a tiny flash of light that sparkled briefly and disappeared almost immediately afterwards. ‘Any chance of getting that enhanced?’
The guard worked his voodoo and magnified the picture.
‘What is it, Mr Pigg?’ Aladdin’s face was so close to the screen, he blocked everyone else’s view. ‘I can’t seem to make it out.’
I moved him gently aside and examined the camera footage carefully.
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a micro camera, the kind they use in hospitals to have a poke around people’s insides,’ I said when I had the opportunity for a closer look.
‘But what the hell is it doing inside the display stand? It’s solid marble.’
I was obviously putting two and two together and getting four slightly faster than the others – although in Gruff’s case I suspected that he was only able to get to three with great difficulty and the help of crayons. It seemed to me that if the thieves couldn’t drop into the room or walk across it without setting off any alarms, there was only one other method of entry for any creative burglar – a method that demanded incredible technique and no small amount of nerve.
I looked at Aladdin. ‘I think I need to have a closer look at the room,’ I said.
‘But of course,’ replied Aladdin and we walked back to the study.
As Gruff deactivated the alarm system again I noticed something else.
‘Hold it,’ I said. ‘Turn it on again.’
As the red beams criss-crossed the room again, I pointed to the pedestal. ‘Notice how the beams don’t actually cross the area where the lamp was? If the lamp was taken, it wouldn’t set off the alarm.’
‘That’s a crock,’ sneered Gruff. ‘No one can actually get to the lamp without breaking a beam or standing on the floor. How do you think they entered the room – they teleported in?’
‘Maybe they didn’t,’ I said. ‘Disable the lasers again so I can have another look.’
Once the alarm was off I walked towards the pedestal. A glass dome that didn’t look as if it had ever been touched, let alone lifted, covered the top of the pedestal and was firmly clamped to the base. I was obviously in top detecting mode today as, when I looked at the surface of the pedestal 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.’
‘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