“Barred?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Ed, eyeing his brother moodily. “Ever since I let him borrow one of my 1960s Fantastic Fours and he got jelly all over it.”
Charlie stuck his tongue out at Ed. (Actually, no, he didn’t do that. Actually, he said a short sentence which included the words “complete” and “you,” and which I shouldn’t repeat here!)
“Can I see the crime scene now?” I said quickly.
We went downstairs. The safe was recessed in the wall of the living room and concealed behind a painting that swung out on hinges like a door. The rest of the room was just an ordinary living room: sofa, a couple of chairs, TV in the corner.
The safe had a standard combination lock, a big dial in the middle of the door that you turned back and forth to line up with a series of numbers. Ed opened it, standing close to the dial so that nobody could get the combination by watching him. All that was inside was a small pile of papers.
“That’s all Dad’s,” said Ed. “Stuff about the house, insurance, and so on.”
“And the comic was propped up at the back there?”
“Yup.”
“In full view, so you’d know right away it was gone?”
“Yup.”
“No way it could slip out of sight, or get mixed up with those papers?”
“Nope.”
I remembered my earlier deduction, put forth in Chapter Two: if the safe hadn’t been broken into, then the thief had to be someone who knew the combination.
I asked Ed where the combination was kept. He tapped the side of his head. “In here,” he said. “There’s only me, Mom, and Dad who know it. None of us have it written down. None of us have ever told anyone else what it is.”
“I don’t know the combination,” said Charlie. “They won’t even tell me what it is. I’ve never opened that safe in my whole life.”
At that point, I have to admit I was out of ideas. The theft of the comic book seemed almost impossible. So only those three people could have opened the safe?
Suddenly, I wasn’t out of ideas anymore! If the thief didn’t break into the safe, and the thief couldn’t open the safe (assuming, of course, that neither Ed nor his parents were the thief!), then there could be one—and only one—way the thief could have struck.
Can you see what it is?
The thief could only have struck when the safe was already open.
“This Rippa guy,” I said. “Was he here in the room when you opened the safe to show him the comic?”
“Yeah,” said Ed.
“Aha!” I cried.
Ed waved his hands around. “Hang on, hang on! I wondered about that too. But the comic was here when he left. Under lock and key, back in the safe. I put it there myself.”
“Was Rippa left alone with the comic?” I asked.
“Only for a couple of minutes,” said Ed. “I’d just finished showing him the pages. I’d put it back in its case, and the doorbell rang. As soon as I came back into the room, I realized what I’d done—I’d left the comic unattended! But Rippa was sitting over there, flipping through some magazines he’d brought along. The comic was untouched. Safe in its case. He had not stolen it.”
I sat on the sofa. “Hmm, yes. You’d have to be a pretty stupid and desperate thief to try to snatch that comic right up from under your nose.”
“Exactly,” said Ed. “Even if he’d thought about stealing it, he couldn’t possibly have done it.”
“Hmm,” I said again. “Well, someone ‘done it.’”
I thanked Ed for the milk, took another chocolate cookie for the journey home (“Ooh, thanks, don’t mind if I do!”), and headed for the bus stop.
Once I was back in my shed, I sank into my Thinking Chair to mull over the facts. Then I stood up, pulled a piece of that wretched super-tough, heavy-duty tape off the back of my pants, and sank into my Thinking Chair again.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sign over the shop said Comix Nirvana in big bubbly letters, with We Buy, Sell, X-change in smaller bubbly letters underneath. Below the sign, on a handwritten sheet taped to the store window, was No Time Wasters! (I assumed this meant “serious collectors only,” rather than being some sort of sci-fi warning that they were out of stock of something called Time Wasters. But I couldn’t be sure.)
The store was tucked away at the far end of Church Street, just outside the center of town. Across from it, and about a quarter mile up the road, was La Pizzeria, the restaurant where Ed Foster worked as a chef.
