Title: Murder at the Museum
Author: Dancing Star
Crossover: PSI Factor / Sue Thomas FBEye
Pairing: Connor / Lindsay, Jack / Sue
Rating: 12
Category: AU, Crime
What happens: A wealthy art collector is found dead in a museum. The team has to investigate...
Notes: none
Murder at the Museum
It didn´t happen every day that someone ordered the team to an art museum. "Does someone know what awaits us there?", Jack asked curiously, because he had no idea why they were here.
"Modern design. Air-conditioned rooms and a number of images that are so valuable that you could live a lifetime if you sell it on the black market."
"I see you have thought about what you could do with so much money," Connor said to her as they walked up the marble stairs of the Chicago Museum of Modern Arts. Like his colleagues, he had no idea why they, an OSIR- team, were called to an art museum.
"Maybe Big Foot stole a painting," Jack had grinned during driving here from the airport, "Or worse: He has been immortalized on it." His colleagues didn´t know at first what they should think about this joke. They groaned inwardly when they saw the museum for the first time. From the outside it looked like a cold, emotionless concrete block and when they saw, which museum it was, they knew that it was to no good action. To them, the worst case was that the team had to solve an art robbery case, but Lindsay hadn´t heard something like this on the news.
At the door they met a woman in brightly patterned jumpsuit. She wore her gray hair in a braid. Apparently she was the owner of the museum, or at least a major financial donor. The woman insisted that Sue left her dog Levi in front of the door at the bike racks. Not even Connor's objections that Levi was an important tool for the deaf Sue, made the woman change her mind.
"I am pleased to welcome you here, even if the occasion is no good...", she said. It was early summer and unusually warm in the city. The interior of the museum was really cool.
The time had come for them to respond to the reason for their presence, Connor though. "You didn´t tell us why we should come to your museum...", he began, "It would only be fair if you update my team and me."
The museum owner looked at them blankly. Should his team actually consist of four people? Connor seemed to have read her mind because he suddenly said: "It would have been easier to put a team together, if we had known what to expect," he explained to her and added they still could request more staff, if needed.
"As you may have noticed, you are in one of the most important muses of the country," the owner began, "I ask you to treat the exhibited art with esteem..."
Inwardly Jack and Sue rolled their eyes. He gave her a look and muttered a silent "How boring". Because Sue was able to read lips, it was easy for her to find out what he said. Sue couldn´t help but giggle.
Connor turned to the two, but then focused again on the museum owner. "I promise we´ll respect and appreciate the art in this building. But why are we here?"
They made their way to the upper floor of the museum. They went up a wide wooden staircase. The steps caused a lot of noise on the ground.
"When I made an inspection tour two days ago, I found a dead man. I don´t know how he was able to hide during my nightly control", the woman explained that she and a security guard used to do a patrol through the museum every night to check if everything was fine.
Connor expressed the belief that the man was a burglar. The only problem was the local police had found no evidence of forced entry.
"Was he perhaps a visitor of the museum, who did he hide, while you did your patrol?", Lindsay asked. However, this made a harmless museum visitor suspicious. Maybe he was an intruder who had come only through the front door and hid in the museum until he could strike.
"This is of course in the realm of possibility," the museum's owner said, "But the man I've found dead had actually no motive to break into this building. He was the owner of several paintings and so wealthy he doesn´t need to worry about money. He loved art so much he almost came here every day."
Now they stopped at the top of the stairs. "Ma'am, I still don´t understand why we are here," Connor admitted. His team also nodded.
"That's obvious," the museum owner said, "I found the man in front of a picture called "The beginning of darkness. " In art connoisseur circles it is said that painting is cursed."
The dead man named James Williams and the museum owner had even asked the senior police investigator in the case to in the museum: He was waiting in the room, where the cursed painting was exhibited.
"How exactly did Mister Williams die?" , Sue wanted to know from the policeman. The dark-skinned man led them to a big yellow smiley face made of plastic, whose face was innocently beaming from the wall. Then he took some photos of the scene and the body out of his jacket pocket. "This smiley weights about 500 kilograms," the policeman said, "Somehow the smiley face has become detached from its stand from the wall. We found James Williams buried under the smiley face."
"How ironic. A cheerful laughing smiley led to this man's death, "Jack interjected now.
"Why is that ironic?", Lindsay didn´t understand.
