Portrait of a Cat and a Fruit Bowl

Hi everyone, I will be posting this story in two parts. I am posting Part I today, and Part II in a few days. I hope you enjoy reading it!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a detective in possession of a good brain must be in want of something to detect. Such was the plight of my best friend, Geneviéve Sinclair. She’s got the brains, the talent, the impressive name, but the only cases she has solved so far are the crosswords in the morning newspaper.

“Don’t worry, something will come up,” I said soothingly as I watched Geneviéve aggressively stab the innocent newspaper with her pencil.

“It’s utterly useless,” she grumbled, tucking the pencil behind her ear, “we’ve put about fifteen ads in the paper by now. Not a soul has called us.”

I did not reply. People were unlikely to hire an unknown, underage detective even to find a missing earring, no matter how many ads she had put in the newspaper. But I wasn’t about to tell her that, for it was sure to bruise her relatively large ego. 

“They are simply underestimating my brainpower, aren’t they, Elijah?”, Geneviéve demanded, flinging the worn-out newspaper on the desk.

I didn’t lift my eyes from my book but hummed supportively. 

“Turn on the television, Elijah,” she said, plopping down on the sofa next to me, “TV corrupts the soul and rots the brain, it is true, but sometimes even the most brilliant detectives need to watch some.”

I turned on the news and went back to my book.

“FAMOUS PAINTING STOLEN FROM THE PRESTONHEIM MUSEUM!” roared the reporter on the TV.

My head perked up at the news, and as I closed my book to pay more attention, I saw that Geneviéve, too, was looking at the television with an expression of mild interest on her face.

“A famous painting, ‘Portrait of a Cat and a Fruit Bowl’, was stolen from the Prestonheim Museum sometime last night. The museum staff has absolutely no idea how it was stolen, or who might have stolen it. Investigators are looking into the matter as we speak.”

Geneviéve jumped off the sofa excitedly and smiled widely at me.

“This is it, Elijah,” she said, “the moment we’ve been waiting for!”

“Yeah, it’s fate,” I agreed with her.

“Don’t be silly,” she said rolling her eyes, “there’s no such thing as fate! It’s our choices that determine everything, not fate.”

I sighed but decided not to say anything.

“We must head to the museum this instant,” Geneviéve said, grabbing her tweed cap, which she insisted on wearing all the time.

“They’re not going to let us in, Gigi,” I reminded her, “the museum is probably closed right now for the police to investigate.”

She scoffed.

“Everyone knows that we can do better investigating than them, can’t we?”

“Well, we know for sure,” I said, “but I doubt everyone does.”

“Well, then we shall simply have to let them know.” Geneviéve adjusted the cap on her head, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me out of the door.

_

When we reached the Prestonheim Museum, we quickly realized that we weren’t the only ones interested in the case. A swarm of civilians had gathered around the museum, jostling each other to get a glimpse of whatever was going on inside.

Geneviéve pushed her way through to get to the entrance, while I trailed behind, apologizing on her behalf to all the offended people she had shoved past. 

A burly museum guard who was blocking the entrance stopped us as we reached him.

“What’re you doin’ here, kids?” he asked.

“We’re here to investigate the case of the missing painting”, said Geneviéve, “let us in please.”

“You kids be doin’ the investigatin’?” the security guard laughed, but not unkindly.

“Indeed,” said Geneviéve, rather frigidly. “Now if you don’t let us-”

“Please sir,” I intervened, “we’re only kids. We’re doing a school project on art theft, and when we heard about this case, we just couldn’t resist seeing what all the fuss was about.”

Geneviéve looked at me irritatedly.

“Well…” faltered the burly security guard.

“Ach, just let ‘em in,” said another guard who was standing a few feet away, and appeared to have been listening to the conversation, “they’re only children! What can they do?”

I could sense Geneviéve seething with fury beside me.

“I happen to be-” she began, but she never got to finish her sentence, because I quickly pulled her into the museum before she could anger the security guards.

“What do they think,” she muttered as we walked further inside, “think we’re babies?”

“Calm down, Gigi,” I said, “we’ll show them.”

“Yes,” she said, “yes we will.” And she seemed considerably less enraged after that.

There were several people and police officers assembled in the foyer, all seated on the benches. 

“Oh look!”, I said, “that’s my uncle! He’s one of the head police officers, but I didn’t know he’d be in charge of this case.”

“Well that’s wonderful,” said Gigi, “now we have a much better chance of getting in.”

“Good afternoon,” said Geneviéve in a dignified manner, evidently trying to appear older than she was, “I am Geneviéve Sinclair, and this is my friend, assistant, and your nephew, Elijah Fraser. We’re here to investigate the missing painting case.”

My uncle, the head police officer smiled indulgently as if he were looking at a toddler.

“How lovely to see young adults interested in the work of police officers!” he said, with a most patronizing tone, causing Gigi to grimace. 

“Uncle, we’re doing a school project on art theft,” I said, “We really want to learn more about this case.”

