The Eye of the Serpent

by Simon Cheshire

  ‘Go and sit down,’ I said quietly. ‘Show me exactly.’

  He walked over to a black leather padded bench about ten metres away and sat at one end of it. I shut one eye, held out one arm like an arrow, and did a sweep from left to right, keeping my feet absolutely still.

  ‘From here,’ I called to James, ‘I can see you, at the edge of that bench and I can see that door over there, with Staff Only on it —’

  ‘That’s the office,’ said James.

  ‘And that’s all. Everywhere else, from this spot, there’s a display of some kind within a couple of metres.’ I tried to imagine myself in various parts of the room, facing in the direction of the spot on which I was now standing. A chilling possibility had popped into my head!

  Remembering what James had just told me about those display stands, I now realised that one of the three questions I’d asked him yesterday – one of those three questions relating to the guests – was totally irrelevant.

  This statuette, The Eye of the Serpent, was a top exhibit here, and yet . . .

  Have you worked out what was going through my mind?

  These displays,’ I said, carefully, ‘can be placed anywhere, and yet they’ve been placed in such a way that the exhibition’s most valuable piece can’t be seen from most places in the room.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ said James, trotting back from the bench and looking away from the alcove as I’d just done. That’s a bad bit of floor-planning. You’ve got to be right in front of it before you can see it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said quietly. ‘I asked you yesterday if any of the guests had seen the statuette vanish. Now I can see that it would have been impossible to see the statuette vanish unless you were sitting right there, on that bench, or standing right there, by that office door. Or, of course, standing right here in front of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said James. That really is bad floor-planning. Pity, when all the displays look so good.’

  ‘You’re missing my point,’ I said, in a low voice. ‘If all these displays can be placed anywhere, then there’s the distinct possibility that they were deliberately placed to hide the statuette from most of the room. A perfect situation if you wanted to steal it with minimum risk of being seen.’

  James frowned and shook his head. ‘No, no, surely that would mean . . .’

  If this possibility turned out to be correct, then there were clear deductions to be made. Deductions about the guests and about the person who committed the crime. I could even name my Suspect No 1!

  Have you worked out what I was thinking?

  If the displays had been positioned to deliberately hide the statuette, this would imply that the crime was committed by someone on the staff of the gallery. Why? Because they were the only ones who’d have access to the displays, and could have moved them. All the guests could therefore be taken off my list of suspects.

  ‘But perhaps one of the guests quietly moved a couple of the displays?’ said James. ‘Perhaps they spotted that there was a way to conceal the theft from view?’

  ‘Not with that brand new, high-power laser beam security net in place,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ said James, ‘but I thought you said that the alarm system must have been turned off, or disabled somehow? Otherwise the theft was impossible?’

  I thought for a moment, my mouth twisting and wriggling into a series of ‘hmmmm’ and ‘let’s see now’ poses. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘A guest couldn’t start moving displays around, not without drawing a lot of attention to themselves! I’m sure you’d have noticed them, for a start.’

  ‘True,’ shrugged James.

  ‘Which means that my Suspect No 1 has to be —’

  ‘Davina,’ said James. ‘Because she designed the exhibition, and was therefore in the best position to place the displays in a way which would suit the thief.’

  ‘Correct,’ I said.

  James shifted about uncomfortably. ‘But I find it hard to believe it was Davina. She’s so nice.’

  ‘Nice doesn’t mean innocent,’ I said sadly. ‘I’ve dealt with cases in which there were some highly unlikely culprits. Anyway we can’t say she did do it. We have no proof. There’s plenty more investigating to be done. She’s simply at the top of the list of suspects.’

  Kla-klump!

  The door to the office whumped shut and I turned to see a smartly-dressed man heading towards us. His face was deeply lined, with a bulbous nose and eyes which reminded me of a rodent. His hair was grey cut into a short, spiky style, and he wore glasses with small, round lenses in a bright orange frame. He walked in a kind of skip-shuffle, which gave the impression he was permanently bursting for a wee. James explained that this was Morris Pettibone, the manager of the gallery.

