Young Detectives Short story No 1:

Date: 29th Apr 2020 @ 12:20pm

Robbery at St. Luke’s Church
In the night between Sunday and Monday, unknown thieves stole two 14th century holy figures from St. Luke’s church. These items were masterpieces with a priceless value. The church thieves were observed by a woman as they left the church through a small window on the poorly lit east side of the church and got into a get-away car. The woman, who does not own a telephone herself, ran to the telephone box on the corner of Slag Lane in her nightgown and informed the police. Due to a mistake the information was not processed, and Inspector Copley arrived at the church at 4.30 which was 2 hours after the robbery. There is no trace of the robbers since. Due to the fact that the figures cannot be sold on, the police assume that the figures were stolen for a private collector.
Here is the report from the LEIGH JOURNAL. Three hours after the newspaper was printed, a certain Maurice Kennedy allowed himself the opportunity to turn up in front of Leon Ellison, the local journalist of the journal. “Please take a seat, Mr. Kennedy!” Ellison tried to suss out the man. He looks like a London banker, he thought.
The visitor began to speak. “Let’s make it quick. The two stolen figures are in my possession and I would like to sell them ….” Before the surprised Ellison could respond, the visitor carried on: “Obviously you can now hand me over to the police, but then the figures will not come back. I have hidden them well. I estimate their value to be around one million pounds. Write in your newspaper that I would be happy with 50, 000 pounds. I only want to deal with you. Fifty thousand – not a penny more and not a penny less”. Ellison didn’t know whether he should smile or not. The man didn’t really look like a story teller.
He carefully said: “Good, that is your vision. How can I be sure that you are really the thief?” Kennedy shook his head, “I am not the thief. I ordered the thieves to steal the figures and now I am the owner, Sir. My men allowed themselves to be locked into the church in order to be able to demount the figures without any disturbances. I am the rightful owner of these wonderful holy statues since 1.30 this morning. If it doesn’t work with my fifty thousand, I will still be the owner of the figures. “Ellison remained silent for a few moments and then said: “Wait a couple of minutes, I will go and speak with the boss. Maybe we can solve this business ourselves. “ Kennedy nodded: Ellison left the room.
He came back 15 minutes later and was accompanied by a man. He introduced Inspector Copley! and Copley said to Kennedy: “Laying false leads also has to be learned --- and that this is an offence. We will have to talk more about that later. Anyway, the thieves and figures were caught one hour ago.”
 

Key question to all you detectives:

Leon Ellison knew that Kennedy’s story was a lie due to one part. What was wrong with his story?