Paint the town red

Chapter VI

When I came to work in the morning, Max was already waiting for me in the office and sorting out the paperwork from yesterday's case. There was a cup of half-drunk coffee on his desk, sheets with robbers' testimonies and photos of the vault were laid out, and the Dutchman was focused on making some notes in his notebook.

"Good morning."

I smiled and walked over to my desk, and Max didn't say anything, but just nodded back at me. Strange, usually he is more talkative, but today he seems to be in a bad mood. Something happened? Maybe he didn't sleep well? Or maybe he's still offended by me because of yesterday? Although the last assumption seems extremely ridiculous, because we really didn't agree on anything.

I sat down at my desk and took the papers out of the drawer, looked through the pages and my notes to refresh my memory of the nuances of yesterday's case. I looked at Max again, and he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn't alone in the office. He keeps writing something, and then looks at his notes as if searching for hidden meaning in the texts of the most ordinary and simple interrogation. Shrugging my shoulders, I settled down in my chair and began to reread the testimony of my second robber.

"I entered the vault second, well, after Luca. Actually, in this whole plan, my task was to prepare the escape vehicle, so I didn't stay in the vault itself. I quickly took my share of the bars, that is, half of the remaining ones and two more on top – everything as we agreed.

"How many bars did you take?"

"I took 8."

"Only 8?"

"If I took more, I would become a rat, but do I need it?"

"What a conscientious robber."

"Man, I may be a robber, but I'm not a rat. There were four of us, so the loot should be divided among all, so that at least everyone had something. Yes, Luca's partition system is fucked up, but he's our leader, so what's the point of arguing with him?"

So he took 8 bars and entered the vault second. Since he took half of the remaining and two on top, it turns out that the first one who entered the vault took 16 pieces.

"Max, I think I got something."

I got up from my chair and walked over to Max, took an empty chair and sat down next to him. After putting down my notes and the sheet with the criminal's testimony, I began to tell my partner about my guesses.

"Look, since the second one, according to him, took 8 bars, then the first one took 16. You catch the logic?"

"You mean their system of "half and two top"?"

"Exactly. Then it turns out that the first took 16, the second took 8. What did your third say?"

Max quickly looked through his notes and picked up a sheet from the table with a record of the criminal's testimony. He ran his eyes over the printed text.

"Nothing much, he just took his half and two bars in his pockets. By the way, the fourth got nothing."

I smiled quietly and caught Max's incomprehensible look. I waved it off and showed a line from the testimony of one of my robbers.

"The second said he wasn't a rat to take more, and in his opinion, at least some of the loot should go to everyone."

"He didn't want to be a rat, so this role was taken by someone else."

We laughed softly and checked each other's notes. By simple calculations, we calculated that there were originally only 28 bars in the vault: the first robber took 16, that is, half and two from above, the second, based on his testimony, took 8 bars, the third – 4, and the fourth was literally robbed. When we were done with the calculations, we put all the papers in one folder, which I will bring to Frederick later.