---

The Mystery of the Diamond Heist

Inspector Poon put out his cigarette on an expensive-looking statue and walked deeper into the recesses of the Fitzroy Museum. In the Renaissance exhibit he spotted Alexander Hollendasch, the museum's curator. He approached Hollendasch slowly and extremely cautiously — while questioning a ticket booth operator some minutes earlier, Poon had been horrified when the operator had exploded in a wave of shrieking bats, and was on his guard for similar foolishness from Hollendasch.

Poon considered it a lucky break that he had smoked a little bit of that most calming of cocaines — the ol' crack cocaine, sturdy nemesis of the bat-cloud — before coming. He shuddered at what might have happened if the drug hadn't soothed him in the face of such unforeseen circumstances.

Watched over by Poon's carefully trained and somewhat bloodshot eye, Hollendasch remained in a non-shower-of-bats-like state for several minutes. Poon deemed it safe to approach.

Hollendasch quickly revealed himself to be inconsolable. Poon breathed a sigh of relief, since that meant he wouldn't be obligated to try. "The Victoria Diamond has been stolen!" Hollendasch exclaimed.

Inspector Poon patted him on the back mildly for several minutes, then got irritated by Hollendasch's incessant sobbing and excused himself to find a bathroom, where he polished off a bottle of vodka and fiddled a bit with the watch he'd borrowed from the Winkle corpse a few days earlier. There were several interesting functions that he couldn't figure out how to program for the life of him.

Thinking quickly, he also removed his shirt and washed himself a little in the sink. He prided himself that the landlord who'd put the padlock on the door of his apartment hadn't suspected Poon would be so resourceful. They'd see who'd come crawling back to whom, he surmised.

He returned to the crime scene and surveyed it with a single glance of his steely, still bloodshot eyes. An officer watched him in awe for several moments, and Poon allowed his gaze to become even steelier in an attempt to impress. His reputation was growing amongst the younger officers, he could see.

It was soon helpfully pointed out to him that he was naked from the waist up. Poon thanked everyone calmly, then walked backwards into the bathroom to find his shirt.

Once he returned, his keen eyes surveyed the scene. In the center of the room was a large case where the diamond had been. The glass around it was intact, and the large lock had not moved an inch. Motion-sensitive lasers mounted on the walls had not been tampered with. The police had examined the skylight window for hours, and had not found any indication that someone had touched it. It seemed impossible, in short, that the diamond could be missing.

Inspector Poon observed the scene for a moment, and then called Hollendasch over.

"The air here is very cold," Poon observed.

"Yes," replied Hollendasch. "We have recently installed a state-of-the-art ventilation system."

"You must care for this museum a great deal," said Inspector Poon.
Hollendasch agreed that this was indeed the case.

"Then why did you steal the diamond?" Inspector Poon asked, before pumping his fist in the air and throwing an imaginary football to the ground in a mock-touchdown dance.

 

How did Inspector Poon know that Hollendasch had stolen his own diamond? Because Inspector Poon had asked Hollendasch to steal it two days before. Together they had crafted a scheme involving Hollendasch sneaking the diamond through the newly-installed ventilation system to Poon waiting outside with the car running. Once Poon obtained the diamond, he quickly sold Hollendasch out and took a long vacation to sunny Thailand, where the money was spent in a matter of days. While there, Inspector Poon made it a point only to solve cases involving the cheapest of underage prostitutes and the priciest of amphetamines.

<--- CASE FILE #1

CASE FILE #3 --->