A black car rumbled along a not unusually quiet road, it being six in the morning. Driven by an old, uniformed constable, an expression of irritation was obvious on his gnarled countenance. Beside him sat a comparatively younger officer. At the back was seated the person in charge, Sergeant David Oliver. He was tall, lean, and brown as a nut. A sign on the car read - “MAILENBURG POLICE.”

Mailenburg, you think. That’s not a familiar name.

Understandably. The city of Mailenburg comes under the Kingdom of Camdonia, a largely ignored island in the Atlantic, not far from the British Isles but not forming part of the archipelago. It was, for all practical purposes, independent, unlike its Crown Dependency neighbours, but was a part of the Commonwealth. Having been a part of the Empire for the better part of four centuries, the English influence was unmistakable - the Houses of Parliament, the accent (or multitudes of them), the organisation of government, the civil service, the common law, the police system, the honours system, the peerage and their very own Royal Family which was but a distant branch of the British. 

The gnarled driver spoke up. “I tell you, sir, these rich people think their time is more valuable than anyone else’s. A couple of brooches missed this morning – calling the Superintendent of Mailenburg who puts three officers on a long drive – just ‘cause Mr. Senwell is the Superintendent’s godson…”

“He is not his godson, Richards. His mother just happens to be a sister of the Superintendent’s sister-in-law.”

The other officers burst into laughter.

“If it’s a hoax, so much the better, then we all can go back,” Oliver continued. “If not, well, it’s worth it. The jewellery described is worth at least 10,000 pounds.”

“My son has a job interview today.”

“You don’t want to lose your own.”

“Is this the house?” the young constable asked. “Man, Inspector Partington has a fine old bungalow, and his cousins have two more absolutely sprawling ones, but this is a palace. Is Senwell a prince of some sort, sir?”

“His great-granddad was a self-made businessman,” the old constable said, “and it has been passed down the family and has only made the descendants richer. Young Senwell’s sister has a lucrative job at the airport. He is far from royal, but he could lay down twenty-five quid for every five the King has in the world.”

The Senwells’ servant, Amy Richardson, opened the door to the police. Robert and Claire Senwell were seated in the living room.

“Mr. and Miss Senwell?” Oliver asked. “I am Sergeant Oliver.”

Senwell held out his hand.

Oliver shook it cordially. “I have been informed that jewellery worth 6000 pounds is missing from your house.”

“Not missing. Stolen.” 

“How do you know that?”

“Well, it can’t go missing on its own, can’t it?” Miss Senwell said.

Oliver stared at her long and hard.

“Is it possible that you misplaced it?”

“Certainly not. Nobody even wore it. All three sets gone, too!”

“Three sets?”

“Three sets of the same things. A necklace and two rings. All different designs, of course.”

“You will have to show me the place from where it has gone missing. But first, give me a detailed description of the jewels so that I can get a message to jewellery shops and dealers in such stuff. A photograph would be better.”

Miss Senwell showed them photos of three weddings. “Our great-grandfather was one of three brothers. All were married in the same month. My father’s cousins had no children. So the jewels belong to us now.”

“The photos are required for the purpose of informing jewellery dealers that if any of these particular pieces of jewellery show up in their shops, it is stolen. We need clearer photos.”

“I have it on my phone,” Mr. Senwell said. 

“Richards, send this to all jewellery stores, will you?”

“I haven’t got the contact details of all of them.”

“It’s in the database.”

“I am not good with phones, sir. Ferguson always logs in for me.”

Oliver muttered something depreciatory under his breath. “Ferguson, you brief the dealers. Richards, go back to the office – go back home – tell Meghan Wright to be here at once. Well! What is the police to do with an outdated officer?”

The last sentence was uttered in a whisper, but apparently not low enough, Richards walked off muttering something that suspiciously sounded like, “Young people!” under his breath.

“Mr. Senwell, do these jewels have serial numbers?”

“No. They’re very old.”

“Pity,” he said. “Why didn’t you keep them in the bank?”

“Not enough security.”

“And you have enough security here?”

“Well, it has been breached, so it’s obviously not enough, but my security is top-of-the-line.” He beckoned to Oliver to follow him.

Oliver went up the stairs behind Senwell, with Ferguson and Miss Senwell.

