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 7: Another burglary

Back | Index | Next

Mr Goon went out the front door to collect his bicycle, and was startled to find a couple of people with books under their arms peering through the glass at him.

"'Ere, what are you up to, peering through windows?" asked Mr Goon suspiciously as he yanked the door open.

A middle-aged man with thin grey hair frowned. "We're just wondering why the library door's locked."

"Because the library's closed," Mr Goon said, jabbing a finger at the sign. "Can't you read? That's why the door's locked. There's been a break-in, and we didn't want the general public tramping about everywhere, disturbing the evidence."

The other person, a young lady with long dark brown hair, gave him a hard stare. "There's no need to be so rude about it."

Mr Goon softened. With her brown eyes and freckles, she was actually a very pretty young lady, he thought. He cleared his throat. "Ah, well, sorry about that. Been a busy day. Got all hot and bothered tracking the criminals."

"You've been tracking them?" the man said. "Any luck? What did they steal?"

"That's official police business," Mr Goon said haughtily. "Now, the library's probably going to be closed for the rest of the day, so you'd best be on your way—"

As he spoke, Mrs Sharple suddenly appeared behind him. She turned the sign around so it said OPEN, then beamed at the two waiting library members. "Come on in," she said. "Very sorry to have kept you waiting."

They all disappeared inside and Mr Goon found himself alone on the doorstep all of a sudden. "Gah!" he said, and climbed on his bike.

It was exactly midday as Mr Goon rode home, thinking about all the clues he had collected that morning. Ah, he was well up on that toad of a boy, Frederick Trotteville! The best clue was the scrap of paper found near the books, evidently discarded by the burglar. It had clearly been written as an instruction to the burglar about which book to steal—a blue book with red lettering, quite thick, from the crime section. But because the title was unknown, the burglar had taken the lot and sorted through them one by one out in the old school field.

Although that seemed a little odd, thought Mr Goon. If a burglar had enough time to scoop the books off the shelves into a bag, why didn't he just glance at them as he did so, and take only those with blue covers?

Maybe because it was dark in the library at one o'clock in the morning! That was when a couple of neighbours behind the library had reported hearing glass breaking.

Anyhow, there wasn't a single book with a blue cover amongst those found in the school field—which meant that if there was one, someone must be borrowing it. Mr Goon now had the names of those four library members in question—and that toad of a boy, Frederick Trotteville, was one of them.

The paper bag from the bakery was a vital clue as well. The burglar must have bought something to eat, then waited around until it was safe to break into the library...though why he waited so long was a mystery. The bakery closed at five, and the library was burgled six hours later. Maybe the staff at the bakery would remember a suspicious-looking character hanging about the area...

And the small boiled sweet in a red wrapper was a small but possibly significant clue. If Mr Goon came across anyone sucking on boiled sweets, well, that might just be the break he needed!

The footprint on the window sill was an awkward clue. It was difficult to check the underside of people's shoes without annoying them. Now, if he already had a suspect, he could demand to check the pattern of his shoes...but he wasn't likely to just happen across that shoe pattern during his general enquiries.

Oh, and then there was that short length of coiled black wool, Mr Goon thought as he rode. He'd been walking up the alley, eyes fixed on the uneven paving slabs, looking for clues, when an overhanging branch had brushed against his helmet, almost knocking it off. Angrily he'd staggered back and righted himself, complaining out loud that the council should do something about that before the sharp ends of the branch took someone's eye out. He could almost imagine someone walking fast along the alley in the darkness and getting injured by that branch! Mr Goon was lucky he'd been wearing a helmet, or the twigs might have got snarled up in his hair, maybe scratched his face.

On closer inspection of the branch he'd found a short, curly loop of black wool dangling from the very end of the branch. Now where had that come from? A black woolly hat, that's where! And who wore black woolly hats? Criminals, that's who! It was just the sort of thing suspicious types wore. Mr Goon judged it had to have been a grown-up who got caught on the branch because kids were short enough to wander by underneath without even noticing it.

Mr Goon had pondered for quite a bit, then carefully extracted the clue and placed it in an envelope, which he'd stuffed in his breast pocket. Right after that he'd become aware of two of those pesky kids—Philip Hilton and that girl they called Daisy—wandering down the alley towards him. They'd offered him a sausage roll and made his stomach growl with hunger. Gah!

