Free Thief by Steve Elliott

earth is that monstrosity?” I exclaimed, horrified. “Kim, it's hideous ! Take it back immediately!”
    “ Won't !” she replied, like an argumentative child. “It's a work of beauty. A masterpiece . What do you know about art?”
    “A lot more that you do, apparently,” I told her, bluntly. “Your taste in art has always been appalling, but this is beyond a joke. Exactly how much did you pay for this…….. thing ? I wasn’t listening to the bidding.”
    “Fifteen dollars,” Kim said defensively. “But just look at it! It was a bargain !”
    I was about to continue my scathing denunciation of Kim's purchase when Lot Fifteen came up for sale. Bella put her hand on my arm and I turned toward the auctioneer who was holding up the object we had all come to see. It seemed to be well made but didn't appear to possess any specific noteworthy features. Kim started the bidding at one dollar and several people joined in but when the price was raised to five dollars everyone else dropped out except for one man on the far side of the room who began to increase his offering by five dollars at a time.
    “I think you're right,” Kim whispered to me. “Somebody else must have read that note. Here,” she said, handing me her eyesore of a purchase, “look after this for me. And be careful with it! I'll have to go and see to our rival before he outbids us. Keep a dollar ahead of him. I won't be long.” She sidled off through the crowd and disappeared. Martina started to follow Kim but I restrained her with a grip on her elbow. I shook my head in silent negation at her rebellious look and concentrated on keeping financially ahead of our competitor. The bidding had reached ninety dollars, to the absolute astonishment of the auctioneer and everybody present, when there was a sudden silence at the far side of the room.
    “Going once, going twice…… Sold !” was the verdict, and we had ourselves a spice rack.
    “What happened to our rival?” I asked Kim curiously, as we drove back home to our place.
    “Oh, he had to take a little nap,” she explained.
    “How did you explain that to the people around him?” Bella inquired.
    “I just told them that he was drunk,” Kim casually replied. “Then I dragged him out and sat him in a chair in another room.”
    “What if he happened to be an innocent bystander, and was honestly bidding for the spice rack?” Bella tentatively asked.
    “ Ninety dollars plus for a beat up spice rack?” Kim snorted, derisively. “Nobody is that innocent.”
    We drove to our house and, after installing Kim’s beloved atrocity on the mantelpiece where it immediately downgraded the resale value of everything in its immediate vicinity by its very presence, we placed our prize on the kitchen table and scrutinised it carefully. To all outward appearances, it was exactly what it pertained to be – a common, ordinary, run-of-the-mill spice rack. It was obviously old, with scratches and dents marring its surface. The eight spice bottles were labelled with their ingredients but weren’t arranged in alphabetical order, with the ‘dill’ and ‘pepper’ being doubled up for some reason.
    “Maybe there's a sealed note inside one of the bottles like the last few times,” Martina suggested.
    Kim shrugged. “That's as good a starting point as any,” she commented. “Let's do it.”
    We carefully emptied each spice bottle into eight cups but found nothing.
    “So much for that idea,” Bella said, disappointed. “What we do next?” We looked at each other in bafflement.
    “Beats me,” Kim remarked. “There's just a wooden frame with empty bottles. I can't see any hidden compartments or disguised messages. Maybe we got it wrong after all.”
    “Perhaps it's some sort of code,” I pondered. “You know, like a cipher.”
    “That's right !” Martina said, fervently. “If what we are looking for wasn't in the bottles and isn't on the frame, it has to be in the spices