Mystery of the Secret Message

by Charles Tang

  “A lot of the booths are finished,” Grandfather observed. “They must have gotten here early.”

  A few workers unloaded lumber by the town hall. Hammers rang out. Electric saws zipped through boards.

  The statue of Josiah Wade was temporarily blocked from view. The workers had erected scaffolding around the statue and covered it with canvas to prevent damage.

  A short man with scruffy hair carried a stepladder. When he saw the Aldens, he waved.

  “That guy reminds me of our dog,” Benny said. “His hair sticks out just like Watch’s does.”

  “I’m going to see if the men have everything they need,” said Grandfather.

  “And we’ll get to work,” Henry said. The Aldens were on cleanup duty, but they were also going to hunt for clues.

  The shop owners were busy, too. Ms. Reit and Sylvia Pepper were putting the finishing touches on their shop windows. Mr. Ames from the hardware store was hanging a large banner that proclaimed, GREENFIELD WINTER FESTIVAL.

  “Look up there!” Benny cried. He pointed to a figure sitting on top of a lamppost. “It’s Dawn!”

  Dawn shinnied down the lamppost. She wore her camera around her neck.

  “The things a photographer has to do to take good pictures!” Dawn said, joining the children.

  “Weren’t you scared up there?” Violet asked.

  “I’m not crazy about heights, but that was the best place to get shots of the rooftops.”

  “I don’t think I could climb a lamppost just to get a good picture,” Violet said admiringly.

  Dawn turned a small crank on her camera, rewinding the film. “Well, that’s the last of this roll of film. I think I have enough shots for the souvenir booklet.”

  Jessie pulled a flier from her notebook. “Grandfather had stacks of these printed. People can order your booklet tomorrow at the festival.”

  “I’m taking souvenir pictures, too,” Violet said to Dawn. “People will pay a dollar and I’ll send them the picture later, after I have the film developed.”

  “Why don’t you let me develop them for you?” Dawn said. “I can do it much cheaper than the lab the drugstore uses.”

  “That would be great!” Violet paused, then added nervously, “I’ve only taken pictures of the family. This is my first real assignment.”

  “You should take a few test shots,” Dawn advised. “Pose a model by the statue today, just to see what the light is like. That way you’ll know exactly where to stand tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be your model, Violet,” Benny volunteered.

  Dawn patted Violet’s arm. “You’ll do just fine. Now I’d better get into my darkroom and develop this film.”

  Violet watched the young woman disappear into her studio. “I can’t believe she’s the phantom of Greenfield Square. She’s just too nice.”

  “I know,” Henry agreed. “But if Dawn was in the square last night, why didn’t she say anything about seeing us? We can’t rule out anyone as a suspect.”

  “Let’s get started looking for clues,” Jessie said. “Why don’t we each take a corner of the square? We’ll meet at the statue.”

  Henry nodded. “Good plan, Jessie. We can always count on you to keep us organized.”

  Jessie blushed as she passed out small trash bags. “I’ll take the corner by the town hall. Pick up trash and anything that looks suspicious.”

  Benny combed the ground near the parking lot. He found bottle caps and straw wrappers, which he threw into the garbage bag. But nothing else.

  Too many people had walked around that morning, he concluded. Any clues the phantom had left behind would have been destroyed.

  He had almost reached the statue when he saw something red between two bricks in the pavement.

  A scrap of red silk.

  He pulled it out. It was a ribbon, like the kind Dawn Wellington used around her ponytail.

  “It’s lunchtime!” Grandfather’s voice boomed across the square.

  Stuffing the ribbon in his pocket, Benny ran to Cooke’s Drugstore.

  “I never thought you’d be last to a meal!” Grandfather teased Benny as they all went inside.

  They each chose a stool and ordered. Mrs. Turner assured them that apple pie with warm cinnamon sauce was on the menu.

  Violet sat next to Benny. She had been taking practice pictures while she searched for clues in the square.

  “I saw you pick something up,” she said, putting her camera in her lap. “What did you find?”