When Mr Goon arrived at his home, where a large sign over the door read POLICE, he parked his bicycle and strode indoors. His housekeeper greeted him and announced he'd had several phone calls from a distraught man over at Green Meadows.

"It's the business offices," she clarified as Mr Goon wrote laboriously in his notebook.

He stopped and glared at her. "I know what Green Meadows is. Now, what was his name?"

"Johnson," said the housekeeper, sullen now. "Clive Johnson. He deals in valuable coins or something. He has a small office there. Says he's been robbed."

"Right, I'm off then." Mr Goon went straight back out the door, climbed on his bike, and sailed away.

Five minutes later he arrived at Green Meadows, a new building for small business owners located at the end of the High Street. It was a long building with three floors, and looked as out of place as a cruise liner in a small fishing port. Mr Goon parked his bike outside the front doors and stomped into the lobby, where a caretaker was slowly mopping the floor.

A large sign on the wall listed all the businesses. Clive Johnson, proprietor of CJ Coins & Collectibles, was in Room 22 on the second floor. Mr Goon headed up the stairs.

He was panting by the time he knocked on the door of CJ Coins & Collectibles. A thin, wiry man with round glasses greeted him with a frightened look on his face. "Oh, good, you're here. Come in. I don't know what to do. My coins have gone!"

He wrung his hands nervously and paced the room as Mr Goon entered and left the door wide open behind him. Mr Johnson wore a casual v-neck jumper and, underneath, a shirt and tie. With his smart but casual brown corduroy trousers and brown shoes, he seemed comfortably well-dressed.

Mr Goon had a quick look around. The window had been smashed, and glass littered the floor, but the office was otherwise very tidy: a simple desk and chair, a low cupboard by the window, and a bookshelf along one wall. The polished wood floor had a simple rug in the middle. Everything was arranged neatly, with not a single thing out of place. Mr Johnson was a fastidious man, thought Mr Goon.

On the wall were various picture frames, and one was attached not with hooks but a couple of hinges. It stood open like a cupboard door, revealing a square hole in the wall. Inside the hole was a safe, which also stood open—and empty.

"Ho!" said Mr Goon at once. "A concealed safe, eh? And I take it your coins were stolen from there?"

"Yes, yes," Mr Johnson said, wringing his hands continuously, "but I don't understand how. For one thing no one knew that combination number but me. I didn't write it down—I committed it to memory. Far safer that way."

"Ah," said Mr Goon wisely.

"But someone's cracked the safe anyway. It's completely undamaged. Someone knew the number, or they guessed it."

"Ah," said Mr Goon again, thinking of professional safe crackers. He seemed to remember they used stethoscopes to listen to the tumblers turning and clicking. It was a specialist job, that. "Was your office door locked when you arrived this morning?" he demanded.

"Yes," Mr Johnson said, nodding vigorously. "I arrived at about eight forty-five as always, and I noticed nothing wrong until I unlocked my door and walked in. Then I called you."

Mr Goon frowned. "So you called me first thing? Before nine?"

"Before nine, then again at half past nine, and again at ten," Mr Johnson agreed. He checked his watch. "Your assistant did inform me you were attending to another burglary, but...well, really, it's now after twelve."

"I'm aware of that," Mr Goon said stiffly. "I'm afraid there's only one of me, you know. If only your call had come in five minutes earlier, before Mrs Sharple's, I might have spent the morning here rather than at the library."

"The library was broken into?" said Mr Johnson, looking astonished. His face reddened a little and he frowned. "Well, really, I think stolen coins are far more important than...than stolen library books!"

Mr Goon stared at him suspiciously. "How did you know books were stolen? I never mentioned that."

Mr Johnson rolled his eyes. "For goodness' sake! If someone broke into a shoe shop I would presume they had stolen shoes. If someone broke into a toy shop, I would presume they had stolen toys. And if someone—"

"Yes, yes, all right, Mr Johnson, thank you," Mr Goon interrupted, getting annoyed. "There's no need to get sarcastic. I'm only doing my duty and asking routine questions." He started to walk about the office. "Now, tell me about these stolen coins. Are they always kept in the safe?"

