Chapter 3. It's a dead end
At four o'clock we gathered in the library. Greta Vortek also was there. When I came in she was enquiring Liz and Nick about the found piece of frame. Tom told me that Miss Crane recognized the piece of frame and confirmed that it was from the stolen picture.
I told Miss Vortek our suggestion that the "drowned" man could be connected with the thieves or even could be one of them.
"Maybe," Greta agreed when I finished. "By the way, he came to himself, but he can't remember a thing. Doctors say that he has a loss of memory because of terror or shock."
"Poor thing," Liz's soft heart immediately filled with sympathy.
Miss Vortek told us that the man's name was Ross Adaskey, he lived in Raven Hill. Neighbours told the police that it was a calm, intelligent man, an artist, or related with artists. Doctors consider that he is in deep shock, he shouts "I'll kill you" all the time when he sees anyone. He even punched the doctor in the eye.
"Now the only thing that we can say for sure," Greta went on, "is that there was a struggle between this man and somebody else. There are bruises and other traces of fight all over his body. We think that someone tried to drown him."
"Why the hell did he lose his memory when we need it so much?!" Tom muttered as if the "drowned man" put a spoke in our wheel on purpose. "Other people survive in catastrophes and in air crashes and nothing happens to them! They remember everything to the tiniest details."
"By the way, Tom," Greta turned to him. "I'd like to know your opinion as an artist. Could this painting be valuable? How do you think?"
"Honestly, I don't think so," Tom shrugged, "The picture was interesting, and the artist managed to create a pretty mermaid and beautiful background, but that's all. I don't remember anything special about this painting except for this. But I don't know for sure, I'm not a fine art expert after all."
"Oh, speaking about fine art," Miss Crane clapped herself on the forehead. "That reminded me that there are inventories of library property in the archive. The picture must be mentioned in these books. Boys, come with me, please. I need your help.
We went after her between the shelves with books and soon returned with several old, yellowish tomes, each labelled with "Inventory" and its year.
"Let's see," Greta grabbed the oldest book of 1967 year. "Books… Appliance…" she murmured, leafing through the book. "Furniture… Desks… Tables… Chairs… Oh, wow!" she exclaimed, "It says that The Queen of Denmark visited Raven Hill in 1958 during her trip around Australia, and spent several hours in the library, reading books," she looked down at the old armchair she was sitting in. "Maybe the Queen was sitting in this chair, where I'm sitting now?"
"Maybe," the librarian nodded. "But you, Miss Vortek, aren't a queen. And you have to look for the stolen picture."
"That's right," Greta sighed drearily. She turned a few pages.
The door of the library slammed. A middle-aged, well-dressed, imposing-looking man came in.
"Oh, hello, Mr Hampson," said Nick.
"Hello, Nick,' the man said. "Miss Crane, I heard about the robbery and I know you must be awfully busy, but I'd like to return these books and borrow several new ones."
"Sure, Mr Hampson," Miss Crane stood up and went over to her desk.
"Have you found out anything about the thieves?" the man said, staring at Constable Vortek with interest. Then his eyes fixed on Nick. "Can I ask what you're doing here, Nick?"
"Reading," Nick muttered gruffly.
"If I were you I would spend my every spare minute in the office with your father, learning the family business," the man said sententiously. "Your father…"
"I perfectly know where I'd better spend my spare time, thank you," Nick interrupted him. The man's eyes narrowed with anger, he opened his mouth to say something, but Miss Crane quickly interfered.
"Mr Hampson, you can look for what you want in the catalogue," she said.
"Sure," the man nodded, and without saying anything else, he sauntered off towards the computers.
"Who's that?" Tom whispered.
"He works with my father," Nick muttered. "Another wonderful, clever man with promising prospects. If only you knew how much I'm sick of their exhortations!"
"Miss Crane," Greta called the librarian. "There's a mention of an Italian baroque hassock in this book…" Greta made a short pause, then repeated, "Italian baroque… Where is this hassock?"
"Disappeared many years ago," Miss Crane sighed. "Take a look in the book for 1970 year. There is already no mention of this Italian baroque there. No one knows where it had gone."
"So someone ran off with the hassock," Greta sighed. "It's a shame. I'd like to look at it."
"Now someone ran off with the mermaid," Tom put in.
"I wonder how they could run off with the mermaid," Liz giggled. "They had to give her legs first."
"I don't know about legs," Tom winked at her. "But the fact is that the mermaid also has gone away."