"Well, the victim almost lived at the Museum during his lifetime," Jack said, "I can´t imagine here is much to laugh."
Lindsay rolled her eyes when she heard this. She and Sue discovered a picture on the wall, which pleased them. It showed a group of women, apparently maids, who went home in the dusk.
When they stopped in front of the picture, Lindsay heard a loud whistle. She grabbed Sue's arm reflexively and both took a step back. "What was that?", Lindsay asked.
"The alarm system," the museum owner said, "Do you see the white lines on the floor? Do not enter these lines. Each painting is secured with lasers against theft. There are only three people who know the PIN codes of the alarm system: Myself, the janitor and my business partner."
"I suppose you have checked your business partner and the caretaker before you hired them," Sue said and the museum owner nodded: "I can show you the certificate of conduct..."
They now reached the place where the rich art collector James Williams had died. Because the museum was still closed to the public, the crime scene was almost unaltered. Lindsay thought that was strange: The smiley hung on the wall fifty meters away from the place where James Williams was found. The man died right in front of the painting "The beginning of the darkness" and that meant the smiley must have detached from the wall and rolled through the room like Swiss cheese.
The policeman opened his jacket and pulled out an evidence bag from the inside pocket. In the transparent plastic bag was a piece of paper. The words on the note had been written with a typewriter or a computer. Connor grabbed the bag and read the text on the note: "I wear the chain I forged in life...I made it link by link." He now turned to his team, "And what does this tell us?"
"Charles Dickens was the murderer?"
Connor rolled his eyes again. He apologized to the police officer and the owner of the museum about Jack´s stupid comment and promised them they wanted to solve the mysterious case.
While Connor talked to the police and wanted to see the corpse of the art collector James Williams his team members Lindsay, Jack and Sue had stayed in the museum. Lindsay admired a meter-high painting of a herd of horses that galloped over a flourishing meadow.
"Hey," Jack said to her as he stood next to her left.
"Hey," she said, noting that Sue now appeared to her right, "What's wrong?"
"Don´t turn around," Jack muttered suddenly.
"Why?", Lindsay looked around. But except for a few pictures on the wall and a woman with a Walkie Talkie she couldn´t see anything Inconspicuous.
"I said, don´t turn around," Jack hissed.
"Who is the woman with the radio?", Sue asked, "She´s watching us since we are here."
"No idea," Lindsay admitted, "Probably she should take care we don´t break or steal something."
They were silent for a while. "You know what I wonder?", Jack then wanted to know, "If this artwork is protected by laser on the wall... How could the smiley detach from the wall and bury the rich James Williams?"
Lindsay slammed her notebook. That was actually a very good question and she even knew the answer: "The alarm system was switched off." And because the museum owner had said there were only three people who knew the code to turn off the alarm system, this limited the circle of suspects enormous.
Lindsay told Connor about her new presumption, when he came back from the police. "Why should the museum owner have something to do with it?", he asked, "It was her who asked us for help."
"But just because she thinks this painting" The Beginning of Darkness " is cursed. Maybe she was trying blame it on the painting ", Sue disagreed.
"I think we should at least check where the museum owner, her business partners and the caretaker have been at the time of the crime," Lindsay suggested, "What does the pathology say about the death of Mr. Williams?"
"He's actually died by the smiley. The artwork was so heavy that it has almost crushed him. In addition, the pathology estimates the time of death at about two-clock in the morning."
Lindsay's brow wrinkles. This would actually mean no one else could have been in the museum. And how could James Williams remain undetected in the nightly visit of the museum owner?
Connor asked Sue and Jack to question the business partner of Miss Handerson, where he was at the time of the murder. Bill May replied he had spent the night in his bed next to his wife and slept. His wife also slept, so Sue and Jack accepted this as an "half" alibi, but Bill May was an imaginative man: He happened to know that the minutes of the alarm in which his house was secured, were transferred to a security company. He offered to call there for Jack and Sue and ten minutes later, the security firm had sent the logs by fax. Sue and Jack flew over the list: On the night of the murder, the alarm system was activated at 10:20 p.m. and was deactivated the next morning at 06:36 a.m.. Bill May didn´t leave his house and his wife explained her husband had activated the alarm system and then gone to bed.
While Sue and Jack were busy with Mr. May, Lindsay and Connor interviewed the caretaker. He also had a watertight alibi, which the police could even confirm: Jake Green had to pick up his sixteen year old son at two o´clock in the morning from the drunk tank of the police.