  Benny pulled the ribbon from his pocket. “This looks like Dawn’s.”

  “It does,” Violet agreed with a sinking heart. “But she could have lost it anytime.” She was sure her special friend was not the phantom.

  Sylvia Pepper came in while the Aldens were eating. She went over to Grandfather and said, “How do you like the construction crew I hired?”

  “They seem to be just fine,” James Alden replied. “Won’t you join us for a bite to eat?”

  “No, thanks,” Sylvia replied. “I just wanted to see how things were going.” Then she added, “I hope when the town votes to move the statue, you’ll remember who helped you with this festival.”

  “A lot of people have helped,” Grandfather said evenly. “But I do appreciate your efforts, Miss Pepper.”

  “The town won’t want to move the statue anyway,” Henry said when Sylvia had left. “I’m positive of that.”

  “We won’t know until the votes are tallied,” said Grandfather. “Rick Bass offered to help count the ballots tonight.”

  The young museum director also wanted the statue moved, thought Henry. He hadn’t seen Rick that day and wondered where he was.

  After lunch, they all went back outside. Two workmen were tying a tarpaulin over the blue truck bed. The stands and booths were finished. The scaffolding had been removed from the statue, but the canvas remained.

  “That’s our booth,” Jessie said, checking a chart in her notebook. “It’s right next to the refreshment booth.”

  “Yummy!” Benny liked the idea of being next to the cookie booth.

  Violet took out her camera. “Benny, why don’t you go over by the statue now? I want to check the light.”

  Benny ran over to the statue. As he leaned against the crumbling base, he wondered why the statue was still covered.

  Lifting one corner, he peered under the cloth.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  The statue was gone!

  CHAPTER 9

  Vanished into Thin Air!

  Violet was trying to focus through the viewfinder. But Benny kept moving the canvas that covered the statue.

  “Look!” he cried. He grabbed a corner of the canvas and pulled.

  Violet nearly dropped her camera. Standing on the granite base was a stepladder. The statue of Josiah Wade was missing!

  Jessie clutched Henry’s sleeve. “What happened to the statue?” she gasped.

  “Someone took it!” Henry replied as they ran to the center of the square.

  “Our statue’s been kidnapped,” Benny exclaimed, hopping with excitement. “I mean, statue-napped! Do you think the phantom of Greenfield Square did it?”

  “There is no phantom,” Henry told him. “But someone very clever pulled this off. We have to tell Grandfather.”

  James Alden was already on the scene. He stared at the stepladder in disbelief. “How in the world did someone steal a six-foot-high statue in broad daylight?”

  Word of the theft buzzed around the square. Shop owners came out to stare at the ladder perched on the statue’s base.

  Rick Bass came running over. “This is incredible! Did anybody see anything?”

  The Aldens shook their heads.

  “People have been working in the square since this morning,” said Grandfather. “That statue didn’t vanish into thin air.”

  “The statue was covered all day,” said Rick. “It could have been taken early this morning and we wouldn’t have known the difference.”r />
  Violet thought of something. “Does this mean the festival won’t go on?”

  Could they have a Winter Festival without the Minuteman statue? One of the main reasons for the event was to raise funds to fix the statue’s base. Now the guest of honor was missing.

  “The festival will go on as scheduled,” Grandfather said firmly.

  “The statue might turn up before tomorrow. It could be a prank,” Rick said.

  “Some prank!” Henry said. Was Rick Bass truly concerned or putting on an act?

  “I’m going to talk to the shop owners,” James Alden declared. “An operation like this couldn’t be pulled off without somebody seeing something.”

  “I’ll call the police,” Rick offered. “They should be notified of the theft.”

  “Good idea,” Grandfather said. He and Rick hurried off.

  “The thief must have left clues,” said Benny. “Let’s look around.”

  The children searched the area thoroughly. But they found only bent nails and trash the construction workers had left behind.

  Discouraged, Violet sat down on the statue’s base. Her camera swung around her neck on its strap.