"She probably married the shepherd," Nick snorted. "Why lose such an opportunity if she has legs now"
Constable Vortek and Miss Crane couldn't help laughing.
"Okay, let's continue," Greta turned several next pages at last. "Oh, here it is," she exclaimed. "A painting of unknown artist," she read out loud. "The Guileful mermaid. The painting has no artist's signature. Canvas. Oil. Approximately nineteenth century… Oh, take a look! The frame is three times more valuable than the painting. The frame is gold-plated, made in France, eighteenth century. I wonder how this picture could emerge in this little library."
We exchanged glances.
"They might steal the picture because of the frame," Tom exclaimed.
"And then broke it and threw it into the ocean?" Nick raised his eyebrows.
He was right in it. We all could understand that. There was a long silence in the library. Suddenly a bright, but crazy idea came into my head.
"Listen, I got it!" I exclaimed excitedly. "I think I know what the thieves were after. The frame."
"Oh, yeah," Nick drawled. "So they were after the frame and stole it just in order to throw it and run away?
"Hang on," I raised my hand to stop him. "Don't you realise that we haven't found the fourth piece of the frame? And I doubt that we'll find it. Because the last piece of the frame has a hiding place.
"Hiding place?" the others gasped.
"Let's see…" Greta reached for the one of the pieces of the broken frame.
Nick and I grabbed other pieces. Only now we noticed that the frame was massive and volume enough to carve a cavity in it. If someone wanted to hide something small, but valuable, it was difficult to think of a better place.
"I wonder," Nick said thoughtfully, "how long the "Guileful mermaid" had been hanging in the library?"
"As far as I know it'd been here since the opening," Miss Crane answered. "And I should point out that this library is very old."
"What I wonder," Richelle said, inspecting her hair for split ends, "is who could know about the hiding place and why did they come to steal it only now,"
As usual she was the one who pointed out at obvious facts, which the rest of us didn't notice. If there was a hiding hollow in the frame, it was very old. Why did someone come to take it only now? The picture had been hanging in the library at least for forty years. I'm sure that during these years there were loads of opportunities to quietly take whatever was hidden in the frame without attracting anyone's attention. Besides, those who got into the library last night could take the content of the hiding place and leave the picture on the wall. Then it would look just like a practical joke and no one would even think of investigating this case.
There was only one possible explanation of what had happened – someone or something scared the thieves off. That was why they couldn't stay any longer in the library, and having taken the painting with frame, they had to run away.
"Maybe," Greta sighed when I said this version out loud. "Or maybe it was something else. Anyway. I have to go now. If you find something or an interesting idea comes into your brainy heads, call me, please."
She put the papers in her briefcase and went out. We also took our stuff and saying goodbye to Miss Crane left the library.
"Greta also seems to want to receive the reward," Nick muttered. "I don't think she'll give it to us."
"I don't know about Greta," Liz replied dryly, "but you, Nick, certainly won't give it to anyone."
"Of course," Nick looked down his nose at her. "If we find the picture before the others, the reward will be ours."
"Listen, what if the burglar did it for someone?" I suggested, ignoring them. "What if someone hired the burglar to steal the picture? In this case the burglar probably didn't know about the hiding place."
"It's possible," Sunny agreed.
"Right!" Liz jumped up. "And this burglar was Ross Adaskey. He stole the painting and brought it to the customer, who was waiting for him on the beach. And then the customer tried to drown Mr Adaskey so as not to leave witnesses, then he threw the frame into the ocean and ran away with the painting. And with the fourth piece of frame. Or vice versa! Ross Adaskey could be the customer! He hired someone to steal the picture, but then that guy decided to take everything and tried to drown Mr Adaskey."
"Or Mr Adaskey was just a poor guy, who'd been at the wrong time in the wrong place," Sunny put in calmly.
At that moment Tom let out a tragic groan. "Where to look for? Whom to look for?" He moaned, swaying from side to side, his head in his hands. "This one could steal… that one could steal… others could steal… It's like a puzzle and we don't have any clue to solve it!"
"It's worse than a puzzle," Richelle grumbled. "It's a dead end."
"Hey," I grinned. "Don't give up! Let's go to the Pen office and think about it."
"Well, I've got other things to think about," Richelle muttered. "Nick, you promised to help me with the maths, remember?"
"Sure," Nick sighed. "We're going home, guys. Let's discuss it tomorrow."
As it turned out the others also had something to do on a Sunday evening. So we arranged to discuss it tomorrow at school and went our separate ways.