  ‘James, James, James,’ called Mr Pettibone, ‘Davina said you were here. Please get the seating set out as soon as possible, thank you, thank you.’ His voice was low and drawling, as if it wanted to have a lie-down in a darkened room.

  As he skipped up to us, he suddenly appeared to notice me for the first time. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Hi, Mr Pettibone, this is my friend Saxby’ said James.

  ‘He’s a what?’ said Mr Pettibone, blinking at me.

  ‘My name’s Saxby,’ I said. ‘Saxby Smart.’

  His head twitched as if something in his brain had just given his memory a slap. ‘Ah yes, James’s father has told me about you, the boy who thinks he’s a detective, am I right, am I right?’

  ‘You couldn’t be more right-er!’ I said with a smile.

  Mr Pettibone glared at me for a moment or two. ‘Are you here to help out with the seating too?’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m here to help out with investigating last night’s robbery,’ I said. ‘Could I ask you some questions?’

  He glared at me a little more. ‘No, you may not. Your help will not be needed – I’m only interested in the services of professionals, not under-aged amateur sleuths.’ He said the word ‘professionals’ very slowly and deliberately, leaning forward slightly as he did so. ‘This is a very grave matter, not the sort of thing that can be left in the hands of a schoolboy’ he said. ‘It is an inquiry into a serious crime, not some playground game. Now unless you’re willing to help out with the seating I’d like you to leave. We are very busy today, as I’m sure you can appreciate.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ I said, smiling sweetly at him. ‘Why don’t I forget about the detective work and help out with the seating instead?’

  He eyed me like an eagle eyeing up some prey it thinks might explode and blow its beak off. But then, all of a sudden, his gaze seemed to soften. He shook his head, ran a hand across his stubbly chin and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

  ‘Thank you very much, thank you,’ he said. ‘I do apologise if I seem short-tempered today, young man, my patience is stretched to its outer limit, the strain and anxiety of this awful business has deprived me both of sleep and of my manners, you’ll forgive my rudeness – awful business, awful business.’

  ‘Oh, so can I get on with the detective work after all?’ I chirped.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Help James with the seating. I mean it – leave the detective work to the police, or my temper will boil over, absolutely boil over.’

  He turned and skip-shuffled away towards the entrance to the exhibition room, rapidly checking the displays to either side of him as he went. (It suddenly occurred to me that those glasses of his were even more hideous than the ones I’d borrowed from Muddy!)

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘what’s this seating for?’

  ‘I told you this morning,’ said James, ‘Mr Pettibone is holding a press conference. He’s got the police bloke in charge of the investigation coming, plus a load of reporters, plus people from the TV and radio.’

  ‘And he’s organised all this since the robbery last night?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said James. ‘He had Davina phoning people this morning while I was visiting you in your shed.’

  We lef
t the exhibition room and headed through a maze of creaking hallways and dusty galleries, James leading the way. We collected a large wheelie-trolley of stacked-up plastic chairs from the small loading bay at the rear of the building, and heaved it all the way back to the Art Deco Experience, its left-side wheels turning in a slow, lopsided wobble.

  By the time we got back, Mr Pettibone was pacing to and fro beside the glass door, picking nervously at his fingernails and checking his watch every few seconds.

  ‘Ah, there you are boys, chairs in three semi-circular rows in front of the table please, chop-chop, no time to lose, where’s Davina got to, where is that girl, where is she, where’s Davina?’

  Davina appeared from the direction of the office, her high-heeled shoes clop-clicking on the tiled floor like a startled pony. She held a bulging folder in one hand and balanced a tall mug of tea in the other.

  ‘Did you immerse the teabag for no more than seven seconds?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Pettibone,’ said Davina, out of breath.

  ‘No milk, one and one-fifth sugars?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Pettibone.’

  ‘Place the information hand-outs about the stolen item where the reporters can find them easily, make sure there is clear access for the television crews —’

  ‘Yes, Mr Pettibone.’