Mr Johnson sighed and sat behind his desk. "No. They're not mine. I'm simply evaluating them for a client—who, by the way, is coming this afternoon to collect them! Whatever am I going to say? Those coins are worth an absolute fortune."

Mr Goon stuck his head inside the safe. "When were they put in here?" he said, his voice sounding muffled. "And who knew about it besides yourself?"

"The client arrived yesterday afternoon at about two o'clock, far too late for a proper evaluation, so I said I'd put the coins in the safe and look at them again in the morning. No one else but myself and the client would have known about them."

"Or the safe," Mr Goon added.

"Well, actually, the safe itself is no big secret," said Mr Johnson. "A lot of the rooms have them built in like this. I have to pay extra for it. But generally speaking I try to keep it out of sight. My client knew there was a safe, for instance, but I didn't tell where it was."

"And your client's name is...?" said Mr Goon.

"James Fisher," said Mr Johnson. "He recently moved into Peebles Manor—a very fine gentleman indeed. A client like that could bring a lot of business my way...that is, if I manage to keep hold of his valuable coin collection without losing it."

Mr Johnson sighed heavily and looked gloomy.

Mr Goon crossed to the window and looked out. There was no sign of a ladder. And now that he thought about it, it was extremely unlikely someone would hoist one around in the dead of night in the middle of a built up area. Suddenly Mr Goon remembered what one of his books had told him when questioning people: trust no one! He particularly remembered that people who reported burglaries sometimes staged their own break-ins for insurance purposes. Mr Johnson was probably aiming to sell the coins on the black market and make off with a fortune.

"Well," he said loudly, turning around, "we'll soon have this straightened out. Ho, yes."

Mr Johnson looked at him hopefully. "You know who stole the coins?"

Mr Goon drew himself up and glared at the coin appraiser. "It seems obvious to me, Mr Johnson, that there are only two people who could have stolen the coins. Mr Fisher—and yourself."

Mr Johnson stared in amazement at the stolid policeman. "Are you mad? Me? Steal the—Are you out of your mind? Why would I possibly want to do that, and then report it?"

"Come now, Mr Johnson, don't make me out to be an idiot. I can spot a fraud when I see one. You stole the coins, hid them away somewhere, and staged a burglary by smashing the window. No doubt you're planning to flee the country with those coins and retire early. Well, I'm on to you."

Mr Johnson had stood up and was opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.

But Mr Goon was very sure of himself and went on briskly, without realising that someone was standing in the doorway. "Ho, yes, Mr Johnson. By your own admittance, you're the only one who knew the combination to the safe. And you certainly knew what the coins were worth! This is an open and shut case. It's quite obvious to me that you smashed your own window from the inside and faked the whole thing—unless you're suggesting, of course, that the burglar brought with him a twenty foot ladder?"

Snorting, Mr Goon gave a nasty smile. "Perhaps he broke in, spent time cracking the safe, stole the coins—and took his twenty foot ladder away again down the street?"

Mr Johnson finally found his voice. He spoke quietly, shaking and furious. "I expect he climbed the drainpipe."

Mr Goon snorted. "Climbed the drainpipe! A likely story. You'll be hearing from me, Mr Johnson. I'll be back as soon as soon I've spoken with Mr James Fisher and cleared his good name."

And with that, Mr Goon stalked out past a very surprised-looking man in the doorway. "Er, excuse me," the stranger said. "I couldn't help overhearing, and I really think you've got the wrong end of the stick."

Mr Goon rounded on him. "And who might you be, sir?" he said, struggling to hold his temper. Who did these people think they were?

"Ted Masters," said the man. He stuck out his hand, which Mr Goon merely glared at. "I'm an accountant. I work in the office next door, and have known Clive Johnson for, well, years now. He couldn't possibly have faked a burglary! The very idea is ridiculous!"

Mr Goon felt the back of his neck heating up. Ridiculous, eh? He clenched his fists and leaned towards the startled accountant until he was inches from his face. "Are you a policeman, sir? A detective, perhaps? No? Oh, yes—you're an accountant. Good with numbers, are you, sir? Well, that's nice to know." He jabbed the man in the shoulder. "In case you haven't noticed, sir, I am a policeman—and I can sniff out criminals a mile away!"

He turned his back on Mr Masters, cast one last look into the office where an astonished Mr Johnson stood, and marched out.

Back | Index | Next