Chapter 6

Chapter 6 "F-f-fifty thou… holy moly!" Josh squeaked. The kids stared at the small blue stamp. After a minute, Dink slipped it back inside the envelope and put it in his pocket. "No wonder Doris Duncan came all the way to Connecticut!" Ruth Rose said. Dink nodded. "Yeah. She was after the stamp the whole time. I knew that story about her mother smelled fishy." Josh closed the stamp book. "Well, we still have to give the stamp to her." Dink and Ruth Rose looked at each other. "Don't we?" Josh asked.

"I guess…" Dink said. "What do you mean, 'I guess'?" Josh said. "It's hers, Dink. It was on her letter, no matter who sent it to her." "But why was it hidden?" Dink asked. "Why the whole story about Doris's mother? Why the fake letters? Unless…" "Unless what?" Josh asked. Dink looked at Josh and Ruth Rose. "Unless the stamp is stolen…" "Yes!" Ruth Rose said. "It's worth so much money! Maybe O. Bird stole it. Then he—or she —had to find a way to get it to Doris, so they thought up the letters from 'Mother.'" Josh just looked at them. "You guys are crazy," he finally said. "Besides, there's no way to be sure." Ruth Rose jumped up. "O. Bird sent the letters from New York, right? Maybe that's where the stamp was stolen!" Ruth Rose hurried over to Mrs. Mackleroy's desk, spoke to her quickly, then came back. "What's going on?" Dink asked. "Mrs. Mackleroy is getting us the last few weeks' New York Times," Ruth Rose said. "We

can check to see if there's anything about a missing stamp." Dink looked at the clock. "Five-fifteen. Doris Duncan will be at my house in forty-five minutes!" Mrs. Mackleroy walked over and dumped a pile of New York Timeses on their table. "Here you are, kids. Good luck!" Josh stared at the mountain of papers. "Geez, it'll take us all night to read these!" "We don't have all night," Dink said, reaching for the pile. "Start reading!" The kids each took a stack. They set aside the sections they didn't want, like sports, real estate, and entertainment. For almost half an hour they turned pages.

The clock above Mrs. Mackleroy's desk ticked the minutes away. "My eyes are getting blurry," Josh said. "There sure is a lot of stolen stuff in New York! Some guy even stole a chimpanzee from the zoo!" Dink's back was hurting from bending over the table. His head ached, too, and his fingers were smudged gray from ink. And then he found it. "Here it is!" Dink said. He pointed to a headline and read:

SENIOR CITIZEN FINDS, THEN LOSES, FORTUNE JUNE 20. Miss Clementine Painter, 73, was rich for a short time, but now she's poor again. While emptying her vacuu cleaner, she found a rare stamp among the dust. The stamp, worth more than $50,000, was later stolen from her room. New York City police are investigating. Josh gulped. "You were right, Dink," he whispered. "You can't give the stamp to Doris Duncan!" Mrs. Mackleroy approached their table. "I have to close up soon," she said. Dink whipped his head around to look at the clock. Five-forty-eight! "Guys, we have twelve minutes before Doris Duncan comes back to my house!" The kids thanked Mrs. Mackleroy, stacked the newspapers, and hurried out of the library. On the library steps, Dink said, "Maybe we should tell Officer Fallon about Doris Duncan."

"But we still can't prove she did anything wrong," Josh said. "Josh is right, Dink," Ruth Rose said. "Doris Duncan never got the letters or the stamp. If you tell Officer Fallon that she and O. Bird stole it, they'll say, 'Prove it!'" "But what am I gonna do?" Dink asked. "It's almost six o'clock! I have to tell Doris Duncan something!" The kids began walking toward Woody Street. "I have an idea!" Ruth Rose said. "Why don't we glue the sunflower stamps back on the empty envelope, then hand over all five letters to Doris Duncan? She'll probably take them to her hotel room to read. Then we can run back here, give the Jenny stamp to Officer Fallon, and tell him the whole story." "But how does that prove she's guilty?" Dink asked. "Because then she'll have the letters!" Josh said. Ruth Rose nodded. "And when Officer Fallon gets the letters from Doris and reads the hidden message, he'll know she and O. Bird stole the stamp."