Chapter 8. New suspects
The following day after school Tom and I arranged to meet the others in the Glen, and went to Mrs France's place. We were told to finish the cleaning as quickly as possible so as not to waste time and spend the rest of the day looking for the stolen painting.
We'd been dusting and vacuuming in Mrs France's living room for about an hour when the doorbell rang. Howshedied went to open the door. It was Mr Palmer senior.
"Paul Pa-almer! Wha-at brought you here?" she drawled in her usual mournful voice.
"Oh, dear Tilda!" Mr Palmer seemed to be glad to see her. "How have you been? I haven't seen you for ages!"
"I'm ali-ive. What can be mo-ore impo-ortant?" Matilda Geraldine rolled her eyes. "Have you heard about our good friend Isaak Robinson? Last week he le-eft this world."
"Terrible! It's terrible!" the old man exclaimed. "But don't be upset. We're still alive, aren't we? Live and be happy, dear!"
"Oh, Paul! You're so optimistic!" Matilda Geraldine sighed heavily.
I heard Tom grunt with laughter. To be honest I barely could stop myself from giggling too. Luckily at that moment Mrs France came into the living room.
"Tillie," she said. "Why don't you let Mr Palmer in? Mr Palmer, come in, please. Make yourself at home."
"Thank you, dear Annie," the old man winked at her.
"Shall I make you a cup of tea? Or coffee?" Mrs France offered.
"Yes, please," Mr Palmer nodded. "I also would like to eat something if you don't mind," he patted his big, round stomach.
"Sure. Let's go to the kitchen," Mrs France smiled. "Boys," she turned to us. "Would you like to have a cup of tea with us? I think you deserve a little break."
I opened my mouth to say that we had plans for the rest of the day, but Tom beamed.
"Yes, please," he happily agreed.
"We were going to finish here as soon as possible," I hissed in his ear as we followed Mrs France, Howshedied and Mr Palmer into the kitchen.
"I'm hungry," Tom shrugged. "It won't take much time anyway. Don't worry. The others won't know about it."
We came into a spacious kitchen and sat down at the table. Tom stared at a huge fruit cake with hungry eyes. Mrs France put on the kettle.
"We should enjoy even plain tea while we're alive," Howshedied, drawled in her mournful voice.
"What a great company for tea," Tom murmured, glancing sideways at her.
"Shut up," I ordered him, "otherwise we'll be thrown out of here."
"By the way, did you hear about the robbery?" Mr Palmer said, watching Mrs France slicing the cake.
"What an absurd robbery. Who would want that old painting?" Mrs France shrugged.
"I didn't really like this picture," Howshedied drawled. "A mermaid was pretty, but looking at the poor shepherd's face it was obvious that he was a goner."
"I liked that mermaid," Mr Palmer objected. "My son Sammie says that if this picture isn't found, he'll order a copy of this painting."
"I hope the picture will be found, though," Howshedied sighed heavily. "It reminds me of so many people who've already left this world."
"How they were dy-ying," Tom whispered in my ear.
I couldn't help myself and snorted with laughter.
"It's no laughing matter, young man," Howshidied glared at me. "We'll all be there one day."
"Well, I'm personally not in a hurry," Mr Palmer exclaimed. "I've got a lot of interesting things to do."
"Oh, Paul!"
"You know, a friend of mine told me that before the library this picture belonged to a very rich man," Mr Palmer obviously didn't want to change the subject of conversation. "They say that the mermaid represented this man's love. Then he died. One of his relatives inherited his paintings and sold most of them, including this one. Finally our late librarian Katherine Seton found it somewhere and hung it on the wall in the library."
"Oh, poor Kaherine!" Matilda Tangerine wailed. "She was so kind, quiet woman! Her pure image will always live in my heart."
"This frump should write obituaries," Tom whispered in my ear, for what I immediately punched him in the ribs."
"Do you reme-ember how she was ly-ying in her little ho-ouse, lonely and aba-andoned," Miss Matilda Geraldine continued her mournful speech. "And fina-ally she quietly faded, like an a-angel."
