Mystery of the Star Ruby (6 page)

That evening, it was too chilly to go walking after dinner. Instead, the kids worked on a puzzle in Benny and Henry’s cabin.

“Only one more day,” Jessie sighed. “If we haven’t found the ruby by tomorrow evening, we have to tell Mr. Knight.”

“We’ll work even harder tomorrow,” Violet said, fitting a piece into the puzzle border.

Henry looked up. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah,” Benny said. “Sounds like digging.”

“Grab a jacket,” Henry told the others. “We’re going down to the flume.”

The moon was bright overhead, lighting the trail to the flume. As the kids rounded the empty entry booth, they saw a figure wearing a white shirt.

The figure dropped a shovel and sprinted down the trail. Henry, who was in the lead, ran after the person. But when the figure disappeared into the woods, he gave up the chase.

“Did you see who it was?” Violet asked him.

“No,” he replied, disappointed. “Whoever it was just vanished into thin air!”

The chalkboard outside the dining room announced possible storms later that day.

Violet read the breakfast menu printed below the weather forecast. “‘Contest Special—Native-Stone Buckets and Star Ruby Muffins.’”

“We’re having
dirt
for breakfast?” Benny said. He liked playing in the dirt, but he didn’t want to eat any!

“Today is the last day of the contest,” said Grandfather. “Everybody will need a hearty meal before going to work.”

The Aldens sat down at their table, greeting Sybil, Jonathan, and Donald.

Henry noticed that Donald and Sybil looked tired, as if neither had slept very well.

Maybe, he thought, one of them was up late, digging around the flume.

The waitress brought glasses of ruby-red grapefruit juice.

“How would you like your Miner’s eggs?” she asked, pen poised over her pad.

Jonathan grinned. “How about Hard as a Rock?”

Violet giggled. Jonathan was always telling jokes! How could he be the thief?

After eating eggs, Star Ruby cranberry muffins, and cups of Native-Stone Bucket granola, the Aldens walked down to the flume.

Cecil Knight was busy at the booth, collecting entry fees and handing out pre-spaded buckets.

Donald was in line in front of the Aldens.

“I know what you do,” he accused Mr. Knight. “You salt those so-called native-stone buckets! You put a star ruby in some kid’s bucket, just to make me lose the contest!”

Donald’s voice was loud. Whispers rippled through the line.

“That is not true,” Cecil said reasonably. “I run an honest operation here, just as my parents did when they bought the mine fifty years ago.”

“It seems awfully funny that that kid—” Donald jerked his thumb toward Jessie— “found a star ruby when no one else has found one since 1988.”

“Everyone has an equal chance,” Cecil said. “That’s the fun of panning. Now, what will you have today, Mr. Hodge?”

Donald ordered seven native-stone buckets.

While Grandfather was buying a “rainbow” bucket for each of them, Henry watched Donald walk down to the flume.

How did Donald know the last star ruby found at the Ruby Hollow Mine was in 1988?
he wondered.

“What’s supposed to be in a rainbow bucket?” Jessie asked Jonathan as they picked up trays.

“Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pink sapphires,” Jonathan replied. “Stones the colors of the rainbow.”

After two hours of panning, Henry found an emerald and Benny found a blue sapphire. Jessie’s bucket yielded a pink sapphire. Violet was delighted to find a purple stone called an amethyst. Purple was her favorite color.

When their buckets were empty, the kids cleaned up at the pump.

“I have something to check out,” Henry said in a low voice. “Let’s go back to the main building.”

“You know who’s missing here?” Jessie observed as they put their trays back on the stack. “Sybil.”

“You’re right,” said Benny. “She’s always down here working. I wonder where she is today.”

Away from the flume line, Henry told the others about Donald’s remark. “How did he know when the last star ruby was found here?” he said.

“Maybe he read about it—there are a lot of newspaper articles on the wall in the lobby” said Violet.

“There’s Sybil,” Benny said.

The older woman carried a Ruby Hollow laundry basket up the path to the Laundromat. A white shirt dropped off the pile, but Sybil hurried on, unaware.

Benny ran ahead and picked up the shirt. He started to call out to Sybil when he noticed something.

“What is it?” asked Jessie.

“Look,” he said. “The sleeve is ripped. Do you think that piece of cloth we found would fit?”

“Good thinking!” Henry praised. “Jessie, do you have that scrap with you?”

Jessie pulled the cloth from her pack, where she kept the warning note and the list from Jonathan’s notebook. She placed the scrap over the rectangular-shaped tear in the shirt.

Violet squinted. “It doesn’t quite fit. One side is too long.”

Henry held the shirt up to the light. “The material doesn’t match.” He pointed to the faint stain on the scrap. “This shirt doesn’t have any stains.”

“So it’s not a good clue,” said Benny, disappointed.

“We could be on the right track,” Henry said. “Sybil had a lot of white clothes in her basket.”

“I wonder if there’s a stained shirt in her laundry,” Violet mused.

“We have to watch her,” said Jessie. “And Donald and Jonathan. It’s hard to watch all these people when they are in different places. I wish they would stay in one spot!”

“That may not happen till this evening,” said Violet with a sigh. “When the contest is judged.”

“We
have
to find the ruby before then,” Benny stated.

During lunch, Cecil Knight announced that the flume would close at five that evening, so the contest could be judged at six.

Jessie was glad. With only a few hours to find a special stone, everyone spent the afternoon on the flume, including Sybil, Donald, and Jonathan.

