Cleaned Out

"Three days ago, I came for my daily swim in me money," sighed Mr. McDuck, climbing down a long ladder. "Blast my bagpipes! Some ruthless robber ran off with all me beautiful cash! Except, of course, my number one dime."

"But how?" asked Sharona, helping Monk, who was visibly shaken.

They were standing on a metal platform, just inside the vault door. A diving board stood in front of them, and off to the side the steel ladder descended into the depths of the bin. Usually money would be piled up with ten feet of the platform. Now, however, Monk had a startling view of a long drop to a solid concrete floor.

Brilliantly clean, spectacularly lighted, the vault was empty save for a glass case at the bottom.

"Let go of the door," Sharona whispered. "You have to go down there. This is what you do."

"I'm not climbing down that ladder," Monk objected.

"Hey, Monk, Sharona, no hands," said Disher, who was bouncing on the diving board.

He got the glare from Sharona.

Disher jumped back on the platform, and began to climb down the ladder.

"Adrian," begged Sharona, "Do you want Disher to show you up? It's easy, all you have to do is hang onto the rails, and put one foot down before the other."

"Going down is too easy," Monk remarked.

"You went into the sewer to save my life, . . . although you could of been more careful firing that gun," Sharona remarked. "You also climbed to the top of that Ferris Wheel. Adrian, you have to go down the ladder . . . I'll help you."

Sharona knew she'd regret it.

Helping Monk meant slowly descending with him, and letting him grab her left shoe in case of vertigo. The end result was they managed to inch down slowly, making Sharona's leg sore in the process.

When they finally got down, Monk received a hands on hip, full power look from Sharona.

Fortunately, Disher had asked McDuck about the lucky dime. This meant that McDuck was considerably less impatient with Monk than he might of been.

"Ever since I earned me dime," Scrooge McDuck explained to Disher, "I've been inspired to seek my fortune. Since that day, my net worth has skyrocketed."

While Disher gazed at the tiny piece of silver in amazement, Monk began his investigation of the bin.

McDuck took off his top hat, and rubbed his eyes.

"What's the laddy doing?" he asked Sharona.

"This is how he does it," Sharona explained proudly. "He goes around the crime scene, does this measuring thing with his hands, and picks up the clues everyone else missed. Sometimes the case can be cold for weeks, yet he'll find the trail."

"Aye," observed McDuck, who was becoming increasingly skeptical. "If he could only find his right mind, he'd be all set."

Sharona had geared up her glare, and was about to respond (something about ducks who swim in three cubic acres of cash), when Monk stopped dead in his tracks.

"Mr. McDuck," he asked, in his usual uneasy manner.' "How often do you have this room cleaned?"

"Only once a year," McDuck explained. "I clean me money myself, but on April 2 I let me cleaning crew come in and polish the walls and ceiling."

"It's September 29, yet this room is dustless, and free from any hairs or feathers," Monk observed. "I suppose you didn't find any fingerprints, footprints, or DNA evidence."

Monk expected, and received, a negative response from Mr. McDuck.

"And the number one dime," said Monk, looking into the case. Sharona handed him a wipe, and he carefully lifted the glass lid.

"Dunnot touch me dime," McDuck warned. "I like to have only my self hold me dime. It's my most valuable possession."

"He won't," Sharona assured him.

Actually Disher seemed more inclined to grab the dime than Monk.

"There are prints in here," remarked Monk. "The inside of the case had several smudge marks."

"Don't look at me," said Scrooge McDuck. "I've not opened the case since me bin was robbed."

"This is easy," remarked Disher. "All we've got to do is take the prints . . ."

"They're glove marks," interrupted Monk, sniffing something. "You can see the manufacturer's name, "Big House."

Monk thought for a moment.

"I've got it," said Disher, snapping his fingers.

"You've go it?!" said Sharona and McDuck, together.

In Black and White

"A crime syndicate," observed Disher. "The mob - their other activities are peanuts compared to an operation like this. They infiltrated Scrooge McDuck Enterprises, even the money bin itself. They learned about Mr. McDuck's traps, and how to shut them off. One of them, probably a safe cracker, found out how to open the vault. Then, one dark night, a couple hundred mafioso came into the bin, took out the money, and cleaned up. Literally."

In Living Color

"Awk! That canna be," McDuck objected. "I've never let those tiny terrible trilobites meddle in my business affairs. I've made my fortune being smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies - and I made it square. I'm not about to lose it to some maniacal meddling malicious mobsters."

