Houses lie less than their owners.
Elena Arrieta had spent twenty years appraising other people’s misfortunes for an insurance company, and she had learned to distrust stories that were too tidy. Julián Olaso’s fitted into two lines: on Sunday night someone had smashed the window of his study and taken forty-two gold doubloons from a display cabinet. A three-hundred-year-old collection, gathered with a collector’s patience and insured for nine hundred thousand euros.
The stone manor stood on the edge of the village, at the end of a lane lined with chestnut trees. At the iron gate, the postman was rubbing his ankle. “Watch out for the mastiff,” he warned her. “He barks at the leaves.” Inside, Olaso received her in the living room with a blanket over his knees. Bruno, seventy kilos of wheat-coloured dog, lay down at his feet and rested his head on his owner’s slipper.
The old man told his version unhurriedly. He had gone to bed at eleven and slept straight through, and it was Rosa, the housekeeper, who found the cabinet open at eight in the morning. Bruno had spent the night where he always did, chained beside the study door. In the valley people said that dog was the best alarm in the district, and none of the neighbours had heard a thing.
Three other people had keys. Tomás, the gardener, had been trimming the hedges on the estate for a decade; every morning the mastiff greeted him with an uproar of barking, and he had given up saying hello. Rosa had started work three weeks earlier and still crossed the kitchen with a crust of bread in her hand, just in case. And Marta, the daughter, had come back from London the day before the theft, after six years away and with debts her father preferred not to discuss.
“When I arrived, that animal nearly ate me alive,” Marta told her on the porch, lighting a cigarette. “I had to wait in the car until my father came out to hold him.” She admitted she owed money, a lot of it, and that she had taken a sleeping pill that night. Elena wrote down every word. Then, without saying why, she walked round the house until she stood beneath the study window.
The grass was still wet with dew. Among the blades glittered dozens of glass shards, scattered in a fan almost a metre from the wall. Elena crouched, picked one up with her handkerchief and studied it for a long while. In her folder she had the latest change to the insurance policy: two months earlier, Olaso himself had asked to double the insured value of the collection.
She went back to the living room. The old man was stroking the dog’s huge head, and Bruno closed his eyes with a sigh. “Do you suspect anyone, Mr Olaso?” He took a while to answer. “My daughter,” he said at last. “God knows how hard it is to say it.” Elena nodded slowly, opened her notebook and wrote a single line. It wasn’t Marta’s name.
Activities
1 Detective Inference
Who took the doubloons from the cabinet? Tick the correct hypothesis.
- a) Marta, the daughter, who came back from London drowning in debt.
- b) Tomás, the gardener, who had a key and had known the estate for ten years.
- c) Rosa, the new housekeeper, who found the cabinet open.
- ✓d) Julián Olaso himself, who faked the theft to collect the insurance.
Which clue proves it? Copy or summarise the clue from the text that proves it.
Correct hypothesis: d). Exactly. The mastiff, who spares nobody, only keeps quiet for his owner.
Key clue: “Bruno barks at the gardener, the housekeeper and the daughter, and that night, chained by the study, nobody heard him.” That’s the proof: the thief was someone the dog doesn’t bark at, and in that house there is only one.
2 The Loom Order of events
Put the events in order, starting with the earliest. Write the order number (1, 2, 3…) in each box.
- 4 The doubloons vanish from the cabinet.
- 2 Rosa starts working at the manor.
- 3 Marta arrives from London and has to wait in the car.
- 1 Olaso asks to double the insured value of the collection.
- 5 Rosa finds the cabinet open at eight.
- 6 Elena picks up a shard with her handkerchief.
Correct order:
- Olaso asks to double the insured value of the collection.
- Rosa starts working at the manor.
- Marta arrives from London and has to wait in the car.
- The doubloons vanish from the cabinet.
- Rosa finds the cabinet open at eight.
- Elena picks up a shard with her handkerchief.
The policy is doubled two months earlier and Rosa starts three weeks earlier. Marta arrives the day before, the theft happens that night and Rosa discovers it in the morning. Elena comes afterwards.
3 The Missing Page Coherence
What happens next, consistent with the story? Tick only one option.
- a) The police search Marta’s suitcase and find the doubloons wrapped in a jumper.
- b) Tomás confesses: he went in at night because the dog knew him and wouldn’t bark.
- ✓c) Elena refuses to pay out and asks for the whole estate to be searched.
- d) Elena signs off the payment: a smashed window leaves no room for doubt.
Answer: c). It fits: what she wrote wasn’t Marta’s name, and everything points to a theft faked from inside.
- a) Marta couldn’t have gone near the study without the mastiff waking half the valley.
- b) The dog knows him, but has barked at him every morning for ten years.
- d) The glass on the grass says otherwise: the window was broken from inside.
4 Spot the Contradiction Literal reading
Three statements don’t fit the story. Put an X next to the 3 statements that don’t fit the text.
- a) The postman warned Elena that the mastiff barked at the leaves.He said it at the gate, rubbing his ankle.
- ✗b) Bruno’s barking woke the neighbours that night.None of the neighbours heard a thing.
- c) Rosa found the cabinet open at eight in the morning.That’s what Olaso said.
- ✗d) The glass shards were scattered across the study floor.They were outside, on the grass, almost a metre from the wall.
- e) Olaso had asked to double the value of the policy two months earlier.Elena had it in her folder.
- ✗f) Marta had been living at the manor for three weeks.She arrived the day before the theft; the three weeks were Rosa’s.
5 The Gallery Visualisation
In the game you choose the illustration that answers this question: “Which picture shows what Elena saw when she walked round the house?”. Here, you draw it yourself, with every detail the text gives you.
What should appear: Broken window, shards on the grass and no sign of the dog, who was still in the living room at his owner’s feet.
Reward drawings that include the details from the text, not artistic skill.
Ending
To read aloud once the answers have been checked.
The doubloons turned up two days later in a false bottom in Bruno’s kennel, the one corner of the estate where nobody dared put a hand. Julián Olaso had lost his fortune on bad investments and planned to collect the insurance without parting with the collection.
Three details gave him away. The glass had fallen outwards, onto the grass: the window had been broken from inside the study. The policy doubled two months earlier provided the motive. But the proof Elena wrote in her notebook was the silence. Bruno barked at the gardener of ten years, at the housekeeper and at the newly arrived daughter. There was only one person in the world he kept quiet for.
The coldest part of the plan was the timing: Olaso had waited for Marta to come back from London so that he would have someone to point at.
Suggested marking
Each activity is worth 2 points (10 in total). In 1, one point for the hypothesis and one for the clue. In 2, give one point if only a couple of events are swapped. In 4, half a point for each correct cross and minus half a point for each true statement crossed out.