Senwell walked into a room between his and his sister’s room that appeared to be an old storeroom from the outside, but had alarms all rigged up. He entered the password and Oliver found himself staring at a large safe in the wall.

“How is this safer than a bank?”

“Ah, well, in banks, you need keys,” Miss Senwell said. “Here you need a passcode – specially composed by Bob – and Bob’s thumbprint.”

“Bob who?”

“Me, Sergeant,” Senwell said. “My name is Robert, you know.”

“Ah, of course. Open it.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Senwell opened it. He, however, was very secretive about the password; he made sure to cover the keypad with his entire body. But Oliver did not care; he valued people’s privacy.

Senwell opened the safe and showed them little leather covered boxes. He opened each one of them. They were empty.

“Well!” Ferguson said. “A pretty little set-up. Mr. Oliver, sir, it doesn’t look like a theft at all, they must have lost it.”

“My dear Ferguson,” Oliver whispered, “people who would give such high security to the stuff would not dare to lose it.” Something struck him and he asked, “Mr. Senwell, I don’t suppose you open it every day?”

“We have the safe cleaned once a month.”

“Once a month,” Oliver said thoughtfully. “So it could have been stolen anytime in the past month and you wouldn’t know.”

“We did not feel any disturbance at all.”

“Did you feel any disturbance yesterday?”

Senwell stared at him, but his sister answered, “No, we did not.”

“Ah,” Oliver said.

“Did you clean your safe after all, Mr. Senwell?” Ferguson asked suddenly.

“No, once we found the stuff was gone, we called the Superintendent at once.”

Ferguson whispered to Oliver, “This is the sort of case in which we don’t even know a crime has taken place. Sort of thing Miss Blaze would enjoy.”

“What makes you think of her now?”

Ferguson shrugged.

“Having Blaze here would get this thing done far more quickly.”

Ferguson was grinning from ear to ear.

“I’ll call her,” Oliver said. “Wright just arrived. You and her go over the house with a toothcomb and I’ll join you.”

After some time, Senwell called, “Sergeant Oliver!”

Oliver appeared with a large mop in his hand. (He had been searching the servant, Amy’s room.) “Yes?”

“There’s someone coming up the drive,” Senwell said. “Walking. He just got out of a black car. Young man in mourning clothes.”

“Mourning clothes?” Oliver asked, dropping the mop and walking over to the window.

“Black coat.”

“Oh, her,” Oliver smiled. “That’s not a man, Mr. Senwell, it’s a young lady. And she’s not in mourning, she likes black, that’s all.”

“Is she one of you?”

“No,” Oliver said. “But it was me who sent for her.” He went back to searching.

The young lady in black had disappeared from the view of the window; however, she did not appear at the house. Senwell strolled round the house with his sister, wondering what was going on. 

Oliver was searching Amy’s chest of drawers.

“It’s locked,” Ferguson said. “Wright, ask Miss Richardson to unlock this for us…And Mr. Oliver, do you think she would try to stop us?”

“The house and everything in it belongs to the Senwells,” Oliver said. “As long as they don't make trouble she can’t do anything.”

After around two minutes Wright reappeared.

“I can’t find her,” she panted. “I looked all over the garden and kitchen and bathroom but she’s nowhere. Miss Senwell called for her but she hasn’t responded.”

“Look, more carefully,” Oliver said. “Ferguson, help her…I can finish the rest of the room by myself. It’s bad enough to have to look for nine little jewels as well as a missing woman.”

“Oh, and Miss Senwell gave me this,” Wright said, throwing something to Oliver, who caught it deftly. “Spare key! Do I still have to look for her?”

“If the stuff’s stolen, which I increasingly believe, we can’t let anyone get out of sight,” Oliver said. 

Wright groaned and turned to walk out of the room, when she was stopped by a voice.

“Looking for her?”

The voice was low-pitched, but not soft, and had a commanding air. It emanated from a cupboard in the room. The cupboard swung open and two women stood in the room.

One was old, with dark bushy hair and light eyes. She was in a light blue dress. The other was the one who had spoken.

She was young, not more than twenty-six, with a pointed, aquiline nose and ears that stuck out, but were covered by short and thick dark hair, wavy at the start and curled at the end She was dressed in a black trench coat with the collar turned down, black blazer over a white dress shirt, and black trousers. She had a London accent.

“Blaze! Where did you come from?”

