The paint thief

For today's prompt, something important has just gone missing in a museum. What was it? Who took it? Who will notice it's missing?

Source

Daniel Roberts knew he was in trouble. The vase was seen by the security guard in the shift before, and it wasn't by the guard after him. The location was exactly where the camera cut off, and other cameras hadn't captured anybody go in or out. Which meant it was an inside job, somebody who knew the exact angles. If he didn't find the culprit and hand over the evidence, they'd get him. He wasn't implicated exactly, everything was circumstantial, but there's no chance he'd hold the job after this fiasco. He liked working at the museum, low stakes, stress-free and good pay. Without it he wouldn't be able to support his artistic lifestyle. Back to busing tables at the local Italian place? Dan shivered. The tips weren't that great and the job was back-breaking. Plus he couldn't use his downtime to learn history art culture on youtube.

He replayed the video, there was nothing new that everybody else hadn't already seen. The corner was empty, the last guard in his round turns and gazes at the unseen vase. And then keeps walking. Clear hands, usual tummy, nothing suspicious. Not one. goddamn. thing. So it was established there was a vase, that was seen by the previous guy. Where was it, why did he not notice that goddamn piece of antique. How much was it, four million dollars, a gift of some old Chinese king to another, it held the value because the remains of one's most trusted soldiers were stored in it.

And then it struck him. He remembered seeing something around there when he was walking because he was thinking about what he'd cook in the morning, and the corner popped up for some reason. Yes, I know who it is, you were so very clever weren't you, so goddamn clever, almost got me fired.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Dan said in front of the small group of museum employees, "I have invited all of you here because we have identified the thief, the culprit who was responsible for taking the vase away. Or at least a conspirator of the thief, that I'm sure. Allow me to explain," the security guard said.

"I thought the fact that everybody else had noticed it but not me was unfortunate and rather careless of me, because this was -- is -- an expensive trophy for our institution. I asked, how could I hhae never figured items? There was no way i'd ignore something so important. And then I remember seeing this the last time around, which was more than two weeks ago. But I remembered noticing something there, and then discovered something wild, something you fools didn't remember at all before pointing your dirty fingers at me. This wasn't the internal discussion on the deployment. "

"And then I remembered, the vase had been removed safely two weeks ago aas political dissent was replaced by disappearing electricians.