The 100-Year-Old Secret by Tracy Barrett Page B

Xander said. “See if you make the same deduction.”
    Xena found a piece of paper and drew a line down the middle, dividing it neatly into two columns, the left-hand one headed Clue and the right-hand one Deduction . She passed it to Xander.
    He wrote in the Clue column, “We thought Sarah looked like the girl in the missing painting but when she took off the hat and the wig she didn't.” Under Deduction he wrote, “The girl in the Batheson painting didn't necessarily look like the model who posed for it either.”
    â€œSo?” Xena asked.
    Xander ignored her. “Clue: Little kids don't look especially boyish or girlish. Flower petalsaround the head of even a very masculine little boy make him look like a little girl.”
    â€œVery masculine?” Xena hooted.
    â€œShut up,” Xander said and kept writing. “Deduction: The model for the painting wasn't necessarily a girl.”
    â€œAh,” Xena said. She saw where he was going and it made sense.
    â€œClue.” Xander paused, then wrote, “All of Nigel Batheson's children were boys. He was very shy and didn't talk to people outside his family. He would never have had a stranger pose for him, even a kid.”
    Xander put down his pen and leaned back. “When you have excluded the impossible,” he said, quoting Sherlock Holmes, “whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” He locked eyes with his sister.
    â€œThe girl in the purple hat,” Xena said slowly, “was a boy?”
    Xander nodded. He wrote in the Deduction column “The model was either Abner, Cedric, or Robert Batheson!” He sat back.
    Xena pulled out the newspaper clipping about the Batheson exhibit from her desk. She and her brother studied the copy of Girl in a Purple Hat . True, they couldn't tell for sure from just theface. The green eyes could belong to either a boy or a girl, and so could the rosy cheeks and the pouting mouth. But the model appeared uncomfortable. Was the dress scratchy, like Sarah's? Or was it because the model was a boy who didn't want to wear a dress?
    â€œI think the real clue,” Xena said slowly, “is in the expression. If most portraits from that time make children look”—she consulted the clipping again—“look overly sweet, why did Batheson make this one look as grumpy as you did when Dad told you that you couldn't quit the soccer team?”
    Xander ignored her. “The problem is, this doesn't really help us figure out where the painting is. Even if the model was one of the Batheson boys, so what? We don't have any more clues that will help us find the painting in time for the art opening tomorrow.”
    â€œThat doesn't mean we should give up,” Xena said. “We're on to something, Xander! When we go to the opening we're bound to see some of his descendants. I'm sure we'll find more clues there.”
    â€œWhat do you wear to an art opening anyway?” Xander asked.
    â€œBlack,” Xena said promptly. “Whenever yousee people on TV at something like this, they're always wearing black.”
    Xena had tried on everything in her closet before finally settling on a pair of black jeans and a matching turtleneck. Now, as they waited to get into the Victoria and Albert Museum, their parents were chatting with a woman who had tattoos on both arms and a man with so many piercings in his ears, nose, lips, and eyebrows that he looked like a porcupine. I guess it doesn't matter what you wear to these things, Xena thought.
    Xena and Xander checked their coats, then wandered around admiring the paintings and trying not to stare at the blank space on the wall representing the missing Girl in a Purple Hat .
    Xander nudged Xena and pointed at something in the brochure. “It says that the artist made the frames himself out of wood and then they were covered in gold leaf—really thin sheets of gold. That's so cool!”
    Xena wasn't