The Mystery of the Stolen Books

©2006 Keith Robinson

The Five Find-Outers and Dog are home for the holidays again. When Peterswood library is broken into, the gang are soon on the trail... much to Mr Goon's annoyance. Fatty and his friends find only one clue: a footprint on the windowsill where the burglar smashed a window and climbed in. Why anyone should risk breaking into a library to steal a few books is a mystery—so it's even more puzzling when the stolen books are found dumped in an old school field. Meanwhile, Mr Goon is investigating another break-in, this one at an office building in town. Valuable coins have been stolen out of a safe. Two burglaries in one night! Can they be connected somehow?

This is a completed novel which I sent to Egmont (the current publishers of the Find-Outer series) for consideration. They returned my synopsis with a hand-written note in the bottom corner saying simply, "I am sorry, I must pass." So I thought I'd make the story available here. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 16: It's not quite over yet!

Back | Index | Next

Dejected, the Find-Outers split and headed home for lunch. They hardly said a word as they parted, such was their misery at being beaten to the finish line by the pompous policeman.

Mrs Trotteville seemed to sense something was wrong, and Fatty told her everything in such a pained tone that she laughed. "Oh, Frederick, you can't win them all! It's not the end of the world, you know. Goodness, you're only a few days into your holiday. Maybe something else will crop up for you to solve."

That was true, Fatty thought as he ate his lunch without really tasting it. He cheered up a little. As disappointing as this mystery had turned out, there was still plenty of time for others.

"I find it odd that this Mr Johnson fellow would plan such a robbery with a thug like Carl Westlake," said his mother as she got up to leave the table, "and yet be so careless as to put the spotlight on himself when it came to the safe's combination. You'd think he would have deliberately passed on the combination of his safe to others, wouldn't you, to make it look like anyone could have got into it"

Fatty chewed on that for a while and came to the conclusion his mother was right. It did seem like a very foolish slip up.

If it was a slip up, he thought. He remembered what he'd read in a book once, about alibis. Sometimes you could tell when someone was innocent just because they had no way of confirming their story. A person planning a crime would be sure to cover his tracks and direct suspicion elsewhere—but Mr Johnson was adamant he was the only person who knew the safe's combination.

The more Fatty thought about it, the more he convinced himself that Mr Johnson might not be the brains behind the operation after all. If he was, he would have made sure to let others know the safe's combination so as to create other possible suspects.

Fatty phoned Larry. "I think we should meet up again," he said. "I'm not sure that Mr Johnson is the right man. Let's all meet at Green Meadows at half past two, and we'll discuss things at the crime scene."

"What?" said Larry, sounding puzzled. "Do you know something new?"

"Not new," said Fatty. "Just...well, something doesn't seem right. I can't put my finger on it, but I have a feeling we have all the pieces to the puzzle and aren't fitting them together properly."

"Right," Larry said. "I'll phone Pip and Bets, if you like, and we'll see you at half past two."

Fatty put the phone down and thought for a while. Should he bother to phone Old Clear-Orf? No. Superintendent Jenks had asked the Find-Outers to straighten things out, tell Goon about the false clues, and let him in on everything they knew. And Fatty had done just that. Then Goon had stolen the limelight for himself, taking all the credit even though it was Fatty who had found out about Peter Westlake's father—and it was Fatty who had told him about the dust jacket with something scribbled on it. Without those vital clues Goon would never have made it to the end—and yet he'd gone ahead and taken the credit anyway.

Grim and determined, Fatty left the house, climbed on his bike, and set off to Green Meadows.

He arrived a good twenty minutes before the others were due. He parked his bike and tied an indignant Buster to the lamppost, and then wandered around to the back, looking for inspiration. The glass had been swept up at last, but other than that nothing had changed. Nothing leapt out at Fatty as strange or odd.

He returned to the front of the building and marched into the lobby. The caretaker was perched high on a stepladder, changing a light bulb. Fatty stopped to look at the sign board that listed all the tenants of the building. Any clues here? There seemed to be about forty small offices spread over three floors, and Mr Johnson worked at the end of the second floor around the back.