Gigi seemed to have caught on to the fact that lying made things easier, so she agreed with me, saying, “Yes! We’d love to look around and find some more information for our project.”

“You’re welcome to tag along,” he said dismissively, “if you want to, of course. You may look around, madam, but don’t touch anything.”

Gigi looked slightly mollified at having been called ‘madam’, but she lifted her chin and strutted out of the foyer. 

We walked to the gallery where the ‘Portrait of a Cat and a Fruit Bowl’ had been showcased before it was stolen. 

“No glass,” observed Gigi, scanning the gallery for any clues she could find, “highly irresponsible, of course. A glass barrier would have been better for security. Well, not everyone has common sense.”

“Yup,” I said, “dunno why it’s called common sense when it isn’t common at all.”

“I don’t see anything significant… do you?” questioned Gigi.

I looked around, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary either, except for the giant space between two paintings, where the ‘Portrait of a Cat and Fruit Bowl’ had been. 

“Why would the thief steal that painting, of all paintings? It was quite mediocre, in my opinion,” said Geneviéve, eyeing the other art in the room.

“It was quite famous, Gi,” I said, “anyone could make a lot of money by selling it. I doubt the quality matters much to them, it’s just the value.”

“Hmm, you’re right,” agreed Gigi.

“I wonder how the person managed to smuggle out such a large painting without being seen,” I said thoughtfully.

“I was thinking that too. Shall we go back to the foyer and get some more information?”

“Yes, let’s,” I said.

“What happened, exactly?” Gigi demanded of the police officers once we were back in the foyer, “I’d like to know.”

“That’s confidential information, Miss,” said a young policewoman, “I doubt we can tell ya.”

Geneviéve put on a miserable expression, one so convincing that I felt an urge to pat her on the back and comfort her. But I knew she was just acting, something she could do rather well. I could have sworn I saw some crocodile tears leaking from her big brown eyes.

“Oh dear, Elijah,” she said sadly, turning to me, “I was counting on finding out! Now we have nothing to write about for the school project!”

“I know,” I said, trying my best to act convincingly, “we’ll definitely fail now. We might even have to repeat this year.”

We must have pretended rather well, for the policewoman seemed to take pity on us, and sat us down to inform us of all the events that had occurred so far.

“Well listen,” she said, “it was yesterday. The museum was havin’ a pretty slow day, so there were only a bunch o’ people there. Honestly, the thief coulda been anyone, since they all had ample opportunity to be with the painting alone long enough to steal it.”

I whipped out my notebook from my pocket and started writing everything the lady was telling us. 

“So anyone could be the thief?” asked Gigi.

“Naw,” said the policewoman, “no one coulda done it. Each and every one of the visitors was checked before entering, as well as before leaving. Their bags were checked, bodies were checked. There’s no way anyone coulda done it.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, deep in thought. If everyone had been checked, how did the thief manage to get the painting out of the museum, especially such a large one?

“Could they have left through the windows or emergency exits?” I asked.

“Nope, there are security guards, and they wouldn’t let you leave from the windows or emergency exits.”

“Did anything unusual happen?” asked Geneviéve.

“Nothing really. There was just a small power cut, and that was about it. It definitely wasn’t long enough to steal the painting and leave the museum, though.”

“May we see the people who were in the museum that day?”

“They’re just over there,” said the policewoman, pointing at a group of people near the foyer entrance.

Gigi and I looked each person up and down, and I wrote down a short description of each person. There was a tall, gaunt man, who was wearing a black suit complete with a bowler hat to match. His bright blue eyes were a contrast to his dark skin tone, and they were so clear and cold that I felt strangely intimidated by him. There was a young couple with a little baby. Both of them were rather short-statured, and what I presumed to be the father was rocking their baby back and forth in his arms. Next to the couple was a middle-aged woman, squarely built with extremely broad shoulders, which made her resemble some sort of boulder. Next to the middle-aged woman was a boy, either a teenager or a young man in his early 20s. He looked frightened and nervous, which I suppose is natural when you are standing in a room filled with police officers, but I won’t deny that it made me a teensy bit suspicious. There was an elderly lady, the only one in the group who was sitting on a bench, a walking stick leaning on her legs. And the last person who had visited the museum that day was a man, whose age I can’t quite put my finger on, wearing a checked shirt with tweed pants. 

None of them looked like someone who would steal a painting, but appearances, I suppose, can be deceiving. At least one of these people had to have stolen the ‘Portrait of a Cat and a Fruit Bowl’. The question is, how? As the policewoman said, it was impossible for any of them to have done it. For starters, there were security guards in each room in the museum, and each person was checked thoroughly upon entering, and before leaving. Secondly, the ‘Portrait of a Cat and a Fruit Bowl’ was one of the larger paintings in the gallery. Besides, there must have been CCTV cameras in the galleries as well. How could anyone have carried it out without being noticed?

_

Did you know that even Agatha Christie stories and the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were published in parts? The whole story was never released at once – even the short stories used to be published in chapters. That’s how I will be posting this story! I hope you like it!