The Fangs of the Dragon Read online

  ‘So this Rippa didn’t even touch it?’

  ‘Nope. I did take the comic out, and turned the pages so we could both admire the thing. Wonderful smell comes off them, you know, the smell of history. Of course, I wore cotton gloves. Even the tiny layer of sweat on your fingertips can damage that paper.’

  All this time, Charlie was being oddly quiet. He kept sipping at his smoothie and staring at the rows and rows of sealed-up comics on the shelves.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘if the rest of the collection is kept in this room, rather than the safe, I assume none of these are anywhere near as valuable?’

  ‘Correct,’ said Ed, ‘but there’s some very interesting stuff here. Take this one, for instance . . .’

  Ed Foster might have dressed like a walking rubbish dump, but he was clearly an expert on the history of comic book publishing. He showed me what made particular issues of a comic more collectable than others (Issue 33 of The Amazing Spider-Man, for instance, worth more than Issues 32 or 34, because it contains a very well-known story. Or, Issues 12 to 22 of The Purple Avenger, worth only fifty pence each because the artwork was rubbish. Fascinating stuff!). By the time Ed had given me his eager guided tour of the shelves, I was ready to rush out and start a collection of my own!

  Charlie kept peeking over his brother’s shoulder, trying to get a look at whatever Ed was showing me. Drips from his almost-empty glass of smoothie plopped on to the carpet.

  ‘Oi, Charlie!’ cried Ed. ‘Watch it! You get any of that on these comics and you’re for it! You know you’re barred from the entire collection.’

  ‘Barred?’ I said.

  ‘Yeh,’ said Ed, eyeing his brother moodily. ‘Ever since I let him borrow one of my 1960s Fantastic Fours and he got jam all over it.’

  Charlie stuck his tongue out at Ed. (Actually, no, he didn’t do that. Actually, he said a short sentence that included the words ‘complete’ and ‘you’, and which I can’t repeat here!)

  ‘Can I see the crime scene now?’ I said quickly.

  We went downstairs. The safe was recessed into the wall of the living room, and concealed behind a painting that swung back on hinges like a door. The rest of the room was just an ordinary living room: sofa, a couple of chairs, TV in the corner.

  The safe had a standard combination lock, a big dial in the middle of the door that you turn back and forth to line up with a series of numbers. Ed opened it up, standing close to it so that nobody could get the combination by watching him. All that was inside the safe was a small pile of papers.

  ‘That’s all stuff of Dad’s,’ said Ed. ‘Stuff about the house, insurance and so forth.’

  ‘And the comic was propped up at the back there?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘In full view, so you’d know straight away it was gone?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘No way it could slip out of sight, or get mixed up with those papers?’

  ‘Nope.’

  I remembered my earlier deduction, from Chapter Two: if the safe hadn’t been broken into, then the thief had to be someone who knew the combination.

  I asked Ed where the combination was kept. He tapped the side of his head. ‘In here,’ he said. ‘There’s only me, Mum and Dad who know it. None of us has got it written down. None of us has ever told anyone else what it is.’

  ‘I don’t know the combination,’ said Charlie. ‘They won’t even tell me what it is. I’ve never opened that safe in my whole life.’

  At that point, I had to admit I was out of ideas. The theft of the comic book seemed almost impossible. So only those three people could have opened the safe?

  Suddenly, I wasn’t out of ideas any more! If the thief didn’t break in to the safe, and the thief couldn’t open the safe (assuming, of course, that neither Ed nor his parents were the thief!), then there could be one, and only one way the thief could have struck.

  Can you see how?

  The thief could only have struck when the safe was already open.

  ‘This Rippa bloke,’ I said. ‘Was he here in the room when you opened the safe to show him the comic?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ed.

  ‘Aha!’ I cried.

  Ed waved his hands about. ‘Hang on, hang on! I wondered about that myself. But the comic was here when he left. Under lock and key, back in the safe. I put it back in there myself.’

  ‘Was Rippa left alone with the comic?’ I asked.

