Chapter 9. My new plan

"Hello, kids," Miss Crane smiled at us when we came into the library. "Have you found out anything interesting about the picture?"

"That's why we are here," I decided to use this opportunity to get straight to the point. "We want to ask you, Miss Crane. Can you remember who came here before the robbery?"

"No one," the librarian shrugged.

"No one?" Tom opened his eyes wide.

"No one," the librarian nodded. "There were no strangers. Only people I know."

"Okay," I said patiently. "Can you enumerate all people who came here?"

Miss Crane went silent, thinking. "Only usual people, who often visited the library," she shrugged. "Ross Adaskey for example. He's an intelligent, polite man, always returns books in time."

We exchanged glances. I could swear that everyone was thinking about the same things – this Ross Adaskey was a very possible suspect. He joined the library, borrowed books, returned them in time, looking like a good reader, but his real aim was to make sure that the picture was on the wall. And when the convenient time had come, he stole it.

"I'm so sorry for him," Miss Crane said sympathetically. "He still doesn't remember what happened to him. And doctors don't let him go home. Okay, who else? Mr Smith and his wife came. Mr Palmer senior. Giovanni Martinelli came a few times. The last time he was here right before the robbery. You must know Giovanni, it is an interesting, polite young man. He runs a shop in the shopping mall.

We glanced at each other again. Maybe Tom's right about this guy after all?

I wanted to ask a question about Henry, but at that moment the door opened and Mrs Terzis, a friend of Nick's parents', came in. Mr Hampson followed her.

"Oh, hello, kids," Mrs Terzis smiled friendly at us.

"Hello, Mrs Terzis" we said in reply. "Hello, Mr Hampson."

Mr Hampson dryly nodded. He gave Nick a reproachful glance and turned to the librarian. "Miss Crane," he said. "I promised Mrs Terzis to find that book about the Time Machine which I liked so much, but I don't remember its name. May I search for it in the computer catalogues?"

"Sure, Mr Hampson," Miss Crane nodded. "Over there, please."

"Mrs Terzis why don't you wait for me here," Mr Hampson courteously pushed a soft chair towards her. "Sit down, please."

Mrs Terzis sank into the soft chair. "Mr Hampson often comes," said Miss Crane, watching him going off towards the computers.

I wrote down everything what she'd said into my notebook.

"What are you writing there?" all of a sudden Miss Crane angrily looked at me. "Mr Hampson is a hardworking, honest man. Offer him gold and silver and he won't take it if he didn't earn it!"

I doubted about gold and silver, but hastily closed the notebook.

"Let's go out of here," Nick whispered to us. "Until Mrs Terzis starts to ask what I'm doing here."

We said goodbye and left the library. It was a warm and sunny day, but no one was in a good mood. Two days passed, but we still had no idea who could steal the painting and where it could be. That also meant that we were far from the reward.

Tom insisted that we should go into a café to eat something. In his opinion when you're depressed, go and eat something. We knew that it was useless to argue with him is he's hungry. So we went to Burger Joe's.

"I'm starting to think that Tom can be right about Giovanni," I said when we sat down around the table.

"Me too," Liz nodded. "At first I thought it was ridiculous, but now I think it's quite possible. Do you remember what Miss Crane said about him? He came to the library right before the robbery. He pretended that he wanted to borrow books, but his real aim was to make sure that the picture was on the wall. And the next day he disappeared without any trace. Even his girlfriend doesn't know where he can be."

"Poor Kelly," Richelle whispered.

"We should go to her place. We must interrogate Kelly," Tom jumped to his feet. "Otherwise he'll go overseas together with the painting or money."

"Hang on," I made him sit down.

"Why?" Tom exclaimed, his eyes wide with excitement. "You've just said that it can be Giovanni."

"Exactly. I said "It can be Giovanni"," I replied calmly. "We don't know anything for sure, but you're already going to arrest him."

