The Mummy Mystery Read online

  The cleaner continued, “After Chris rushed out of the room, I took off my mummy costume. I put the bandages in the cleaning cart next to the rolled-up painting.

  “Then I put the mummy back and walked calmly out with my cleaning cart, hiding the painting in the broom closet. I stood by the back door and waited until the director came through the main entrance at nine in the morning and switched off the alarm.

  “Then I left the museum without being discovered. And if it hadn’t been for these two smart-aleck kids, nobody would have figured it out,” concluded Cornelia.

  For a long moment, Barbara Palmer’s office was silent. Then there was a knock on the door. It was the police chief.

  “I need the telephone number for the history museum in Cairo,” he said. “Maybe they can tell us more about the mummy, and explain why he was stealing our paintings here in Pleasant Valley.”

  “There’s no need,” said Barbara Palmer. “The guilty party has just confessed.”

  When Maya and Jerry walked home through the town, the sun was already high over the rooftops. The air was fresh after the storms of the night.

  With a sigh, Maya said, “I feel sorry for Cornelia. She just wanted to save the museum. And Barbara Palmer can be a bit horrible.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” replied Jerry, “and it looks as though she’ll be giving Chris a hard time, now.”

  “Some people might think that it ought to be Barbara Palmer who goes to jail,” said Maya.

  “Yes, but unfortunately there’s no law against being mean,” replied Jerry wearily.

  He was completely exhausted after the long night in the museum and just wanted to get home to his bed.

  He was happy, however, about what had happened after the police chief had taken away Cornelia.

  A very grateful museum director opened the safe and took out a thick stack of bills—the promised reward of $2,000.

  She gave it to Jerry and Maya and promised that, for the rest of their lives, they could visit the museum free of charge.

  The next day the residents of the little town were very interested to read the latest news in the Pleasant Valley Gazette:

  STOLEN PAINTINGS RECOVERED

  Thanks to two young detectives, Jerry and Maya, the museum has recovered two of its most valuable paintings. The thief was not a mummy, or a hardened criminal, but actually an art lover trying to stop the museum director from selling the paintings.

  The case has captured the entire country’s attention, including the National Committee for the Arts.

  Some sources say the museum director, Barbara Palmer, may be called on to resign. The National Committee for the Arts and people from the group “Friends of the Museum” do not approve of her plans to sell the museum’s art collection nor her treatment of the employees of the museum.

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