I had all my stuff folded neatly into the blue case I’d bought especially for the occasion. Muddy, being Muddy, had all his crammed into a battered gym bag with a broken zipper, leaving bits of shirt poking up all over the place. Izzy, being Izzy, had a suitcase on wheels that looked like a disco glitter ball, with her name done in swirly lettering along the side in glued-on bits.
There is so much I could tell you about the journey, about all the French stuff I saw from the train, about the hotel, about the first couple of days in Paris. Honestly, I’d fill up the rest of this book! But I won’t do that because 1) I’d drone on and on and bore you to tears, and 2) none of it is strictly relevant to this case file.
So, zip forward to: Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. There was a sharp, chilly wind gusting across the city as the St. Egbert’s School crowd arrived at the Louvre. Central Paris is a surprisingly compact place, and we’d walked to the Louvre from the hotel, teachers pointing out interesting things along the way and pupils having just one more try at persuading Mrs. Penzler to let us go to Disneyland. (“Just for one afternoon?” “No!”)
The Louvre is an amazing place—it’s probably the most famous art gallery in the world. It’s a huge, beautifully elaborate and ornamented building, and it’s got the weirdest entrance I’d ever seen: you walk into an enormous glass pyramid that stands in the middle of a wide courtyard and then down into an underground ticket hall.
We stuffed our woolly hats into our pockets and unzipped our coats. Mrs. Penzler sent one of the volunteer parents off to stand in the ticket line, then gave us a quick rundown of the various works of art we were going to see and how lucky we were to be able to see them. Most of us weren’t really listening. We were too busy oohing and ahhing at the glittering glass structure above us and the streaming busloads of tourists from all over the world who were flowing past us from one part of the gallery to another.
“That gives me an idea for a portable translation device,” muttered Muddy. I tore a page out of the back of my notebook for him, and he started scribbling diagrams as Mrs. Penzler herded us into a line ready to snake our way toward the escalators.
For the next ninety minutes or so, we shuffled past all sorts of pots, statues, figurines, artifacts, tapestries, even Egyptian mummies. With the other teachers corralling us along as if we were wayward sheep, Mrs. Penzler led the way. She kept barking out sentences that began with things like: “On your left you’ll see…” and “Here’s a fine example of…” and “If you don’t stop that I’ll send you back to the hotel…”
Most of us kids tended to clump together in groups of three or four (quite like wayward sheep, actually!). Muddy and I and a couple of others had great fun making up captions for some of the paintings we passed.
I noticed that Izzy was talking to Danielle Plummley, the new girl, again. Ever since we’d arrived in Paris, Izzy had been doing her best to befriend Danielle. However, as she’d muttered to me over breakfast that morning, it was something of an effort—Danielle seemed reluctant to talk about herself. In most people, you might think of that as simple modesty, but in Danielle it was a habit that Izzy thought was bordering on secretive. She changed the subject when Izzy asked her even the simplest questions about her family or where she lived. The only information she’d ever let slip was that her dad was an accountant.
Danielle was certainly a shy, quiet girl. She had short dark brown hair, and a mouth that seemed slightly too wide for her face, and a sort of floaty walk that gave me the impression that she didn’t even want anyone hearing her footsteps. Oh well, I thought to myself, changing schools would probably make me clam up for a while too.
By now, we’d reached a series of long galleries in which the walls were filled with old portraits of every shape and size. Daylight flooded in through glass ceilings.
As we arrived at an opening that led off to the right, Mrs. Penzler halted us with a raised umbrella. “This next room,” she said, “is always quite crowded. Stay together, stay alert, take your turns at the barrier, and don’t linger too long, there’ll be others waiting.”
At first, I wasn’t sure what she meant, but as soon as we filed through into the room on the right, I realized what she was talking about. Directly ahead of us, housed in the middle of an enormous wooden stand and kept back about fifteen feet behind a set of wooden railings, was the Mona Lisa.