"Why don't you, Tom, go to the police?" Nick drawled. "Tell Greta to delay all flights and trains. Right now Giovanni might be trying to go overseas or hide in another state or town."

"That's right," Tom didn't notice mockery in Nick's voice. "We can't arrest him on our own, can we? But Greta can! Let's go to her office!"

"He's right! Come on!" Liz jumped to her feet too.

"Another one's gone mad," Nick rolled his eyes.

"Sit down, you both," I ordered them. "Even if we're right, we can't arrest Giovanni. We need evidences. Besides, we're not so sure that it's Giovanni. It can be Mr Adaskey or someone else. Henry for example."

"You always need evidences," Tom muttered, but lowered himself onto his chair.

"I know what to do," I said. The waitress came up to our table to take the orders. I waited till she went off, then continued. "I've got a plan. For the start we should reduce our list of suspects. So I suggest going to the hospital again to speak with Mr Adaskey. Maybe if we describe Henry and Giovanni to him, he'll tell us something and we'll be able to exclude at least one of them."

"Is it your plan?" Richelle looked up at me. "For one thing, I personally don't want to see this Ross Adaskey any more. And for another, I wonder how you're going to get into his room. Have you forgotten what happened there yesterday?"

"Elmo wants to be met and escorted by a team of policemen, like a president," Nick snorted.

"No, I don't," I smiled. "As I've told you, I've got a plan."

"What plan?" they stared at me.

"Well, the day is quite warm, right?" I began. "And sunny. And the sky is clear and blue, so it won't be raining today."

"Are you preparing for the weather report?" Nick raised one eyebrow.

"No," I grinned. "I mean that since it's warm, the window in Mr Adaskey's room is likely to be open. As you might remember, his room is on the ground floor. We'll quietly get inside through the window, speak to him and no one will know about it."

I looked around at the others. None of them seemed to approve my idea. At that moment the waitress brought our orders and we all started to eat.

"So? What do you think?" I demanded.

"What do you expect from this visit?" Tom asked with his mouth full.

"We'll see how Ross reacts to the mention of Henry or Giovanni," I explained.

"He'll say "I'll kill you"," Nick said without any shadow of a doubt.

I took a swig of my juice. "The question is how he will say it," I said. "I think that if he's connected with these people, his reaction will be considerably stronger than if he doesn't know them."

"In this case he'll certainly kill us," drawled Nick.

"I don't think so," I shook my head. "Look. Ross lost his memory because of a shock. The best way to return his memory is to put him back into the critical conditions. Psychologists often use this method."

"Right," Liz nodded. "I heard a lot of such stories."

"I think we should try," Tom banged his fist on the table. "If we return Ross his memory, everyone will be grateful to us. Doctors aren't successful in it yet."

"I'll go too," Nick nodded. I glanced at him sideways. I wondered what made him go. Curiosity or desire to receive the reward? But whatever it was, it was stronger than his fear of being hauled into troubles.

Liz and Sunny glanced at one another. "Well if you think that it'll help Mr Adaskey to remember what happened to him, we're with you," Liz said doubtfully.

"I'm not going to climb into the window!" Richelle screamed.

"You don't have to," Nick shrugged. "You'll wait for us in the street."

"Hurry up, then," I glanced at my watch. "Let's get it over with."

###

In fifteen minutes we left the café and headed for the hospital. As we hurried along, Nick opened my notebook and began checking my list of suspects. Tom peered into it over Nick's shoulder. "What do you want to find there?" he asked.

"Darling, look at these boys!" all of a sudden we heard a male voice from behind. "They're reading even when they're walking!"

"I always tell you that the modern youth isn't so bad," a female voice replied. "I bet these boys get only good marks at school."

"It's important to get good marks, I'm glad that young people understand it," the man said. "Without a good education you'll never be successful."