Connor and Lindsay discussed the latest results with Sue and Jack on the phone. They told each other of the alibis of their suspects. "You know what that means," Sue mused, "If the janitor and business partners do have an alibi, then Miss Handerson remains as suspect."
Miss Handerson couldn´t be reached even on her cell phone until afternoon. While the team was waiting for her in the Mobile Lab, Sue told them repeatedly they hopefully know what that meant. Lindsay knew what she was getting.
Finally, the Chinese delivery service came with the food they had ordered. Lindsay grabbed one of Connors spring rolls with her chopsticks. He wanted to complain, but when she winked at him, he didn´t. Actually they liked field cases and couldn´t complain about the fact that Sue and Jack had come with them. Many members of the OSIR were so often on trips that they had no time for a steady relationship. But this was different: Connor and Lindsay had the same interests and they could understand how it felt to be away from home. Nevertheless, almost no one knew about their relationship: They hadn´t even told their friends Anton and Peter. When the team was almost torn apart (which had been bad for everyone involved) and Anton was hired to work in the headquarters and Peter allotted his own team, Connor and Lindsay knew Sue and Jack could never replace their friends, but that the two also had a secret, calmed them very much.
"There's something that concerns me," Lindsay admitted, "The note in the hand of the dead: I wear the chain I forged in life...I made it link by link… What does it mean?"
"Well, it´s used by the ghost of Mr. Marley in "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens to tell Scrooge he has made many mistakes during his lifetime."
"So James Williams has made a mistake before his death," Connor concluded, "But what?"
After dinner, they still couldn´t reach the museum owner Miss Handerson. The longer it took, the more suspicious she became Connor thought. So he sat down behind his computer in a quiet moment and tried to find out something about James Williams.
First he used the public data and so he googled James Williams name. He found out that Mr. Williams owned art galleries across the country. The largest gallery was located in Los Angeles, where he also used to live. James Williams didn´t have a Facebook profile, but his gallery in LA had a website that was maintained by one of his employees. Connor found pictures of James Williams in some online newspapers, which were shot at gallery openings, art events and award ceremonies: An image of Mister Williams and Donald Trump. Another picture of him and Lady Gaga.
Connor now used the less known databases: The OSIR was able to check all possible registers of North America and so Connor tried to find out if James Williams may have had debt, but he didn´t even receive a ticket for illegal parking. Connor wanted to quit his research when someone threw open the door to his office inside the Mobile Lab and came in. "Connor?", It was Lindsay, "We have been able to reach Miss Handerson. You'll never guess where she is."
"At the airport?", Connor asked blankly, "What is she doing at the airport?"
"Don´t know," Lindsay admitted, who was steering the car, "She will have to explain that."
The ride from the museum to the airport almost took half an hour. After Lindsay and Jack had found out where Miss Handerson was, they had called the airport police and asked for their help. So Miss Handerson was held in the customs office.
And she wasn´t happy to see them. "That was a pretty lousy trick," she said. She had only answered the conversation on her cell phone because the caller called with masked number. If she had known Jack was the caller, who had decided to change his strategy, she would have never answered.
"Miss Handerson, I thought we were going to be honest with each other," Connor said, "Instead, I have to learn you were about to leave the country."
"I've booked a flight to Miami...", she complained and at that moment Connor turned at a customs officer: "Which flight was booked for her?"
"The flight at 6:00 p.m. to Costa Rica." The Customs officer now put a ticket from Air America on the table in front of them. It was a one-way ticket.
The whole team looked at Miss Handerson and she decided to give up. "Well, I wanted to go to Costa Rica…," she admitted, "But only to pick up a new piece of art for the museum."
Because none of them spoke Spanish, they asked the customs for help and as it turned out, Miss Handerson was in touch with a museum in Costa Rica for a while. She had acquired a painting of a new, popular artist and because it was so valuable, she personally wanted to come to Central America and pick it up. Miss Handerson also told them it was cheaper to book her flight back to Chicago in Costa Rica. For this reason, she had only an apparent one way ticket with her. And Miami was only a short stop.
They took Miss Handerson back to the museum. There, they asked her how well she knew James Williams and if she had an idea, what the words on the piece of paper in his hand meant: "I wear the chain I forged in life...I made it link by link. "
"I don´t know what that means," she said. Lindsay, Jack and Sue found she seemed nervous in any way.