Lucky for the burglar! Drainpipes were typically fixed to corners of buildings, and because Mr Johnson worked in the end office, the drainpipe ran up the wall alongside his window. The burglar would have found it impossible to gain access without that drainpipe, unless he carried around a twenty foot ladder.

Was that significant in any way?

Probably not, Fatty thought. He sighed and stared into space, racking his brains for inspiration.

"What you staring at?" asked the caretaker suddenly.

Fatty jumped, realising the white-haired old man was watching him closely. "What? Oh, nothing."

"What you doing here, anyway? I've got my eye on you, so I have."

Fatty smiled. "I, er, know someone that works here," he said, jabbing his thumb upwards. This was true enough, although he'd only met Mr Johnson briefly.

The caretaker looked him up and down. "Oh yes? And who might that be?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Mr Johnson," Fatty said. "You might know him? He evaluates coins to see if they're worth anything."

"Yes, I know him," said the caretaker. "But he's not here, you know. He was arrested this morning."

"What?" said Fatty, putting on a disbelieving voice. "Mr Johnson? Arrested? Whatever for?"

"Theft," the caretaker said, shaking his head. "Had the police everywhere this morning. They turned his office upside down, then marched the man off in handcuffs...Anyway, he's not here so you'd best be off." He climbed down and collapsed his ladder, then tilted it and made off along the hall.

Fatty rushed after him, eager to stick around as long as possible. "Can I help you with that?"

"Er, well, that's kind of you," the old man said over his shoulder. "But I can manage."

"Are you sure?" said Fatty, tailing him closely. "It looks very heavy."

The caretaker barked a laugh as he opened the door to a storeroom and struggled to manoeuvre the ladder inside. "It is. And this is the only storeroom big enough to keep a ladder this size. When the building opened a few years ago, the management employed me to look after the place during the day. You know, change bulbs in the offices, mop and sweep the lobby floor, replace lost door keys...stuff like that. But they didn't tell me I'd have to carry this heavy old ladder up and down the stairs. At my age!"

"But why would you need to?" asked Fatty, not particularly interested but keen to keep the old man talking. Perhaps he might learn something. "The ceiling's not so high on the upper floors, is it? Why would you need a great big stepladder like this upstairs?"

The caretaker snorted. "That's what they told me. 'Just buy one of those tiny stepladders for the upper floors,' they said, 'and we'll reimburse you.' So I did—but I bought two of them, one for the first floor and one for the second."

Fascinating, thought Fatty with a sigh. This was getting him nowhere, although the caretaker's mention of replacing lost keys struck him as interesting. He racked his brains for a way to bring the conversation back to keys.

But the caretaker continued blithely, obviously enjoying having someone to talk to. "Then I had to nag them to install a folding ladder in the attic," he said. "See, those small stepladders are fine for reaching up to the ceiling to change a bulb, but they're not much good for climbing up into the attic. I'd have to lug this heavy old thing up to the second floor every time I went up there—at my age!"

"Do people lose keys very often?" asked Fatty, finally giving up on a more subtle line of questioning.

The caretaker shrugged. "From time to time." He closed the storeroom door and frowned. "You still here, boy? You'd best be off. I doubt Mr Johnson will be coming back to work today."

He made off down the hall and disappeared into what looked like a small windowless office with a desk facing the wall. Before the door swung closed Fatty saw a large board on the wall. The  board had pegs sticking out, arranged in neat rows, and on each peg hung one or two keys.

So office keys might be obtainable if someone was sneaky enough, thought Fatty. That might be important to know. He'd have to chew on that some more.

Sighing, he returned to the lobby and waited. He still had five minutes before the others were due, so he nipped up two flights of stairs quickly and along the hall to Room 22. Naturally the door was locked, as Mr Johnson was currently in a cell at police headquarters. It was a shame Fatty couldn't get into the office to have a poke around.

Think, Fatty, think. He stood in silence and racked his brains, trying to remember if there was something he'd overlooked—a clue he'd picked up but hadn't considered properly...

