Sandy shot Ken one startled glance. He picked the box up and hefted it in his hands, as if he might be a better judge of its weight than the scales could be. Then he put it slowly down again.
“How could it not be the same box?” he demanded. “When could a substitution have been made?”
“At Sam’s,” Ken said quietly.
“You mean you think Sam would—?”
“No, of course not,” Ken interrupted. “But whoever wanted the box—wanted the real one, I mean—found out that we had taken it there for repairs, and when we would come back for it.”
“This imaginary character you’re talking about must have a crystal ball,” Sandy said scathingly.
Ken shook his head. “Just a broken watch crystal.” Sandy stared at him unbelievingly, but Ken went on. “What could have been simpler than breaking a watch crystal, if somebody wanted an excuse to follow us into Sam’s store and find out how long the box would be there?”
Sandy ignored the question. Instead he asked one of his own. “And do you also have a ‘simple’ explanation for how the switch was made?”
“Of course,” Ken replied calmly. “We’ve been thinking that it was fortunate the man with the watch crystal was standing in front of that partition window when the fire broke out. It wasn’t fortunate. It was planned. It gave him the perfect opportunity to switch boxes and walk out of the store.”
Sandy opened his mouth and shut it again.