"Is there something in James Williams' life, which he repents or which you know he considers it a serious mistake?," Connor asked.
"No, I ..." Miss Handerson shook her head, "I just know he owned a gallery in New York 20 years ago, which was completely destroyed by fire. He wasn´t insured, so he had to pay for the damage. That's all I know. I'm sorry." They were trying to figure out something useful from Miss Handerson, but she insisted she didn´t know. The survey lasted until the evening and Connor gave up. He decided he would continue with the surveillance tapes of the museum.
"That's just not our area of expertise," Connor said to Lindsay, when they sat in the monitoring room, "We are responsible for paranormal phenomena. And not for art collectors that were slain by a smiley face. "
"Miss Handerson thinks the cursed painting has something to do with it..."
The door to the monitor room opened and Jack and Sue came in. Sue had left Levi in the Mobile Lab because Miss Handerson didn´t want a dog left its traces in her fine museum and possibly destroyed one of the valuable works of art.
"It's late. We should go home, "Jack complained. By "home" he meant of course the hotel where they stayed.
"We can´t," Connor said, "We are just watching the surveillance tapes."
"Do you know the movie "Night at the Museum"? What if the artworks here also come to live?"
Lindsay, who also watched the surveillance tapes, turned to Jack. "To answer your questions: Yes, I know the movie. And even if the works of art in this museum would also come to alive, you don´t have much to worry: There are only pictures."
"…and a murderous smiley", Sue added.
"Speaking of pictures: Why is "The beginning of the darkness" cursed?", Jack asked. He and Sue found, the image looked scary, because it showed nothing more than a black, dark rectangle in portrait mode.
Jack and Sue sat down with them on office chairs in front of the monitoring system. Connor got up and asked if he should bring them something from the drinks machine in the break room of the staff. They thanked him and Connor walked away.
As soon as he had left the room, Lindsay stretched, as if she would keep looking for someone. She just made sure that her boyfriend was really gone. "Don´t tell Connor, but I've done a little research: The painting was completed in 1860 by an artist, who was found dead by his wife after the completion of the picture the next morning. Because it was believed the woman had murdered her husband, she was sentenced to death. The picture then went into the possession of the Church. The new owner, a priest, was also found death at the feet of the painting one week later. It almost lasted years until people became suspicious and put the picture for years in a public wine cellar. In 1945 a construction worker found the picture and had no idea what to do with these black canvas so the man donated the painting. Since then, the picture is hanging here."
"Do you think the story is true?," Sue asked.
"At least it´s true that the picture had lots of owner. I can´ t say if it´s really cursed." Lindsay noticed how disappointed Sue and Jack were. "Not every object is really a cursed," she said therefore, "Connor and I have examined a case in Egypt: A tomb from which people claimed it was cursed. However, it turned out that all the scientists who had been in the tomb, haven´t died of a curse, but to bacteria that were conserved in the chamber for thousands of years. "
This brought Sue to an idea: "Did someone ever investigate the painting?," she wanted to know, "What if the painting is also fraught with bacteria and this is the reason why James Williams died?" She didn´t want to think about the fact they already walked past the picture.
"The pathologist has said he was slain by the smiley and didn´t die of an infection", Lindsay reminded her.
"And the bacteria don´t cause a five-hundred-kilogram Smiley detached from the wall and hits a man." Jack was sorry he had to disappoint his girlfriend.
At this moment, Connor returned with four cans of Coke. "I've been thinking," he began, "I have an idea."
Lindsay got up from her chair. "We need a comparison- Smiley. Only then can we find out what really happened."
Connor's brow wrinkles. "I was thinking the same."
They went into the exhibition room where the merry laughing smiley hung on the wall and grinned at them. "The smiley is here," said Connor, grabbed Sue´s arms and placed her right in front of the artwork. Then he strode across the room, "James Williams died here ... These are almost fifty yards. What do you think: How did the smiley come from here to there?"
"It has come loose from the wall and rolled through the room," Jack guessed.
"It's possible. I have talked to the caretaker: The smiley is attached to the wall by a hook. Let´s assume this construction is actually faulty and the smiley detaches from the wall... "
"...Then it would fall over due to its weight. The only possibility is that the smiley face was moving through the room." The smiley has been investigated by the police for fingerprints, but there was none. So the culprit either had worn gloves or there was no perpetrator and the heavy work of art hadn´t been moved by human hands.
