I discovered that my wallet had gone missing shortly after I boarded the bus. I quickly reached into my other pocket and was relieved to find that my phone was still there and so was my fare card.

But that didn’t stop me from checking all my other pockets as well. My actions instantly caught the attention of the older lady next to me. She was clearly someone who took public transport often and had witnessed all sorts of things on the bus. Once she saw the way I was checking my pockets frantically while perspiring profusely, she immediately concluded that I must have lost something and stood as far away from me as possible, afraid that I might accuse her of stealing something from me.

These days, saying that you lost your wallet could elicit the same reaction as those who just saw an old lady fall down – everyone would move further away so that they would not be accused of being the culprit. But once the older lady moved away, I felt even more certain that my wallet had been stolen.

But there was one thing I couldn’t figure out. Why did this pickpocket take my wallet but not my phone? Perhaps it was because the bus was too crowded, so the pickpocket wasn’t able to get away quickly after doing the deed. He didn’t dare to steal a phone, since he would have to hold it up in order to switch it off. But if he left it on, then the victim just had to call his own phone and the thief’s identity would be exposed immediately.

However, if that was really the case, then that meant that this pickpocket was very experienced in stealing from passengers on a bus.

Of course, there was another possibility. The pickpocket could have found my phone too old and not worth the trouble, so he just took the wallet. Unfortunately for the pickpocket, I only had ten bucks inside it.

In any case, I was very sure that my wallet went missing only after I had boarded the bus. I remember that I had boarded the bus with a lot of people and the bus was already crowded. I had barely gotten up the bus when I didn’t have space to move any further in. Since the bus was so full that I had trouble moving, the pickpocket was probably facing the same issue. In that case, the pickpocket had to be somewhere on this bus. He could very well be standing next to me now, but once the bus reached the next stop, he would definitely take the chance to alight with some other passengers and I wouldn’t be able to catch him.

I looked out of the window. We were just two more streets away from the next stop. It was impossible to find a pickpocket in the short span of a few minutes, since I was neither Di Renjie* reborn nor Justice Bao’s* reincarnation. But even though the chances were slim, I was determined to nab that fellow purely because he had taken MY wallet. Never mind the fact that it carried nothing more than ten bucks.

I secretly started observing the passengers around me to see who looked most like a thief. I eventually settled on two people and zeroed in on one of them. As some Buddhists might say, a man’s outward appearance is a manifestation of the heart. The suspicious looking man in front of me was tall and skinny, had thin lips, high cheekbones and shifty eyes. If this man wasn’t a thief, that would be doing his own facial features injustice.

Of course, I wasn’t purely judging him by his face. I was suspicious of him because of something else that made him stand out from the other passengers. All the other passengers on the bus were either looking out of the window or looking down at their phones. He was the only one who was looking around like he was planning something.

Was he looking around like that for his next target? He looked in all directions but didn’t dare to look at me. Was it because he was feeling guilty and uneasy inside?

The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure that this man had to be the pickpocket. The bus was about to reach the next stop, so the passengers started shuffling to make way for those who wanted to alight and that man also began making his way towards the back door.

I knew that if he managed to get out of the bus, I would probably never get my wallet back and the ten dollars inside would vanish forever. If I wanted to catch hold of him, this was definitely my only chance. But I hesitated because I couldn’t find a more concrete reason to confirm that he was the pickpocket.

Just then, a realization hit me.

I quickly yelled out at the top of my voice, “Stop the bus! There’s a thief on the bus!”

Immediately after I shouted those words, the passengers around me were startled for two seconds before quickly checking if their belongings were still intact.

TL notes:

*Judge Dee: a fictional character in a Chinese detective novel loosely based on a magistrate in ancient China

*Justice Bao: a fair and upright Chinese investigating censor (one who heard complaints from the people, meted out sentences to criminals and impeached corrupt officials) during the Song Dynasty featured in many crime novels