The Crown of Venice

by Steve Stevenson

  Agatha stood in the doorway, stroking the tip of her nose. She took a few steps forward, then turned and moved toward the armor, crossing the room diagonally. Then she turned around, staring back at the bookcase and mirror. She went back and forth a few more times.

  Dash followed her, trying to figure out what she was doing. Then he stopped in front of the tall mirror to crack a joke. “This mirror saw the whole thing: who came in, who left, who opened the window. Too bad it can’t talk!”

  Agatha stopped in her tracks. “Dash, you’re a genius!”

  “I am? What brilliant thing did I do?”

  “You just solved the case!”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, you did!” said Agatha, smiling. She explained her theory to Dash and Chandler, who listened intently. Then they all rushed down to the dining room.

  Alfredo Modigliani was already seated at the head of the table, reading a newspaper by the weak lamplight. When he heard them enter, he looked up from the metro section and stared at them in amazement. “Where did you come from?” he exclaimed. “Does this mean you have found the crown, detectives?”

  “Yes, sir,” Agatha stated. “We know exactly what happened and where it’s hidden.”

  Modigliani’s jaw dropped.

  “But first, we’d like to ask you a favor.”

  He dropped the paper and jumped to his feet. “I’m at your disposal,” he said. “But who is the thief? You’re not going to make me wait?”

  “Do as I ask and you’ll get a surprise,” replied Agatha, smiling.

  He listened attentively to Agatha’s requests. A moment later he reached for the phone. “All right,” he agreed. “I’ll make the calls right away.”

  Nunzio had arranged sofas and chairs for everyone in the front parlor. Their expressions ranged from curious to hostile. Baron von Horvath was squirming in his seat because he had been invited to an auction of archaeological finds that evening. Lord Edwards was taking a break from a poker game and couldn’t wait to get back to it. Gonzago and his secret half sister seemed calmer, but everyone looked at one another with guarded suspicion.

  “Well?” asked Mr. Modigliani. “We’re all here. Let’s get started, Miss.”

  Agatha pulled out her trusty notebook. “The complexity of this case lies in the fact that any one of you could have committed the crime. After dinner, each of you had the opportunity to make off with the crown.” She paused to observe the suspects’ reactions, then continued. “The baron could have done it when he went to get his cigars—”

  “I protest!” shouted the Hungarian, jumping up from the sofa. “I . . . I . . .”

  Agatha raised her voice. “I didn’t say it was you. Let me finish, please!”

  Von Horvath sat back down grumpily.

  “Lord Edwards could have entered the study when he went out to make his private phone call—”

  “My dear child, I am no thief!” the English nobleman reacted with anger.

  A threatening glance from Chandler quickly silenced him.

  “Señor Suárez could have stolen the crown when he left early—”

  “But I accompanied him to the door!” protested Mrs. Modigliani.

  “You could have been in it together,” explained Agatha. “Even Mr. Modigliani could have hidden the crown when he went to fetch the baron’s cigars. He went into the study alone, and he was the first to report the theft.”

  “What are you getting at, Miss?” asked Alfredo Modigliani, stunned. “I’m the one who got robbed! How could I be a suspect?”

  “It’s even possible,” Agatha went on, “that Nunzio could have been the thief. During dinner, he was the only one to go in and out of the dining room.”

  A heavy cloak of silence fell over the group.

  “Any one of you could have stolen the crown,” concluded the girl.

  “What about the open window?” asked Mr. Modigliani. “Isn’t that how the thief got inside?”

  “No cat burglar climbed up your wall, sir,” Agatha said with a smile. “The open window and ivy leaves on the floor were staged by the real culprit.”

  Modigliani looked offended. “So you’re insinuating that it was one of us?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m certain of it.”

  “But that’s impossible!” Gonzago interjected. “We’re all gentlemen here.”

  Agatha gazed at her cousin. “One of our illustrious predecessors once said that after the impossible is eliminated, all that remains is the truth. Isn’t that right, Dash?”