  ‘Only for a couple of minutes,’ said Ed. ‘I’d just finished showing him the pages. I’d put it back in its plastic wallet, and the doorbell rang. As soon as I came back into the room, I realised what I’d done! I’d left the comic unattended! But Rippa was sitting over there, looking through some catalogues he’d got with him. The comic was untouched. Safely in its see-through wallet. He had not nicked it.’

  I sat on the sofa. ‘Hmm, yes. You’d have to be a pretty stupid and desperate thief to try to snatch that comic from right under your nose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ed. ‘Even if he’d thought about nicking it, he couldn’t possibly have actually done it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said again. ‘Well, someone “done it”.’

  I thanked Ed for the smoothie, took another biccie for the journey home (‘Ooh, thanks, don’t mind if I do!’) and headed for the bus stop.

  Once I was back in my shed, I sank into my Thinking Chair to mull over the facts. Then I stood up, pulled that wretched roll of super-tough heavy-duty repair tape off the back of my trousers, and sank into my Thinking Chair again.

  A Page From My Notebook

  Problem: Logic says ‘You’d steal that comic in order to sell it’. BUT! Nobody could sell it without being noticed.

  Problem: Logic says ‘The only person who WOULDN’T steal it to sell it would be another collector’. BUT! As Ed explained, half the point of having a rare comic in your collection is to show it off. The thief would never be able to do that without arousing suspicion. (In fact, they’d have to go to some lengths to STOP anyone knowing they’d got it!)

  Problem: Logic says ‘EITHER the thief opened the safe, OR the thief struck when the safe was open’. BUT! Both those options now seem to be ruled out. Unless . . .

  Question: COULD Ed have done it himself, for some unknown reason? OR, could his mum or dad have done it, for some equally unknown reason? Must investigate further!

  Fact: Charlie is barred from looking at Ed’s entire collection. Which seems a bit mean, but I suppose I can understand it. I’d bar Charlie from my shed if he started getting jam on my case files!

  Fact: The rip on my Thinking Chair is getting worse. Must remember to phone Muddy.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  THE SIGN OVER THE SHOP SAID: Comix Nirvana in big bouncy lettering, with We buy, sell, x-change in smaller bouncy lettering underneath. Beneath the sign, on a handwritten sheet taped to the shop window was No Time Wasters! (I assumed this sheet meant ‘serious collectors only’, rather than being some sort of sci-fi warning that the shop was out of stock of something called The Time Wasters. But I couldn’t be sure.)

  The shop was tucked away at the far end of Frizinghall Street, just outside the centre of town. Opposite it, and a few dozen metres up the road, was La Pizzeria, the restaurant where Ed Foster worked as a chef.

  As soon as I entered Comix Nirvana, I got the distinct feeling I was being watched. And I don’t mean they had CCTV in there. Behind the counter, perched on a high stool and flicking through a DVD catalogue, was Rippa. His beady eyes followed me as I strolled around the shop, pretending to browse, keeping an eye out for clues.

  It was a small shop, no bigger than our classroom at school. Racks of action-packed front covers stretched from floor to ceiling, right around the walls. The ceiling itself was papered over with old movie posters, announcing that IT Came From Space and The Astro-Zombies Have Arrived. Beside the counter was a huge wooden box raised up on thick legs, divided up into sections. Inside each section were some of the same kind of plastic wallets that
Ed used, containing comics with covers that were slightly wrinkled and faded.

  ‘These are the old comics?’ I asked innocently. ‘The really collectible ones?’

  Rippa nodded. He was in his early twenties, thin with gelled-back hair, and wore a creased white shirt with a loosely knotted tie. Ed had told me that his real name was Tarquin, and that anyone who called him Tarquin got something thrown at them.

  ‘You buying?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I might be,’ I said brightly. ‘My dear old gran has given me a whopping great wad of birthday money, and I thought I’d invest it in some vintage comics.’

  ‘Wise move,’ said Rippa with a smile that made me think of cold gravy. I really don’t like cold gravy.

  My mission at Comix Nirvana had two aims: 1) to observe Rippa in his natural habitat, and 2) to see what useful information I could gather. My investigations would meet a dead end, and fast, if I couldn’t establish more facts about the suspects.