“You didn’t answer my question. Is this the woman you’re looking for?”

“That’s not Amy Richardson.”

“She’s not Margaret Thatcher either.”

Wright sighed, and said again, “No, that’s not the woman we’re looking for.”

“Good. I approve of exactness,” she said. “Who are you, anyway?” she addressed the yet unknown woman.

“If you please, officers, this is the house I consider a home, and I am a humble servant of the Senwell family…”

“Cut out the politeness and tell me your name and position in this household,” Blaze said sharply, still in the same low voice.

“My name is Harriet Kingsley, miss, and I am a cook and gardener for the Senwells.”

“That’s better,” she said. “What were you doing in the tunnel?”

“The tunnel?” Oliver blurted out.

“Of course there’s a tunnel from outside leading into this room from the garden,” Blaze snapped. “I didn’t arrive out of thin air, did I? Miss Kingsley-”

“Harriet, please-”

“Kingsley,” she continued firmly, “What were you doing in the tunnel?”

“I had come back from church-”

“On a Wednesday?”

“To pray for my nephew. His examination’s tomorrow.”

Blaze looked at her phone; the internet said that the national examinations were to begin tomorrow; so she did not contradict her, but instead asked her, “Which church was it?”

“St. Paul’s.”

“Where?”

“Windsor Road.”

She Googled St. Paul’s Church, Windsor Road, where it said it was “open”, so she said, “Go on.”

“I had just come back, and found a police car outside the house, and I realised something was wrong. Then I saw you taking off your coat and going down on your knees and peering into the ground…”

Oliver chuckled.

“and then you disappeared into it,” she finished. “And I was worried that you were someone up to no good – beg your pardon…”

“I don’t mind,” she replied.

Oliver was now laughing outright, but he checked himself. Even Blaze’s inflexible face was twitching.

“So you crept down the tunnel after me,” she said. “Right, Oliver, my turn…You see those gardens? Extraordinarily neat, plants at a good distance from each other – well weeded – but although I don’t know the first thing about gardening, I could see that a curious bit near the wall was not nearly so well done. Almost overgrown with weeds. It seemed it was meant to hide something. It stuck out like a sore thumb.”

“Or a green thumb.”

“Well, a sore – green – thumb. Anyway, I examined it – pulled up a few roots to the intense chagrin of Kingsley – and found a nice little trapdoor in the ground. It’s obviously very old – lined with bricks rather than concrete – and I walked through it with Kingsley tailing me…”

Kingsley looked mortified again. Blaze noticed her.

“Well, she was quite good,” she said. “An accomplished tail. But I am accustomed to looking over my shoulder without people knowing, so I was careful. She didn’t do anything suspicious, and then I heard you talking about a missing woman-”

“Well, not exactly a missing woman, just somebody we can’t find…”

“Well, then I pushed a few bricks out of the wall…”

“You what?”

“Well, there had to be a communication between the tunnel and the rooms, right?” she said impatiently. “The wall was the best option. They were already loose - built to be so, so I chucked them to the other side and clambered over. And Kingsley wasn’t sure I’d seen her, and she was staring at me, worried, when I beckoned to her to follow me, and then you were all going on about that woman…”

“Amy Richardson,” Ferguson said. “A servant. Miss Kingsley, do you know where she will be?”

“I have absolutely no idea, young sir,” she said. “Amy Richardson is a good servant, but unpredictable…not a ‘good girl’, if you know what I mean.”

“Anyone she considers a bad girl must be fun to know,” Wright muttered, and Blaze nodded slightly.

“Well, where is she?”

“Does she smoke?”

“What?”

“Does this Richardson smoke?”

“No – why.”

“Because there’s a cigarette on the floor of the tunnel,” she said. “A freshly burnt cigarette end. I have it here,” she said, handing him something wrapped in a clean white handkerchief. “Put it in one of your little plastic bags.”

She bent and entered the cupboard again.

“What are you-”

“You didn’t think the tunnel would stop here, did you? In a servant’s room?”

“All right, where does it go?”

Blaze turned and looked at him.

“I have absolutely no idea.”