  Dash had no idea what she was referring to, but he nodded in solemn agreement.

  “Go on, Miss,” Mr. Modigliani encouraged.

  “The impossibility, in this case, was seeing the suit of armor at the entrance to the study,” she continued. “But Baron von Horvath was not mistaken, he was simply misled.”

  “How is that possible?” asked the baron, curious.

  “The mirror in the study, at the precise moment you opened the door, had been moved from its usual position,” revealed Agatha.

  “Explain yourself, Miss!” exclaimed Lord Edwards, stroking his mustache.

  “Chandler, if you please,” said the girl.

  “Follow me,” said the butler, leading them all to the study. When they were all inside the room, he moved in front of the mirror and fumbled with the edges. In the silence, they all heard a loud CLICK. Chandler slowly moved the mirror on two hinges.

  “As you can see,” Agatha continued, “the mirror opens toward the entrance to the room. When it is completely open, all that can be seen from the threshold is a reflection of the suit of armor to the right of the door.”

  Everyone stood in stunned silence.

  “Mr. Modigliani, who knew that the mirror could be moved?” asked Agatha.

  “I have to admit that I knew,” he replied. “There is a compartment behind the mirror where I keep important family documents.”

  “So, Modigliani, you’re responsible for the theft!” cried the Spaniard.

  “Mr. Modigliani couldn’t have stolen the crown,” Agatha continued confidently. “He was in the dining room with the baron when the theft took place. The thief entered the study, took the crown from the desk, opened the mirror, and hid it inside that secret compartment. At that very moment, the baron arrived at the door, but he didn’t see anyone in the room—the mirror goes all the way to the floor, hiding the culprit’s feet. After von Horvath withdrew, the thief quickly replaced the mirror, then opened the window and scattered some ivy leaves to make it look like that was how they came in.”

  Agatha looked each of them in the eyes. “But that plan was foiled,” she added, “because someone else found the crown and took it from its hiding place!”

  “No!” shouted Mrs. Modigliani, as white as a ghost. “No! That was my future! My only hope for a new life!” She launched herself at the compartment behind the mirror, searching frantically. “I left it right there! It was here! It’s mine! Mine!”

  Gonzago looked upset. “Melissa, what did you do?” he whispered.

  Turning to Chandler, Agatha asked for the crown.

  The butler pulled it out from under his jacket and held it up for all to see.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Modigliani, it’s perfectly safe,” said Agatha calmly. “The butler did it. We just needed to hear you confess.”

  Melissa collapsed onto a chair, overcome with tears.

  “Perhaps you could tell us the whole story,” Agatha encouraged her gently.

  Through her sobs, Melissa began to speak. “I was so tired of the life I’ve been living, and when I found out that Gonzago was my half brother, I realized I had a chance to escape, to change everything—”

  “My dear,” interrupted Modigliani. “What are you talking about?”

  “Everything! I’ve had enough! E
ver since we got married, you’ve kept me stuck in this gloomy museum. All you care about is your good name and your famous family. Every penny we have gets spent on this cursed house. If you had been willing to sell the crown, we could have restored the building and still had enough left over to live a good life. But not you! You’d rather hold on to your past and sit here in the dark, like a fossil! I just wanted to be happy!”

  After this outburst, Melissa Modigliani lowered her voice. “That’s why I stole the crown. I would have sold it and moved to Spain. After I saw Gonzago to the door, I went up to my room and just stared at the ceiling. Then it occurred to me that the crown was still sitting right there on your desk. I knew about your secret compartment behind the mirror, of course,” she said with a sad little smile. “I know every inch of this dreary old house. And if the baron hadn’t come looking for his cigars, and that nosy girl hadn’t come along . . . I’d be on my way to sunny Spain, happy and free!”

  Melissa started to cry again. Gonzago tried awkwardly to console her as her husband stared at them both in shock.

  Lord Edwards and Baron von Horvath exchanged glances and rose to their feet.

  “Dear Modigliani, call if you need us,” they said, almost in unison. Nodding a hasty good-bye, they left the palazzo in silence.

