5. Rendezvous in Bristol

It was raining heavily in Bristol. Bristol is an excellent city situated around 100 miles from the Heathrow airport, London. It was very windy too. The weather switches from sunshine to thunderstorm within an hour in Bristol. It was very sunny that day till 2 PM when a slow drizzle started and soon it became a heavy rain.

This rain was not disturbing James and the local police. They had to hunt their prey. James was a private detective agent in Bristol. A diamond worth £100,000 has been stolen from the Royal Jewellers, a shop situated in Cribbs Causeway. Three helicopters (and many cars) were chasing the suspects. It was a visual delight for the public who had seen such chase sequences only in Hollywood movies.

The police cannot shoot the suspect. The law is against the Police in all developed countries where the Human rights commission has a major say. In spite of all this the police were talented enough to arrest the culprits (It is now correct to call them culprits). The police blocked the roads with their cars (the White Skoda Octavia, the police car). The thieves could not escape. They were blocked both aerially and in ground. They were locked near Westbury Park. The three culprits had no other go except to surrender and they exactly did that.

The thieves were wearing a mask and were completely dressed in black as though they were mourning their arrest.

James was specially appointed in this case by Mr. Benson, the owner of Royal Jewellers. The case went on for a week, that’s when James surprised everyone. James took the diamond that was retrieved from the thieves and threw it into a bottle of concentrated Sulphuric acid. It dissolved into the acid. The diamond was gone. The local police were surprised. They asked James why he did this to such a costly diamond.

James coolly replied, “Do you know something. Original diamonds do not dissolve in acid. They remain the same even after a long bath with the acid. That means, this is not a diamond”.

James always had OOBT (Out of the box thinking). He made a simple investigation about the three thieves. He took a photo of each one of them in his cell phone and went to the Royal Jewellers shop. He showed the photos to the employees present there and asked whether they knew them. They all said yes. These three persons had been working in Royal Jewellers for the past five years. They were very close with the shop’s owner and they left this shop before two months because they had been moved to the new branch of their shop, opened in Portsmouth.

This made it very clear for James. This robbery had been planned by Mr. Benson himself. He had his diamond insured against theft and if someone steals his diamond, he could claim the money. Benson has faked this theft to get the insurance money. Benson did everything right but made a mistake, which was appointing James to investigate this case. He might have underestimated James’ talents. He would have done that to make this robbery as realistic as possible.

We shall ask Benson why he did that, but he was in prison for cheating the police and insurance company. We are not allowed into that prison in Bristol.