The Third Pig Detective Agency: The Complete Casebook. Bob Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ through the glass, I could see what looked like a few tiny grains of salt – almost invisible to the human eye; but then again, I’m not human.

      ‘Can you disable the clamps on the glass and turn the lights on full please?’ I asked.

      More buttons were pressed, and the clamps disengaged loudly. The lights came up to full strength as, very carefully, I lifted the glass dome off and put it gently on the floor. As I examined the pedestal Aladdin came up behind me.

      ‘What do you see?’ he asked.

      ‘I’m not sure,’ I replied, as I leaned in towards the pedestal for a more detailed examination. ‘It may be nothing but …’

      I picked up some of the grains and put them on my tongue. They weren’t salt; they were tiny grains of sand. I looked more closely at the pedestal. Ever so gently I pushed the velvet stand. It slid easily to one side, revealing a gaping hole underneath.

      ‘What in the blazes is this?’ exclaimed Aladdin.

      ‘Clearly, when your thieves couldn’t access the room from above or through the walls, they went under. They used the micro camera to check when the surveillance system on the wall was sweeping the room and stole the lamp when it was off-camera.’

      ‘But who could have done this and where does the hole go?’

      ‘I don’t know who, but that’s what you’ve employed me to find out,’ I replied. ‘As to the where, I don’t know that yet, either, but I think I know someone who can help me work it out.’

       4

       It’s Off to Work We Go!

      ‘You mean you want me to climb down there to see where it goes? Cool.’

      Jack Horner was clearly excited by his new Apprentice Gumshoe role as he gazed into the hole. As Tom Thumb was out of town on a small vacation (sorry!), he was my next and only other choice, seeing as the hole was too small to allow anyone else to climb into it. After assuring an understandably concerned mother that he would come to no harm, she had reluctantly allowed him to come with me.

      ‘No heroics, Jack,’ I told him. ‘Just follow the tunnel until we can find out where it comes out.’ I pointed to the equipment he was wearing. ‘The rope is for safety, the torch will light your way and the little gadget on your belt is a tracker. We can follow you wherever you go. You can talk to us with this.’ I handed him a walkie-talkie.

      ‘Will there be monsters down there?’ he asked.

      ‘I doubt that very much,’ I said, as I checked the rope one more time and lifted him up onto the pedestal. He seemed disappointed at my response.

      ‘Ready?’ I asked. He nodded in reply.

      ‘OK then, here we go.’

      He stood on the pedestal, looked into the hole again and prepared for his descent. Slowly, he made his way down until he was holding on to the edge by his fingertips. He glanced at me, nodded that he was ready and then let go. I took the strain and lowered him down carefully, as much to avoid any back injury on my part as for his own safety. It didn’t take long for him to reach the bottom.

      ‘There’s a passage leading away but I don’t see any daylight.’ His voice came through clearly on my walkie-talkie. ‘I’m walking along it now.’

      ‘OK Jack,’ I said. ‘Follow it slowly but be careful.’

      After a few minutes I could hear a strange noise on the walkie-talkie.

      ‘Jack? Are you OK?’

      ‘Yeah, why?’

      ‘I’m hearing some odd noises on the walkie-talkie.’

      ‘Oh, that’s just me singing,’ Jack replied. ‘I do it sometimes to pass the time when I’m walking.’

      ‘Uh, right.’ Was this kid afraid of anything?

      ‘I’ve come to a turn in the tunnel,’ he said after a few more minutes. ‘It bends to the left.’

      From the signal on the tracker screen, he looked to be outside the house now.

      ‘OK Jack,’ I said. ‘Keep going. Can you see daylight now?’

      ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘The entrance is just up ahead.’

      ‘Stop when you get there. We’ll come to meet you.’

      ‘Roger wilco. Over and out.’ He’d obviously been watching too many war films.

      Guided by Aladdin and Gruff, I walked back through the maze that was the inside of the house and made my way outside. As I walked across the lawn, I heard Jack’s voice advising that he had reached the entrance to the tunnel. I told him to stick his head out and describe what he saw.

      ‘It’s a hole in the ground, surrounded by trees. I can hear cars so there must be a road nearby but I can’t see it from where I’m standing.’

      And, by extension, no one could see the hole from the road either.

      I turned to Aladdin.

      ‘From the signal, it looks as though the tunnel comes up just outside that wall there.’ I pointed to the high wall running along the side of his estate. ‘What’s on the other side?’

      Aladdin thought for a minute, and then for a few more. It was obvious he hadn’t the faintest idea. He’d most likely never even noticed what was out there as he went in and out of his house every day – probably in a large limo with tinted windows.

      I turned to Gruff. As chief of security I imagined he should know.

      ‘It’s a small open area between this house and the next. It’s used occasionally by the local residents for walking their dogs, or at least those residents that, from time to time, actually venture out of their houses by means of their feet,’ he said, glancing meaningfully at his boss. ‘There are a few clumps of trees there. Most likely that’s where your minion will be.’

      We made our way out the main gate and along by those very imposing walls around Aladdin’s house. It was easy to see why the thieves had gone under. The walls were very high with barbed wire on top and, as Gruff explained while we walked, equipped with more pressure sensors. If anything heavier than a sparrow landed on them, the alarms would go off. Even if an intruder was able to get over the walls without setting off the alarms (maybe he was a good pole-vaulter, I don’t know) the grounds were full of heat sensors and more cameras. If he managed to get past those minor inconveniences, Ogre ‘Not On Our Watch’ Security would probably have fun using him as a volleyball. Your common or garden thief didn’t stand a chance. It made me even more curious as to what type of thief I was dealing with.

      We arrived at the open ground and could see Jack waving at us from a clump of trees about fifty feet from the wall.

      ‘Over here,’ he shouted.

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