The Thief's Apprentice

The Thief's Apprentice — page 3 — sell them on It seemed a mere game to him dancing around the guards of London’s finest museums and leaving the police looking like fools The spokesman from Scotland Yard liked to say they were hot on his trail but everyone knew there was no trail to follow Nobody knew why he wore a sinister-looking metal claw on his right hand but all agreed it made him dangerous But now I knew the truth even if I could hardly believe it The true identity of this fearsome Claw was Mr Scant my father’s valet and our household but ler The tall silver-haired old man who had to pick up my jacket if I dropped it who was usually found standing respectfully just behind Father My father being Mr Sandleforth Diplexito of Diplexito Engi neering and Combustibles Ltd Tunbridge Wells Perhaps had I been clever enough I could have guessed at the truth much earlier But until the moment of realization came I had thought Mr Scant was nothing more than a particularly boring part of my endlessly boring life He had always been a little frightening with his sour looks and pointy eyebrows His tone of voice always hinted he knew more than he let on But if all gloomy old men with pointy eye brows were to be marked as dangerous criminals half 2

The Thief's Apprentice — page 4 — my teachers and most of the congregation at church would have to be locked up Then there was the fact that every report on the Ruminating Claw spoke of his remarkable agility and stealth when Mr Scant was positively ancient at least sixty-five years old The moment I found out the truth came on a cold November night I had crept out of bed to see if I could find where Mother had hidden my Christmas presents Not something I would normally do but this year she had mentioned that since I was now twelve and making my own way to school a bicy cle might be prudent A bicycle wasn’t an easy thing to hide and even if she’d wrapped it up it would have been easy to find I had been jealously watch ing schoolmates send up clouds of dust with their skids and race each other down hills for months so I decided to go for a late-night sneak After creeping to the long gallery I saw some thing so bewilderingly unlikely I wondered if I was actually still asleep There in the dead of night was Mr Scant And there on his right hand was the famous claw larger and even more vicious than it had looked in the newspaper Instinct made me scurry behind the chaise longue praying I hadn’t been spotted Only then did I begin to grasp what I 3

The Thief's Apprentice — page 5 — had seen And Mr Scant had not been alone Peering out from my hiding place I saw that a man dressed all in black stood before him brandishing a short curved sword and wearing a cloth mask that hid all but his eyes Mr Scant faced him calmly the golden claw raised at his opponent On the tip of each fin ger was a long blade like a thin kitchen knife with a complex arrangement of brass hinges and pistons running over the back of his hand The one and only photograph of the Claw the halftone of him up on the pediment of the Fitzwil liam Museum depicted him standing with the tips of the blades touching at his chin The pose had given him his popular name but entirely failed to capture the strange and evil look of the contraption itself its eagerness to bite into the flesh of an enemy and stain itself red Such an enemy had clearly emerged As I watched the man in black surged forward his blade catching the dim light from the streetlamp outside the window but Mr Scant reached out and grabbed the blade stopping it dead The claw had closed around the sword like the mandibles of some terrible insect yet the loudest sound to be heard was the grunt from the man as he pulled his weapon loose 4

The Thief's Apprentice — page 6 — This was the strangest part of all the fight had been almost completely silent as though the claw could cut the very sound from the air Nothing was any louder than somebody setting down a knife and fork at the dinner table even though at night the tiniest sounds usually boom like church bells Mr Scant looked almost lazy as he leaned away from vicious cuts at his throat but the claw’s blades flashed out forcing the other man to leap back They had an odd brightness to them the curved sword gleamed while the claw danced with soft luminescence As Mr Scant danced around his opponent I remembered Mother’s remark that when going about his butler’s duties Mr Scant crossed the house silently as a cat She had once gone so far as to scold him for creeping up on her which was the talk of the household for days afterwards Then there was the time when the farm boy almost dropped one of the big pails of milk only for Mr Scant to rush down the steps to catch it without spilling a drop At the time I reasoned it was a case of being in the right place at the right time but in truth Mr Scant had moved like a viper Could I have guessed at his secret from that It would have taken greater detective skills 5

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