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all.”
    At that moment, Rick Bass sauntered up. “Hey, guys,” he greeted. “Isn’t it a shame about the decorations?” He clucked his tongue.
    “Where were you yesterday?” Jessie asked.
    “I got tied up,” Rick replied. “Sorry I couldn’t make it.”
    Benny wondered why Rick kept his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. Could he be hiding something, like red paint under his nails?
    Henry noticed this, too. “I have a jacket just like yours,” he said to Rick. “I wore it yesterday.”
    “I know,” Rick said, embarrassed. “I came out to mail a letter. I saw your jacket by the statue and thought it was mine. When I put it on, I realized it was too small.”
    Part of the mystery was explained. But Henry still didn’t know who had taken Violet’s camera bag.
    Jessie was thinking the same thing. “Did you see anybody around the statue yesterday afternoon?” she asked.
    He shook his head. “Not a soul. Hey, I found something I want to show you guys.”
    “Where is it?” Jessie asked. She wasn’t sure she trusted Rick.
    “In the museum,” Rick replied.
    “We have to meet Grandfather soon,” said Henry.
    “This will only take a minute. Follow me.”
    Rick led the way through a side door of the town hall. He pulled the door shut and skipped down a flight of steep stairs. At the bottom, the cement landing was musty-smelling.
    Violet sneezed.
    “It is kind of moldy in here,” Rick said apologetically. “Old buildings are damp.”
    He unlocked a second door. Leaving this door open, Rick entered the shadowed interior.
    The Alden children followed cautiously.
    “Watch your step,” Rick warned.
    Violet couldn’t see much. Dim light filtered through two narrow windows near the ceiling.
    She turned around, bumping into a dark, hulking shape.
    “Oh,” she said, startled.

CHAPTER 7
The Greenfield Spy
    V iolet! What is it?” Henry cried, next to her.
    But Violet was frozen in the darkness. She was afraid to move. The dark shape did not move, either.
    “Wait, I’ll get the light.” Rick pulled the chain of an overhead light.
    When she saw the “monster,” Violet giggled nervously. It was a black wool cape thrown over a coatrack.
    “I thought it was a person,” she said.
    “That’s Mr. Phineas T. Goodbody’s opera cape,” Rick said. “He donated it to the historical society many years ago. I haven’t found a place for it yet.”
    Jessie could see why. Every square inch of the cramped space was crowded with objects. Hats topped towers of books. Papers overflowed from a huge wooden desk. Unpacked boxes and bags sat on the floor.
    “Wow!” Benny exclaimed. “Look at all these neat things!”
    “And I have to sort every piece of it,” Rick said, riffling through a stack of papers. “Here’s what I wanted you guys to see.”
    Carefully he smoothed an old yellowed sheet. It was a drawing. Faint writing had been scribbled above the figure of a soldier.
    “That’s the Minuteman statue,” Jessie said.
    Rick nodded. “This is Franklin Bond’s original sketch for the statue. Can you read what he wrote at the top?”
    Benny tilted his head. “I can read some, but this writing is too squiggly.”
    Rick laughed. “Yes, old script is hard to read. Franklin says that Josiah Wade was a teenage spy during the Revolutionary War. Josiah carried secret messages in the hollow buttons of his coat!”

    “A spy!” Benny cried. “So there was a spy in Greenfield!”
    “That was a long time ago,” Henry said meaningfully. He knew Benny was thinking about the person who sent the message photograph. Now that the photograph had been stolen, they should be suspicious of everyone, including Rick Bass.
    “You were right,” Violet said to Rick. “Josiah wasn’t a soldier. But why did Franklin Bond make a soldier statue?”
    “I think it was his little joke on the town,” replied Rick. “Franklin wanted to be a great artist. He accepted the statue job because he needed money.”
    “I thought