"Oh, God, protect me from death like that!" Mr Palmer leaped in his chair in horror.
"I thought Miss Seton just retired and then died," I said.
"Oh, young people! They're so naive!" Matilda Tangerine indignantly exclaimed. "They think the life is so simple!"
"Miss Seton had a nephew. She loved him more than anything in the world, but he turned out to be a mean, worthless kind of a man," Mr Palmer explained.
"He turned out to be a co-omplete scoundrel. He practically killed this poor woman, who'd given him everything," Howshedied chipped in.
"This nephew, Henry Watson, was arrested for a robbery," Mr Palmer raised his voice. "He and his friend robbed a jewellery shop. While they were throwing stuff into bags, the owner of the shop came in. He was walking past his shop, saw flicks of light in the window and decided to go in to check. Henry pushed this man. Falling, he hit his head against a corner of a marble table and died. It was a great deal in those days. Henry and his friend were caught soon and tried for a murder and robbery, but they managed to hide the jewellery they'd stolen. Henry was sent to a jail for many years, but neither he nor his mate told where they'd hidden the stolen jewellery. Even now no one knows where it can be. As for Miss Seton, as soon as she learnt what her favourite nephew had done, she fell ill and died a month or two later."
"Oh, remember how she was dying!? Poor woman!" Matilda Tangerine wailed again. "Stro-oke! Para-alysis!" she started to enumerate with a sort of pleased expression on her face. "Then another stroke. And finally death."
"Tilda! Stop whingeing, will you!" Mr Palmer glared at her.
Tom grunted and bent down, pretending that he dropped something.
"We'd better go back to work," I said, stifling laughter.
"Sure," Mrs France nodded.
Tom and I ran out of the kitchen and bolted upstairs.
"Can you believe that?" I exclaimed, taking a mop. "It all fits!"
"Yeah!" Tom looked at me, looking intensely excited. "The jewellery wasn't found. Do you think this Henry guy could hide something in the picture?"
"I'm sure he did!" I nodded. "He could hide something small, but very valuable there. Diamonds for example or something like that."
"Listen, Elmo, he hardly could think of something more ingenious," Tom exclaimed. "Even if Henry had robbed ten shops and killed plenty of people, no one would have even thought to suspect his auntie."
"He must have thought "I'll go out of the jail and quietly take it"," I followed our theory. "But his auntie died. So he decided to get into the library at night and steal the picture."
"No, Elmo," Tom objected. "It doesn't fit. He wouldn't steal the picture. He'd quietly take what he wanted and would go away."
"Well, don't you think that if he just got into the library, quietly took this little thing from the frame and didn't touch anything else, the police would easily track him down?"
"How?" Tom shrugged.
"Well, we worked it out, didn't we? So would Greta."
"Do you think that Greta would think and guess?" Tom objected. "She has a lot of other cases to investigate. If nothing was touched in the library, she would decide that it was just a practical joke and certainly would close this case."
"Henry could hire someone. Mr Adaskey for example," I didn't want to refuse my theory so easily. "Listen, I don't know what to think. Let's finish with the cleaning and go to the others."
We went back to work. We worked like slaves for about two hours after that. At the very last we finished, received our money and several minutes later we were racing off to the Glen. The others were already there. Liz and Sunny were quietly chatting, sitting together. Richelle was talking on Nick's mobile phone. Nick was sitting beside her, blankly watching the girls.
"You won't believe what we've found out!" Tom panted, sinking down to the ground beside Sunny and gasping for breath.
We told them what we'd learnt from Mr Palmer and Howshedied. The others were listening to us with their mouths open. Well at least Nick, Liz and Sunny were listening. Richelle took no notice of us and went on speaking on the phone.
"What I don't understand," Liz said when we finished, "is why the thief didn't throw the painting away if all what they wanted was the frame and that thing inside it."
"This guy could think of something like "why dump such a pretty painting if I've already stolen it? Why don't I hang it at my place"," practical Sunny suggested.