Oliver shook his head and went in after her. “Ferguson, stay here with Kingsley,” he said. “And you, Wright, fetch the Senwells and tell ‘em to take a look at the tunnel. See if they know anything about it. Right from the beginning. And, Blaze,” he said, “Just take a look at the crime scene – if that’s what it is – before we go exploring dungeons.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was not until she reached the garden that Wright realised that she did not know where the tunnel began. However, one sweeping look around the grounds was enough to assure her she did not have to stick her head inside a tunnel, calling for Miss Blaze.

Wright observed a large bowler hat from a scarecrow in the farm across the road sitting on top of a particularly weedy place. She smiled and called out, “Mr. Senwell!”

Back in the tunnel Blaze and Oliver were pushing loose bricks out every five columns. They all seemed to open onto various rooms.

Oliver pushed open the window to Miss Senwell’s room. She was standing there with Ferguson and Miss Kingsley. Kingsley screamed on seeing a bit of the wall fall out and two faces appearing.

“Don’t worry, it’s only us,” Oliver said. “This is the tunnel whose opening Miss Wright showed you – or didn’t she?”

“She did,” affirmed Miss Senwell. “We had not the slightest knowledge of the passage, I assure you.”

Blaze looked intently at her.

“Where’s your brother?”

“He got a call a few minutes ago. He’s working. In the next room.”

Mr. Senwell walked into the room. He stared at the opening in the wall.

“You finished your work, then?” Oliver asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Yeah, right,” Blaze said and disappeared from the hole. Oliver stared after her and began to run after her, and then ran back and covered up the hole, and then ran to her again.

“What do you mean, “Yeah, right?””

“It means ‘right’.”

“No, you never say anything if it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means Mr. Senwell was right to tell us what he was doing.”

“Yeah, right.”

Blaze stared at him. Oliver laughed.

“You win,” he said. “As always. You always get your way. Fine. Don’t tell me till you think fit.”

“You know what, Oliver?” Blaze said, her voice barely higher than a whisper. “You don’t ask the right question. Instead of hanging on to two meaningless words-”

“No words you say are meaningless.”

“-instead of hanging on to two meaningless words, you should have asked me what made me abruptly leave the company.”

“You’re always abrupt.”

“Am I? Too bad.”

“Yes, you are. You remember Judge Williams’ daughter’s engagement? We were clicking photographs up on the stage and you disappeared after the first photo?”

“Lord Williams’ daughter did not have hundreds of pounds in jewels stolen from the house. And I had the fiance put away for twelve years within a week. Fraud and identity theft.”

Oliver nodded, “There’s always that.”

“We are straying from the point.”

“Alright, what made you leave?”

By way of an answer, Blaze walked further. But instead of making a window in the wall, she lifted what looked like the covering of sewage pipes you see on pavements. She peered inside.

“This is unbelievable,” Oliver muttered. “A secret tunnel that leads to a secret tunnel! You don’t honestly believe the Senwells didn’t know about any of this?”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “At least, I don’t believe both the Senwells didn’t know of this.”

She said it in the same, low, enigmatic tone she used when she said, “Yeah, right.” She continued, “But this doesn’t lead to another secret passage, it leads to a perfectly ordinary cellar I’m sure everyone in this household knows about. And I have the pleasure of meeting a member here.”

The last sentence was said in a significantly louder-than-usual voice that caused a female human in the cellar to let out a shrill cry, jump, and drop something – but by the sound produced, it was quite miniscule.

“Miss Amy Richardson, I presume?” she said with extra politeness. 

The lady downstairs was clearly the youngest member of the household, though not as young as Miss Blaze, and clearly the poorest. However, her well-fed and healthy appearance indicated that the Senwells were generous employers. She suddenly remembered that she was not expected to be in a suspicious position – being in the cellar – and recollected herself.

“You are the police, ma’am?”

“I am a member of law enforcement. But I am not an officer. He,” she said, dragging Oliver’s face into view, “is a sergeant.”

“Oh.”

Amy Richardson’s face twitched with trepidation. She said, “Let me get a chair from the house, so you can get down…”

Blaze held up a hand to stall her, and climbed down carefully. 

Oliver followed her, much more quickly.

“I’ll leave you to search the cellar, sir – that’s what you are here for, aren’t you?”

Blaze seized her hand to keep her from leaving, and picked up a biscuit wrapper from the ground. She put her hand inside and drew out a diamond ring.

It was a gold band with a diamond in front. Oliver’s mouth fell open with shock. 

“Not a servant’s jewellery, is it, Oliver?”

