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just take a quick peek,” Dink said. “There’s no lock on it.”
    Josh reached out and flipped the top latch. The lid stayed shut. He flipped the next latch down, and the lid swung open sideways, like a door. But instead of shelves holding jars and other supplies, the kids were looking at the Grandma Moses painting. There was a secret compartment inside the door of the trunk!
    “What’s
this
doing here?” Dink asked. “Why hasn’t she hung it back on the wall?”
    “There are more paintings behind this one,” Josh said.
    Dink counted five behind the Grandma Moses.

    “Maybe she stores them in this hollow door until she’s ready to frame them again,” Ruth Rose suggested.
    Dink reached out a finger and touched the paint on the Grandma Moses painting. It was dry. He ran his thumb along the edges of the fiberboard. They felt rough and bumpy.
    A thought was trying to force its way out of Dink’s brain. He knew it was important by the way his arms erupted into goose bumps. But before he could pin the thought down, he heard footsteps on the stairs.
    “Mademoiselle Musée!” Ruth Rose mouthed.
    Dink swung the trunk lid shut and flipped the latches back into place. “Let’s go before she sees us,” he whispered to Josh and Ruth Rose. They slipped through the dining room door and headed for their cabins.

The kids jogged toward the trees behind Moose Cabin. When they came to the fence, they vaulted over it. Once they were in the woods, Dink stopped short.
    “What’s the matter?” Ruth Rose asked, catching her breath.
    Josh flopped on the ground.
    “Guys, I think Mademoiselle is stealing the paintings we saw in that secret compartment in her trunk!” Dink said.
    “Stealing them?” Josh asked.
    Dink nodded. “Can you think of another reason she’d have those paintings hidden inside the trunk like that?”
    “Maybe she just doesn’t want them lying around where anybody could see them,” Ruth Rose said. “Especially that Grandma Moses, which is real valuable.”
    “Or she could be waiting till the paint is dry enough before she frames them,” Josh put in.
    Dink shook his head. “The paint is dry,” he said. “I felt it.”
    Josh stood up and brushed pine needles from his knees. “Well, what should we do?”
    “I don’t know,” Dink said. “But I’m going to keep my eye on her.
And
that trunk!”
    Ruth Rose looked at her watch. “We have three minutes to get to the picnic tables,” she said. “Detective Robb will be waiting for us.”
    “Maybe we should tell him about what we saw in the trunk,” Josh said.
    “I don’t know,” Dink said. “I could be wrong. Anyway, we’d better get over there.”
    The kids jogged to the picnic tables and found places to sit. Everyone else was there. Mademoiselle Musée was standing next to Detective Robb.
    “So how many of you have followed your card clues and found the map piece?” Detective Robb asked.
    Almost every hand went up. Only a couple of kids, including Josh, had not been successful yet.
    “Okay, maybe you can find ’em later today,” Detective Robb said.
    He turned to Mademoiselle Musée. “In case you haven’t met her yet, this is Mademoiselle Musée. She has a fascinating job. She cleans and restores old paintings,” he said. “She lives in France, but was hired by the Darbys to come here and clean their paintings. She hasseen thousands of signatures, and some of them have been forged, right. Mademoiselle?”
    She bowed her head. “There are many clever forgers out there,” she said.
    “Will you tell the kids how you can tell the difference between a real signature and a forged one?” Detective Robb asked.
    “Of course,” she said. “There are four things to look for.” Dink noticed that she was still wearing white latex gloves when she raised one finger.
    “First, study the overall look of the signature,” Mademoiselle Musée went on. “You may not be able to say exactly what it is, but there is something different about