  Jessie stared at the camera. “Violet!” she cried. “Your camera!”

  “What about it?”

  “You’ve been taking pictures all day. I bet you have a clue on your film!” Jessie said. How could they miss something so obvious?

  Now Benny was excited. “If we develop the pictures, we might find out who stole the statue!”

  “But the drugstore has to send film away to the lab,” Henry said. “That takes almost a week.”

  “Dawn will develop my film,” said Violet. “She could do it fast in her studio.”

  “Dawn is one of our suspects,” Jessie reminded her. “Suppose she’s the person we’re after?”

  “That’s a chance we have to take,” said Henry.

  Benny was already running across the square. “Hurry up!” he called back.

  Inside Dawn’s studio, the red light glowed above the darkroom door.

  “That means she’s inside developing pictures,” Violet said. She knocked on the door.

  “Just a second,” came the reply. A moment later, Dawn opened the door. She smiled when she saw the Aldens.

  “Hi, what’s up?”

  The children told her the statue was missing and a valuable clue to the theft might be in Violet’s pictures.

  Dawn couldn’t believe the statue of Josiah Wade was gone. She went to the window.

  “It really is gone!” she said. “Let’s develop Violet’s film right away. You kids can help me.”

  They followed Dawn into her darkroom.

  She put the roll of film into a canister of developing solution. Violet agitated the canister, then Dawn added other chemicals. Next, Dawn hung the roll of film up to dry. Jessie and Benny cut the negatives into strips.

  “Now we print the pictures,” Dawn said. “But first we have to make the image bigger. I use this machine, called an enlarger.”

  She gave them prints as she enlarged the negatives.

  The Aldens dipped the prints in trays of developing solution. Like magic, images appeared on the paper.

  “Look at this!” Henry cried. With tweezers, he held up a photograph of the short, scruffy-haired worker talking to a woman.

  The woman was Sylvia Pepper.

  “Sylvia hired the construction crew,” Violet said. “She must know the workers.”

  “Wait till you see this!” Jessie held up another picture.

  The photograph showed the construction truck pulling away from the square. A tarpaulin covered the truck bed. Sticking out from the canvas was the end of a musket.

  “Josiah’s musket!” Benny exclaimed. “The workers stole the statue. We have to tell Grandfather!”

  Violet was examining Jessie’s photograph with a magnifying glass. “Look,” she said. “Behind that pole. See anybody familiar?”

  “Sylvia!” answered Benny, who had the sharpest eyes. “She’s watching the truck leave.”

  “I think Miss Pepper has some explaining to do,” Henry said decisively. “Let’s go visit her.”

  Dawn shut off the equipment in her darkroom. “I’ll come with you.”

  They went outside. All the shop owners were talking about the theft. Even the substitute pharmacist, Mr. Kirby, seemed concerned. Only Sylvia Pepper was absent.

  She was in her shop, calmly putting a bouquet of yellow roses in water.

  When she saw the Aldens, Sylvia said, “If it’s about dressing up as a clown tomorrow for the festival, I’ve already told your grandfather I won’t do it.”

  “But did you tell him about who stole the statue?” Jessie asked.

  Sylvia dropped a rose. “What are you talking about?”

  “Surely you must know the Minuteman statue is gone,” Dawn said, gesturing toward the square. “It was stolen sometime today.”

  “Why would I know anything about it?” Sylvia said defensively. “I’ve been in my shop all day.”

  “Not the whole day.” Henry put the two photographs on the counter.

  Sylvia turned pale. Her bright lipstick seemed redder.

  “Would you like to explain?” Dawn demanded.

  The florist sat down on a stool behind the counter. “I thought I could get away with it,” she said dully. “It was risky taking the statue in the middle of the day. But I believed we could pull it off.”

  “We, who?” Henry asked. “This man in the photo?”

  “Yes,” replied Sylvia. “His name is Don. We went to college together.”

  “Why did Don take the statue?” Benny asked. “It belongs to Greenfield.”