  ‘Anything in particular you’re looking for?’ said Rippa. He pointed to the wooden box. ‘Lots of rare items in there.’

  The rackings around the walls of the shop were crammed, overflowing even, but this wooden case had plenty of space in it. I wasn’t sure what this might suggest: had there been a sudden rush on vintage comics lately? Or was Rippa simply not very good at keeping old issues in stock? I leafed through the box casually.

  ‘How about those Purple Avengers there?’ said Rippa. ‘I got the whole run from Issue 10 to 25 there. Worth fifteen pounds each, because of their age, but I can let you have them for a tenner apiece.’

  ‘Mmm, no,’ I mooched. ‘I’m not really a Purple Avenger fan.’ (This was perfectly true – for more on this, see my earlier case file, The Mark of the Purple Homework!)

  ‘See that one there?’ said Rippa. ‘That’s it, the issue of Mars Robot Rampage. You can take it out of the wallet and have a look. Printed in 1938, that was. Nobody’s got a complete set of those, not anywhere in the world. I’ve only got the one issue so I’m selling it cheap, just thirty pounds.’

  I took out the comic and flipped through it. Giant machines with laser guns for eyes zapped up at me from the smooth, brightly printed pages. Destroy all Earthlings!, Run, Penelope – we don’t stand a chance!

  That settled it. This short conversation had given me proof that Rippa was a crook, or at least that he was willing to rip off his customers. In fact, I now had two very specific proofs that Rippa was quite happy to engage in some dodgy dealing.

  Thinking back to my meeting with Ed Foster, can you spot what these two proofs were?

  Proof 1: Those issues of The Purple Avenger weren’t worth anything like ten pounds each, as Ed had explained to me.

  Proof 2: If that issue of Mars Robot Rampage really was printed in 1938, it ought to have been in a very delicate, crumbly state. No collector would let someone casually handle it like that! Rippa was clearly lying about its age.

  ‘Mmm, I think I’ll leave it for now,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t leave it long,’ said Rippa. ‘You won’t get offers like this from other dealers.’

  ‘That’s very true,’ I said, nodding wisely.

  I headed for the street. I paused with the shop door ajar. ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘have you got the latest issue of The Time Wasters?’

  ‘What?’ grunted Rippa. ‘No, I haven’t! Can’t you see the sign in the window?’

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  I WENT TO SEE IZZY, Queen Of All Info. Her room was looking particularly fluffy, sparkly and other girly adjectives. The chunky rings on her fingers caught the light from the glitterball attached to the ceiling.

  She set her laptop to sleep and spun round in her swivel chair to face me. She consulted a stack of printouts to re-check her facts.

  ‘OK, two things,’ she said. ‘First, this Rippa character is perfectly willing to get involved in dodgy dealing.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve noticed that myself,’ I said. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Acouple of years ago he was caught out trying to pass a facsimile edition off as the real thing.’

  ‘A simmy-what?’ I said.

  ‘A facsimile,’ said Izzy. ‘Now and again, comic companies will republish a particularly famous or popular old comic. Same insides, same covers, and so on. These facsimile editions are just casual collector’s pieces, really, to give you the look and feel of what an old comic was like, without you having to actually fork out for the old comic itself.’

  ‘That sounds a bit sneaky,’ I said, wrinkling my nose.

  ‘Oh, there’s nothing dodgy about it,’ said Izzy. ‘These facsimiles are clearly sold as “not the real thing”. They’re very popular with comics readers.’

  ‘And Rippa tried to sell one as if it was old and valuable.’

  ‘Right,’ said Izzy. ‘If you know nothing about comics, it’s juuust possible that someone like Rippa could fool you into thinking you were buying the real thing. Anyway, he was caught out at the last minute. He claimed it was a mistake. Which, to be fair, it might have been. But there are some dealers who still won’t trade with him.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I pondered. ‘Pity Ed Foster isn’t one of them. Anything else on Rippa?’

  ‘I checked the auction websites. There are several specific trading sites where comics dealers do business. One thing’s for sure: Rippa has never sold, or bought, a single copy of The Tomb of Death. Not any issue, not ever.’

