The Fangs of the Dragon (5 page)

‘Impossible,’ wailed Ed. ‘The radiator’s bust. It’s got a leak that needs to be sealed. At the moment, that car’s got a range of about three miles, at most.
How about the bus? Or a taxi?’

‘Too slow,’ I said. ‘We need to get there
now
!’

Charlie slid to the shed floor with a bump. ‘That’s it, then,’ he said mournfully. ‘It’s gone. Rippa’s won.’

Ed let out a yelp of anger and panic. I looked around quickly. There had to be something we could do. There had to be some way to fix that car.

And as I looked around at the contents of my shed, an idea struck me. There was something here that had been giving me no end of trouble, but which might, just, make a temporary seal for the
car’s radiator.

Think back . . .

‘This!’ I cried, snatching up the reel of super-tough heavy-duty repair tape with which I’d been trying to fix my Thinking Chair.
Guaranteed 100% Bonding
Power!
it says!’

Ed took the reel from me. ‘Brilliant,’ he said.

The three of us raced out to the car. Ed hurriedly refilled the car’s radiator from the plastic bottle of water he was carrying around in the boot, and taped up the leak.

‘So, Saxby,’ said Charlie quietly. ‘How exactly did Rippa steal the comic?’

Ed jumped into the driving seat. ‘Yeh!’ he cried, ‘I want to know that too!’

‘I’ll explain on the way,’ I said. ‘Now
move
!’

We buckled up as Ed shifted the car into reverse and it lurched around in a semicircle. With tyres screeching like a fast getaway in a movie, the car bounded for the main road.

‘Well?’ said Ed, as he drove round a sharp bend and headed for the sliproad that joined on to the motorway.

‘Well,’ I said, watching the grass verge zip past at a frightening speed, and wishing I hadn’t been quite so insistent on getting there as fast as possible, ‘the thing
is, what I didn’t realise for ages is that there were
two
thefts here, not one.’

‘Two?’ said Ed, manoeuvring the car on to the motorway and revving up to a needle’s width below the speed limit.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The first happened because the thief saw a chance and took it. The second was carefully planned. OK, let’s consider the second one first. Ed, do you have
a firm hold of that steering wheel?’

‘Yes, why?’ said Ed.

‘Because I’ve got to tell you that the second crime was done by Charlie.’

‘What?’ yelled Ed. He whizzed the car into the fast lane and we all swung from side to side. Charlie buried his face in his hands.

‘Charlie Foster, you thieving little pipsqueak, I’ll —’ cried Ed.

‘Pack it in!’ I cried. ‘You just concentrate on driving! Yes, Charlie did it, but hear me out. He didn’t intend any harm. He only wanted to borrow the comic for a while.
Am I right, Charlie?’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Charlie from behind his hands. ‘I’m sorry, Ed, really. I wish I’d never even heard of that comic.’

‘You’ll wish you’d never heard of me!’ cried Ed. ‘Did you give my comic to Rippa? Is that it?’

‘No!’ cried Charlie.

‘I told you, Charlie’s was the second crime,’ I said. ‘It happened like this. Some time ago, you banned Charlie from your entire collection. Now, naturally, Charlie felt
a bit miffed by that. After all, the incident with the jam was an accident. Right, Charlie?’

‘Right,’ mumbled Charlie from behind his hands.

‘But, naturally, he was very curious to see
The Tomb of Death
. Your pride and joy. The most valuable collector’s item he was ever likely to set eyes on. But it was locked away
in the safe.

‘Now, Charlie here is a brighter spark than you give him credit for. He might not have known the combination to the safe, but he could work it out. He realised that you and your dad would
have set the combination to something memorable. A significant date, a phone number . . . Right, Charlie?’

‘Mum’s birthday,’ mumbled Charlie.

Ed glanced at Charlie a couple of times in his rear-view mirror. ‘How did you know that?’

‘He didn’t, at first,’ I said. ‘Over several days, when nobody was about, he tried various combinations. Until he found the right one, last Sunday night. So he opened the
safe and took out the comic. He only wanted to take a look at it, to read it and see what all the fuss was about. He had every intention of putting it straight back. But almost as soon as he took
it out of the safe, he realised that he was in a whole world of doo-doo.’

