"h.e.l.lo Ang!" - Xhemin"What is it?"- Ziggy
Both the little miss and the young sire answered at the same time that Ang was left confused who to answer. He looked at the two with lines on his forehead but when he remembered his current ordeal, he blurted out immediately.
"On the news," Ang cued and ran to turn their television on.
Flash Report: Another set of La Agartha piece had been stolen last night by the master thief. The authorities….
Xhemin turned to Ziggy right away with a questioning look not anymore minding the other things that the reporter on the screen had said. Ziggy of course knew he needed to explain it all to her.
"After the mining explosion, a lot of things happened that brought the Montarini"s business down. The government garnished and sequestered most of their properties and including the La Agartha as payment for damages,"
Xhemin"s face fell with the information. All these times, she thought Huzey"s struggle was only his injury and never did she expect that the mining incident did not only took from him his feet, it also stripped him off away with all his inheritance. Why does all these things had to happen with Huzey? Wasn"t the explosion enough?
"There was nothing left of the Montarini"s Xhem. Even the Mansion was taken," Ziggy told bitterly. He himself couldn"t believe how the Montarini"s suffered severely and had come to a grisly end.
"And Senior Hans?" Xhemin tears rounded with so much pity for what had happen to Huzey"s fortune.
"He left for good. Dr. Miles said he went to live with surviving relatives in Spain," Ziggy announced. "I never got a chance to say goodbye,"
Xhemin held her heart as some physical pain came to her. Everything just seemed unreal and she cannot barely process it all. So, the article that she had read was true, that the diamond prince turned into a rag prince?
"And what"s with the news on the tv?" She asked curiously, refusing to listen to the news but rather would like to hear it from Ziggy.
"Someone had been stealing Huzey"s La Agartha collection ever since the government garnished it," Ziggy announced.
"As per my counting, the master their had taken 75 out of the 100 La Agartha pieces already," Ang intervened, counting the numbers on his head while watching the news, "G.o.d! The master thief rocks!"
"The master thief?" Xhemin was baffled by Ang"s words.
"Yes, little Miss, after thorough investigation the authorities finally announced that it was the master their who had been stealing Huzey"s art collection," Ang answered her politely. The boy had not seen the Little Miss for a while, but he knew she was already home, so her presence did not catch him off.
"But isn"t he gone already? I mean he had stopped stealing for ages," Xhemin thought as she recalled all the stories about the decades old master thief.
"That comes quiet a mystery even to me," Ziggy admitted. "The master thief had been gone for good for the last roughly thirty years and he suddenly emerged this time just to steal all of Huzey"s art collection,"
"How old is the master thief Ziggy? Wasn"t he an old man right now? How come he can still steal something expertly from the government," Xhemin asked him, entirely not convinced of the announcement that the master thief was the one stealing Huzey"s work.
"Roughly round seventy to eighty years old," Ziggy answered as he calculated. Although the master thief was gone already when they were born, the stories about him lingered and was told in their generation so they were so familiar to who he was.
"That"s too old for one to steal something as clean as the news claimed," Xhemin commented. "And why was he stealing Huzey"s art collection?"
"Little Miss, I"ve followed all of the details on the news when it first broke out and the authorities was very certain it was the master thief who had been stealing this time. They had compared his previous data from before and now, how he steals things, the way he steals it, his markings, his moves and how clean his operations were—they were all the same. No doubt, it was the master thief. He is back and according to the authorities the reason why he was targeting La Agartha was because he had his eyes on it. The Master thief had been stealing rare expensive things that belongs to the elites prior and unfortunately this time, it was the La Agartha he was obsessing on.
Xhemin wondered if all of it was even true and then suddenly, the news reporter"s voice rose above their conversation.
"Authorities also confirmed that there was a big possibility the La Agartha pieces had not made it out of Hamps.h.i.+re as the borders had been guarded tightly and one La Agartha piece was hard to conceal because of its human size. It can be recalled that the first record of stealing after few decades, happened three years ago when the La Agartha was to be transported to the capital which was halted because of the attack and so the La Agartha"s remaining pieces was kept in Hamps.h.i.+re until now, and every time there was a plan to transport it, the master thief made sure to steal some of those pieces,"
"Impossible," Ang concluded. "There"s no place in Hamps.h.i.+re where you can hide 75 pieces of human size statute unless you owned a big hidden cave somewhere. Also, I knew every part of Hamps.h.i.+re and I know there was no such a hiding place,"
"True. They must have been wrong," Ziggy agreed. "There"s no way those 75 pieces can be hidden in such a small town like this. We know everyone and we know every part of this place and I myself was certain there"s no way all those 75 pieces can be kept away without no one noticing,"
"Yes, except if someone was familiar with the loch of course," Xhemin hollered in the air without a careful thought of her words.
"In the Loch?" Ziggy and Ang both raised a brow at her and Xhemin then realized that what she said previously suddenly made sense. Indeed, they could not think of any place in Hamps.h.i.+re where human life statutes can be hidden, except in the loch which they were familiar with.
"Yes, down the loch?" Xhemin gasped as a suspicion came into here,"Have any of you thought of checking down the loch all these times? I mean if it"s in Hamps.h.i.+re, then the only place where you can keep those statutes without getting found was down there"
Ziggy and Ang looked at each other, trying to a.s.ses Xhemin"s words.
*
"But only us would think that way," Ziggy thought. Since doctor Miles had a property down the Loch, the three friends spent most of their childhood there, playing and making adventures nearby. They were very familiar with angles of the Loch and what"s down the water because Huzey likes scuba diving. "The master thief could probably not think of that,"
"He was called a master thief for a reason," Xhemin hollered in the air. Then she comes out with a suggestion, "There"s no harm in checking out."