Chapter Eight

Before Alex left Mr. Darcy’s office, he asked, “What’s the deadline for getting this thing back?”

“There’s no deadline, but time is of the essence.  If the person currently in possession of the artifact finds out that it has been noticed, and efforts are being made to recover it, it’s extremely likely that it will be hidden away again, and won’t be seen again for another several years,” Mister Darcy said.

“Well, I’ll get started on it right away, then,” Alex said. 

He put the folder that Mr. Darcy had handed him in his bag, and left.

Alex had noticed a small park that wasn’t too far away on one of his deliveries.  He rode over there, and found a picnic table to sit at and go over the information Mr. Darcy had given him.  It was a beautiful day, without a cloud in the sky, and it felt great to be outside.

He opened the manila folder, and began to look through the various documents inside.  The very first thing he was an image of the spearhead.  It was a drawing, actually.  Alex was hardly an expert on antiquities, but he guessed that the spearhead was probably a couple of thousand years old, or at least meant to look like it was.  It was triangular and had ornate, if somewhat imprecise, engravings.  According to the notes, it was roughly ten inches long.

Looking further through the folder, Alex learned that it had been spotted in the trophy room of a wealthy collector.  He lived in one of the old mansions in the Washburn - Fair Oaks district in Minneapolis.   According to the notes, the collector’s name was Victor Steel.

“Well there’s a comic book villain name if there ever was one,” Alex muttered to himself.

Whoever the person who had spotted it had been, they reported that Victor Steel’s trophy room was on the second floor of his mansion. 

Alex wasn’t sure why it had been included, but there was a photo of Victor himself.  He even looked like a comic book villain.  In the photo he wore a pinstriped suit, and he apparently shaved his head completely.   He also wore a goatee, and somehow managed to actually look sinister instead of like a disaffected college student in the 1990’s, or an I.T. guy.

There was a photo of the mansion as well.  It looked well kept-up, but less forbidding than he’d expect from a comic book villain. Maybe it was scarier at night, or in bad weather.

How the hell am I going to get into this guy’s mansion, and on to the second floor no less, without breaking in?  At the very least he’s going to have a home security system of some sort, Alex thought.  And to keep the grounds in nice shape like that probably required a gardener, at least part time.

He decided the best thing to do would be to ride by and scope it out.

It was only a few miles from the park to the address he had for Victor Steel’s house.  Alex arrived quickly, and rode through Victor’s neighborhood as casually as he could. 

Alex hadn’t actually been through this neighborhood before, and he was amazed by the grand homes.  He wondered who actually lived there, and how many of the mansions were home to a single family any more.

He rolled along, doing his best to stare admiringly at each of the homes equally (which wasn’t difficult) before he reached Victor’s address.  Just an average bicyclist out for a cruise through a neighborhood full of historic homes, nothing to see here.

Alex was a little surprised when he rolled past one hedge, and found himself nearly face to face with a sinister-looking, bald, goateed man.  Victor Steel himself, dressed in faded jeans, chambray shirt and leather work gloves, holding an electric hedge-trimmer.

“Good morning!” Victor said, and gave Alex a cheerful wave.  “Nice day for a ride, isn’t it?”

Alex didn’t quite know how to react, and nearly fell off of his bicycle.  He got control of himself again and kept rolling.  He hoped Victor hadn’t noticed the klutziness, and he said, “Good morning!  It is.  Wow, you have a gorgeous home!”

“Thank you,” Victor said, and turned back to the bush he’d been trimming.

Well, that didn’t work out exactly as I’d planned it, Alex thought as he continued riding through the neighborhood.  Bumping into Victor had jangled his nerves enough that now it actually was taking effort to admire the other homes and keep ride slowly, as opposed to pedaling like mad to get out of there.

Bumping into Victor also meant he hadn’t been able to get a decent look at the house to see how he might be able to get in.  He assumed, however, that Victor had gotten a good enough look at him to be able to recognize him again if he kept riding through the neighborhood on his bicycle.  He was going to have to come up with a different plan.

Alex rode back to his apartment to think, and come up with a plan.

The following morning, he called in to the courier office and said he needed the day off.  The night before, he’d decided that rather than try being stealthy, he’d just go and act like he had every reason to be there.  If anyone bothered him, he’d play dumb.

He left his apartment at around eight o’clock in the morning, figuring that Victor would be off to work and out of the way by the time he got there.  He briefly considered taking the Mustang, and then decided that a beat-up old Mustang parked in front of a mansion was a lot more likely to draw curiosity than a bicycle.

The morning was cool and crisp, perfect for a bit of reconnaissance and, perhaps, recovery.

When Alex reached Victor’s neighborhood, he slowed down again, and looked at the houses again as if he was trying to find a particular address (which he was, though he’d already found it the day before).  When he got to Victor’s mansion, he just pedaled up the driveway as if he had some reason for being there besides sneaking inside and finding a spearhead that apparently didn’t actually belong to Victor.

Alex leaned his bicycle up against the side of the house, and walked towards the back of the house.  There was a big garage, but it wasn’t connected to the main house.  There was a privacy fence around a good part of the backyard, which enclosed the back of the house.  He didn’t care to try hopping the fence if he didn’t have to, so he walked back towards the front of the house.

The neighborhood seemed quiet, and there weren’t any obvious indications that anyone was home, so when he reached the side door, he tried opening it.  It was locked, however. 

There was also an entrance to the cellar, but it was locked too.

Alex walked around the front of the house, and up onto the front porch.  He felt extremely conspicuous.  He reached out to try the front door, without much hope.

 
To his complete surprise, the door opened easily.  Without thinking about it too much, Alex stepped inside and shut the door behind him.