“This isn’t any diamond ring,” he said. “This is one of Senwell’s rings.”

Oliver expected her to jump with astonishment, but she remained perfectly calm, not a single detail showing in her expression.

“You knew it was a Senwell ring?”

“No.”

Oliver was amazed by the fact that she could discover an important clue like this and not jump with excitement. But then, she was seldom excited.

Brushing away her character sketch from his mind, Oliver glared at Miss Richardson. “Where’d you get that?”

“That’s my engagement ring, sir!”

“Engagement, eh?” he snapped. “This belonged to our Queen and it was gifted to the Senwells ages ago. This is stolen. And you are wearing it. You see how it looks for you?”

“This? This is paste, sir! My fiancé can’t afford a real one. It was supposed to imitate the real Senwell jewels, seeing as I work for them…”

“How do we prove it?”

“Send it to Ed,” Miss Blaze said.

“Inspector Partington? What for?”

“He can tell diamonds from paste. Aunt Nancy – his mother – was an appraiser.”

“Was she, now?” Oliver said thoughtfully. “And she died when he was five. He wouldn’t have received much vocational training.”

“Aunt Nancy died when I was five. He was twelve.”

“Maybe we should send it to a professional…”

“This is safer,” she said. “Send Ferguson or Wright down to the station. We don’t need all of ‘em getting in the way.”

“Getting in the way, eh?” Oliver muttered. “You could be kinder.”

“Could I, now?”

She swung herself up into the passage. 

“Hey, what about Amy? Should I arrest her?”

“”You can’t.”

“But she can’t prove the diamonds are paste!”

“It’s the other way round. You can’t prove she has the real thing. The Public Defender’s Office would be all over you, and me too. But,” she looked at Amy, who was trembling with fright, “tell her to keep close. Have an eye on her always.”

“Well, she doesn’t have to keep close.”

“She’s an idiot and she’s frightened,” Blaze said in a whisper. “She’ll do whatever you tell her to.”

“Richardson!” Oliver said. “Go in front of me. Climb up into the tunnel, like Miss Blaze.”

Richardson obeyed him meekly.

“Hang on,” he said. “Why are we going into the tunnel?”

“We still haven’t found out, have we, if we can access the safe room from the tunnel?”

“The what?”

“The room with the safe!” 

“How’d you know there’s a safe room? I never told you!”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “It couldn’t have been stolen from a bank locker, or we’d be there. Senwell’s a billion-dollar fellow. He must have a safe room.”

“So he does,” Oliver nodded. “And this damn passage leads right to it, you say?”

“Ah, don’t call it a damn passage,” she said. “It makes theft easier, but it also makes solving the thefts easier, doesn’t it? But,” she said slowly, “an easy case is quite dull.”

Since Oliver was familiar with the first floor, he counted the rooms they passed, until they reached the safe – or atleast what he thought was the safe room.

Blaze tried pushing out every few bricks from the wall, but they weren’t moving. 

“Weird,” she said. “Weird.”

“Well, maybe we’ve just got the wrong room.”

“That’s impossible,” she said. “We’ve reached the end of the passage.”

“Maybe the passage doesn’t adjoin the safe room, or more likely,” he said, “it doesn’t open on to the safe room.”

Blaze was silent. She suddenly spoke. “The house was built in 1916, I’m told.”

“So it was.”

“In the heart of the First World War.”

“Yep.”

“My experience of old houses tells me that any house built in the heart of a war – which was very rare – had a safe room.”

“Are you saying that-”

She nodded and continued, “While a safe may be modern, the room is historical.”

She had gone running off to the next window and burst into Miss Senwell’s room. She ran off to the safe room and saw Mr. Senwell standing there. 

“Mr. Senwell,” she said, “open the safe.”

“Of course,” he said, and obliged. She sprung in front of him as soon as he was finished, and examined the inside walls, then the outside walls.

“Get a measuring tape.”

Mr. Senwell obeyed.

She examined the inner, and then the outer wall, and muttered something about inches to herself. Then she bent close to the wall, and yelled, “Oliver!”

“Whoa!” his voice came back. “Where are you, Blaze?”

“You tell me.”

“Your voice…it’s coming out of the wall. Third row from the bottom.”

Blaze ordered Mr. Senwell to fetch a hacksaw, which he did, with increasing alarm at her weird orders. 

