Chapter 2 Stolen!
It was the middle of the next morning when the alarm went off. I was looking at the pictures for the display we were going to do next. It was going to show part of the old Repsom railway station.
An alarm was&n fitted to the rooms we were working in, but I could hear it ringing downstairs.
Anna came back from the coffee machine with two cups of coffee.
&What&s happening?&A asked.
&That&s the security alarm,&said Anna, quickly putting down the coffee.&Somebody must be stealing something!'
We looked at each other.'The necklace!'we said together.
WE both ran from the room, past the prate display in the next room. Then we hurried down the stairs to the old part of the museum. I saw Roger Fox, the security guard, pushing open the door of the big room. There was small sign fixed to the door.
The word C L O S E D was written on it.
Anna and followed Roger into the room. We looked at the display case in the center. It was broken. . .and empty.The Gilbertson diamond necklace had gone!
Roger's face went white. He looked up at the TV camera on the ceiling. There was a newspaper covering it.
'The TV screen for this room was dark,' Roger explained.'I knew something was worng,so I rang alarm and come to see.'
'Did the thief put the newspaper over the camera?'said Anna.
Roger nodded,looking worried.'Yes. I didn't notice immediately,' he said. 'I was taking money and giving tickets to people coming into the museum.'
'Where was Cora?'asked Anna.
'She went to the Ladies room a few minutes Before,'said Roger.
'I always take the ticket money when Cora isn't there. She watches the TV screen when I'm not there.'
'When did you first see the dark screen?' I asked.
'When Cora came back,'he said.'She noticed it and said,"Look Roger! Something's wrong!"That's when I was it.'
'What are you going to do?' asked Anna.
'I'm going to stop people leaving the museum,' he replied. 'One of them may be the thief. Willyou phone the police, Anna?'
'Of course,'said Anna,and hurried off.
Roger Fox ran off towards the main entrance.
I started at the empty display case. If the thief was a visitor to the museum, I thought, he or she will be gone by now.
Somebody came into the room behind me and I turned round.
It was Mr Yardley. 'I was just coming up to see you and Anna when I heard the alarm,' he said. 'What's happened?' Then he saw the empty display case and didn't have to answer him.
The police arrived at 11.20 a.m.Anna and I were in the main entrance room talking to Cora Turner. Linda, the gril who worked in the office at the top of the buildings, was there too.She was talking to Mr Yardley.
Roger Fox unlocked the museum doors and the policemen came in. Three were wearing uniforms, two more were in ordinary clothes. One of the men in ordinary clothes told us he was Detective Chief Inspector Craven.
'Nobody has left the building since 11.10 a.m.,'Roger Fox told him.'There were nineteen visitors in the museum when I locked the doors. They're all in the garden at the back. There's a wall around the garden and no back gate.Nobody can get out.'
'Where are all the people who work at the museum?' asked
Chief Inspector Craven. He was tall,thin man with a moustache.
'The two museum attendants are in the garden with the visitors,'said roger Fox.'Mr Balfour, the curator,has been out all morning.The rest of us are here, in this room.'
Chief Inspector Craven nodded to the other man in ordinary clothes.He and one of the policemen
wearing uniforms went out to the garden. The Chief Inspector looked around the entrance room at the rest of us
'I'll begin with some questions,' he said
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