They stood in a circle—their eyes darting around wildly in their sockets, briefly meeting to exchange uneasy glares. The intensity in the air was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Everyone who had come to the celebration (or had some involvement in it) had been called to the City Hall’s main room, where they all stood growing into cynics as each person sized up the others in the room.

It certainly wasn’t the most comfortable moment in the world, and it got only more stressful when a police officer strode into the City Hall, breaking the silence. “Now what’s the trouble here?” By the look of him, he wasn’t pleased to be there.

The question hung in the air for a long time before someone finally answered. “There was a theft here, sir,” said Frank Thompson, who had been hanging outside the circle of celebrators