She rabbited into the tunnel and ran towards Oliver, attempting to force the bricks Oliver pointed out towards her side with it.

“Well!” she exclaimed, as she managed to force one brick out. It revealed a sheet of metal that was unmistakably the one used in the safe. “We’ll have to progress further…”

And she proceeded to  force exactly sixteen bricks out, which revealed a hole of the exact size as the windows earlier.

“It was made a window,” she said. “It was harder because we had to pull it out rather than push. But the metal blocked the way of the burglar. So there’s only one way past. He had to burn through the metal.”

“Burn?”

“He must have created a hole in it somehow. I have no idea how, but we both know it’s possible.”

“But the wall is perfectly whole.”

“When you see it from here. But if you come closer, you will see that after the layer of bricks there is a sheet of metal behind the visible sheet, and it has a hole that corresponds almost exactly to the window in the wall. This confirms my hypothesis.”

“What hypothesis?”

Blaze strode down the tunnel and threw open the door to the safe room. “With Mr. Senwell’s obliging manner in fetching me instruments, I was successful in determining that the length of the safe’s side wall as measured here,” she thrust her hand into the safe, “is six inches less than the length measured here,” she showed him the outer side wall. “That would explain the discrepancy I pointed out to you in the tunnel. The burglar entered the house via the tunnel, burned through the metal, picked up the jewels, and to cover the gaping hole in the safe, placed another sheet of metal, which he probably brought with him, and fixed it to the back.”

“Ok,” Oliver said slowly, trying to grasp her description.

Blaze’s phone rang. “Edward?”

“This is fake, this ring that Wright brought round,” he said. “It’s obvious.”

“Great,” she said, and hung up.

“So, what do we have now?”

Blaze was staring at the wall of the safe. “It has been cold for the last week. And then it was hot.”

“So?”

“The burglar, whoever he or she is, must have bought the metal at least a week ago. That would be when the weather was cold. Then he would have stored it. So, when he took it out, it would have been cold. But the hand would have been warm. The hand would have been sweating. So, we are going to have his prints on the metal.”

“Well, we touched it.”

“You didn’t touch it.”

“You might have.”

“I don’t contaminate crime scenes. What do you take me for?”

Oliver smirked and took out his phone to summon the forensics unit. “You forgot one thing,” he said. “The jewels could have been stolen anytime in the last few months. Fingerprints might not last that long.”

“I almost forgot,” she said, drawing a plastic pouch out of her breast pocket. “The burnt cigarette stub I found. You should check for DNA. But it might be, well, you know, burnt. In addition, it tells me that somebody has been here recently. Someone who wasn’t us.”

“Good. Lab’s free.”

“How is the lab ever free?”

“When criminals are all put away and there are no new ventures in that line of business, the lab does get a rest.”

“This is Mailenburg. How can crime rates be on an all time low?”

“You should have been in Willingdon if you needed a continuous flow of work.”

“I should have,” she mumbled, and then seemed to momentarily fixate on the floor of the room.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said. “So, we will have the results tomorrow, won’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Great.”

She walked out of the place and five minutes later Oliver heard her car speeding away.

“Huh!” he said, and later he was speeding away to the lab.

Next day, he rang her at 5 in the morning. She picked up and said, “What did the lab say?”

“Good morning to you, too!”

“I’m pretty sure the technician wished you good morning, but it’s hardly of consequence, is it?”

She could almost hear Oliver rolling his eyes in good-natured exasperation. “We found a match. Both DNA and fingerprints are a match for a fellow called Adonis Thingummybob.”

“What?”

“It’s something like - Cristo-dow-pyoo-los”

“Christodoulopoulos.”

“Whatever. He was training for the army but was so bad that he got kicked out. But we got his prints in the database, so there you are.”

Blaze smirked. “Did you find him?”

“No. His address is not current.”

“I know where you will. Ask Miss Richardson the name of her fiance.”

“Blaze, her ring, it’s not-”

“I know,” she said. “Just ask her.”

Oliver assured her he would.

He dialled the Senwells. “May I speak to Amy Richardson?”

Five minutes later he redialled Blaze. “How did you know? Her fiance is the Doulopolos fellow!”

“Ha! Did she tell you where he lives?”

“Yes.”

“Text me.”

She received a text after some time with the address.

