she said,
“Click,”
again.

“That’s it,” Cam said and opened her eyes. “I have a picture in my head of you standing next to the sundial. One of the people in the background was leaving a store. He bumped into me and knocked the camera from my hands. He was wearing a red plaid jacket. I think he’s the same man I saw in the woods.”

“He probably followed us to school,” Eric said. “But why?”

“Come on,” Cam said. “Let’s go back to that store and find out.”

Chapter Four

When Cam and Eric reached the bus stop, Cam looked at the row of stores. Then she closed her eyes and said,
“Click.”

“He was leaving a coin store,” Cam said. She opened her eyes and pointed to a small shop right behind the bus stop. “That’s the one.”

They walked to the store. Cam tried to open the door. She couldn’t. It was locked.

“There’s a sign,” Eric said. “It says, ‘Collins’ Coin Shop. Coins for Collectors. Grand Opening, Monday April 21.’”

“That’s next week,” Cam said. “Then the store was closed when I took that picture.”

Cam thought for a moment. Then she said, “That’s it! That explains why that man wanted the film!”

“What’s it?” Eric asked, but Cam wasn’t listening.

She looked through the store window.

“There’s someone inside,” Cam said, and she knocked hard on the glass.

An old man came to the window. He pointed to the sign and said something. Cam and Eric couldn’t hear him.

The old man moved his lips slowly, forming the words, “We’re closed.”

Cam moved her lips, too. But the man didn’t understand what she was telling him.

Cam turned to Eric. “Do you have a pencil and paper?”

Eric took a folded sheet of paper and a pencil from his pocket and gave them to Cam. “Don’t lose the paper,” Eric said. “My homework is on it.”

Cam turned the paper over and wrote, “I think you were robbed,” in large letters. She held the paper up to the store window.

The old man read the note. Then he opened the door and asked, “Why do you think I’ve been robbed?”

Cam told him about the stolen camera and the man she saw leaving his store. “Since you were closed, I thought that maybe he robbed your store and stole my camera and the film so that no one would know he was inside.”

The man smiled and said, “It couldn’t have been this store. The door was locked when I left and it was still locked when I came in. And the alarm was still set. You must have seen him leaving someplace else.”

“No. It was this store. It had to be,” Eric said. “Cam said,
‘Click,’
and when she says that, she remembers everything.”

“I don’t know about clicks, but I do know I haven’t been robbed. Come in and see for yourselves.”

It was a small, crowded shop. Locked glass cases with coins in them were hanging along the walls. The old man stood next to a large glass counter. It was filled with coins, old dollar bills, and catalogues.

“I’m Mr. Collins,” the old man said. “I’ve worried that my store might be robbed. The coins in this shop are worth a lot of money. That’s why there’s a lock on each case and an alarm on the door. Everything here is just the way I left it last night.”

Cam told Mr. Collins that she was sorry to have bothered him. Then she and Eric left the store.

As they walked toward school, Eric said, “I still think it was Linda Baker’s brother. I’ll bet the Bakers have a shelf just waiting for that science trophy.”

Cam and Eric stopped at the corner and waited for the traffic light to change. Then, just as they were crossing the street, they heard someone call to them. It was Mr. Collins.

“Come back!” he yelled. “I
have
been robbed!”

Chapter Five

Cam and Eric ran back into the store. Mr. Collins was standing by the door, holding two small display boxes. The boxes were empty.

“These were two of my most valuable coins,” he said. “They were gold and almost a hundred years old. And now they’re gone.”

“Was anything else taken?” Cam asked.

“No. I didn’t know anything was gone until I found these empty boxes. They were in the case where I left them. And the case was still locked.” He closed the door of the case.

Mr. Collins telephoned the police. Then, after he hung up the telephone, he said to Cam and Eric, “I just don’t understand it. I’ve been robbed and I haven’t even opened the store yet. The locks weren’t broken.”

Cam and Eric stood by the door and waited for the police. Mr. Collins kept shaking his head and saying, “I just don’t understand it.”