  Sylvia told them that years ago when she was in college, she saw a copy of Franklin Bond’s sketch for the statue. She read the note about Josiah’s gift to the sculptor.

  “I never forgot about the secret compartment in the drawing,” she explained. “I figured the gift — whatever it was — was hidden inside the statue.”

  Sylvia moved to Greenfield and opened her florist shop. But business was not as good as she’d hoped it would be and Sylvia was in danger of losing her lease on the store.

  “Every day I’d look out on the square and see that statue,” she said. “I knew it contained a secret.”

  “And you decided to take it,” Henry concluded.

  Sylvia nodded. “Josiah Wade lived during the Revolutionary War. Whatever he gave Franklin Bond would be very old and valuable. Collectors pay good money for any kind of Revolutionary relic.”

  “Like the things Rick Bass has in the museum,” Violet said.

  Sylvia went on. “I asked my old friend Don to help me look for the statue’s secret. But I didn’t want anybody to suspect me, so we arranged a private signal.”

  Benny slapped the counter. “The message photograph!”

  “That’s right,” Sylvia said. “I learned that trick in a photography class. But then the photographs got all mixed up in the drugstore and I lost my message photo.”

  “I had it,” Violet said. “And you figured it out. You took my camera that day.”

  Sylvia frowned. “It wasn’t easy getting it back. I had to search all your belongings before I found it.”

  “What did the message mean?” Jessie said. “ ‘Move it the day before’?”

  “The day before the festival,” Sylvia said. “Since a lot of activity would be going on in the square, I thought that would be a good time to steal the statue.”

  “Why go to all that trouble?” Henry wanted to know. “Why not just call your friend and tell him about your plan?”

  Sylvia shrugged. “I was afraid the call might be traced back to me.”

  “Then you didn’t really mean it when you said the statue should be moved in front of your store,” Benny accused.

  Sylvia smiled. “I just said that.”

  “You’re the phantom vandal,” Violet said. “You painted the statue and switched the building
numbers. You even wrecked the decorations, didn’t you?”

  “I had to stall for time while I looked for the message photograph,” Sylvia said. “Of course, I fired the original construction crew your grandfather hired. Don got a job as a construction worker and I hired his crew.”

  Jessie thought of something. “You made that call to Grandfather about moving the statue, didn’t you?”

  “Sure, to throw suspicion on Rick Bass. He never liked me, anyway,” Sylvia said sourly. “Nobody likes me.”

  “We tried to,” Dawn told her. “Everyone in the square would have pitched in to help save your shop.”

  “What do you care?” Sylvia said, tossing her head.

  “The other night, after we worked on the wreaths,” Dawn said. “You thought I had gone home, but I saw you poking around the statue.”

  “We saw you!” Henry cried. “We were coming back for Jessie’s notebook. You ran.”

  “I thought it was Sylvia coming back,” Dawn said. “I didn’t want her to think I was spying on her.”

  Sylvia gave a sharp laugh. “Well, let me tell you what I was doing. I was looking for the secret compartment one last time.”

  “The ribbon I found,” Benny said. “It was yours, not Dawn’s!” The scrap of cloth matched the bows on the door wreaths. Sylvia had contributed those ribbons.

  Dawn looked at the Aldens in surprise. “Did you think I was the vandal?”

  Violet blushed. “Well . . . we knew you were in the drugstore the day the pictures were mixed up.”

  “I was only in there a second,” Dawn said. “The place was so crowded, I left.”

  “We couldn’t rule out anyone,” Henry told her, “until we got to the bottom of this. But we found the true culprit.”

  The corners of Sylvia’s mouth turned down. “I really didn’t want to steal that stupid statue.”

  A voice said behind them, “That’s too bad, Miss Pepper. You could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

  Violet turned at the voice. “Grandfather! Sylvia Pepper and her friend stole the statue!”

  “I heard,” James Alden said, striding into the shop. A policeman was at his heels. “You’ll be happy to know, children, that the statue has been recovered.”