I don’t know much about art. I always thought Canaletto was a type of pasta (ha ha, that’s an art joke!), but even I was well aware of the mind-boggling fame of the Mona Lisa. It’s a surprisingly dark painting in real life. The woman in it stares out at you, hands crossed, as if she’s slightly amused—and slightly bored, at the same time—that all these people have come to look at her.
“Why’s she got no eyebrows?” whispered Muddy.
“Gather in close, everyone,” declared Mrs. Penzler, once we’d all had a go at squeezing up to the barrier. “The Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, is the most well-known painting in the whole of art history. It was painted over a three or four year period beginning in 1503. Nobody really knows who the lady in the painting is, and over the years—”
Suddenly, a hand went up. It was Danielle Plummley.
“Actually,” she said, “the lady’s very likely to have been Lisa di Antonmaria Gheradini. She was the wife of a wealthy businessman in Florence, in Italy.”
“Excellent, Danielle,” said Mrs. Penzler. “You know about Da Vinci?”
“Yes,” said Danielle, a broad grin suddenly lighting up her face. “The Mona Lisa reuses bits and pieces from some of Da Vinci’s earlier paintings. He often did that. Her hands are just like those in a portrait he did of someone called Isabella d’Este, and a lot of the stuff you can see in the background also appears in a painting he did called Madonna of the Yarnwinder…”
Danielle kept us enthralled for ten minutes, getting more and more enthusiastic as she talked. Not only did I learn a lot about the Mona Lisa and various other famous paintings (the darkness I mentioned is due to layers of varnish, apparently), but I also learned a fact or two about Danielle Plummley. The fact that she was an expert on sixteenth-century art, for a start! The moment she’d finished, she gave us all an apologetic smile and seemed to shrink back down to her normal, shy self.
We gave her a huge round of applause!
“I love this subject,” she said to Izzy. “Seeing the Louvre was the reason I wanted to come on the trip!”
About half an hour later, we were back out on the streets of Paris, returning to the hotel for lunch. The Hotel Marseilles was located just a couple of streets away from the Eiffel Tower. (We’d been up to the top of the tower on day one—and absolutely freezing up there it was too! Fabulous views, though.)
We kept up a swift pace, partly because we were all pretty hungry by now, and partly because it looked like we’d be wanting to borrow Mrs. Penzler’s umbrella at any moment. Izzy, Danielle, Muddy, and I were trailing along toward the back of the group.
“I know!” cried Izzy suddenly. “I’ll put you on my blog, Danielle!”
“Your blog?” said Danielle.
“Yes, on my FaceSpace page,” said Izzy. “I thought I’d upload a couple of reports on the trip so far. I’m going to include some of the photos.”
She patted her pocket, out of which hung the carrying strap of the school’s camera. On the last afternoon of classes before we’d left for France, Mrs. Penzler had given Izzy the job of being our official photographer for the week. She was to take pictures of anything and everything interesting, and we’d all use the photos for classroom project work after our return home.
“Mrs. Penzler’s memory card was full of pictures of the school play,” said Izzy. “So I’m using one of my own. I’ve already taken over a hundred shots. I’m going to upload news of everything we’ve done so far and highlight Danielle’s talk about the Mona Lisa.”
“Oh,” said Danielle, “really, it’s not worth blogging about.”
“It is,” said Izzy. “That was the
most interesting ten minutes about art I’ve ever heard.”
“Dear me,” droned a voice from just ahead of us, a voice that was slimier than slugs in syrup. “You four girlies back there are driving me mad with all your girlie talk about girlie stuff.” It was my archenemy, that low-down rat Harry Lovecraft.
Muddy aimed a remark at Harry Lovecraft that can’t be repeated here, but it included the words “girlie,” “total,” and “smash.” Then he said to Izzy, “How are you going to upload things to your blog around here?”
“We’re not exactly miles from nowhere, Muddy,” said Izzy. “There are terminals in the café next to the hotel.”
“I thought you said we should never use public computers?” I said. “They’re a bad security risk.”
“I’ve got a program that generates random passwords,” said Izzy. “As long as you’ve got the program you can open all your private files, and it won’t leave anything personal on the computer you’ve used. I’ve got it stored on my memory card, along with the photos.”
