Extraordinary Circumstances: 1 The League of Red-Eyed Gentlemen

by Stephen B5 Jones

usually be locked?” Mr. Scrimm asked.

  “Yes,” Miss Sonya said. “This is my potting area. It is always locked when I’m not using it.”

  Hanich looked at the outside of the door. It was a large door, heavy wood painted green. The fixtures were burnished brass, the handle was worn smooth by the touch of many hands and there were fine lines around the opening for the key, lines which were brighter than the rest of the metal.

  “Scratches around the lock,” he said to Mr. Scrimm. Hanich had heard the kids at school saying that even the best lock picks could not enter a door without leaving scratches.

  Hanich entered the courtyard slowly. It was a rectangular area with a dirt floor which may have once been used for a garden. The shop surrounded the courtyard on two sides, and a two story brick building on the other side. There were no windows. To the back was a wall of bedrock which had once been buried in the side of a hill.

  Near the middle of the courtyard was a potter's wheel along with a stool for Miss Sonya to sit on as she worked. The wheel was accompanied on two sides by work tables which contained four pots in various stages of completion. Behind one of the tables, up next to the wall of bedrock, was a trash heap comprised of broken pots, a black bag and a few empty bottles which once contained paint.

  “The front door remained locked,” Hanich said. “This door was picked from inside the courtyard. The thief entered from here. I don't know if it means anything, but the theft coincides with the time the airship would be right overhead. I remember hearing it as we were serving dinner.”

  “When does the airship fly over?” Mr. Scrimm asked.

  “The evening flight lands at the Academia depot at six and a half,” Mr. Bert said. “And it leaves for Downtown Tower at seven and a half. Mr. Green tells me there are no scratches around the lock on the front door.”

  “Could the thief have entered from above?” Mr. Scrimm asked as he looked up past the walls surrounding the courtyard into the night sky.

  “They couldn’t have climbed it,” Hanich said pointing up. “The wood on the eaves would show the marks if they used ropes. They would need ropes, the walls are too smooth.”

  “They jumped in using a parachute?” Miss Sonya asked. “Or some kind of harness?”

  “Or what they did was loud enough that it needed to be covered by the sound of airship engines,” Mr. Scrimm said. “We must consider all possibilities.”

  “Even if they somehow got in, how could they get out?” Hanich said. He wasn’t seeing any possibilities. They could not have locked the front door behind them without a key, and there was no way for anyone to have gotten out of the courtyard of Miss Sonya’s teapot shop.

  Mr. Scrimm looked down at him, then put his hands on Hanich’s shoulders.

  “Question your presuppositions,” Mr. Scrimm said.

  Hanich took a deep breath and looked around again, asking himself what he was presupposing.

  “There are some animals who can climb almost anything,” Hanich offered. “Maybe someone trained one to steal the teapots.”

  “Keep trying Hanich,” Mr. Scrimm said. “If you do not have good guesses, look for more information.”

  “He'd have to walk through walls to get in,” Mr. Green said. “Or out. Maybe our thief is a spirit.”

  Hanich had been looking around the room, trying to see if there was a reason the room was unlocked. The trained animal idea was not a good one, but the spirit idea was worse. If someone could walk through walls they would have no need to pick the lock on the inside courtyard. On the other hand, picking a lock would be easier if one could remain unseen. It would be a good way to gain entrance into the teapot shop, if one could only find a way to get into the courtyard without attracting attention.

  Hanich decided to look around the courtyard again, perhaps there was something he missed. He found what he was looking for when he looked behind the workbench.

  “If they came at the same time as the airship,” Hanich said. “They may well be back in a few minutes.”

  “Why would a thief come back?” Mr. Green asked.

  Hanich reached around the workbench and picked up a large black bag. It had been placed in the trash heap. Hanich had noticed it earlier, but it took a few minutes for him to realize why the bag attracted his attention.

  “Is this your bag Miss Sonya?” Hanich asked, holding it up.

  “No,” Miss Sonya said. “I do not have a bag like that.”

  Mr. Scrimm took the bag and opened it.

  “I believe these are your pots,” he said, pulling one of the pots out and handing it to Miss Sonya.

  “Some of them,” she said, looking into the bag and carefully taking the pots out.

  “A third of them if I counted right,” Hanich said. “Why would someone collect all of the pots, but not take all of the pots with them when they departed?”

  “Perhaps they could only carry so much at a time,” Mr. Scrimm said. “Whatever mechanism they are using to enter this shop is limited by weight, and they have not returned for the rest by this point, which indicates some sort of time constraint. So, Mr. Hanich, we should be prepared in case we are right about the thief returning for the rest of the teapots.”

  The Ghost Thief

  The courtyard was quiet, and mostly dark. The only light was reflected from the streetlamps on the other side of the building.

  The distant thrum of the airship engines sounded from overhead. It was lit from the inside, lending an eerie light to the neighborhood.

  The men and Hanich had taken various places around the courtyard, and in the front of the store. Once he had time to think, Hanich had to wonder at the theory attributed to him. The more he thought of it, the more he realized it was really Mr. Scrimm’s theory-- he had only observed and made a few guesses.

  In the distance there was a sound like a large bird flapping overhead. Hanich looked up to see a shape backlit by the airship above. It looked like a rather large bat, but it resolved into a young man with light-colored hair. On his back was an engine, puffing away as it flapped the two large wings attached to the framework. The wings were dark, and if not for the illuminated airship above, they would have been impossible to locate on a moonless night.

  The thief settled down in the courtyard and looked around. The wings folded in to his side as the engine on his back idled. He was young and unusually thin. He wore knee length breeches and a gilded waistcoat. Seeing nothing about, he walked up behind the bench and picked up the large black bag.

  “That will be far enough,” Mr Scrimm said. “I think Miss Sonya would rather you buy her wares than steal them.”

  The young man crouched down as he looked around. He was suddenly surrounded by men wearing glasses that glowed purple. He looked at Mr. Scrimm, the one who had spoken, and grinned in mirth.

  “But I would rather steal them than buy them,” the thief said with an enunciation defined more by affluence than geography. He jumped up into the air, his wings started flapping, carrying him upward toward the airship.

  Four of the men looked up and took off their glasses, bathing the the courtyard in a bright red glow. They were staring up at the young man as he flew away, illuminating him as well. Hanich wondered why they were doing such a thing and was about to ask when suddenly the thief’s wings burst into flames. He flapped ineffectively, trying to regain control as his wings disintegrated, and then fluttered down onto the street in the front of the teapot shop.

  By the time they had run through the building the man was in the middle of the street, the frames of his wings still attached to his dented and dinged engine. He was surrounded on three sides by red-eyed men.

  “He landed on the engine professor,” one of the men said. “He's banged up, but none the worse for wear.”

  “We’ll take him to the Constables,” Mr. Green said. “They’ll know what to do with him.”

  “Too bad I had to break those,” the thief indicated the bag, lyi
ng on the street. “And you’ll not be getting your other pots back.”

  “You broke nothing,” Miss Sonya said, standing up to her full stature. “…Except for a good share of flawed pots which would have been tossed away in the morning.”

  Mr. Scrimm leaned down and touched some powder which was on the sleeve of the young man's jacket. He peered at it as he rubbed it between his fingers and then wiped it off on his sleeve.

  “I believe we'll find the rest of the teapots in the steerage area of the airship,” Mr. Scrimm said. “I’m sure the Constables can arrange to have someone there when it docks at Downtown Tower. Is there anything else you wanted to say?”

  The thief sputtered and said something unintelligible as the red-eyed men took him up the street toward the constabulary.