(Detective story with an Eureka moment)

Detective Morgins was in a bad mood. He was assigned to solve the theft of the ancient Gospel from the church, but he had no evidence. The thief did not leave any new “fingers” or footprints. The department was desperate, with rumors circulating that this would be Morgins’ first unsolved case and that the case would be assigned to a junior specialist.

It was a warm spring Sunday; the detective tiredly went outside for a walk. He went to the park and heard the bells calling the congregation to the service. The detective decided to come too. He sat down in the last row and looked around.

When it was time to read the Gospel, Father Benedict, the priest of that church, was a little embarrassed. He was sad that such a valuable part of the Holy Scriptures had been stolen. His assistant, Brother Valentine, presented the printouts to the priest. Morgins knew that something was wrong, but he didn’t know what exactly.

When the service ended, he approached the priest to ask a couple of questions.

“Father Benedict, could you give me a moment?”

“Oh, Mr. Morgins, of course! You do me a great favor by coming to hear the Word of God.”

“Yes, I believe it will help the investigation. Tell me, have you known Brother Valentine for a long time?”

“Sure! He’s a great guy, a faithful altar servant. I trust him with all the duplicate keys, he keeps them. He also takes care of the church library for children.”

“So he has access to all the doors?”

“You suppose he stole the book? That’s impossible! It’s a libel, Mr. Morgins, fear God!”

The detective already wanted to leave, ashamed of his groundless accusations, but a thought came to his head that pierced his head.

“You say I’m lying? Strike me down if I tell a lie! Did you talk to Valentine before the service?”

“No, he was late, he said he was at the print store,” Father was confused.

“Then how did he find out exactly what Gospel speech you needed to prepare? You say that only he and you had access to all the doors of the church. I didn’t take into account that his prints were supposed to be related some book pages!”

“That’s out of the question, Mister. I always leave a pencil mark where I left off.”

“But the assistants are not allowed to flip through the priest’s books. He would open it before putting it in its place and then steal it.”

Father was shocked. The investigation really revealed that Valentine wanted to sell the book and buy a new one because he wanted to… update the edition!