A woman emerged from an office nearby and walked quickly along the hall, then disappeared into another room.

There were the keys hanging from a board in the caretaker's office...but if that was a clue, how exactly did it fit in? Mr Johnson's window had been smashed, and the burglar had climbed in that way. He didn't need a key to the door.

Fatty closed his eyes for a moment and stood quietly, with only the faint sounds of murmured voices coming through closed office doors to either side of him. He might be grasping at straws, but being defeated by Mr Goon had stirred him up and he was determined to find an alternative ending to the mystery—if indeed there was one. There seemed to be no doubt that Carl Westlake had robbed both the library and Mr Johnson's office, but something—some small nagging doubt at the back of Fatty's head—was telling him Mr Johnson was not the man who had arranged it all.

But he had to be. If he really hadn't written the safe's combination down anywhere, and kept it entirely in his memory, how could anyone else have got hold of it? It was possible that Carl Westlake had cracked the safe himself, but that was a specialist job and required careful, methodical, patient work—and plenty of time.

Fatty recalled what he had read about cracking safes by ear. With a suitable listening device, such as a doctor's stethoscope, it was possible to turn the dial very slowly and hear the tumblers fall into place inside the locking mechanism. Of course, just getting the right set of numbers wasn't enough; opening the door required that the tumblers fall into place in the correct order—but once a thief worked out which numbers to use, it was a simple matter of trying them in a different order until the safe opened.

But all this required time—peace and quiet to work on the safe without having to worry about being rushed. And if Carl Westlake smashed a window to get in, he was hardly going to have time to hang around and crack a safe in peace.

Unless the safe was cracked before the window was smashed.

Feeling a tingle of excitement, Fatty walked slowly to the other end of the hall and back again, thinking hard.

Could that be the answer? That the thief stole the coins out of the safe before the window was smashed? Maybe smashing the glass was just a cover up, to make it seem like the thief knew the combination to the safe—thereby pointing the finger at Mr Johnson.

Fatty thought once again about the caretaker's spare keys—because of course the thief would need one to get into Mr Johnson's office in the first place. Perhaps the caretaker himself was the thief!

So...had the caretaker crept into Mr Johnson's office late that night, spent an hour cracking the safe, and stolen the coins? Then carefully locked the door, gone around to the back and smashed the window to make it look like a burglar had got in that way?

That was an interesting idea. The caretaker would certainly want to make it look like someone smashed their way in from the outside, rather than through a locked door—no, two locked doors, if you counted the main entrance. But there was no way an old man like the caretaker could have climbed up the drainpipe, and besides, Carl Westlake had left his footprint behind on the tin roof below the window. No, Carl himself had climbed that drainpipe.

So had the caretaker been working with Carl? Perhaps the caretaker stole the coins, and then signalled for Carl to go ahead and smash the window?

Or perhaps someone else entirely had obtained a key to Mr Johnson's office and stolen the coins. A fellow worker—or anyone from the street, for that matter. Maybe Mr Fisher, when he'd popped along to see Mr Johnson and dropped off the coins. Anyone could have snuck into the caretaker's small office and borrowed a key for a while, perhaps even nipped out to get a copy cut and returned the original soon after.

An office door stood wide open, but there didn't seem to be anyone in there. As Fatty stared into the room, wondering if Mr Johnson ever left his office unattended, a large man burst through from the staircase and, out of breath, hurried into the office and slammed the door shut.

His mind buzzing with ideas, Fatty shook his head and returned to the staircase. Perhaps a chat with the others would help, as it had in the tea shop. When they all got their heads together and tossed ideas back and forth, one thing seemed to lead to another. But he felt he was a little closer to the truth now.

He arrived back in the lobby just in time to meet the others crowding in through the doors. Fatty glanced about to check the caretaker wasn't around, then said in a low voice, "I'm trying to think of alternatives. Let's assume for the moment that Mr Johnson is innocent. We don't know that he is, but I have a feeling there's more to this than meets the eye."

"I had that feeling too," said Bets. "Mr Johnson just doesn't seem the type."

