The Curious Case of the Missing Stapler

Where the hell did it go?

Mr. Dodgers neatly arranged the stack of papers in his hands, thudded them lightly on his desk, made sure that there was no naughty stray paper. He gently adjusted the corners and held them in his left hand and his right hand went to the place where the stapler was always kept. He loved his stapler out of all the other stationery that he owned. It didn’t belong to the company and he made sure that everybody knew this, at least twice a day.

His trance was broken when his hand didn’t find it.

His forehead creased. He breathed out sharply, managed to keep the papers down smoothly, and placed a paperweight on them. He looked around his desk with pens of every color, a pencil that was never used, a lot of blank white sheets strewn around, but couldn’t see his grey stapler. His anger was building every minute but he composed himself. He checked all the drawers of his desk thoroughly but didn’t find it.

He called Henry, his secretary.

“Yes Sir?”

“My stapler is missing,” said Mr. Dodgers. “I checked everywhere. I think someone took it.”

Henry nodded absent-mindedly. “When did you last use it?”

Mr. Dodgers thought for a second. “I think I used it last on Friday evening. I was stapling some of the settlement papers. I’m sure I kept it in its place, now it’s not.”

Henry had to use all his leftover energy not to roll his eyes. Also, he was immensely relieved that he had decided to take leave on Friday just for the hell of it. “I think someone stole it,” Mr. Dodgers kept saying. “But who?”

His team had four people including Henry, and they were the only ones who had access to his office. Henry was now eliminated from the ‘Who stole the stapler’ list. There was an emergency meeting held originally for ten minutes that lasted for half an hour.

Mr. Dodgers was a small pudgy man, which was a disadvantage because he would have loved to tower over his employees whenever he shouted at them. He tried to compensate by raising his voice louder than a foghorn.

“So,” said Mr. Dodgers, writing his initials “S.D” on the board in the meeting room. “This is printed on my stapler, my grey stapler.” He looked at the people in the room. “I want you to search for it.”

The people sitting in the room, Steve, Mrs. Pathak, and Bob looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Are you sure you’ve not misplaced it… Sir?” said Bob. Mr. Dodgers frowned even more. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

He placed his hands on the table and bored into the eyes of each one of them. “I want to have it back by the end of today. Nobody leaves the office till then. You too, Henry,” he said, turning around towards him standing in the corner. Henry scowled after he turned back.

“I think we should have the system digitized,” said Steve. “Then you won’t be needing the stapler at all.”

Mr. Dodgers directed his gaze towards him and Steve moved his chair back slightly. Mr. Dodgers gestured outside of the room. “What do you call those things sitting on your desk, Steve? Are they cardboard boxes painted white? Tell me.”

“Computers, Sir,” he said slowly. “I just meant if we started emailing all the applications and other forms instead of printing them — ” then he saw Henry shaking his head, eyes wide, to shut his mouth and dutifully obeyed.

Bob jumped in to repair the damage. “We’ll start the search, Sir,” he said. “It’s out there somewhere and we’ll find it, no matter what.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Mr. Dodgers, nodding. “Remember, no home until the stapler is in its home,” he said, admiring what he thought was a great line. “Henry, come with me.”

Once they were at his desk, Mr. Dodgers asked Henry, “Who do you think stole it?”

As much as Henry thought his boss was the weirdest person in the world, he wouldn’t give up a chance to gossip about others, his favorite job in the world, apart from napping. He jumped right into it.

Henry lowered his voice. “I think Steve does drugs.”

Mr. Dodgers’ eyes widened. “Drugs? How can you be sure?”

“Sir, trust me, I know people who do drugs. My wife’s cousin’s friend’s girlfriend was an addict. I know how it is.”

“But how would stealing my stapler help him do drugs?”

“He sold it maybe?”

“For drugs? Yeah, sure. Go away, Henry. Also, send Steve in.”

“Steve, did you take my stapler? I know you like it.”

Steve managed to look very offended. “Me? Take the stapler? I like that stapler a lot, Sir, but I wouldn’t dare separate it from you! I’m not that person.”

“Then who do you think took it?”

“Um, I don’t know… Maybe Bob? I’ve heard he likes to steal stuff. I saw him stuffing post-it notes into his bag a few days ago. So, maybe… I don’t know.”

Bob was called in next. Mr. Dodgers started, “Bob, if you’ve stolen the stapler, give it back. I promise, there will no repercussions if you come clean right now.”

Bob narrowed his eyes. “Did Steve say that I stole it? Look, I know he saw me taking some post-it notes, but they were for office use! I had some pending work that I completed at home. I wasn’t stealing, Sir.”

“Did you also take my stapler for your — What did you call it? Office work?”

“Oh no, Sir!” Bob said. “I have a perfectly good stapler at home, thank you very much. In fact,” he leaned in. “I think Henry took it.”

“Why do you think so?”

“He loves that stapler. I’ve always seen him eyeing it. I also don’t think he owns a stapler. So…” he shrugged.

“But Henry was off on Friday.”

“He could have waited till everyone left, sneaked in, and grabbed the stapler. He also created an alibi by taking leave.”