As soon as I entered Comix Nirvana, I got the distinct feeling I was being watched. And I don’t mean that they had security cameras. Behind the counter, perched on a high stool and flipping through a gaming magazine, was Rippa. His beady eyes followed me as I strolled around the store, pretending to browse but keeping an eye out for clues.
It was a small shop, no bigger than my classroom. Shelves of action-packed covers stretched from floor to ceiling, right around the walls. The ceiling itself was papered over with old movie posters, announcing that It Came from Space and The Astro-Zombies Have Arrived. Beside the counter was a huge wooden display case raised up on thick legs, divided into sections. Inside each section were some of the same kinds of plastic sleeves that Ed used, containing comics with covers that were slightly wrinkled and faded.
“These are your old comics?” I asked innocently. “The really collectible ones?”
Rippa nodded. He seemed to be in his early twenties, was thin with gelled-back hair, and wore a creased white collared shirt with a loosely knotted tie. Ed had told me that his real name was Tarquin, and that anyone who called him Tarquin had something thrown at them.
“You buying?” he said.
“Yes, I might be,” I said brightly. “My sweet old grandma has given me a huge wad of birthday cash, and I thought I’d invest in some vintage comics.”
“Wise move,” said Rippa with a smile that made me think of cold gravy. (I really don’t like cold gravy.)
My mission at Comix Nirvana was twofold: 1) to observe Rippa in his natural habitat, and 2) to see what useful information I could gather. My investigations would hit a dead end, and fast, if I couldn’t establish more facts about the suspects.
“Anything in particular you looking for?” said Rippa. He pointed to the wooden box. “Lots of rare items in there.”
The shelves around the walls were crammed, overflowing even, but this case had plenty of space in it. I wasn’t sure what that might mean: had there been a sudden craze for vintage comics? Or was Rippa simply not that good at keeping old issues in stock? I casually leafed through the case.
“How about those Purple Avengers there?” said Rippa. “I’ve got every one from Issue 10 to 25. Worth twenty-five bucks each because of their age, but I can let you have them for twenty apiece.”
“Mmm, no,” I said, alert as ever. “I’m not really a Purple Avenger fan.” (This was perfectly true—for more on this, see my earlier case file, The Mark of the Purple Homework!)
“See that one there?” asked Rippa. “That’s it, the issue of Mars Robot Rampage. You can take it out of its sleeve and have a look if you like. Printed in 1938, that was. Nobody’s got a complete set of those, not anywhere in the world. I’ve got only the one issue, so I’m selling it cheap—just sixty dollars.”
I took out the comic and flipped through it. Giant machines with laser guns for eyes zapped up at me from the smooth, brightly printed pages. Destroy All Earthlings!; Run, Penelope—we don’t stand a chance!
That settled it. This short conversation had given me proof that Rippa was a crook, or at least that he was willing to rip off his customers. In fact, I now had two very specific examples of how happy Rippa was to engage in some shady dealings.
Thinking back on my meeting with Ed Foster, can you deduce what these two examples were?
Proof #1: Those issues of The Purple Avenger weren’t worth anything like twenty dollars each, as Ed had explained to me.
Proof #2: If that iss
ue of Mars Robot Rampage really was printed in 1938, it should have been in a very delicate, crumbling state. No collector would ever let someone handle it so casually! Rippa was clearly lying about its age.
“Mmm, I think I’ll leave it for now,” I said.
“Don’t leave it for long,” said Rippa. “You won’t get offers like that from other dealers.”
“That’s very true,” I said, nodding wisely.
I headed for the street, but then paused with the door ajar. “By the way,” I said, “do you have the latest issue of Time Wasters?”
“What?” grunted Rippa. “No, I don’t! Can’t you see the sign in the window?”
CHAPTER FIVE
I went to see Izzy, Queen of All Info. Her room was looking particularly fluffy, sparkly, and other girly adjectives. The chunky rings on her fingers caught the light from the disco ball attached to the ceiling.