“Izzyyyy,” I said, ever so nicely. “While you’re on the Internet, could you print me out some news reports on what’s happening in the Iceman DeSalle trial back home?”
“No, I could not,” said Izzy. “You have to pay by the minute in that café, and it’s not cheap.”
“Good grief,” whined Harry Lovecraft from up ahead of us. “Can’t you give it a rest, Smart? You’re always on about crime!”
“Well, with you around, Harry,” I said, “crime is never far from any of our minds.”
He turned and sneered at me. I resisted the urge to shudder. We trudged on, quickening our pace as a thunderously dark gray cloud crept into view above the buildings that stood along the banks of the River Seine. Big droplets of rain began to plop onto our shoulders. We all turned up our collars and kept our eyes to the ground as we hurried along.
There was a little courtyard we had to walk across just before we reached the entrance to the hotel. About a dozen souvenir stalls were always set out along one side of the yard, and they were never short of customers, as there were several other hotels nearby as well as the Eiffel Tower. By the time we reached the courtyard, the shower was over and we were all shaking the rain off our coat sleeves.
As we passed the stalls and as Mrs. Penzler called out, “No, we’re not stopping now, you can come back and waste your money later on,” I spotted a photo opportunity for Izzy. A knot of Japanese tourists were buying berets—it was a scene that absolutely cried out to be printed into someone’s school project and labeled “Visitors to Paris.” I nudged Izzy, pointed out the tourists, and she reached into her pocket.
“Oh no!” she cried. “The camera’s gone!”
Sure enough, her coat pocket was empty. Her voice had been loud enough to reach Mrs. Penzler at the front of the group, and everyone skidded to a halt as Mrs. Penzler’s umbrella went up in the air again like an exclamation mark.
“Has it dropped out of your pocket, Isobel?” said Mrs. Penzler, bustling her way back past pupils and teachers, her outstretched umbrella parting a route for her as she went.
“It must have,” cried Izzy. “Oh no, I could have dropped it streets away! I’ll never find it!”
“Not necessarily,” said Mrs. Penzler. “You may only have dropped it moments ago. Everyone! Look around! Search for the camera!”
Everyone started milling about, bent over. We must have looked like a bunch of chickens pecking around on a farm!
All I could see were the small flat blocks that paved the courtyard. Here and there, little puddles left over from the rain collected in dips and cracks.
I took a step back, and the heel of my shoe knocked against something. I turned to find a small silver camera lying on the ground at my feet. I scooped it up, signaling to the others that it had been found.
Izzy hurried over, took the camera, and clutched it to her chest. “Thank goodness for that!” she said. “Thanks, Saxby.”
“Is it damaged?” said Muddy. “If it is, I’ll have a go at fixing it.”
Izzy turned the camera over in her hands. “The case isn’t scratched. I think it’s okay.” She switched it on, and the screen at the back blinked into life. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“Good. Now, be more careful in the future, Isobel!” said Mrs. Penzler. “That’s school property!”
Izzy used a fingernail to unhook a catch at the bottom of the camera. She flipped open a tiny hatch to reveal the battery compartment.
“Oh no!” she cried all over again. “The memory card’s come out! It must have fallen out when the camera dropped from my pocket!”
Up went Mrs. Penzler’s umbrella. “Wait everyone! Look around! Search for the memory card!”
Everyone went through the chicken routine once more. Everyone except me, that is. I’d suddenly realized that the memory card hadn’t dropped out of the camera at all. It had been stolen.
Have you noticed what I’d noticed?
Izzy had needed to deliberately open up that little hatch in the base of the camera, the one that covered the battery compartment. Even if the hatch had flipped open when the camera fell from her pocket, and even if the memory card had then been jolted out of its slot, that hatch couldn’t possibly have closed itself again, could it? Conclusion: Someone had closed the hatch up again. Which meant it was highly likely that this same someone had taken the memory card.
