Stalin loses his pipe

 Stalin looks for his favorite pipe in his coat pocket, only to find that it isn't there. He calls up his chief of security, Lavrentiy Beria, and tells him to look for it.

Later that day, Stalin realizes that he left his pipe in his desk drawer. He calls Beria and tells him to call off the search.

"But that's impossible!" Beria replied. "I already have signed confessions from a dozen of the pipe thieves!"

Variants may change the pipe to a pack of cigarettes or other lost trinket, or give an identity to the suspected pipe thieves.