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gross exaggeration by the press," Ulysses suddenly found himself at pains to point out.
    "Yes, I remember the papers reported your death. Pity."
    Hearing hurried footsteps tap-tapping their way across the parquet floor of the room, Ulysses turned to see a yet again red-faced Mycroft Cruickshank steaming his way over to where they were inspecting the cabinet together.
    "Ah, Mr Cruickshank. Would you like to give us your considered opinion as to who broke in here and how they got away? Perhaps you could fill in a few gaps for me; clarify a few details," Ulysses began.
    Cruickshank glared at him with those piggy black eyes of his from out of the doughy arrangement of his face. From the colour of the curator's face, Ulysses just knew that all this stress couldn't be doing his blood pressure any good.
    "I'm sorry, Mr Wraith, is this gentlemen bothering you?"
    "Yes he is, Mr Cruickshank."
    "Mr Quicksilver, you are here thanks to my gracious goodwill, sir. Please don't abuse that generosity of spirit."
    "Of course not. So the break-in was two nights ago now?" Ulysses deftly side-stepped the subject, just as he deftly ushered the curator of this weird and wonderful collection of the macabre and downright bizarre away from where Wraith was working, as if it was he who had interrupted the private detective's investigation of the crime scene.
    "What? Yes," Cruickshank replied caught out by Ulysses' abrupt change of conversational direction.
    "And you reported it to the police yesterday morning when you discovered that the mermaid was missing, is that right?"
    "Er, yes."
    Ulysses waited, eyeing Cruickshank expectantly, as if waiting for him to speak. The bewildered proprietor obliging took his cue and began to spill the beans.
    "I came in to open up, as it were, as usual and was caught out by the chill draft that was sweeping the room."
    "And where was this draft coming from?"
    "A window in the one of the - ahem - conveniences had been left open."
    "The door hadn't been tampered with?"
    "No. It was locked, just as I had left it the night before."
    "And who else has a key?"
    "Only, Mr Gallowglass, the director of the museum. But the police have already questioned him and his alibi stands up to the closest scrutiny. Besides, he's a trustworthy sort of a fellow."
    "And where are these - ahem - conveniences?"
    "Over there," Cruickshank pointed to a door in the adjacent corner half hidden behind the sarcophagus of a ninth dynasty Egyptian king.
    "And is there any other way of reaching them?"
    "No, only from this room."
    "Well then, if it wasn't Mr Gallowglass, and I have to say, why would a man of his standing be interested in stealing a forgery -"
    "I'll have you know I have it on the best authority that it is - was - the genuine article!" Cruickshank blazed.
    "- and unless it was you, planning some insurance scam -"
    "What are you trying to say, sir?"
    "- which I sincerely doubt, otherwise you'd have taken something of more obvious value that the mermaid. And talking of fakes," Ulysses said, "where did the Whitby Mermaid come from? And don't say 'Whitby'." Cruickshank looked like he was about to protest again but instead made a face like a goldfish gasping for air. "You don't honestly expect anyone to believe that it was the real deal, do you?"
    Cruickshank's manner changed in an instant. He drew Ulysses to one side, an arm around his shoulders and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial hush.
    "You're a man of the world, Mr Quicksilver, I can see that, so I won't try to fool you in this regard. If you ask me the thing's a fake. You can even see the stitching if you look closely enough - or at least the scars where the stitches would have been, they're not there now - but old Craven was adamant that when he caught the thing in his nets it was alive, gasping for air on the deck of his little boat as he looked on in disbelief. He swears on the Bible it's the truth, but it hardly seems credible, does it?"
    Ulysses gave that thought some