This wasn’t proof that it had been stolen. After all, it was still possible that the memory card had come out by accident. However, the fact that everyone was doing their chicken impression but not finding any trace of the memory card suggested that I was correct.
I hurried over to Mrs. Penzler and told her about my suspicions. Up went Mrs. Penzler’s umbrella. “Wait everyone! Stop looking around! Saxby says the memory card has been stolen!”
“I think you’re right, Saxby,” said Muddy. “We’ve covered every square inch of this courtyard, and there’s no memory card lying around.”
At that precise moment, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. My detective skills had uncovered a crime that might otherwise have gone unnoticed!
But now, looking back on it as I write this down, I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut. I wish I’d never spotted the problem with the hatch. Why? You’ll find out later on.
“Who’s got the camera’s memory card?” boomed Mrs. Penzler. “Speak up now and punishment will be minimal. This is your last chance.”
No answer. We all looked blankly at each other.
Mrs. Penzler made a sort of half-grunt, half-sigh, which somehow managed to contain the words “Right, if you want to do this the hard way, then the hard way it is!”
“Everyone turn out their pockets!” she called. “Here you are, I’ll empty mine too! Teachers, check everyone and everything, please.”
There was a general hubbub of grumbling and pocket-digging. The Japanese tourists, now wearing their nice new berets, smiled at us as if this was exactly the kind of weird behavior they expected to see from a bunch of English people.
Muddy’s pockets were—as always—bulging to the bursting point with all sorts of his homemade gizmos and gadgets. So within seconds he was cradling a whole heap of items in his arms, including a small ball of string and a flashlight with what looked like a rifle sight on it.
The ball of string tumbled past his elbow, unraveling around his legs and bouncing away behind him as if it was making a dash for freedom. He tried to catch it, but with so much stuff balanced in each hand and the string looped around his ankles, he suddenly toppled over with a yell.
He crashed into the nearest of the souvenir stands, knocking it over and sending the vendor’s assortment of ornaments, hats, and knickknacks scattering across the ground. It was pure luck that nothing was broken. Muddy apologized, quite a few times, and started putting everything back in place.
Danielle quickly went over and helped him. The vendor, a sour-looking fellow with a mustache and a leather overcoat that came down pa
st his knees, glared at the pair of them. He muttered angrily to himself, then he muttered angrily to the stallholders next to him, then they muttered angrily in agreement.
After a couple of minutes, the souvenir stand was back to normal, everyone’s pockets and bags had been checked, and Mrs. Penzler was pointing her umbrella again, this time at me.
“You’ve got it wrong, Saxby. The memory card isn’t in anyone’s possession and it isn’t lying around. It must have been dropped after all. Isobel, I’m very disappointed. You were entrusted with the camera, and now we’ll have no photographs when we get back to class, thanks to your carelessness.”
Izzy went a shade of red usually reserved for tomatoes.
I didn’t think Mrs. Penzler’s search had been thorough enough; after all, that memory card could have been slipped into a shoe, or even hidden in a hairdo! I was about to point this out to her, but then thought better of it. It was hardly practical to start checking each other’s socks in the middle of the street, was it? Besides, we could have a bank of X-ray machines and the thief might still have found a hiding place. No, best keep quiet for the moment, I thought.
“Come along now everyone!” declared Mrs. Penzler. “Or we’ll be late for lunch, or in French, le déjeuner! Danielle, come away from that stand, right now! We’ve bothered that poor man enough; you can buy souvenirs later.”
The slippery tones of that low-down rat Harry Lovecraft drifted across the courtyard. “Well, well, Smart made a fool of himself. Bound to happen, sooner or later.”
I felt like following the vendor’s example and doing some angry muttering. I was sure that memory card had been deliberately taken. One or another of us had it.
I spent most of lunchtime scribbling notes and thinking.
* * *
Something doesn’t add up. Why steal the memory card, but not the camera? If the thief had simply kept the camera, everyone would have assumed that Izzy had dropped it and that it was lost. No crime would have been discovered. Whoever took the card must have placed the camera on the ground where I found it.
The Pirate's Blood and Other Case Files Page 9