  While Gonzago did his best to calm Melissa, Dash and Agatha turned to her husband.

  “What do you plan to do now?” asked Agatha.

  Modigliani shook his head heavily. “I think I have been a very bad husband,” he whispered guiltily. “I knew that my wife wasn’t happy, but I could never have imagined this . . .” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “Thank you, each and all. This has made me realize many mistakes I’ve made. Please don’t turn in my wife. I love her, and I’ll do my best to repair all the damage I’ve caused. Could you please inform the insurance company?”

  “Of course,” said Dash. “We’ll tell them it was a simple misunderstanding.”

  “After all,” Agatha reassured him, “the doge’s crown was right here all along.”

  They left the palazzo in silence and stopped on the dock to gaze out at the beautiful city. Venice looked like a dream, with the moon reflected in the rippling canal. Chandler suggested they call Marco’s cell phone to let him know about their success.

  When the gondolier arrived, they all climbed on board.

  “Take us wherever you like, dear cousin,” exclaimed Agatha. “We have a great story to tell you!”

  Marco nodded, pushing away from the red-and-white striped pole at the dock. As the gondola slid over the shimmering water, he threw back his head and began to sing. Watson, curled up on Chandler’s lap, joined in with his own loud yowls.

  Dash and Agatha laughed loud and long; they had completed yet another challenging mission!

  They all spent the night at the Bucintoro, a charming small hotel in the Arsenal district. Marco knew the owner, and recommended it for its excellent hospitality.

  Before they went to bed, Agatha dragged Dash into a cozy parlor lit with soft lights. The walls were covered with pictures of all sizes. “Notice anything, cousin?” she asked, fixing her eyes on the portraits.

  “I’m half asleep,” Dash grumbled. “Who are all these weirdos?”

  Agatha rubbed her nose. “I’ll give you a hint: They’re all wearing peaked purple crowns.”

  “Some kind of traditional Carnevale hat?” guessed the bumbling detective.

  “Dash! They’re portraits of the doges!”

  Dash fell silent as he gazed at each face. Agatha whispered, “If my memory serves me correctly, the Hotel Bucintoro is named after the luxurious boat that the doges used to travel the Grand Canal.”

  “That must be it!” said Dash, pointing to a large painting in the center. It showed an ornately carved ship with at least twenty oars on each side. “Talk about bling! It looks like it’s made of pure gold!”

  “We couldn’t have ended up at a more perfect hotel after today’s adventure!” Agatha said with a wink. “Sweet dreams, cousin!”

  The next morning, the sun shone so brightly that the canals looked like turquoise. Before flying home, they decided to bask in the city’s magical atmosphere just a bit longer. Chandler called Marco and arranged to meet him for lunch on the Rialto.

  Dash was filled with confidence after receiving a congratulatory message from Eye International. Without pausing to look at a map, he launched himself into the winding Venetian alleys. “We deserve a vacation!” he kept saying at every corner. “Who can beat us? Nobody! We’re the best detectives in the world!”

  The others let him gloat as they made their way through the festive crowd, stopping to look at historical landmarks that Agatha wanted to see. After the third art-filled church, she put down her guidebook and pointed to a shop selling Carnevale costumes. “I think it’s time we joined the party!” she exclaimed with a gleam in her eye.

  “I agree, Miss,” replied the square-jawed Chandler.

  Her cousin looked around blankly. “Party? What party?”

  Agatha and Chandler had already stepped into the shop and were looking for costumes in their sizes. They each tried on several, laughing when Watson meowed at a black mask. Agatha fixed the elastic to fit behind his ears. “Look!” she exclaimed. “He’s a cat burglar!”

  They went back to Piazza San Marco to meet their gondolier cousin. He arrived right on time, singing at the top of his lungs as he tied up his boat and scanned the busy square, ignoring the small group of masked revelers who stood on the dock right in front of him. “They must be lost,” he muttered. “Englishmen always get lost.”