A few minutes later Blaze appeared, tweed-suited, at a quaint little cottage in a nearby village. Oliver and his entire squad were waiting.

The three of them marched inside. Oliver rang the bell.

A middle-aged man opened the door. “Are you Adonis Christo-dulopulos?” stumbling over the last few syllables

“Yes.”

Oliver flashed his ID and then a warrant.

“What’s that for?” Christodoulopoulos - let’s call him Adonis, in a break from tradition - panicked.

“Your DNA, sir, has been found on private property where a burglary took place. And your prints were found at the exact location of the burglary. Senwell House, I am obliged to tell you. We have a warrant to search these premises for the stolen property.”

“WHAT?” he cried, but Oliver and Team and Blaze brushed past him and marched into the house. 

“Search everywhere,” Oliver commanded. “You think up all your ideas, Blaze.”

“Oh, I will,” she said, and started checking a drawer. In a few minutes there was no one in the room. 

Still searching the drawer, she began talking. “Adonis Christodoulopoulos, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Greek?”

“My ma was. You say it right. Unlike many others.”

She laughed. “I assume you’re referring to Oliver? He’s not good with foreign names. But my dad had a job that required him to travel all over the world. I’ve been to Greece.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Speaking of - speaking,” she said. “Oliver didn’t give you a chance to speak at all, did he?”

“Well - no,” he said. “I suppose the police are always like that.”

“They didn’t have to let you speak, you know. He had a warrant, that meant he could do what he liked in your house. But I am a lawyer. I believe in giving people a chance to talk. So tell me, Adonis, what do you have to say about all this? How did your prints end up on the scene? How did your DNA end up there?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “My fiancee works at the Senwell House. Maybe through her?”

“How would your fiancee smoke cigarettes with your DNA? How would she leave your prints at her employer’s? Dear me, you don’t know anything about forensic science or even science, do you?”

“NO, I DON’T!” he yelled. “I don’t know anything about how my fingerprints ended up on the damn safe or how that cigarette ended up on the floor of the tunnel or anything else you want to know! You are all predators, government vultures!”

“Perhaps,” she said quietly, but grinning all over. “You are a wonderful Accused, Mr. Christodoulopoulos. The safe you might have guessed, but the tunnel and the cigarette together is a confession. As a bonus I made a recording of this. So I won’t have to testify after all. It can be just played in court.”

Oliver, stepping into the room, listened to the whole tape. He looked like Christmas came ten months early. He couldn’t wait to handcuff him, which he did. Adonis showed him where the jewels were. Oliver took one look inside the box and put it inside an evidence bag. And as he pushed him into the car, Blaze said, “Instead of going straight to the station, I think we might take a detour. We’ll go to the Senwells’ first.”

“But we can’t give them the jewels back yet-”

“I think we might make two detours. Follow my car. Stop when I stop.”

She sped off in her car. Ferguson sped off too, trying hard to catch up.

They first stopped at a little shop on Willows Street. A wiry old man in a dapper grey suit and a briefcase got into her car. She went off at the same rate.

They halted in front of Senwell House. Oliver and Adonis got out of the police car, while Blaze and Wiry Man got out of her car. They marched up the gates as they did before, the only difference being that Blaze did all the talking. 

“The man who burgled your house,” she announced to the pair, without even a cursory good morning. She played the tape. 

“What do you think?” she announced, like a professional artist displaying his work to buyers.

“I think it was very clever indeed,” Mr. Senwell said.

“Much obliged to the police,” his sister added.

“Oh, not as much as you might think,” she said. “His guilt is not the only thing we can deduce from the tape. There is another fact. That he is an idiot.”

“Well,” Oliver said, “What about it?”

“He is such an idiot that he did not even bother to check that the jewels, for which he entered a previously unknown tunnel and left behind a wealth of evidence for the police, were real.”

“What do you mean?” Mr. Senwell said, and his voice sounded quivery. “Why wouldn’t they be real?”

“How should I know?” she snapped. “Mr. Bumbridge, please conduct a proper examination of the jewels in the evidence bag.”

Oliver passed the wiry old man the evidence bag with a dazed look. He proceeded to set up a makeshift table on the grass. The Senwells were too surprised to offer him to come in. Mr. Bumbridge didn’t seem to mind.