"Can we take the smiley from the wall?", Connor asked. He wanted to see if they could roll the piece of art through the room like a Swiss cheese. They went off to look for the caretaker, who has just repaired a leaky faucet.
"You can´t do this," the older man said to them, "The Smiley would damage the marble floor. This subject can´t roll through the room."
When Lindsay heard this, the statement raised more questions: The caretaker said the smiley was too heavy to roll across the room without damaging the marble floor. The floor in the showroom was undamaged. The caretaker even told them the smiley was attached with the help of a pallet transporter years ago and he also reported that it had almost taken days to free the marble floor of the tire tracks.
But how did the smiley face then pass through the room and buried Mr. Williams? And the smiley face would have caused a lot of noise due to its weight. Why didn´t Mr. Williams run away when he noticed that something was wrong?
They had returned to the surveillance tapes and decided they wanted to finish today. The tape was gradually come to the last few hours that took place in the upper floor of the museum before two o´clock in the morning on the night of the murderer. "Here, something´s wrong," Jack reported, who sighted the videotape. Immediately, his friends gathered around him and together they watched a tall figure in a red jacket, who left the floor, according to time stamp at 02:05 a.m.
"We can´t correctly identify the person's face," Connor complained.
"The person is wearing a belly... Probably he or she stole something in it," Lindsay guessed.
"We are now looking for a slightly overweight man a red coat."
"Santa Claus?"
"I said, slightly overweight ... Lindsay is right: It could also be a woman...", Connor added. He hated the fact the surveillance tapes didn´t show this important detail. The figure was also quite androgynous.
"What about Miss Handerson?", Sue suddenly asked, "We have already checked the alibis of the caretaker and her business partner, but what about her?"
Connor agreed. He commissioned Lindsay trying to interview the museum staff if they knew the man from the surveillance tapes. He and Jack would take care of Miss Handersons survey.
They apologized to Miss Handerson for disturbing her so late in the evening, but they told her they had some questions. "I did some research," Miss Handerson said and didn´t even respond to their concerns, "James Williams has actually made some mistakes. Did you know he had owned a gallery in Miami, which is burned out?"
"Didn´t you say that was 20 years ago in New York?", Connor asked.
"That's right. But he also had a gallery in Miami, which was destroyed by a fire eight years ago. The subtle difference is that this time James was insured and collected nearly $ 20 million compensation."
Jack and Connor looked at each other, then Miss Handerson continued: "The insurance sent an appraiser, but they found out someone had caused the fire in the gallery willfully. James lost his money and his reputation in the art scene. And he was sued... I suppose this is the mistake. "
"Miss Handerson, where have you been on the night when the accident happened?", Connor asked now.
She looked at him as if she was shocked he asked this at all. "I was at home and slept."
"Can anyone confirm this?"
"Of course not," Miss Handerson now sounded even more horrified. She punished them with disrespect and then sent them out of her condo. "We haven´t reached something with our survey," Jack looked a little disappointment. They decided return to the Mobile Lab immediately.
The ride to the Mobile Lab took twenty minutes and Jack and Connor had brought hot coffee for their girlfriends. "The coffee machine is broken," Connor reminded Lindsay, when she reached for her mug and took a sip. "Thanks," she murmured, while Connor dropped into a chair beside her. He wondered what she was doing here, because she had taken some surveillance tapes to the Mobile Lab. "What are you watching?"
"Did you know a surveillance camera is directed on the painting "The beginning of the darkness"?", she asked, "I thought to myself, I should watch this video. Maybe we then find out what really happened."
"What did you find up to now?"
"Nothing," Lindsay had to admit.
Meanwhile, Sue and Jack were sitting together on the steps to the Mobile Lab. They also drank hot coffee. "What did Miss Handerson say?", Sue asked curiously. Levi tiredly rested his head on her thigh.
"Not much," Jack replied, "She was offended we have ever asked for her alibi."
"I'm not surprised," Sue replied and noticed Jack's confused expression, "After you and Connor set off to interview Miss Handerson, I called at the headquarters and asked if I could talk to our contact man at Financial Future. I talked to a man named Max Stone and it turned out he even knew James Williams and he told me they had first met on a Book Festival for classical literature. Literature was probably a secret love of James Williams, because except his closest friends, no one knew he was interested. "
"Therefore, the quote from Charles Dickens..."