Pip rolled his eyes. "Bets—"

But Fatty nodded and interrupted. "I agree. But there's also the fact that he was so adamant about keeping the safe's combination to himself. Now I'm wondering if perhaps the thief was a professional safe-cracker who got into that room before the window was smashed. He might have got hold of a key from the caretaker's office, then spent all night quietly cracking the safe. When he was finished, he locked the door again, and arranged for Carl Westlake to climb up the drainpipe and smash the window.

"But, Fatty," said Larry, scratching his head, "if that's the case, then what was the library break-in all about? Mr Goon said himself that the dust jacket found at Carl's house had the combination written on it. That's why he broke into the library, isn't it?—because he needed that number to open the safe."

Fatty stared at Larry, then groaned and shook his head slowly. "I'm such an idiot. I got so carried away with the idea of keys and safe-cracking...My head is muddled. You're right—my little idea doesn't work." He paused, then cleared his throat. "All right, let's just start over. Think, everyone. Concentrate not on who could have got hold of that combination, but how. If we know how, perhaps the rest will into place."

They stood in silence, pondering. It would look funny, Fatty thought idly, if anyone walked into the lobby to see five children standing there so still and silent.

After a while, Daisy sighed. "I just don't understand it. If Mr Johnson didn't write down the combination, then the thief must have been a mind-reader. Either that or he somehow watched Mr Johnson open the safe and memorised the numbers—but I feel sure Mr Johnson would have been careful about opening it, wouldn't he? He wouldn't have opened it while someone was standing there looking over his shoulder."

"Maybe the thief can somehow see through walls," Bets said. "Or maybe he hung around outside the office window, peering through while—"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Bets!" Pip said rudely. "Hung around outside the window? Clinging to the drainpipe three floors up, you mean? In broad daylight?"

And then Fatty swung around and made an exclamation. He started breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest.

"Are you all right?" asked Larry.

But Larry's voice seemed to come from far away, a distant echo that Fatty ignored as pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. "I...I've solved it!" he gasped. "Wait, no I haven't—yes! Yes, I have! It's all coming to me...I just need to think some more, get it straight in my head..."

"Oh, tell us!" cried Bets. "Fatty, what are you thinking?"

"I know who did it!" Fatty exclaimed, starting to dance a silly jig. "I know who telephoned Carl Westlake with the safe's combination—and I know how he got it! I've solved the mystery! I know who arranged to steal the coins!"

The others stared at him, open-mouthed. "But...who?" asked Daisy. "How?"

Fatty grinned and a mischievous feeling came over him. "I'll tell you all about it soon, I promise. Let's call Superintendent Jenks first. And Mr Goon too. He'll want to know he arrested the wrong man! Mr Johnson is innocent!"

And, leaving a circle of very surprised Find-Outers, Fatty rushed to find a telephone. There was one in the caretaker's small office, but at first the old man wouldn't let him anywhere near it—until Fatty said he wanted to call the police. Then he relented and stood by while Fatty dialled the number for the police headquarters.

"Superintendent Jenks, please," he said happily.

After a moment he was put through, and a crisp voice answered. "Jenks here."

"Sir, it's Frederick Trotteville. I know who stole the coins from Mr Johnson's safe."

There was a long pause. "Er, Frederick, we already know that. It was Mr Johnson. He hired Carl Westlake to do the job, and—"

"No, sir," Fatty said triumphantly. "It was Carl Westlake who did the job, sir, but it wasn't Mr Johnson who arranged it."

Again, a long silence. Then Superintendent Jenks said softly, "And you're sure, Frederick? You're saying Goon is wrong after all? I must say, we have no real hard evidence to prove Johnson did any such thing, so if you have something else...?"

"Yes, sir. If you'd like to come over to Green Meadows, I'll explain how it was done, and who did it. And—if you can, please bring Mr Johnson along, and the owner of the coins, Mr Fisher."

"You and your theatrics, Frederick," the superintendent chuckled. "Right, I'll be there in ten or fifteen minutes. I'll telephone Goon and get him along too. You sit tight, and I'll see you soon."

Back | Index | Next