The Case of the Disappearing Toys
by
R. Brian Campbell
“Alfie! Do you know where the dollhouses are?”
Alfie looked up from the puzzle he was carefully cutting out, keeping his finger on the spot where he had been working. “They are in the storage shed number five, with the dolls, cribs and other accessories, just like they’ve always been, Chester. Don’t tell me that your memory is starting to go, already. You’re barely over 100. What will you be like in a couple more centuries?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my memory,” Chester grumbled. “Storage shed five is empty.”
“What do you mean, empty?” Alfie spun around on his stool, the puzzle forgotten.
“Empty. Unfull. Vacant. Void. Hollow. An empty shell. Bereft of toys. That’s what I mean. Empty.” Chester glared at him.
“That’s impossible! I just built two doll carriages yesterday and they barely fit inside.”
“Well there’s nothing but room, now.” Chester folded his arms across his tiny chest.
“Show me.” Alfie hopped off the stool.
“Gladly.” Chester spun on his heel and stormed out of the workshop, Alfie following as quickly as his tiny legs could keep up.
Soon they were standing in the centre of an empty storage shed. Alfie turned slowly, his large eyes taking in the empty shelves as his brain struggled to comprehend what he was, or rather, wasn’t seeing. “Oohhhhh… this is not good. We have to tell Santa.”
“You tell him,” Chester insisted.
It was Alfie’s turn to glare at his fellow elf. “You’re coming with me.” His voice left no room for argument.
————————————
Soon the two elves were standing before Santa in his office, attempting to explain what they discovered. Santa was leaning back, half-sitting on the edge of his desk and rubbing his chin through his whiskers. He was dressed casually, in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up nearly to his elbows, red overalls, held up by multicoloured suspenders, and house slippers. “Missing toys, you say. A whole shed of them. That is serious. Have you looked around the shed to see if there is any sign that someone may have taken them?”
Alfie snapped his fingers. “Of course! They have to have gone somewhere. Don’t worry, Santa. I’ll find them.”
Santa smiled. “Ho, ho, I have every confidence in you, Alfie. But one thing before you go.”
“Anything, Santa. What is it?”
“Once you find out where the toys have gone, please come and get me. Don’t confront the thieves on your own. Can you promise me that?”
Alfie pondered Santa’s comments. Thieves. Criminals. He hadn’t thought of that. “Are you certain that you want to confront thieves, sir?”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no. It all depends on what you find,” Santa told him, gravely. “That’s why I want you to get me first. You find them, but let me decide what the next course of action will be.”
“Yes, sir.” Alfie bolted out of the room, leaving Chester chasing after him.
————————————-
Alfie ended up back at the shed, now wearing his long tweed coat, deerstalker cap, large bubble pipe in his mouth and magnifying glass in his hand. He studied the door, looking for signs of forced entry. Holding the magnifying glass to his eye, he studied the lock. Then he saw it. “Aha!”
“What did you find?” A voice asked from behind him.
Alfie turned to see Chester, dressed in a dark coat and bowler hat, wearing a false moustache and carrying what appeared to be a medical bag. A Nerf pistol protruded from his coat pocket. Alfie calmly said, “I have discovered a clue, dear Chester. This lock shows signs of being tampered with. Someone appears to have used some rather advanced lockpick to open the lock without damaging it. I say that the pick is advanced, because the marks are only visible upon careful inspection.”
“Amazing,” Chester gushed.
“Elementary,” Alfie responded. “Now we know the method of entrance, next we need to find their means of egress. When they removed the toys, where did they take them?”
“How do you expect to find that? There are footprints everywhere.”
“Ah, out front, yes,” Alfie said, with a twinkle in his eyes, holding up a slim finger. “But not around back. To escape, they need to leave our village through the snow.”
“Amazing.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Sorry,” Chester apologized.
“No. Don’t stop.” Alfie made his way to the back of the shed, where the elves quickly found signs of heavy travel in the snow. Alfie was on his knees in the snow instantly, inspecting the tracks with his magnifying glass. “See the runner marks? A dog sled. A big one, made for transporting heavy loads. And these tracks? Too big for huskies. These were malamutes. Heavy haulers. Looks like a team of at least a dozen of them. And it looks like they’ve been to the other storage sheds over the last few days. They must have been taking a bit at a time, so we wouldn’t notice, then got carried away with this one. Unless they can move as quickly as Santa, which I find unlikely, they can’t be far away. The game is afoot.”
“You are truly amazing.”
Alfie stood up straight, grinning. “Elementary, Chester. I observe, while others merely see.”
“What do we do now?”
“We take our observations to Santa. He will know what to do next. At the very least, we’ll need to get a sleigh and reindeer team to track the thieves.”
