The Mystery of the Gold Coins Read Free

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