Cam Jansen and the Millionaire Mystery (3 page)

“No,” Cam told him. “It could only be
someone who was in the elevator with us.”

Mr. Scott asked his wife, “Do you remember who was on the elevator?”

“There were Jane and Joe Levy. Cam Jansen and her mother were with me.”

Mrs. Scott thought for a moment.

“There were other people on the elevator,” she said. “I just don’t remember who.”

Cam closed her eyes. She said, “
Click
!” Then, with her eyes still closed she said, “I remember them. I remember them all.”

“I’m here,” a woman in green uniform said.

Cam opened her eyes.

“Hi, Amy,” Mr. Scott said. “Did anyone leave my apartment in the last ten minutes?”

“No one left the building,” Amy said.

She looked around the apartment. “It’s someone here, and I’ll check them all. I’ll find the thief.”

“Whoever took the necklace was on the elevator with us,” Cam told Amy. “There were ten of us.”

“Ten? You must have been squeezed in there.”

“We were,” Mrs. Scott said. “But it’s a short ride.”

“The police are here,” Amy said. “I’ll talk to them. I’ll tell them what happened.”

“Tell them it’s an expensive necklace,” Mr. Scott said. “Very expensive.”

Two police officers had come into the room. Amy spoke with them. Then the two officers walked over to Mrs. Scott.

“This is Cam Jansen,” Mrs. Scott said. “She knows who was on the elevator with me.”

Cam closed her eyes and said, “
Click
!” Then, with her eyes still closed she described the people on the elevator.

“There was Mrs. Scott. I was there with my mother.”

“That’s me,” Mrs. Jansen said.

“There was a woman in a long green dress,
a man wearing a fireman’s uniform, and an old man with a cane. There were two people, a man and a woman. They’re Mrs. Scott’s friends.”

“Jane and Joe Levy,” Mrs. Scott said. “But they didn’t take my necklace.”

One of the officers wrote Cam’s descriptions in his police notepad.

“There was a man wearing a blue jacket and tie, and there was a woman who wanted
to get on with some sticky cake, but she didn’t. First she finished the cake.”

Cam opened her eyes.

“That’s it,” Cam said. “That’s everyone.”

“We have to check them all,” one of the officers said. He looked right at Cam and Mrs. Jansen. “We even have to check you.”

“Is there an empty room we can use?” one of the officers asked the Scotts. “We need a place to bring all the suspects.”

“You can use the library.”

Across from the elevator were two large doors. Mrs. Scott opened them.

The walls of the room were lined with bookcases. One bookcase had glass doors. There were several large chairs in the room.

“Please come in here,” one of the officers told Cam and Mrs. Jansen.

Cam and her mother went into the library. Eric and Mrs. Shelton went in, too.

“I’m Officer Jack Kaplan. I need you to empty your pockets.”

Mrs. Jansen whispered to Cam, “We’re suspects. He thinks we might have taken the necklace.”

Cam took a pen and a small notepad from her pockets.

“That’s all I have,” Cam said.

She pulled out the inside of her pockets and showed Officer Kaplan that they were empty.

Mrs. Jansen emptied her pockets. She took paperclips, cough drops, coins, keys, coupons, a shopping list, and small bits of thread from her pockets. She opened her handbag and Officer Kaplan looked through it.

The other officer was standing by the door to the library. “Come with me,” she told Mrs. Scott. “We have to find the other people who were on the elevator.”

“Let’s take Cam with us,” Mrs. Scott told the officer. “I don’t remember everyone who was with us, but she does.”

“Let’s go,” the officer told Cam.

They walked toward the many large windows overlooking the city.

“I’m Officer Sally Phillips. Whoever took the necklace must have it in his or her pocket or handbag, so we’ll have to check them all.”

The party guests had gathered by the windows.

“That’s where I work,” a woman said as she looked out over the city.

Cam pointed to a woman in a tight flowered dress. “She was on the elevator,” Cam whispered. “She was holding a plate of cake.”

“She’s eating more of that cake now,” Mrs. Scott whispered. “She must really like it.”

Officer Phillips spoke with the woman. Then they walked together to the library.

“There are Jane and Joe Levy,” Cam said.

Mrs. Scott spoke to her friends. She told them to go to the library.

Officer Phillips was back. “We still have a few more people to find,” she said to Cam and Mrs. Scott.

“Four more,” Cam said.

Cam walked slowly past the many people standing by the windows.

“I can see my house,” someone said, and pointed.

“I can see my store,” someone else said.

“Officer Phillips,” Cam whispered. “That
woman in the green dress was on the elevator. She got on right after we did. And that man with the cane was with us.”

Officer Phillips spoke to both of them. She walked with them to the library.

“Wasn’t that man in the uniform also on the elevator?” Mrs. Scott asked.

Cam looked at the man. She closed her eyes and said, “
Click
!”

“Yes,” Cam said.

Mrs. Scott asked the man to follow her to the library.

One more
, Cam thought. There was one more person on the elevator.

Cam said, “
Click
!” again. She looked at the pictures she had in her head of the people on the elevator.

Officer Phillips and Mrs. Scott had returned from the library.

“Is that it?” Officer Phillips asked.

Cam opened her eyes.

“There’s one more,” Cam said. “He was wearing a dark blue jacket and tie. I looked
at everyone standing by the windows and I didn’t find him.”

“Are there any other rooms up here?”

“There are two bedrooms,” Mrs. Scott told Officer Phillips, “but the doors to those rooms are closed.”

“Let’s check.”

Mrs. Scott led them to two doors, one on either side of a wide hallway. Officer Sally Phillips checked both doors. They were locked.

“Maybe he went downstairs,” Mrs. Scott said. “Maybe he wanted more fish and salad, and that’s served only downstairs.”

Cam, Mrs. Scott, and Officer Phillips walked toward the elevator. Just then a door in the hall was opened. It was the door to the bathroom. A man wearing a dark blue jacket walked out.

“That’s him,” Cam told Officer Phillips. “He was on the elevator with us.”

“Please come with me,” Officer Phillips told the man in the blue jacket.

“What did I do?”

“I didn’t say you did anything. I just asked you to come along.”

They all went to the library.

Officer Kaplan was there with the six other people who were on the elevator with Cam, her mother, and Mrs. Scott. Eric and Mrs. Shelton were there, too.

Officer Kaplan wrote the man’s name next to the description he had in his notepad. Then he asked the man to empty his pockets.

“But I didn’t do anything.”

The man took a wallet from his back pants pocket. He took a few coins from one of his front pockets. Then he pulled the inside of each pocket out so the officers could see they were empty.