———————————————
Robert Bailey sat at the rickety table in the kitchen of his weather-beaten old house with his wife, Joan, and his three children, Bobby, Lucy and Jenny, looking sadly at the watery soup and stale bread that represented their evening meal, while listening to the wind whistling through the many cracks in the walls and roof. Even inside, they needed to wear their coats and boots. The tiny woodstove they had, barely provided enough heat to keep them from freezing, nowhere near enough to actually get them warm.
Things weren’t always this way. Robert once had a job with a top environmental company, studying the polar weather patterns and making reports. But suddenly funding was cut, and nobody thought to bring him and his family home. There was no plane, no money, no warning. One day he was getting paid and supplied with everything they needed to survive in the north country, the next, he and his family were abandoned. He tried to keep things going, raising reindeer and goats and trading with neighbours, but they were few and far between, so help was limited. Now there was nothing left.
But everything would change tomorrow, when Eb Potter came to collect the items he had gathered. Items? Humph! Toys. And not gathered, but stolen. Stolen from Santa’s workshop, no less. As desperate as he was, he still had trouble justifying his actions. He wasn’t a thief. This is not the man he professed to be. This wasn’t the role he wished to model for his children. This was not him.
But Eb Potter somehow knew everything about him and what he needed. In exchange for a pile of toys from Santa’s workshop, Eb offered to get him out of the cold north, set him up with a nice house in the city of his choice, and see to it that he got a job. Not a great job, mind you, but a job. He provided the lockpicks, the sled and dogs, as well as directions to Santa’s workshop. It was his way out. If he could live with it. But could he?
As he was pondering his actions, a knock came at the door. Before he could react, Bobby was out of his seat and running to the door. It swung open and a rotund man with a heavy white beard and a red suit was standing in his doorway. Two much smaller men were standing behind him. One appeared to be dressed as a tiny Sherlock Holmes and the other, Dr. Watson. Robert didn’t need to ask why they were there.
Robert looked at Joan, then stood and walked to the door. He looked down at his son. “Bobby. Could you give me a minute to talk to Santa?” He watched while Bobby returned to the table, then looked at his guest. “Hello, Santa.”
Santa smiled. “Hello Robert. I have a funny story to tell you. You see, Alfie, Chester and I were out looking for some toys we had misplaced. Can you imagine our surprise when we found them all in your old barn, along with a dogsled and a team of malamutes that I’m certain belong to the billionaire businessman, Ebenezer Potter?”
“Well…uh…it’s like this…uh…”
Santa smiled, sadly. “It’s been rough for you and the family, these last few months, hasn’t it?”
Robert hung his head. “Yes, it has. But it still doesn’t justify…”
“No it doesn’t,” Santa agreed. “But I know a few things that you don’t. First, were you aware that the environmental company you worked for was bought out by Eb Potter?”
Robert’s head snapped up. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Didn’t think so,” Santa told him. “You’ve been set up. Potter made sure that you and your family were well established here, then he cut you off. He wanted you desperate enough to go along with his plan.”
“Why?”
Santa sighed. “Nothing to do with you at all. I’m afraid that you were a pawn. He’s been trying to get access to my workshop for years. He wants to corner the toy market, and he can’t do that as long as I am in business.”
“I’m sorry that I fell for it, Santa.” Tears were running down Robert’s face.
“Not your fault. You were tricked by an expert with a long reach. But I’m here now and I’d like to fix everything up for you.”
Robert stared at Santa, wide-eyed. “You would. How?”
“You can work with me. My job requires that I am constantly aware of weather patterns and changes in the environment. It may not pay as well as your former job, but it comes with free room and board, your kids can get schooled with the young elves, and Joan could even get a job, toy making and wrapping, if she wanted. It would only be as long as it takes for you to get established somewhere else. What do you say?”
Robert turned to his family. “What do you say?” They all cheered. He turned back to Santa. “I’d say that was a resounding yes. Thank you very much, Santa.”
“You’re very welcome, Robert.” Santa shook Robert’s hand. “Now, if you don’t mind, could you help me load all the toys in my sleigh? We’re late for dinner and Mrs. Claus is very strict about those things.”
“Uh, Santa?” Alfie pulled on Santa’s coat.
He looked down. “What is it, Alfie?”
“What are you going to do about Ebenezer Potter?”
Santa shook his head. “Not a lot I can do. So far, he always manages to avoid consequences for his actions. One day they’ll catch up with him though. For now, I plan to send back his dogs and sled with a note telling him that he failed again. Trust me. That will punish him enough, for now.”
“It will?”
“It will. He hates losing. Can’t stand it. Now let’s get those toys gathered up and get our guests back home for dinner. There’s still much to do before Christmas. Not the least of which is designing new locks for our storage sheds.”
“I can help with that,” Alfie offered.
“I’m sure you can,” Santa agreed. “Ho, Ho, Ho.”