Cam and Eric heard a siren. The noise got louder and louder. Then a police car drove up and parked in front of the coin shop. The siren stopped. Both front doors of the car opened. The driver got out first. It was a tall, thin policewoman. Then a policeman got out from the other side of the car. He was fat and had a mustache. Both police officers came quickly into the store.

The policeman asked Mr. Collins, “What was taken?”

“I don’t understand it,” Mr. Collins told the police. “I have all the best locks. They’re brand-new. I didn’t even know I was robbed until these children told me.”

“Can you tell us what was taken?” the policeman asked again.

“Two gold coins.”

Mr. Collins showed the police the empty display boxes and the case they were kept in. Then Cam and Eric told the police about their science fair and the photograph Cam took of Eric and his sundial.

“A man was leaving this store when I took the picture,” Cam said. “He followed us to school and stole the film right out of my camera.”

“It’s too bad we don’t have that picture,” the policewoman said.

“But we do have a picture of him,” Cam told her. “I went,
‘Click,‘
and took Eric’s picture with my mental camera before I used my real camera. I also went,
’Click,‘
when the man ran past the window at school and when he dropped my camera in the woods.”

“You have pictures! You should have showed them to us right away,” the policeman said.

“They are not real pictures,” Eric explained. “They’re mental pictures. Cam can look at them and tell you exactly what the man looks like.”

The policewoman smiled and said, “That’s almost as good.”

She took a pencil and pad from her pocket and asked Cam to describe the man.

Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click.”

“The best picture I have of him is when he ran past the window at school. He was wearing a red plaid jacket, a yellow shirt, and brown pants. He’s thin and not very tall. He has dark hair and wears big eyeglasses with red frames.”

“What!” Mr. Collins said. “Did you say red eyeglasses? That’s Jimmy!”

Chapter Six

Jimmy? Jimmy who?“ both police officers asked Mr. Collins.

“I told you that when I moved in I had new locks and an alarm put in. Well, Jimmy works for the locksmith. Jimmy worked here for almost a week. When he finished, I brought in all these coins. I thought they’d be safe here.”

“Where does Jimmy work? What’s the name of the locksmith?” the policeman asked.

“He works for Lenny at Sea Side Hardware. It’s in the Hamilton Shopping Mall.”

“If you’ll come with us,” the policewoman said to Cam, Eric, and Mr. Collins, “we’ll go there and see if we can find Jimmy.”

Cam and Eric got into the back seat of the police car. Mr. Collins locked the front door of his store, set the alarm, and then got into the back seat, too.

The policewoman drove the car into the shopping mall parking lot. She parked it in front of the Sea Side Hardware store.

Cam, Eric, Mr. Collins, and the two police officers went inside the store. Tools and garden supplies filled the front of the store. In the back, behind a counter, there were rows of keys hanging, and a bald man wearing a blue shirt stood there. Along the side of the store were books, magazines, and candy and soda machines.

The policewoman whispered to Cam, Eric, and Mr. Collins, “Do you see Jimmy anywhere?”

Eric pulled on Cam’s sleeve and pointed. Someone with dark hair and eyeglasses with red frames was buying something from one of the machines.

“That’s him,” Cam whispered to the policewoman.

“Yes, that’s Jimmy,” Mr. Collins said.

The police walked toward the machines. Cam, Eric, and Mr. Collins followed them.

Jimmy saw the police coming. He looked frightened, but he didn’t run off. He turned back to the machine. As he put his money in, Cam looked straight at him and said, “Click.”

“All right, young man,” the policewoman said. “There are a few questions we’d like to ask you and your boss.”

They led Jimmy to the back of the store.

“Are you the locksmith?” the policewoman asked the man behind the counter.

“Yes, I’m Lenny.”

“Did you put in new locks and an alarm in Collins’ Coin Shop?”

“I didn’t. Jimmy did. He’s new here. It was his first job alone, but I checked his work. He did a fine job.”

“Well, the store was robbed. Two gold coins are missing. And these two children saw Jimmy leaving the store when it should have been closed.”

“I didn’t take any coins. You can check me,” Jimmy said.

Jimmy took a pen, a few coins, and some dollar bills from his pants pockets. He put them on the counter. Then he turned his pockets inside out and said, “See, I don’t have any gold coins.”