She set her laptop to Sleep and spun around in her swivel chair to face me. She consulted a stack of printouts to recheck her facts.
“Okay, two things,” she said. “First, this Rippa character is perfectly willing to get involved in some shady dealings.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that too,” I said. “What did you find out?”
“A couple of years ago he was caught trying to pass off a facsimile edition as the real thing.”
“A simmy-what?” I said.
“A facsimile,” said Izzy. “Now and then, comics companies will republish a particularly famous or popular old comic. Same interiors, same cover, and so on. These facsimile editions are just casual collectors’ items really, to give you the look and feel of an old comic without actually having to fork over the money for the real thing.”
“That sounds a little sneaky,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“Oh, there’s nothing crooked about it,” said Izzy. “These facsimiles are clearly sold as ‘not the real thing.’ They’re very popular with comics fans.”
“And Rippa tried to sell one as though it were old and valuable.”
“Right,” said Izzy. “If you know nothing about comics, it’s juuust possible that someone like Rippa could fool you into thinking you were buying the real thing. Anyway, he got found out at the last minute. He claimed it was a mistake. Which, to be fair, it might have been. But there are some dealers who still won’t trade with him.”
“Hmm,” I pondered. “Too bad Ed Foster isn’t one of them. Anything else on Rippa?”
“I checked the auction Web sites; there are several specific trading sites where comics dealers do business. One thing’s for sure: Rippa has never sold, or bought, a single copy of The Tomb of Death. Not any issue, not ever.”
“That’s definite?”
“Absolutely. And by the way, his real name is—”
“Tarquin, yes, I know. I’ve been trying to think of a way to see if he really does throw something at you if you call him that.”
Izzy dropped her pile of printouts back on her desk. “You know, Saxby, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with Rippa. Considering the scene of the crime, and what happened, I don’t see how he could possibly have stolen that comic. Besides, he knows he’s got a bad reputation, he knows he’d be Suspect Number One in a case like this. He’d be a fool to try something.”
“I dunno,” I muttered. I suddenly remembered that wooden display case in Rippa’s shop. I’d wondered why it seemed half empty. And now, a specific question came to mind: “Has Rippa been selling off a lot of his stock lately?”
Izzy flipped back through her printouts. “He’s sold tons of stuff in the past couple of months, yes. And by the looks of it, he hasn’t bought very much.”
“Hmm…”
“I still think there are better suspects out there,” said Izzy. “What about Ed’s dad, for example? He had easy access to the safe.”
I snapped my fingers. “Aha! He owns a store! He could be in debt…he could have all kinds of money problems!”
“I’m way ahead of you,” said Izzy quietly, with a smug smile, picking out a page from the pile of her printouts. “I’ve already checked.”
“Aha!” I cried. “What a fool I was, not to notice it at once! Ed’s dad is in financial trouble! He sees the comic in the safe! He spots a way to clear his debt! He takes the comic! He sells it! Suddenly, his money worries are over! Am I right? Am I right?!”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“His dad’s store is doing really well, actually. Has been for years.”
“Oh. Another theory blown out of the water, then…”
“Looks like it,” said Izzy, doing a slow spin in her swivel chair. “But I still think Ed’s dad is a more likely suspect than Rippa. Face it, Saxby—this might just be the case that beats you.”
She eyed me with a sly smile.
“Never,” I said, eyeing her without so much as a hint of a sly smile. “Nobody gets the better of Saxby Smart.”
CHAPTER SIX
The next day at school, the case took a decisive turn. And a very unexpected turn it was too!
For most of the morning, I found it hard to concentrate in class. Which is normal when we’re doing math, because Math is certainly not my best subject. But today, I was finding it particularly hard to concentrate because of the problems surrounding that comic book. The crime seemed impossible, and yet it had happened. The suspects seemed in the clear, and yet someone must have—
“Saxby Smart?” called Mrs. Penzler, our home room teacher.