After fifteen minutes he announced. “They are fake! It was as plain as the nose on your face the moment I saw them. But I went through my procedure to reassure you. Now, I could certify that they are fake, but they have no numbers.”

“You can testify in court,” Oliver said. “Doulopoulos, you crooked-”

“Not him,” Blaze said. “He’s an idiot. Manipulated  by a master. Of thievery, I mean, not idiocy…anyway, I know exactly what is going on.”

She brushed past the Senwells. Mr. Senwell yelled, “Hey, you can’t just go in there! I don’t allow it!”

“Why not?” his sister said angrily. “If she puts an end to this mess, so much the better! I own this house too, Miss Blaze. You can go anywhere.”

Blaze had taken advantage of the squabble to slip inside the safe room. Oliver rushed in after her.

“What is GOING ON?”

“Revelation,” she said. “I wondered that the only book in the ancient library-”

“When did you get inside the ancient library?”

“Oh, I took a tour before I showed myself to you yesterday,” she said dismissively. “It interested me that the only book with no dust on it was potentially the least interesting. I noticed its musty smell in Mr. Senwell’s room, which suggested that he, and not his sister, had been reading the book. Which surprised me, because it had nothing to do with his field.”

“What was it about?”

“It was the floorplan of the Senwell House, Oliver. Not the ones about old houses made public at the nearest public library, but the private one, written by an ancestor, for the eyes of the Senwells only. This was a safe house during the War, Oliver. And so they had a secret tunnel, mentioned nowhere but here. Senwell dog-eared the page. So he knew there was a tunnel, but he told you otherwise. That casts suspicion. Now, it not only mentions the tunnel, but also the safe room. Not this safe room, mate. It was a fad. They kept telling the people they couldn’t trust, that this was a safe room they could access through the tunnel. But the real safe room,” she bent down to the floor, “was here.”

She clicked a lump in the wooden floor that Oliver assumed was damp, but was really a button that caused the floor beneath them to move and revealed a hollow room below.”

“Gracious, this house,” he said. “Survivalist’s dream.”

“I combined Mr. Senwell’s other suspicious acts with the subconscious realisation that he tried his best not to step on the damp, and that he was trying to prevent other people from stepping on the button. But there’s no war anymore, so I assumed he wanted to keep the location secret because of the purpose for which he was using it now. He was using it to hide this.”

She drew out a black box, and more black boxes.

“Jewels again!”

“The real ones this time,” she said. “But only half of them. The other half, well, that’s its worth here.” She pulled out Camdonian pound notes.

“He sold ‘em?”

“Illegally. And I assume the transaction was kept out of the eyes of the Revenue department. Those blind white collar owls…well, let’s not get into details.”

“Wait. How do you know it was Robert Senwell, and not the sister?”

“Oh, she’s the kind who wears her dead granny’s hairband,” she said dismissively. “And Senwell seemed to have been the driving force behind all the security measures in the house. The blood of the old Senwell patriarchs.”

Oliver chuckled. The Senwells had just caught up with them.

Miss Senwell’s mouth fell open. Mr. Senwell was burning. “How dare you-”

“How dare you, Mr. Senwell?” Miss Blaze said with an icy-stare.

An icy stare. No fancy words or ridiculous expressions like a third-rate American action movie. Just a cold stare that made Senwell realise that he was beaten.

“You’ve not just been keeping your purchases out of the Revenue Department’s eye. You sold the stuff on the black market. Revenue and Customs, or the Fraud Office? That’s for the Inspector to decide. I’m just keeping a friendly eye on you till the proper authorities come by, see,” Oliver said.

“It may not prove to be a big case for me after all,” Blaze said.

“It will be a cherished memory, Blaze.”

Blaze smiled and walked out of the room and then the house. Not even a word of explanation to the bewildered sister.

“Who is this horrible woman?” Senwell raged. “She’s not one of you!”

“Well, she’s not a policewoman, but she is one of us,” Oliver said. “You won’t be seeing her again, considering she doesn’t work for Revenue and Customs.”

“Why is she here, then?”

“The inspector I mentioned? He’s her cousin.”

“So she’s purely here on his favour, then.”

“Oh, no. She’s here because she has an eye for people like you. She doesn’t need the Inspector’s favour. She’s higher up in His Majesty’s Government than any of us would ever be.”

“Where is that?”

Oliver leant close to him, and whispered, “Are you sure you really want to know?”