"Couldn't they get access to the bin?" asked Disher.

"Impossible!" exclaimed McDuck. "I have criminal background checks done on all my employees. Besides only meself, Huey, Dewey, and Louie know how to run me traps. And there's only one person in the world who knows the combination to the vault. And I'd never tell some gaggling grungy gangster how to get me money!"

"How would they get the money out of the bin?" observed Sharona.

"Uh . . . wheelbarrows," Disher replied.

"They'd have to stop time to do that," McDuck observed. "And with Gyro Gearloose's Time Teaser destroyed, they canna do that anymore."

"The Duckburg police would notice if a couple hundred gangsters came into town," said Monk, putting the final nail into the coffin of Disher's summation. "They would also have to arrange a fleet of trucks to come up here to remove the cash. It's impossible."

"Okay, then who did it?" Disher asked.

"I'm ninety percent sure it was done by your usual enemies, Mr. McDuck," said Monk, once again smelling the display case. "This time, they were smart enough, focused enough, and desperate enough to pull off a near perfect crime."

"But me, me nephews, Launchpad, even Duckworth, Mrs. Beakly and wee Webbie have scoured Duckburg looking for clues," Scrooge pointed out.

"They've done it differently this time," Monk pointed out. "Something you would never think of. Sometimes when you're too close to a case . . . ."

Sharona handed Monk a wipe, for his eyes. Trudy's murder case had clouded his mind.

Monk recovered.

"You have four major suspects - or groups of suspects. I took the opportunity to do some further research before I came. From least to most likely, the suspects would be . . . .

Magica Despell, the alleged 'witch' . . . ."

"She is a witch, lad," said Scrooge McDuck, shaking his head.

"Don't bother arguing," Sharona mouthed to Monk.

"But," said Monk, tensely, "She's only after your dime . . . and they didn't take your dime."

"Rules her out," Disher commented.

"Your second suspect is Dijon, the famous Barkladesh pickpocket," said Monk, thinking. "He tried to take your money once before."

"He tried to get crash crunching mites to devour my fortune," said McDuck, angrily. "But it canna be him."

"Yes," Monk said. "He's imprisoned in London, for trying to steal the Queen's change purse."

"He's locked up all right," said Disher. "I also researched the usual suspects - on the FBI's police files.

"Amazing," said Sharona, sarcastically.

"But then there's Flintheart Glomgold," Monk frowned. "He's one of your largest competitors, and he's as ruthless as Dale Beiderbeck. He would destroy your fortune out of spite."

"Aye," said McDuck, gravely. "That's Flinty alright."

"He's also the type to gloat," Monk speculated. "Just like Dale the Whale. But he wouldn't leave you your lucky dime. He'd probably gloat by leaving you an insignificant . . . ."

"A wooden nickle," Scrooge interjected. "Anyway it canna be him - Huey, Dewey, and Louis scouted out his mansion."

"Which leaves Ma Beagle and the Beagle Boys," Monk told McDuck.

"And they're a crime syndicate," Disher crowed. "Sort of."

"Aye," McDuck remarked. "Ma Beagle, her seven boys, and over a hundred cousins, uncles, and nephews. The whole bad brood."

"They have the manpower and the motive," Monk explained. "They are also the thieves with the most intimate knowledge of your bin. Somehow, they finally pulled off the robbery they have always dreamed of."

"Unless they hypnotized Gladstone Gander into helping them," Scrooge McDuck objected, "there's no way they could of beaten my traps."

"Mega Byte Beagle," observed Monk. "Working with Ma Beagle and the others. He's the only one who could find a way in. They probably forgot to take the dime. One of them, who was eating a McDuck Walnut Chocolate Bar, was going to take the dime but left it behind. You can smell it in the display case."

"Burger Beagle," Disher replied.

"Of course!" said McDuck.

"It's usually their style to take everything," Monk pondered. "But Burger, being one of the stupider Beagles, must of let it behind."

"But I had Launchpad fly over to Ma Beagle's . . . LAUNCHPAD!"

McDuck suddenly turned crimson. He rushed up the ladder, and sprinted into his office.

"Come on Adrian," Sharona sighed. "You too Randy."

Slowly, awkwardly, and laboriously; Sharona and Disher escorted Monk up the ladder, to the platform, and out the vault door.