The guard’s face turned pale with an expression of utter shock. The entire bank vault was empty. Regaining his senses, he said with a quavering voice, “A heist of a whopping 30 million dollars!” The news spread like wildfire. News reporters swarmed the Golden Horizon Bank.
Panic stricken, the bank officials called a detective. Detective Casimir. He had cracked countless seemingly impossible cases and was highly respected. He arrived at the scene of crime. Unlike his other cases, this seemed straightforward. There were fingerprints and footprints at countless places in the bank vault. The police tracked the criminals, five in number and arrested them. The money they had stolen was confiscated. End of the case.
Or was it? Something about the case was off- it was suspiciously easy. Detective Casimir declared that he wanted to investigate further in private. He observed the bank vault minutely and made a discovery. A secret button! He pressed it and a concealed passageway below the bank vault was revealed. The passageway led to a massive chamber, a hidden vault, which probably contained more than 3 billion dollars. He examined the place thoroughly and interrogated the owner of the bank. He smiled and then said to himself, “Only three suspects!”
***
The next day, he summoned the three suspects. They were influential bank officials, trusted with the information of the secret button in the bank vault. Their names were - Everett, Mitchell and Marcello.
Detective Casimir casually asked, “Everett, I suppose your watch is missing?” It was a rare and expensive watch customized for Everett.
“Yes Sir, it has been missing since yesterday.”
“Is this your watch?” Casimir asked.
“Yes,thank you!” Casimir said dramatically,
“I found it in the hidden bank vault.”
Immediately Mitchell and Marcello shouted, “Arrest this thief! He dares to steal from the bank he works in!” The owner was fuming. The detective, calm till now, suddenly became extremely angry. He shouted, “You both dare to lie to my face! Police arrest Mitchell and Marcello. They should be given life sentence in prison.”
Marcello said with exaggerated surprise, “Us? How dare you suspect us?”
Mitchell said, “Both of us, along with the other officials were attending a meeting during the time of robbery. Everett was not present in the meeting.”
The owner confirmed that they were saying the truth as he was also present for the meeting. Casimir replied, “Only Mitchell was present.”
Casimir’s face lit up. He had cracked the case!
“Well, let me tell you what truly happened. Mitchell and Marcello became greedy and wanted to steal the money in the hidden bank vault. When the meeting took place, Mitchell appointed most of the security guards to guard the officials in the meeting. Thus the bank vault had less security, precisely two guards. These guards were finished by Marcello, whose lookalike was attending the meeting. Mitchell and Marcello had brainwashed five criminals who listened to whatever they commanded. These criminals stole 30 million dollars and purposefully left fingerprints and footprints, so that the police caught the five criminals, retrieved the 30 million dollars and wrongly thought that the case was over. After the five criminals left, Marcello entered the bank vault with huge bags and pressed the secret button.
“He entered the real bank vault and quickly emptied all its money in his bags. Before entering the bank vault, he had stolen Everett’s watch which he purposefully dropped. He thought that if the police were smart enough to find out the hidden bank vault, they would still be misled by the watch and conclude that Everett was the thief. Marcello had a special device which helped him carry the huge bags of money effortlessly and he came out, a total of 3 billion dollars safely looted. Or so he thought. A guard who was guarding the officials in the meeting suddenly left as he had important work and went towards the bank vault. He heard some sounds inside the vault. He immediately rushed towards the vault, his footsteps were heard by Marcello. He quickly pressed the secret button closing the passageway to the real vault and escaped through a secret path into his getaway vehicle. He went home, an overnight billionaire!”
The police and the owner were flabbergasted. Everett had mixed feelings. Marcello, with hidden fear in his tone said,
“You all cannot just believe him. He has no proof.”
“Proof? You want proof? Here, I have proof! However shrewd a thief might be, he always leaves some evidence of his robbery. The secret button, for security purposes, is made in such a way that it stores the fingerprints of the person who pressed it. Marcello knew this which is why he removed the fingerprints on the button after pressing it just before he entered the secret passageway. However, when he pressed the button to close the passageway after completing the robbery, a guard was coming and in his haste, he forgot to wipe off the fingerprints on the button.”
The owner said, “I knew that the button captures fingerprints but when I went to examine the button, there were no fingerprints on it.”
“You see, Sir, there are TWO secret buttons in the bank vault. You examined the wrong one. Marcello used the other button.”
Marcello accepted his crime. Mitchell tried to slip away.
The detective asked,
“Where are you trying to run, Mitchell?”
Mitchell asked, “How am I involved in this robbery?
Casimir asked,”You really think that you can take 500 million dollars and escape from me.”
“Not 500 million! My share is 1.5 billion dollars.”
Mitchell immediately clasped his mouth but the words had escaped. The detective smiled,
“I knew that both of you had to work as a team to commit the heist. Mitchell brought all the security guards away from the vault while Marcello stole all the money.
“Arrest these thieves!”, the owner raged. The police threw Mitchell and Marcello behind bars along with the five criminals. The stolen money was successfully retrieved. Detective Casimir had cracked yet another seemingly impossible case.
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