  ‘And for goodness’ sake do something about the Art Nouveau to Art Deco display, the heading is still one centimetre too low, please correct it, must I do everything myself around here?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Pettibone. I mean, no, Mr Pettibone.’

  ‘Well, come along all of you, get a move on, the press will be here any second, any second now.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Pettibone,’ we all said together.

  James and I set out the chairs. Davina set the mug of tea down on the table she’d already placed in front of the huge Welcome to the Art Deco Experience sign that hung close to the entrance to the exhibition room. On the table was a crisp, clean white tablecloth, and behind the table were two chairs, one for Mr Pettibone, and one for:

  ‘Inspector Godalming, welcome, welcome, do sit here,’ said Mr Pettibone.

  A short, uniformed police inspector had arrived. He nodded a greeting to Mr Pettibone and took his seat behind the table. Inspector Godalming had a face which seemed to be specially designed for scowling, and he moved in a quick, clipped way, like an oversized bird on the lookout for tasty worms.

  ‘Let’sh hope thish presh conferensh resultsh in shome promishing leads, Mr Pettibone,’ he said. He clearly had a set of badly-fitting false teeth, too. I tried not to giggle.

  ‘Indeed Inspector indeed,’ sighed Mr Pettibone, dabbing a handkerchief to his forehead. ‘I have had not one moment’s rest since last night, not one moment, one single moment, my nerves are flayed, torn, broken, devastated.’

  He took his seat next to the Inspector. By now small groups of media people were arriving too. Some of them had notebooks, some had microphones and some had cameras, but all of them looked eager to find out more about the robbery. They plonked themselves down on the plastic chairs we’d set out and chatted quietly to each other.

  However, at that moment my attention was on Davina. She was standing to one side of the table watching Mr Pettibone sip his tea. The sour look on her face might simply have been indigestion. However, it seemed more likely that she was thinking: I hate you so much, Pettibone, that one day I’m going to poison your tea, chop you into little bits and then dance on your grave singing a merry tune, you pompous, weird-looking, hideous-spectacled twerp. Something like that.

  It was time for me to investigate my Suspect No 1 a little more closely . . .

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THANK YOU for coming here this afternoon,’ announced Mr Pettibone. In front of him cameras watched, microphones listened, and notebooks got scribbled in. ‘Last night a serious crime was committed in this very room, the theft of an extremely rare and valuable masterpiece entitled the Eye of the Serpent, one of the few surviving pieces by Enid Bottomby, almost the greatest artist of the twentieth century. I, Morris Pettibone, manager of this beautiful and important new gallery, have called you all here today for one simple reason, that reason being that we are launching a national campaign to find this stolen treasure and restore it to pride of place in our wonderful exhibition, the Art Deco Experience. I will now hand you over to Inspector Godalming, who will give you the horrific details of yesterday evening’s events.’

  Inspector Godalming cleared his throat noisily. ‘H’I am the poleesh h’offisher leading thish h’inveshtigation. . .’ he began. (I really must write his words without the whistling false teeth – I’m having trouble working out the spelling! Just take the whistling as read . . .)

  James tapped me on the shoulder and indicated for us to retreat to the office. ‘I think we’ll have heard all this before,’ he whispered.

  I nodded and followed him. The office was a large, plain-looking room, with a narrow window on one side and a load of filing cabinets on the other.

  However, what got my attention first of all was the wide, curving desk. It took up about a quarter of the space and it was bristling with the very latest in high-tech computer gear. None of it was switched on at the moment but it looked like the sort of set up that would glow around the edges when you booted it up, probably in a nice shade of blue. It looked like it would hum quietly and smugly to itself every time someone typed at its elegantly sculptured keyboard. This was the sort of computer gear that you just couldn’t help but go ‘Oooo’ over.

  ‘Oooo,’ I said. ‘I bet Muddy would love to get his mitts on this little lot.’

  ‘Snazzy, isn’t it?’ said James. ‘Nobody is allowed to touch it without Mr Pettibone’s permission. In writing.’