“Er, sorry?” I blinked.
“Are you with us today, Saxby?” snapped Mrs. Penzler. The rest of the class giggled. Even Muddy! I glared at him, and he gave me a big, cheesy grin.
“Give us the answer to question three, Saxby!” cried Mrs. Penzler.
I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. However, Mrs. Penzler is a no-nonsense teacher, and she likes definite answers, so I gave her the most definite answer that popped in my head.
“Fourteen,” I said. Definitely.
“It’s two-point-two,” said Mrs. Penzler, with a bemused look on her face. “See me afterward, and I’ll go over this topic with you. Again.”
I sighed and settled down to untangling the jumble of numbers on the page in front of me. I tried hard to follow the rest of the math lesson, but to be honest, I found it about as easy as eating ice cream with chopsticks. My spirits perked up when the bell for lunch went off, and then they slumped back down again when I remembered my after-class appointment with Mrs. Penzler. Our ten-minute chat had two very important results, however.
Result No. 1: “Oh, I seeeee!” I finally got what she’d been going on about during the whole class. It was as if the chopsticks had been replaced with a spoon!
Result No. 2: It made me late for lunch. Which made me late for what I had to do after lunch (namely, helping to put up an art display outside the school office). Which meant I was standing outside the school office when Charlie Foster turned up. If I hadn’t been late, I’d have missed him entirely.
He was carrying his schoolbag, and clearly hadn’t expected to see me. He gave me a kind of nervous nod and a “Hello” and went into the office, where he was out of sight and out of earshot.
The display was just about finished. The two other kids on display duty went back to their classrooms, leaving me to pin up the last couple of labels (A Map of the Town by 4B and By Timmy Liggins of 2L—Miss Bennett says, “Lovely work, Timmy, well done.” I mean, ick!).
A few seconds after Charlie had entered the office, Mrs. McEwan, the school secretary hurried out. She click-clunked on her tottering high heels over to the teachers’ lounge, her whole body swaying back and forth on her chunky bare legs.
Kids weren’t normally allowed in the school office on their own. It occurred to me that Charlie had told her about some terribly urgent problem to get her out of the way. I stepped out of sight, behind the display boards. Something was going on.
From inside the office came a loud whirring noise. Then C
harlie emerged, still carrying his bag. He had a look about him that could only be described as gleeful. Something in that office had made him very happy indeed.
As soon as he’d gone, I emerged from my hiding place and sneaked into the office myself. If I was found in here without good reason, I could be in big trouble. I needed to identify what Charlie had been doing, and fast.
Suddenly, I heard the click-clunk of those high heels, heading back this way! I had time to look in one place only, and I had a choice of:
Mrs. McEwan’s desk and the heaps of stuff on top of it.
The trash can beneath the desk.
The cupboard under the window.
The big paper shredder beside the cupboard.
A box of just-delivered stationery.
The office computer perched on its rolling cart.
The choice was actually quite simple. Have you spotted it?
I went straight to the paper shredder. What else would have made that loud whirring noise I’d heard? (Well, unless Charlie had suddenly started doing machinery impressions in his spare time…or the computer needed some serious repairs…)
“Charlie Foster, you insolent child!” cried Mrs. McEwan, clattering back into the room. “Mrs. Penzler does not need an emergency box of paper clips, and—”
She stared at me. I think, just for a second, she thought Charlie had suddenly mutated into a different kid.
“I’ve been sent to empty the shredder,” I lied quickly, unhooking the big plastic trash bag beneath the machine.
“Oh,” said Mrs. McEwan. “Thank you. If you see Charlie Foster, tell him he’s an insolent child.”
“I will,” I said, dragging the bag out of the office.
I took the bag over to the recycling bin outside the teachers’ lounge. I carefully opened it up and peered inside. Most of the shreds were plain white strips of paper, but sitting among them were thin slices of something else. I picked up a handful.
The Treasure of Dead Man's Lane and Other Case Files Page 2