Two days later, Mr. Murlock got a call from Tracy, requesting some details regarding the original sculpture, which had triggered this whole series of events.
Three days afterwards, Mr. Murlock got another call from Tracy, with a rather strange request. Tracy had requested to see the workshop where they manufactured the busts, and as the workshop was closed for upgrading the dies and other machinery, he accepted the request.
Tracy arrived at the workshop at eleven in the morning the next day, as per their arrangement. Mr. Findlay, who managed the day to day activities of the workshop, was also there. After a quick round of introductions, Mr. Findlay gave him a brief tour of the place, explaining with considerable detail how the busts were manufactured, right from the procurement of the materials, the manufacture of the dies, to the inspection and packaging (he rarely got visitors interested in his work). And what seemed strange to Mr. Murlock was that, Tracy was also listening and taking notes all the time. After the tour, all three went to Mr. Findlay's office as Tracy had some further questions to ask.
"I saw that you are changing the process used to manufacture the busts.", he began. "Yes." replied Mr. Findlay. "The new moulding process is based loosely on 3-D printing, and was developed in-house over a period of two years. We are thinking of standardising and sharing our work once the finishing touches are done, so that others may benefit from our work"
"Yes. We assign a unique serial number to each bust, which also gets printed on the invoice. Then in case of a complaint, we ask the customer to provide the serial number on the invoice to look up the sample and analyse what might be the problem."
"But this data can help us here.", said Tracy. "Didn't the police know about this?"
"They did.", replied Mr. Murlock. "But they were too focused on the vandalism angle to think of anything else."
"Well, in that case, if Mr. Findlay would not mind, I have here some of the pieces from the crime scenes. Could it be possible to identify which serial numbers do they belong to?"
"Fortunately, we can.", replied Mr. Findlay. "One of the ongoing researches being sponsored by a big construction company involves doing slight alterations in the chemical composition of the mix, while ensuring the physical properties are maintained. This ensures that each batch has it's unique signature, which can then be used to identify any potential adulteration done at the site. The infra-red spectrometer we saw in the main lab will provide us with the chemical composition, from which we can identify which bust the pieces belong to."
"And how long will this take?"
"Around an hour."
"In that case, can we run the tests now?", asked Tracy. "I think that they may help us in solving this entire matter."
"Clearly you have formed some kind of theory.", said Mr. Murlock, as Mr. Findlay took the samples with him to load them in the spectrometer. "Can you share it with us?"
"The whole series of events", began Tracy, "is so crazy that it almost seems to be a stretch of the imagination. And this, I think is what the perpetrator of the crime was counting on."
"You will remember that we had initially thought that someone was destroying these busts with the intention of searching something hidden in them. It seems that might be the case after all."
"But who could have hidden anything in the bust. And what was hidden in it?", asked Mr. Findlay, who had returned after starting the analysis in the spectrometer.
"I think it was one of your previous interns, who was working here a few months ago. I think he had stolen some valuable information and hidden it in the statue. He planned to retrieve it later, when the investigation about the theft had subsided, but his plans were derailed by the unexpected protest which happened at the museum."
"Well then, who is the culprit?", asked Mr. Murlock, unable to contain his curiosity.
"It is Tom Rayburn.", replied Tracy.
"What! The hacker who is currently undergoing trial for stealing research?"
"Yes. And I think we can test this hypothesis."
"How?", asked Mr. Findlay.
"I have been going through the files of that case as well. It seems that from a search carried out at Rayburn's home, one of these busts was also found..."
"So you think that the stolen research is still hidden in there?", asked Mr. Findlay.
"Yes.", replied Tracy. "If only we could test it..."
"I think I can arrange for that.", replied Mr. Murlock.
And Mr. Murlock quickly put a call through to the Commissioner and informed him how they thought that the stolen research was hidden in the bust. The Commissioner also agreed that it was worth exploring, and said that he would have his men look into it.
Twenty minutes later, Tracy's hypothesis was confirmed. The Commissioner was happy that they had finally managed to locate the one crucial piece of evidence which had eluded them thus far. Like the others, he was also curious to learn how Tracy had found it out, and requested Tracy to wait there a little longer, as he was on his way to understand how he had cracked the case.
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