‘Too right,’ muttered Ed.

‘Ed! Just listen to me,’ I said. The car wove ahead, overtaking a lorry and changing lanes to pull away from a chunky people carrier filled with fighting toddlers.

‘As soon as Charlie looked through the comic, he realised it was fake. A dummy. A very good one, but a fake none the less.’

‘A
what
?’ yelled Ed. ‘Rubbish! I know every square millimetre of that comic! Do you think I can’t tell a fake when I see one?’

‘We’ll get to that,’ I said. ‘Keep your eyes on the road! What Charlie took from the safe was not the real
Tomb of Death
. And when he realised that, he panicked.
He had no idea what had happened to the real one. Would you think he’d taken it? Who
had
taken it? Had it always been a dummy? Were
you
hiding something?

‘He didn’t know what to do. OK, with a bit more thought on his part, or by being honest from the start, things might have turned out better. But he was scared; he knew you’d be
furious. For a start, there was nothing he could say without having to admit that he’d got into the safe. And he reckoned he’d be in enough trouble for that, let alone whatever might
happen because the comic was a fake.

‘The point is, while he dithered over what to do, the safe was reopened and the comic was seen to be missing. Then you, Ed, told him to come and see me. Which, reluctantly, he did. And all
this time, he was hiding the fake comic away.

‘With Saxby Smart on the case, Charlie realised it was only a matter of time before he was found out. Which is true. He still had the fake comic in his school bag. So he went to the
office, distracted the school secretary and shredded the fake. Now, at least, when suspicion pointed towards him, there was no physical evidence left.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Charlie, finally uncovering his face. ‘When you gave Ed those shreds of paper, you thought they might be the real comic, didn’t you?’

‘Ummmm,’ I said, ‘yes, but, anyway, moving on —’

‘As if I’d do that,’ muttered Charlie.

‘Moving on,’ I said quickly. ‘We come to the
first
theft. The theft of the
real Tomb of Death
.’

‘By Rippa,’ said Ed.

‘By Rippa,’ I nodded. ‘Izzy’s research, and my own observations, had shown Rippa to be a dodgy dealer in more ways than one. He’d already tried to pass off a
facsimile edition comic as the genuine article. He’d nearly succeeded too. So what more logical step for him than to go one better, and produce a really convincing fake, one that only an
expert would spot? And why not aim high? Why not go for one of the most valuable comics there is?
The Tomb of Death
Issue 1.

‘From various published sources, he could reproduce the comic’s covers and inside pages. And there was a local dealer he knew, Ed Foster, who actually
had
a copy. If he played
his cards right, he could go along and take a look at the real thing, to make sure that his fake was as perfect as possible.

‘The trouble was, he didn’t have a good reputation in the trade. He decided that, once his fake was ready, he’d travel to one of the big American trade fairs, where he
wasn’t known, and sell it there. In a huge place like America, the selling of a super-valuable comic book wouldn’t attract quite the same attention it would over here. So he worked away
at his fake, and he managed to get you, Ed, to show him the real comic, for comparison. You said he had some catalogues with him when he came to your house?’

‘Yes,’ said Ed.

‘And tucked inside one of them, was his carefully made forgery. He only intended to get a close look at your comic. He knew you’d never allow him to borrow it, or anything like that.
But when the doorbell went, and he was left alone in that room, he spotted the opportunity of a lifetime. Purely by luck, his forgery was to hand, and he made a snap decision. While you were gone,
just for a few seconds, he swapped the real comic for his fake. He gambled that when you came back in, you’d put the comic in the safe straight away, without examining it closely. And
that’s exactly what you did. You assumed that was your comic back in its plastic case. It wasn’t. Rippa slipped the real
Tomb of Death
in amongst his catalogues, and he walked
out with it, right under your nose.’

‘But he must have known I’d spot the forgery eventually,’ said Ed.