To make the time pass, Jonathan started telling jokes.

“Where do cows go on vacation?” he said to Benny.

“I don’t know,” Benny said. “Where?”

“Moo York!”

“Bad!” Violet declared, giggling. “But funny!”

“Where does a two-thousand-pound elephant sleep?” Jonathan asked.

“I give up,” Benny said. “Where?”

“Anywhere he wants!” said Jonathan.

“I have one!” Benny said. “Where do rocks sleep?” Without waiting for anyone to guess, he blurted, “In a bed of rocks!”

“That’s pretty good!” said Sybil, chuckling.

Jessie thought about Benny’s joke.
In a bed of rocks
. It reminded her of something. But what? The thought nagged at her while she rinsed and sorted her stones.

After a while, she heard someone say, “Uh-oh.”

Donald Hodge pointed to the sky.

Black clouds had formed over the mountain. Thunder grumbled. The weather forecast had been right on target.

Cecil Knight ordered, “Get inside! Get away from the water until the storm is over!”

“These mountain thunderstorms sure come up quickly,” Grandfather said, herding the children up the trail to the main building.

Hot chocolate and oatmeal cookies were served in the dining room while the storm rumbled around them. Lightning flickered above the trees and sheets of rain dashed against the windows.

“I hope that library in town doesn’t get hit again,” said Violet.

“This isn’t a very bad storm,” Cecil Knight reassured her. “The sun will be shining again before we know it.”

Within minutes the sky lightened and the downpour slowed to a drizzle.

While people chatted over hot chocolate and cookies, Jessie went over to the windows. Rainwater formed a small river across the parking lot.

The runoff was pretty strong, Jessie noticed. The muddy water reminded her of something.

“Let’s go down to the flume,” she whispered to the others.

They slipped out of the dining room unnoticed and ran down the trail. Water dripped from the roof of the flume and the grass was slick with rain.

“Okay, why are we here?” Henry asked Jessie.

She handed out spades. “I think I know what the mystery digger was doing.”

“What?” asked Violet.

“Our mystery digger wasn’t trying to
find
something,” Jessie answered. “He—or she—was trying to
hide
something.”

She pushed her spade into the wet dirt of the “dump” pile where people emptied ore from their trays.

Violet, Henry and Benny began digging, too.

They didn’t have to dig long. The heavy rains had washed away most of the pile.

“I hit something!” Benny exclaimed. “My spade scraped over something hard.”

Jessie knelt down and pulled the object out of the hole, revealing a mud-caked square box.

“What is that?” asked Henry.

Jessie pried open the lid of the container. Inside, wrapped in damp tissue, was a single large stone.

“It’s the star ruby,” she proclaimed.

The others crowded around Jessie.

“It
is
the star ruby!” Benny breathed. “How did you know it was in the dirt pile?”

“Your joke about rocks sleeping in a bed of rocks gave me the idea to look here,” Jessie said to him. “And when I saw that rain river in the parking lot, I figured a lot of the dirt would be washed away”

Henry nodded. “Good thinking. The second time we saw the person, he could have been burying the stone. But what about the first time? You hadn’t even found the star ruby yet, Jessie.”

“Maybe the thief hid something else there first,” Violet suggested. “We don’t know what else he may have stolen.”

“Or she. We still don’t know who took the ruby,” Benny reminded them. “I wish we had more clues.”

“All we have is the warning note, Jonathan’s list, and a scrap of white cloth. Not much to go on,” Jessie admitted. “At least we have the ruby back. Let’s go tell Grandfather.”

“And let’s check to see if there’s an article about when the last star ruby was found at this mine,” Henry added.

Once more, the kids hurried up the hill to the main building.

Grandfather was in his room, reading the newspaper. He was glad the children had found the ruby, but was still concerned there was a thief in the resort.

“We still have to inform Mr. Knight,” he said firmly.

“The contest is being judged tonight,” Henry said. “I’m pretty sure we’ll know who the thief is by then.”

“All right,” James Alden relented. “But as soon as the contest is over, we’re going to Mr. Knight.”

In the lobby, Violet signaled the others to come over to the wall of clippings and photographs.

“I don’t see anything here about a star ruby being found in 1988,” she said. “Maybe Donald Hodge read it in a guidebook or something.”

Henry indicated his watch. “We have about forty-five minutes to find out who stole the ruby. The contest will be judged at six. What can we do to speed up our investigation?”

Violet had been thinking. “So far, we’ve been watching our suspects to see if we can figure out which one took the ruby. What if we did something to make the thief watch
us
instead?”

“I don’t understand,” said Benny.

“I do!” Jessie said. “Violet, that’s a great idea! Make the thief show himself—or herself. How can we get his attention?”

Henry snapped his fingers. “We let each of them know we have the ruby! The real thief will take notice!”

They found Jonathan first. He was sitting on the porch, his feet up on the rail, enjoying a frosty glass of lemonade.

“Hey, kids,” he greeted. “I found a really nice sapphire today. It might be worth honorable mention in the contest.”

“When the contest is over, we’ve decided to sell the ruby to Mr. Knight’s museum,” Jessie said casually. “Then we can buy books for that library.”

Jonathan straightened up, setting his drink on the arm of his chair with a thump. “You’re selling the star ruby to Cecil Knight? Do you know how much it’s worth?”

“Maybe you can buy it from Mr. Knight and put it in your girlfriend’s ring,” Benny said.