The Final Crumpet by Ron Benrey, Janet Benrey Page A

McHue works hard to delight our customers by exceeding their expectations.” His grin melted into an expression of concern. “We’ve found that most museums decide to install surveillance cameras after they’ve been burgled. They expect us to provide protection as quickly and discreetly as possible. Quickly is usually the chief requirement, although our specialty is discretion.”
    Nigel glanced at Conan, who returned a surreptitious wink Garwood had jumped to the conclusion that the museum was responding to the recent well-publicized theft, and subsequent return, of a priceless set of Tunbridge Ware tea caddies. In truth, the Wescott Bank had insisted on a minor physical security upgrade before agreeing to underwrite the purchase of the Hawker collection. The museum had a state-of-the-art security system that lacked only one important feature: closed-circuit TV surveillance cameras to watch over the museum’s interior and exterior.
    “You said you brought our cameras with you…” Nigel looked around the office for a stack of cardboard boxes. He had signed Conan’s purchase order for two-dozen TV cameras, an associated monitoring station, and required installation services.
    Garwood snorted. “They’re here!” he said. “Every last one is sitting in plain view. You have to look harder.”
    Nigel looked left and right. Nothing in view resembled the sort of industrial TV camera he expected to see: a rectangular metal box with a lens on one end. But then he noticed an acorn-shaped gadget sitting on Conan’s desk. It seemed made of black plastic and was roughly the size of a coffee mug. He reached for it.
    “Well done, Mr. Owen!” Garwood clapped his hands silently in imaginary appreciation. “That’s one of the twelve external cameras that will watch over the exterior of the building.
    The image sensor inside can pan, tilt, and zoom, so each camera can protect a large area. And, of course, the devices use the latest wireless technology to transmit the images they capture to your central surveillance station.” The big man made a quiet laugh. “Now, see if you can find the cameras we’ll install inside the museum. I warn you—they are wholly camouflaged.”
    Nigel quickly spotted another item that seemed out of place on Conan’s desk: an antique, leather-bound book He picked it up and saw a small lens embedded in the book’s spine.
    “Quite right, sir!” Garwood said merrily. “We installed a wireless TV camera inside a real nineteenth-century hardback book. What better disguise for the surveillance camera that will watch over your library?”
    Nigel nodded slowly as he turned the book in his hands. Place the volume on a high shelf, and the camera would be virtually undetectable by anyone in the room.
    “Keep looking,” Garwood continued. “There are eleven more disguised cameras on display in this office. I’ll wager you won’t find them all.”
    Nigel peered, in turn, at every object he could see in Conan’s office. His slow, methodical search eventually revealed a one-liter chemical bottle with a lens beneath its label (“that will surveil the Conservation Laboratory”); he noticed an antique teapot whose spout glittered back at him (“it will sit high on a shelf in the Tea Antiquities Collection; no one will notice that the spout was reshaped to hold a lens assembly that can take in the entire room”); and he recognized a small, wooden globe that looked out of place on a shelf above Conan’s desk (“it’s an inexpensive replica of an antique on display in the World of Tea Map Room; we bought it in your gift shop and installed a miniature camera inside”).
    “Eight more interior cameras to go,” Garwood said cheerfully. “As you can see, our electronic eyes are essentially nondisruptive to your exhibits. We did our very best to keep your chief curator happy.”
    My chief curator! Blimey!
    Nigel abruptly remembered that Flick had asked to attend the meeting with Niles Garwood. She