“Yes, of course, this makes sense. Please get out Bob, and search for the damn stapler.”

Mrs. Pathak was called in next.

Nobody addressed Mrs. Pathak by her first name. Everyone knew her name was Pushpa, but no one called her so. There was a wild rumor that she broke someone’s arm who had tried to do the forbidden task when she was young. Everybody agreed that it wasn’t true, but nobody dared to repeat the experiment, even though she was almost at the retiring age.

“Mrs. Pathak, do you know who took my stapler?”

“No, and I don’t care.”

“But — ”

“Just get a new one, for God’s sake. It’s just a stapler, not your wife.”

“I — ”

She got up. “I have work to do. Please call me only if you have non-stapler-related questions. Goodbye.”

During the lunch break, three of the suspects huddled together at the diner opposite the office building. Henry was there only because he wanted to go home early, otherwise, he would have loved to idle around and watch the drama unfold. The usual one hour of lunchtime had been trimmed to half due to the crisis.

“There’s no hope of finding that damned stapler now, is there?” said Henry. They had pretty much upturned their desks searching for it.

“Okay, let’s recap,” said Bob, taking charge. He was the oldest among the three and sometimes called Steve, ‘kid’. “Tell me all the places you’ve searched till now.”

Henry started counting his fingers. “My desk, all the drawers, my bag, a quick scan of Mrs. Pathak’s desk when she was in the restroom,” he looked at Bob. “Yup, that’s all.”

“What about Mr. Dodgers’ office?”

Henry glared at Steve who asked the question. Sometimes, he agreed with Mr. Dodgers’ view of Steve being a little-Mr-Smartypants.

“Dodgy doesn’t let anyone touch his things, let alone go through his desk drawers. That would be sacrilege according to him. You’re a newbie, you’ll get to know all this soon.”

Steve raised his hands in surrender. Bob sighed and prompted Steve to talk.

Steve shrugged and said, “More or less the same. My desk and drawers and my bag. Also searched near the water cooler, file cabinets and talked to Abby if she saw the stapler.” Abby was the office receptionist.

Henry rolled his eyes and coughed, “Show off.”

Steve opened his mouth to say something but fell silent.

“I have an idea,” Henry said.

“Replacement?” Bob and Steve said in unison.

He was let down a bit that they guessed it so easily. “Yes. We can get it at the store by the corner, write Dodgy’s initials and stick ’em. I’ve seen his stapler way too many times, I can pick out the same one. He wouldn’t know the difference.”

“Aren’t the initials engraved?” Bob asked.

“I think so,” Henry agreed. “But they’re smooth, so you can’t feel them with your fingers.”

“Can we write the initials in permanent ink? Would he know the difference?” Steve said.

“That might actually work! Dodgy’s eyesight isn’t so great nowadays, so he might not know.”

“Let’s do it.”

They pretended to search till the end of office hours to make the replacement less obvious. As planned, Henry said loud enough for Mr. Dodgers to hear, “Found it!” while bending down in front of the file cabinet.

The other two ran to him and all three went into Mr. Dodgers’ Office, with Henry holding the replacement stapler.

Mr. Dodgers’ face lit up when he took the stapler from Henry. “It was lying in the corner of the file cabinet,” said Henry.

“But I never took my stapler there on Friday,” Mr. Dodgers said, cradling it. But he didn’t seem concerned about that. Bob, Henry, and Steve stood in silence for a few minutes watching their boss caress the stapler. Finally, he looked up and saw them watching him. He cleared his throat, stopped smiling, and said, “Thanks for finding my stapler,” gruffly.

They nodded and were about to go out of the office when the cleaning lady opened the door and peeked in meekly. She slowly glided in and went to Mr. Dodgers.

“Sir, I’m so sorry, I was on cleaning duty on Friday evening and my son was with me. He found this stapler — ” She produced the original grey stapler and placed it beside the replacement. “He found this below your desk, it had probably fallen down. He brought it home without my notice and when I saw it and the initials, I knew that it was yours. I’m extremely sorry for this, I’ve grounded my son for 2 weeks without TV. This will never happen again. I’m very sorry, Sir.”

Mr. Dodgers nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off the two staplers. The cleaning lady scurried off. Mr. Dodgers looked up at the three people, who looked like they had been slapped hard across the face.

“Mrs. Pathak?” Mr. Dodgers called. “Could you come in here, please?”

Once she was in, he said, “These gentlemen have been kind enough to gift me a new stapler and now I got the old one too — ” he lifted each one of them to her. “As I got mine back, would you like the new one?”

Mrs. Pathak took the stapler and turned it around in her hand. “Sure, why not. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

She left as Henry, Bob and Steve watched her, open-mouthed.

They jumped when Mr. Dodgers said, “Is there anything else you want to give me?” They shook their heads violently.

“Then why are you still standing here?”

All of them tried to go through the door at once and crashed into each other. They somehow managed to get out and without seeing each others’ faces, grabbed their bags and rushed out as Mr. Dodgers held the stapler, his stapler, and started smiling again.