  ‘That’s definite?’

  ‘Absolutely. And by the way, his real name is —’

  ‘Tarquin, yes, I know. I’m trying to think of a way to see if he really does throw something at you if you call him that.’

  Izzy dropped her pile of print-outs back on to her desk. ‘You know, Saxby, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with Rippa. Looking at the scene of the crime, and what happened, I don’t see how he could possibly have stolen that comic. Besides, he knows he’s got a poor reputation, he knows he’d be Suspect No.1 in a case like this. He’d be a fool to try something.’

  ‘I dunno,’ I muttered. I suddenly remembered those wooden display boxes in Rippa’s shop. I’d wondered why they seemed half empty. And now, a specific question came to mind: ‘Has Rippa been selling a lot of his stock recently?’

  Izzy flicked back through her print-outs. ‘He’s sold loads of stuff in the past couple of months, yes. And by the looks of it, he’s not bought very much.’

  Hmm . . .

  ‘I still think there are better suspects elsewhere,’ said Izzy. ‘What about Ed’s dad, for example? He had easy access to the safe.’

  I snapped my fingers. ‘Aha! He has a shop! He could be in debt; he could have all kinds of money problems!’

  ‘I’m way ahead of you,’ said Izzy quietly, with a smug smile, plucking a sheet from the middle of her print-outs. ‘I’ve already checked.’

  ‘Aha!’ I cried. ‘What a fool I’ve been not to see it at once! Ed’s dad is in financial trouble! He sees the comic book in the safe! He spots a way to clear his debts! He takes the comic! He sells it! Suddenly, his money worries are over! Am I right? Am I right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘His shop’s doing really well, actually. Has been for years.’

  ‘Oh. Another theory blown out of the water, then.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Izzy, doing a slow spin in her swivel chair. ‘But I still think Ed’s dad a more likely suspect than Rippa. Face it, Saxby, this could just be the case that beats you.’

  She eyed me with a sly smile.

  ‘Never,’ I said, eyeing her without so much as a hint of a sly smile. ‘Nobody gets the better of Saxby Smart.’

  A Page From My Notebook

  Fact: If Rippa DOES have the stolen comic, he certainly isn’t trying to sell it.

  Question: Has he stolen it simply to keep it? Possibly, but Izzy says he’s never bought or sold any issues of THE TOMB OF DEATH, ever. Which implies he’s not actually a fan of those comics.
So why steal it to keep?

  Fact: Rippa’s been selling a lot of other comics recently, but he’s not been buying much.

  Question: Why? Does he need money for something? If so, what?

  Question: Is Izzy right? Does Ed’s dad have something to do with this, something I haven’t spotted so far?

  Problem: If Ed’s dad IS involved, I’m going to be stirring up all kinds of trouble – Ed and Charlie won’t be pleased to discover the identity of the thief!

  Problem: What AM I going to do about my Thinking Chair? That rip is still getting worse. And I’m not going near that sticky tape again!

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  AT SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, the case took a decisive turn. And a very unexpected turn it was too!

  For most of the morning, I found it hard to concentrate on lessons. Which is normal when we’re doing maths, because maths is certainly not my best subject. But today, I was finding it particularly hard to concentrate because of the problems surrounding that comic book. The crime seemed impossible, and yet it had happened. The suspects seemed to be in the clear, and yet someone must have —

  ‘Saxby Smart?’ called Mrs Penzler, our form teacher.

  ‘Er, sorry?’ I blinked.

  ‘Are you with us today, Saxby?’ snapped Mrs Penzler. The rest of the class giggled quietly. Even Muddy! I glared at him and he pulled a big cheesy grin at me.

  ‘Give us the answer to question three, Saxby!’ cried Mrs Penzler.

  I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. However, Mrs Penzler is a no-nonsense teacher, and she likes definite answers, so I gave her the most definite answer that came into my head.

  ‘Fourteen,’ I said. Definitely.

  ‘It’s two point two,’ said Mrs Penzler, with a bemused look on her face. ‘See me afterwards, and I’ll go over this topic with you. Again.’