"It's possible," Tom agreed, looking as though he did such things everyday. "It was one of those cases when you can't return the thing, but at the same time you don't want to throw it away."
"Yeah," Nick grinned. "Tom always does it when he manages to steal extra things."
"When someone cracks stupid jokes all the time, people are starting to think that this person is stupid," Tom said with fake calmness.
"See who's talking," drawled Nick.
"Let's go back to the point," I interrupted quickly. "We want to find this picture before The Work Demons, don't we? So let's think what and where can we find out about this Henry?"
"Elmo, it can't be Henry," Liz gently shook her head. "This morning I spoke to Miss Vortek. She mentioned that she also had checked this theory and found out that Henry had died in the jail several years ago."
"It doesn't mean anything," Tom immediately protested.
"Moysten, Greta clearly said that Henry was dead," Nick snapped. "Can you understand that?"
"Not everything what people say is truth," Tom objected. "We also say a lot..."
"But it doesn't mean, for example, that our Tom really is Urcho Kaleva Howshedied," Sunny laughed merrily.
"Can you be quieter?" Richelle hissed, turning to us. "I can't hear anything because of you. Yeah, Jenny," she said into the phone, "Have you heard about Kelly? She had been seeing that Italian guy. Do you know that he didn't come home?"
"Are you saying that Greta lied to us?" Nick stared at us. "Oh, yes! That's right!" he gasped, scowling. "She must have realised that we're on the right track and decided to confound us by giving us false information so as to find the picture before us and receive the reward."
"You are getting mad about this reward, Nickers," Tom snorted.
"You don't understand," Nick frowned. "Where there is money, there's always meanness."
"Dumped?" All of a sudden Richelle screamed so loudly that Nick, who was sitting beside her, started. "Giovanni dumped Kelly? It's terrible! Dirty pig!"
Tom snorted with laughter. Nick slightly dug Richelle in the ribs.
"Jenny, hang on," said Richelle irritably. "It's impossible to talk here," she hissed to us, pressing her hand over the phone. She stood up and strode down the path out of the clearing. "Jenny," we heard her say, "I'm listening to you. What have you heard about this bastard Giovanni?"
We weren't destined to hear more about perfidious Giovanni. Richelle walked too far from the clearing.
"I don't think that Greta lied to us," I said, going back to the point. "Greta said what she knew, what she was told from higher-up about Henry's death. But Henry could buy someone in the jail, couldn't he? He could pay for someone to write a death certificate for him or something like that. And now he lives with another name. There are loads of such stories."
"So what?" Nick raised one eyebrow. "Even if it's him. How are you going to look for this Henry? We know nothing about him. We don't even know how he looks."
"Don't forget about the "nearly-drowned guy"," I said to him. "Maybe he knows something. Or, as Liz said, he can be connected with Henry."
"Even if the "nearly-drowned guy" knows something, he won't tell us," Liz shuddered at the mention of aggressive Ross. "This guy forgot all words except for "I'll kill you"."
"But these words he remembers very well," Tom snorted.
"And tries to practise what he says," Nick added.
At that time Richelle came back into our clearing.
"What did happen between Kelly and Giovanni?" Tom grinned. "Oh! By the way!" he slapped himself on the forehead. "What if this Giovanni guy was the thief? He might steal the picture and go back to his Italy."
"Tom, be serious," Nick drawled.
"I'm serious!" Tom exclaimed. "Why not? This Giovanni disappeared right when the picture was stolen. Maybe it's not a coincidence."
"It's possible," Liz said thoughtfully. "At least we shouldn't dismiss this version. Richelle, how do you think, this Giovanni by any chance could be a thief?"
Richelle scowled, thinking, then she shrugged. "I don't know. He was a cute guy. And his accent was so funny."
"Such cute guys often turn out to be maniacs," muttered Tom.
"Let's go back to the point," I raised my voice, a little irritated by their jokes. "I think that first of all we should enquire Miss Crane. Whoever stole the picture, he had to visit the library before the robbery to be sure that the picture was still there. So the first thing that we should do is to make a list of visitors of the library. Stood up, guys! We're going to the library."