  ‘Why does an art gallery need stuff like this?’ I asked, admiring the way that the whole thing was connected wirelessly, so that no leads or cables were left dangling about like a pot of spilled noodles.

  ‘Davina uses it a lot,’ said James. ‘You see that long box-thing there, the one that looks a bit like a giant paper shredder? That’s a high-resolution printer. All the signs and labels for the whole building are printed on it. The blown-up photos and display boards out there in the Art Deco exhibition were done on it, too. It’ll print on anything from ordinary paper to huge sheets of thick, glossy card. This whole kit cost a fortune, but when you can do all those labels and displays right in the office it actually saves a lot of time and money in the long run. My dad’s done some signs for our museum on this gear, actually.’

  ‘Oooo,’ I said.

  As I looked around, I noticed another door, half blocked by one edge of the desk.

  ‘Where does that go?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s an old walk-in cupboard. I don’t think it’s ever used.’

  Out of curiosity, I turned the doorknob and peered inside. It was completely empty, dark and windowless and so small that the door bumped against the opposite wall. The floor was evenly layered with a thick film of dust, and there was an odd smell in the air. A sort of clean, bathroomy smell I couldn’t quite place.

  ‘D’you want a drink?’ asked James. ‘I’m afraid they only have coffee, fizzy bottled water, or Mr Pettibone’s herbal-tea-with-a-strange-name.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll have a fizzy water,’ I said, closing the door to the tiny storage room and having a bounce on one of the office’s posh swivel chairs. ‘Umm, I don’t suppose they’ve got any chocolate biscuits?’ I added innocently.

  James hunted amongst the bottles and packets on top of the filing cabinets. ‘No, but they’ve got some spongy cake things with jam in.’

  ‘Oooo.’

  James pointed out a keypad attached to the wall, with an LED screen above it blinking the word Armed in red letters. ‘That’s the alarm system. You turn it on and off with a four-digit combination. It’s still set at its default: 1-2-3-4 – they’ve been too busy to change it.’

  While we were sipping our fizzy w
ater and gobbling down our spongy cake things with jam in, I noticed a small glass vase sitting at the back of the desk, beside the wall. I frowned slightly. What was that odd, rectangular background it was standing against? Was that some sort of frame around it?

  I reached out to touch it. My fingers knocked against something hard and hollow-sounding. With a smile, I realised it was just a photo stuck on to a piece of light board, a bit like polystyrene.

  ‘I told you,’ said James, ‘that printer does brilliantly high resolution —’ He stopped and suddenly grinned. ‘Hey, wait a minute, you thought that was a real vase, didn’t you!’

  ‘No!’ I said, going a bit red.

  ‘That’s a cut-out left over from the exhibition,’ said James.

  ‘Yeah, I knew that,’ I said hurriedly.

  Luckily, I was saved from further embarrassment by the interruption of Davina, k-klopping into the office. She flashed us a sunny smile and thudded the box of leaflets she was carrying down on to the desk.

  ‘Now then,’ she gasped, ‘where are those exhibition catalogues from last night? Mr Pettibone wants them available in case any of the reporters want to . . . Ah! There they are!’

  She scooped up a pile of them, flashed us another sunny smile and k-klopped back to the press conference. As the office door opened and shut we could hear Inspector Godalming saying that the theft of the shtatuette wassh a total myshtery I picked up one of the catalogues. It was printed on to beautifully smooth card with pictures of all the exhibits shown next to detailed descriptions of them. It was also unusually large: there were only four pages to it, but these pages were the size of a small poster!

  ‘Done on this whizzy printer?’ I asked.

  James nodded.

  ‘But why is it so big?’ I said. ‘Surely last night’s guests would have had trouble reading it and balancing their wine and celery nibbles at the same time?’

  ‘Oh, you know these arty-farty types,’ mumbled James, through a mouthful of spongy cake thing with jam in it. ‘Doesn’t matter if you can use it or not, it’s got to look right.’