‘Oh, eventually, yes,’ I said. ‘But he knew you never, ever normally took that comic out of the safe, let alone out of its protective case. It might have stayed in there for
months, or even years, before being discovered. I said to you when I examined the safe that only a pretty stupid and desperate thief would try to snatch that comic, but I was wrong. Rippa took huge
risks, but he wasn’t daft.

‘Think about it. If you, months or even years later, discovered the fake, and even if you linked the fake to Rippa, what actual evidence would you have? None. Even if you told the world,
and ruined Rippa’s reputation for good, he’d hardly mind, would he? He’d have sold the real comic and be living off a mountain of cash.

‘He took a risk, and it appeared to pay off. The only problem was, he now had a genuine
Tomb of Death
and needed to get rid of it. He needed money to finance his trip to America, so
he started selling off stock from his shop. He’s been selling loads and buying little, to make sure he had enough money to make the earliest trip to America he could. Today. And once
he’d sold the comic . . .’

‘. . . No evidence again,’ said Ed, grinding his teeth. ‘Unless I spent a fortune following the comic around America and tracking its sale.’

‘Right,’ I said.

Ed flicked the indicator and the car sped towards the exit off the motorway. By the little clock that was Blutacked to the dashboard, the time was 3.22 p.m.

It was 3.27 p.m. when we raced into the car park opposite the main entrance to the airport. Charlie and I hurried over to the terminal building while Ed hunted through the rubbish in the
car’s glove compartment for some change to pay for parking.

3.28 p.m. The glass doors slid aside and Charlie and I stepped into a swirling river of people, trolleys and baggage. Tugging at Charlie’s sleeve to get him to follow me, I headed
straight for the enormous Departures screen, hanging above a nearby coffee stall.

3.29  p.m. ‘Let’s see, let’s see,’ I muttered. ‘Look for LAX. That’s Los Angeles. No, wait, that’s arrivals. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,
LAX, LAX, LAX . . . I can’t see it. Wait, the screen’s changing . . .’

Charlie poked his head into view. ‘There’s one flight to LA today; passengers have just been called to the departure lounge, over there, Gate 22B.’

I glanced back and forth between him and the screen. ‘That’s genius. How did you work that out?’

‘I asked that air stewardess over there.’

‘Ah, right,’ I said, nodding a thank you to a woman in a ghastly green uniform.

3.30 p.m.

We sped up a short staircase and across a wide area covered in shiny floor tiles and bolted-down seats. The departure lounge was directly ahead of us. Passengers were lining up at a row of
scanners, ready to have their bags checked.

And there was Rippa! He was facing away from us, a holdall in one hand and a pack of sandwiches in the other. He was almost at the front of the queue.

‘He hasn’t seen us,’ said Charlie.

‘But if he gets past those scanners, he’s gone!’ I said. ‘Airport security means we won’t be able to follow him any further!’

We hurried towards him, worried in case we drew attention to ourselves. If he spotted us now, all he’d have to do is leave the queue and lose himself in the crowd.

‘Whatever you do,’ I whispered, ‘don’t run. Don’t cause anyone in that queue to look round.’

Suddenly, Ed overtook us, running like his bum was on fire, heading directly for Rippa. Charlie and I both pulled yeeargh-faces.

But it was almost too late. Rippa was at the head of the queue. In a few seconds, he’d be through the scanners. Even at full speed, Ed wouldn’t reach him in time!

‘How can we stop him?’ wailed Charlie.

For a split second, my mind went blank. But then I had a brilliant idea.

‘Oi!’ I shouted, at the top of my voice. ‘Oi! Tarquin!’

The sound echoed off the flickering screens and the shiny floor. As one, every last person in sight turned to stare at me. Rippa, with a face like a mad bull, spun on his heels. Without a
moment’s thought, he flung his pack of sandwiches directly at me, his mouth pulled into a wedge-shaped sneer. The sandwiches bounced and skidded to a halt at my feet.

‘So it’s true,’ I said. ‘He really does throw things at people who call him that.’

Rippa’s pause gave Ed just enough time to reach him. Rippa almost made a run for it, but Ed took a firm hold of his arm and dragged him out of the queue.