Free The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt Page B

every time we called, we told her a fake story about where we were. So now we just had to remember what we’d said. We’d studied our guidebooks so we could make it all seem more real.
    We—actually, mostly Lucas, because she lies to Mom a lot better than I do—told her about our tour of Kensington Palace and not seeing anybody from the royal family, and about what we saw at the two famous stamp shops, and by the time we got done with that, Robert came out from his bedroom dressed for work, asked if we’d had fun, made a few jokes, and headed off for the restaurant. When he left, Mom got right back to work on her article, Lucas and I watched TV for the rest of the night and ate bread and cheese and something called a meat pie that Robert had bought for us to munch on, and we didn’t have to answer any more questions.
    I was glad. I had the feeling that the more we lied, the more trouble we might get into eventually.
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    That night when we were packing up our disguises for the next day, I noticed Lucas was quieter than usual.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked.
    She folded up a shirt, stuffed it in a bag, and shrugged. I personally hate it when you’re trying to get somebody to say something and all they do is shrug.
    I was getting ready to let her have it when she said, “Are you sure we’re not doing something totally stupid?”
    â€œLucas, this was your idea!”
    â€œWell, maybe it was a really crummy idea.”
    I remembered how excited we were when we’d given each other Oscars in front of the mirror in the women’s loo, and I figured I knew what Lucas was feeling.
    â€œI think it’s just the letdown,” I said, wrapping up a pair of shoes in a plastic bag before putting them in with the other clothes. “It’s like after that time we called Brendon Thorpe and I was so excited for a while, and then later I was sure everything we said to him was so stupid.” Brendon Thorpe is this cute guy who was in my English class last year. “Remember? I think it always works that way. After you have a big, like, rush or whatever, like talking to Brendon or what we did this afternoon, you’re always going to feel let down.”
    â€œMaybe. But we have absolutely no real reason to be doing what we’re doing. I mean, yeah, it would make sense to make a copy of what Gallery Guy is painting to use as evidence if we ever find out there’s been an art crime. But how do we know he’s not just some incredibly rude amateur painter who likes to copy paintings by Rembrandt?”
    I sat down on the bed and faced her. “Look, Lucas. I know all we have to go on is circumstantial evidence. We don’t have any smoking gun.”
    â€œCircumstantial evidence? Smoking gun? Girl, you’ve been watching too many cop shows.”
    â€œYou know what I mean,” I said. “We don’t have any real proof that Gallery Guy is doing something illegal, but it sure looks like he is. It’s not like we’ve only seen him in London. Remember, he was in Minneapolis, too, also copying a picture by Rembrandt.”
    â€œSo maybe he has a lot of money, likes to travel, likes to paint, plus likes to copy paintings by Rembrandt.”
    â€œDon’t tell me he’s been working on drawing fingernails for an entire year!” It seemed like she was just being stubborn. “Listen, Lucas, we have a ton of reasons to be suspicious. First, he’s been in two different museums, thousands of miles apart, copying pictures by Rembrandt. Second, he’s wearing a disguise that makes him look totally different from the guy we saw in Minneapolis. The only reason I can think of for somebody to do that is to make sure nobody who saw him there would recognize him here.
    â€œThird”—by this time I was holding up my fingers and counting off the points—“the way he leans over his canvas, he for sure doesn’t want