“Quite so,” said the Inspector. “Now I have decided to try another method.”
“What is it? What is it?” asked the villagers, eagerly.
“I have decided,” said the Inspector, looking stern and noble, “that we, or rather, that is to say, you, should offer a reward for your donkeys.”
There was a gasp of dismay at this.
“But where can we find enough money for all those donkeys?” quavered Mama Agathi.
“I have here,” said the Inspector, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket and laying it on the table, “I have here a list of all the missing animals, and their approximate market prices. It comes to 25,000 drachma.”
A wail of dismay went up from the villagers.
“But where,” asked Papa Nikos in despair, “can we possibly find 25,000 drachma.”
“This is precisely the point,” said the Inspector cunningly. “You don’t offer a reward of that amount. You offer a smaller reward, but one sufficiently big to be attractive. It is a well-known fact that Communists like money, and so if we offer this reward, one of the band of robbers is sure to betray the others since, as I say, they have no sense of fair play.”
“This is a very good idea,” Papa Nikos pointed out, “but we are all of us poor.”
“Yes, yes,” agreed the Mayor hurriedly. “we are all of us poor. Indeed, I am what you might almost describe as poverty-stricken.”
“Bah!” said Papa Nikos with infinite scorn. “You poverty-stricken? It is well known that you are the richest man in the village. I don’t see why you shouldn’t offer the reward.”
“Yes, yes,” chorused the villagers. “It’s only right. After all, he is the richest man in the village and he is the Mayor.”
“Yes,” said the Inspector, “I think you are quite right.” The affair of the Mayor’s bitch had rankled with the Inspector and he had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to try to get his own back, and this seemed to be the ideal time.
“But, I tell you, I am a poor man,” moaned the Mayor.
“Then, perhaps soon you will be a poor man and not even a Mayor,” said Papa Nikos grimly.
“Yes,” said Papa Yorgo. “I wonder if the Inspector would like to know the story of the sweet potatoes?”
The Mayor went white, for he had not realised that anybody knew about the big swindle he had pulled off the year before.
“I was going to say,” he said desperately, “if only you would let me finish, that in spite of being a poor man, I am willing to offer a modest reward of, say, five hundred drachma.”
The villagers laughed derisively.
“That’s not going to get our donkeys back,” they chorused.
“No,” agreed the Inspector. No, that’s far too little. It’ll have to be much more than that.”
“Well, say one thousand drachma,” suggested the Mayor with an effort.
“Fool,” said Papa Nikos scornfully. “Do you think that if you had stolen donkeys worth 25,000 drachma you would come and give information as to their whereabouts for a paltry thousand drachma?”
“Yes,” said the Inspector, “I am inclined to agree. It will have to be much more substantial than that.”
“Five thousand drachma,” said the Mayor, the sweat running in rivulets down his fat face and into his walrus moustache.
“Make it twenty,” suggested somebody from the crowd.
“Yes, that’s much more like it,” agreed the Inspector. “That’s a fairly nice, substantial sum.”
“Very well, then,” said the Mayor, taking out his handkerchief and mopping his brow, “Twenty thousand drachma.”
A hum of approval ran through the crowd.
“Tell me,” Papa Nikos asked the Inspector. “When this Communist comes to you with the information, what do you intend to do to him?”
“Why, give him the money, of course,” said the Inspector.
“But aren’t you going to arrest him?” asked Papa Nikos surprisedly. “After all, he is a Communist.”
“It is a well-known fact,” said the Inspector wisely, “that when a Communist has money, he ceases to be a Communist. So there will therefore be no reason to arrest him.”
The villagers were much struck by this powerful piece of logic.
“Tell me,” asked Papa Yorgo, “how are we going to let them know about the reward?”
They thought about it for some minutes.
“Posters,” said Mayor Oizus suddenly, smitten with the first original idea he’d had since gaining office. “We will put up posters.”
“But where will we put them up?” asked Papa Yorgo.
“We should really scatter them like they did during the war,” said Papa Nikos.
“An aeroplane would be the answer,” mused the Inspector. “or a helicopter, but it would take too long to get one sent from Athens. No, I suggest that we put them in all the places where the Communists are likely to see them.”
“But, where’s that?” asked Papa Nikos. “Normally we hang up posters in the village.”
“Out in the olive groves,” explained the Inspector, waving his hands, “down in the vineyards and in the fields where they’re lurking.”
“How are we going to get these posters?” asked the Mayor.
It was the Inspector’s big moment. He drew himself up majestically.
“I,” he said, “have a cousin in Melissa who owns a printing press and he will print them for you . . . free.”
The burst of applause and cries of “Bravo!” from the crowd were almost deafening and the Inspector sat there smiling smugly, secure in the knowledge that he had once again won the approval of the villagers.
“What do we say on these posters?” inquired Papa Nikos. “We can’t address it to anybody, because we don’t know who they are.”
“I have given that some thought,” said the Inspector proudly and he produced another piece of paper from his pocket.
“This,” he continued, writing busily, “is what I suggest we put. “To whom it may concern — particularly Communists. We, the people of Kalanero, in return for receiving information as to the whereabouts of our donkeys, are willing to pay the sum of twenty thousand drachma.”
“Signed,” he continued, “Mayor Oizus.” Now I’ll take this in to Melissa and get it printed. They should be ready by to-morrow.”
He drove off in the police car to the cheers of villagers and they dispersed to their various houses, chattering animatedly. Only the Mayor had a despondent look. The children were breathless with excitement.
“Isn’t it wonderful!” said Amanda. her eyes shining. “We’ve saved you, Yani! We’ve saved you!”
“Don’t speak too soon,” said David.
“Oh, you are such a pessimist,” said Amanda. “Of course we’ve saved him. All he’s got to do is to tell them where the donkeys are and he can claim the reward.”
“Do you think for one minute that they wouldn’t think that he’d pinched the donkeys if he went to claim the reward?”