Who's sorry now?

holes. Some people know they don’t get things that the snoops would be interested in, so they wouldn’t even have to buy a combination lock.”
    ”Brilliant!” Robert exclaimed. ”Now, how and where will Mr. McBride sort the mail?”
    Harry rolled his eyes at this question. ”Robert, think about this. The inside of that station is huge. It was built around the turn of the century when Voorburg had a much bigger population. There was even a hotel my dad told us about, for wives and children. The husbands came on the weekends.”
    Robert said, ”So?”
    Patiently Harry explained. ”There is plenty of space to set the box thing out into the room with a sorting room behind it. I’ve measured how much scrap wood I have, and I can make two hundred boxes that are four inches wide, four inches high, and nine inches deep. They’ll be open at the back, and I’ll build a long skinny table that can be used to sort the mail by box number. Same as the number on the front of the box.”
    This time Robert actually slapped his head. ”I guess there’s a door to this back room?”
    Harry was getting frustrated. ”Did you think Mr. McBride could crawl in through a letter box?”
    ”But, Harry, we don’t know how many people there are in Voorburg. Will two hundred boxes be enough?”
    ”They’ll have to be enough. When they’re done, McBride can sell lottery tickets for them. Twenty-five cents each ticket. That will help fund his payment, and if the town council coughs up the initial cost, McBride could pay back a dime for each ticket. And I assume you’re expecting people who have the winning numbers to also pay some small amount a year to use them. That’s how you could reimburse the costs—if the town council agrees to funding the plan. Half to McBride, half until the city is paid back.”
    ”Of course,” Robert said as if he’d already thought of this. He hadn’t. And suspected Harry knew it.
    ”You don’t happen to know what became of my can of red paint, do you?” Harry asked.
    ”I didn’t even know you had one,” Robert replied.
    ”Mrs. White wanted a little chest painted red for her adopted girls. I had it almost finished and my paint and best brush disappeared.”
    Robert said, ”I’ll keep an eye out for anyone painting something red. Thanks for your advice about the mail.”
    Later on Monday, Robert learned how the stolen can of paint had been used. He’d decided to drop in at Mr. Kurtz’s new shop to find out how business was going so far. He was shocked when he saw Mr. Kurtz and his granddaughter scraping a red swastika off the front window of the tailor shop with razor blades. ”Wait!” Robert exclaimed. ”Have you called the chief of police about this? He needs to know. Look here,” he pointed at a faint blob of extra paint. ”It’s a fingerprint. Don’t scrape it off until Chief Walker sees it.”
    Mr. Kurtz objected. His face was pale and frantic. ”How could someone think I was a Nazi? I came halfway around the world to escape them.”
    ”You need to sit down inside and wait until I call Chief Walker.”
    ”Grandpa, Mr. Brewster is right.”
    ”I don’t want anyone else seeing this,” he said firmly, going back to scraping.
    ”Then leave that fingerprint where it is,” Robert said, pointing it out to Mr. Kurtz again.
    Chief Walker arrived in ten minutes. ”I don’t know how to remove a painted fingerprint and keep it intact. I’m going to have to call in an expert to lift it where it is.”
    He went inside to call for help while Mr. Kurtz kept scraping at the swastika. His granddaughter came inside and so did Robert.
    ”Sit down and keep an eye on your grandfather so he doesn’t scrape off the fingerprint and I’ll make us some coffee,” Robert said, wondering how much coffee he’d need, having never made it himself. ”Or maybe we should do it the other way?” he asked Mrs. Smithson.
    ”You don’t know how to make coffee, right?” Mrs. Smithson said with a knowing smile.
    ”Unfortunately not. Has your grandfather had customers yet?”
    ”Yes. Mrs. White came in with some of her little girls’ dresses to have the hems let down. She said she’d taken one of her dresses that needed taking in to the tailor in Cold Spring, and he was rude. Not only that, he did a very bad job. She was sure my grandfather would do a better job. She’s such a nice woman, and I’ve never heard her complain. But she was bitter about the other tailor. She’d bought a dress