I looked back over my shoulder. An old, intelligent-looking couple was walking behind us. The old man friendly smiled at Tom and Nick, who'd finally torn their eyes from the notepad and stared at the old couple. "You, inquisitive young man," he asked Tom, "where do you want to study after graduating from the school?"

"Um…I…don't know," Tom mumbled, taken aback. I don't think he ever thought about such things.

"You, so clever, hardworking boy, don't know where you want to study?" the talkative man sounded disappointed. "When I was in your age, I clearly knew what I wanted to do in this life."

"Well, I like paintings…" Tom mumbled. He glanced down at the ground and added, "and stones…"

"Stones?" the old man exclaimed happily. "We're almost work-mates, young man! I'm also a geologist. Believe me, it's a very interesting part of science!"

"Is it?" murmured Tom, who knew about geology as much as he knew, say, about Tibetan monks.

"Yes. Believe me, you chose an interesting profession," the old man continued. "You'll be travelling all over the country, inspecting ground and stones. When I discovered my first deposit of…"

"Er... excuse me," Liz interrupted him as politely as possible. "We're in a hurry. We have to go."

"Oh, sure," the old couple smiled. "We can't delay such hard-working kids." They friendly waved us goodbye and went off down the street. We turned into another street and in several minutes reached the hospital. Quietly, we walked around the left hospital wing in which Mr Adaskey's room was. Richelle and Liz stayed at the corner of the wing to watch. I crept along the wall over to Mr Adaskey's window. Nick, Tom and Sunny were following me.

But the window turned out to be closed. I turned to the others to tell them that I was wrong and the window was closed, when all of a sudden we heard an ear-splitting scream, coming from the room.

"I'll kill you!"

The window banged open. Someone in a black balaclava leaped out and disappeared in the bushes. Nick and Sunny ran after him. Tom darted to the window. After a short pause I followed him.

"Help me," Tom said to me. He grabbed the window moulding and pulled himself up. I put my hands around his waist, supporting him. Tom poked his head into the window and bumped right into the doctor's face.

"Egyptian? Again?" the doctor grabbed Tom's shoulder.

Tom tried to wriggle free, but the doctor's grip was too firm.

"Now you'll answer what you're doing here, Urcho Kaleva!" the doctor growled.

With all my might I was pulling Tom down, but the doctor's grip was iron. In desperation, Tom bit the doctor's arm. The man howled with pain, his grip loosened. Tom and I crashed to the ground, but immediately sprang up to our feet and bolted away.

"Run! Run for it!" I yelled, running past Liz and Richelle. They tore after us. Nick and Sunny struggled through the bushes and joined us. There were loud voices of the doctor and other people behind us.

"Stop! You, Egyptian! And you, others!" the doctor was roaring.

He obviously was in a rage. It crossed my mind that we'd better stop and explain what had happened, tell them about the stranger in the balaclava, but looking back over my shoulder, I saw furious faces of the doctor and two other guys in white uniforms, the fat reception nurse was trotting behind them. Somehow I didn't feel like stopping and explaining anything to them.

We reached a corner of the street and turned into a small side street. Nick grabbed Richelle's hand.

"Over here," he shouted and dragged her into the dark space between two houses. Tom, Liz, Sunny and I followed them. As it turned out except for darkness there also were thick bushes with thorns. Their branches painfully whipped our faces and caught at our clothes and hair. But it didn't stop us. We ran and ran. Even Richelle stopped thinking about her clothes. We all understood that we'd be in great trouble if they caught us and that only our legs could save us now.

"Stop! Stop you all!" we still heard furious screams behind us.

Running as fast as I could, I tried to think of what to say in case they caught us. I was breathless, my legs felt as if they were about to fall off; scratches on my face and hands were burning. But we didn't dare to stop. Finally, having wound like hares between houses and streets, we reached the park. The pursuers seemed to be left behind. We ran into the Glen and collapsed onto the ground on our clearing. Here we felt safe. The Glen was the last place where our pursuers would think to look for us.