"It gets better," Sue promised, "Financial Future is also the Bank of Miss Handerson."
Now he remembered that he had seen the number of her bank account on the letters which she had sent to the OSIR.
"And now guess who paid James Williams a sum of $ 25 million eight years ago…"
Jack only needed to combine: Miss Handerson had paid James Williams a large sum 8 years ago. 8 years ago, his gallery in Miami burned down and he was sued on a heavy fine. Was Miss Handerson only a good friend or was she trying to hide something? And as a good friend, she surely knew that James liked classic literature...
They wanted to get up and go inside the Mobile Lab to talk to Connor, but at that moment something caught their attention. Sue believed she had seen a light inside the museum. Jack was relieved when he found Connor and Lindsay behind their computer screen. "Connor, Sue has found out that Miss Handerson has helped James Williams 8 years ago with a large sum of money..."
"That's not all," Sue interrupted him, "I saw a light inside the museum. It could have been a flashlight..."
"A light?", Connor and Lindsay were alerted immediately. They also grabbed their flashlights and made their way to the main entrance of the museum. Sue took Levi with them. If they really were dealing with a burglar, the dog would certainly be helpful. When they reached the front door, the question was how to enter the museum without causing an alarm.
"Maybe that's a very good idea," Lindsay said, "The police would come immediately."
Connor hesitated a second then nodded. He cracked the door with a skeleton key and they entered the building. They had expected that the alarm would cause quite a bit of noise, but this didn´t happen. It was probably one of these high-tech devices, which contacted the police by radio.
A premonition led them to the upper floor of the museum. The smiley was located here.
Their steps caused rumbling noises on the wide wooden staircase and if they were really dealing with an uninvited guest, Connor hoped the stranger wouldn´t notice them. In the exhibition room, where the smiley face was housed, was a light. Jack grabbed the weapon that hung at his belt. Then he waited until Connor nodded at him and they could storm the room. "Stop immediately", he said to the figure in the red coat, "Hands up and turn around slowly."
The figure in the red coat stood before the apparently cursed painting and did what she was told. The person turned around slowly and then pulled the red cap of her head. "Miss Handerson", Connor and Lindsay weren´t surprised, "You are the person in the red coat."
"So it was you who left the museum shortly after two o´clock in the morning when James Williams died."
"Alright, I admit it. It was me. I killed him."
"What about the cursed painting?", Sue asked.
"My business partner Bill May has encountered this story," she scolded, "And when Williams was found in the same room death, which also houses the image this idiot only counted one and one together. He insisted to examine the painting. I decided it was time to use this fact after the silly police wasn´t able to elucidate the death of James, I thought I am safe... "
If Miss Handerson had expected the OSIR sent the best team, she would have thought twice.
"Why did you kill your friend James?", Jack asked, Miss Handerson looked up questioningly now. "We know you have helped him with a large sum," he added.
"He didn´t want to pay back the money after he had gained a foothold in the art scene again. I told him from the beginning I only lend him the money... I have lured for him in the museum to give him the biggest fright of his life."
"How did you James Williams kill with the smiley?", Lindsay asked, but Miss Handerson wasn´t talking to her.
They heard sirens in the distance. "The police are here," Connor said, because he saw the sirens of police wagons through the glass panes of the front door. The police entered the museum and came to them to the first floor. They arrested Miss Handerson and read her rights. Then they led Miss Handerson to the car. When the woman saw the dog, who was sitting next to Sue's feet, she nearly had a fit of rage. She screamed and struggled, while she was taken to the police car. Connor didn´t know whether to be pleased when they informed Bill May the next day that the painting wasn´t cursed obviously. His business partner and former owner of the museum Miss Handerson had not expected someone would find out. "There´s still one question," Sue admitted, before they finally said goodbye to Mr. May, because their plane would leave in four hours,"What do you think? How did Miss Handerson kill her old friend James with this heavy Smiley?"
Mister May seemed to have to think a while. But he also didn´t come to any useful result. "Maybe the painting is to blame."
"No, I don´t think so", Lindsay replied.
"Are you sure?"
"Very."
Mister May seemed to be very satisfied with this statement. He wanted to be sure, he could bring the picture in his home without getting in danger. Sure, it wasn´t very pretty, but the more valuable. What remained was the question of how Miss Handerson had managed to get the heavy Smiley off the wall and kill her friend James. And a picture that showed nothing morethan pitch-black darkness.
Fin