  Just then, an enormous hairy gorilla approached.

  “Sorry, I’m on a break,” the gondolier said politely.

  A lanky boy dressed as Batman joined the gorilla.

  “This gondola is unavailable right now, I’m afraid!”

  Finally, a young girl in a Sherlock Holmes outfit stepped forward.

  “I’m waiting for some friends—”

  It wasn’t until cat-burglar Watson jumped into the gondola and began rubbing against Marco’s legs that he finally realized who these strange people were. He started to laugh. “You got me!” he cried with a giant grin. “You’re unrecognizable! Now, what do you say we go have some lunch in a fabulous Venetian restaurant? I’ll be the one in the gondolier costume!”

  They all agreed enthusiastically. As they strolled across the square, they filled Marco in on their investigation. Marco was thrilled with his English cousins’ adventures.

  “Just business as usual,” Dash said with a shrug. “If I were to tell you how many cases we’ve solved . . .”

  He heard a loud BLIP and pulled his EyeNet out of his pocket. “Another congratulatory message,” he sighed. But no, it was his friends Clarke and Mallory, begging him to continue their game of Alien Hunt. Dash’s EyeNet was always connected to his home computer in London, and he was about to join his friends in the game when he felt a tug on his cape. He turned around and was astonished to see the girl in the Cinderella costume.

  “Umm . . . still very busy . . . making that film for my school report . . . ,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, right!” she said with a smirk.

  “Uh, what do you mean?”

  The beautiful Cinderella crossed her arms over her chest. “That titanium gadget isn’t a video camera,” she said. “It’s something else!”

  “Wh-what?” said Dash, noticing that his companions were laughing together.

  “It’s a gaming console!” said Cinderella. “And you just logged on to my favorite game, Alien Hunt!”

  Dash’s eyes lit up. “You know Alien Hunt?”

  “Know it? I rule it!”

  “Oh yeah? What’s your code name?”

  She twirled around, so her blue skirt flared like a bell. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m Killderella!”<
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  Dash turned white.

  He had faced an opponent named Killderella many times, and lost every single game. Killderella was the game’s top slayer, ranked first in the world.

  “No way!” he exclaimed. “I’m Phil Destroy!”

  She doubled over in laughter. “Ha-ha! You’re roadkill, Phil Destroy! I’ve annihilated you at least a dozen times!”

  “Uh, well, that’s true.” Dash was very embarrassed, but he was also thrilled. He scratched his chin and asked awkwardly, “Umm . . . could you teach me some of your moves? I’m just about to play a game now . . .”

  The beautiful Cinderella, also known by her battle name Killderella, flashed a smug grin. “See you online sometime soon, Phil Destroy,” she whispered in a challenging tone. “Like I said yesterday, not cool to leave a nice girl like me by herself!”

  Dash watched her strut away, biting his tongue as he rejoined his friends. “You’re a real idiot, Dash Mistery.” He sighed. “All that physiognomy you studied is useless if you don’t recognize the girl of your dreams when you meet her!”

  In a central-London penthouse packed full of high-tech devices lived young Dashiell Mistery, an aspiring detective with a passion for technology. He was not an organized person, and pieces in his collection often met with unfortunate ends: an MP3 player frozen in the freezer, a laptop drowned in the bathtub, a video-game controller liquefied in the microwave . . .

  Only one object was worthy of Dash’s full attention: his EyeNet, a valuable tool that Eye International Detective Academy—Dash’s school—provided for its students. The EyeNet was a mass of futuristic features encased in a titanium shell, and the young Londoner kept it hanging above the sofa so that it was never out of his sight.

  One Saturday afternoon in late April, Dash was busy tinkering with an old radio with bent antennae. The floor was already a chaotic mess of electronic components, wires, transistors, and other materials recovered from unused appliances. While carefully removing the internal circuits and putting them on the carpet, he continually flicked his gaze at the device to check that it was in its place. It was two o’clock. Dash put the old radio aside to hurriedly scarf down a sandwich before moving on to his next project.