Secret of the Skull (13 page)

‘Couldn’t risk you blabbering something at the wrong moment now, could I, sonny? You nearly blew the entire operation as it was!’

‘Er, yes, well,’ I mumbled. Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed. ‘No harm done, eh? All’s well that ends well.’

I turned to go.

‘Needless to say, sonny,’ said Inspector Godalming, his shoulders twitching inside his overcoat, ‘none of this ever happened. Officially. Right?’

I grinned. ‘As ever. Can’t have brilliant schoolboy detectives interfering with police work, can we?’

I had a long and icy walk home, but something kept me smiling all the way.

Case closed.

C
ASE
F
ILE
T
WENTY-FOUR:

T
HE
G
UY
W
HO
C
AME
I
N
F
ROM THE
C
OLD

C
HAPTER
O
NE

I
HAVE A VERY LOUD SNEEZE
. I can’t help it.

I have a sneeze which makes people leap up, yelping, as if a major environmental disaster had suddenly started shaking the building. I don’t mean to make people jump. I just do.
That’s just how my nose is.

I was making everyone jump at school one Tuesday morning. I was feeling dreadful. All that sitting around in my shed in the freezing weather (and all that tramping about in the snow on the trail
of assorted bad guys) had finally caught up with me. I had officially got the World’s Snottiest Cold. By lunchtime, our form tutor Mrs Penzler had had enough.

‘Saxby,’ she cried, pulling her shoulders back and covering her ears, ‘I could hear you sneezing all the way from the main hall!’

‘Sorry, Mrs Penzler,’ I said. Although, with my thickly bunged-up sinuses, what I actually said was, ‘Sobby, Bisses Benzlub.’

‘Why don’t you go home, Saxby?’ she said. Mrs Penzler doesn’t really
do
sympathy, so this was more like a direct order. ‘Come back to school when
you’re better.’

‘Yedd, Bisses Benzlub.
WHA-CHOOOOO!
’

The entire class jumped. I think the floor may have wobbled too.

By the time I got home, I was feeling even worse. I had some chicken soup. I don’t know why. People are always offering you chicken soup when you’re ill, so it seemed like the thing
to do.

I went to bed. Crawled to bed, to be honest.

The window in my room is quite high off the floor. So as I lay there, all I could see outside was a dull, blank rectangle of sky. There wasn’t a sound coming from anywhere and I had that
peculiar, cut-off feeling you get when you’re at home on a school day. You know the feeling I mean?

I spent the rest of the day snuggled up in bed, reading a very interesting book about real-life police investigations. Partly, this was research for the Detective Handbook I keep meaning to
write, but mostly it was because I was too bunged-up and sneezy to sleep.

Anyway, this book had some fascinating things to say about
witnesses
to crimes. All too often, said the book, witnesses may not even realise they
are
witnesses. It may be that
nobody knows the importance of something they’ve seen or heard. It’s only when a detective comes along, gathers up all the evidence, and notices connections, that the complete picture
can be seen.

As it turned out, this observation was to be hugely important over the next few days. A new case file was about to come to my attention. As case files go, it was quite a small and easy-to-solve
one, but it’s worth telling you about because it’s a good example of how an entire problem can be sorted out with the help of a reliable witness or two.

What I didn’t realise, lying there sneezing, was that I’d have to solve this particular puzzle without moving from my bed.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

‘
WHA-CHOOOOO!
’

‘What the —

‘
WHA-CHOOOOOOOO!
Sorry.’

‘I think I’ve gone deaf.’

My great friend Isobel ‘Izzy’ Moustique, our school’s Number One Boffin, sat at the far end of my bed. At arm’s length, she held out some more paper tissues for me.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Catch it, bin it, kill it,’ she muttered. ‘And in your case, Saxby, put a sock in it as well.’

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, recoiling slightly at what my nose had just left on the tissues.

‘You’re not feeling any better then?’ Izzy asked.

‘No, I feel lousy,’ I grumbled. ‘I’ve finished reading my book, the telly’s broken and there’s no more chicken soup. Have you brought me anything?’

She raised a finger. ‘Yes, I have.’

From the self-decorated canvas bag that rested beside her ankles, she drew out a large paper file.

‘Homework,’ she said, handing it over. ‘When Mrs Penzler heard I was coming over to see you tonight, she gave me this to give to you.’

‘Oh. How kind. Thank you enormously,’ I said. Can you detect the tiny little hint of grumpy sarcasm in my voice?

‘It’s not my fault,’ said Izzy. ‘Mrs Penzler’s been in a mood all day.’

‘She’s in a mood most days,’ I said.

‘No, I mean a
real
mood,’ said Izzy. ‘Extra maths tests, the lot.’

‘Why?’

Izzy started to fiddle with the chunky rings that dotted her fingers. She’d obviously been home before coming to see me because she was wearing her usual out-of-school mixture of bright
colours and flared cuffs. I wondered why she hadn’t come straight from school.

‘Oh, it’s . . . I dunno, just one of her moods,’ she said.

‘No, it isn’t. I can tell,’ I persisted. ‘What’s happened?’

Izzy squidged her face around a bit before replying.

‘There’s a book gone missing. It’s one Mrs Penzler brought from home.’

‘What sort of book?’ I said, wiping my nose with another tissue.

‘Yesterday, after you went home,’ said Izzy, ‘we started a new history topic. We’re doing British Society and Culture after World War II. And before you say anything,
some of it looks like it’s going to be quite interesting.’

‘Does it include crime?’

‘No.’

‘I see. Carry on.’

‘So. New topic. Mrs Penzler produced this slightly tatty old book. It’s a school English textbook from about sixty years ago, which belonged to her father. It turns out she comes
from a long line of teachers.’

‘Poor woman,’ I mumbled. Mrs Penzler was as tough as a school carrot, so it wasn’t often anyone ever said that about her. ‘It’s sixty years old and it belonged to
her dad? How old
is
she, exactly?’

‘Oooh, about two hundred and forty?’ said Izzy. ‘She said it’s her most treasured possession.’

‘A school textbook? Poor woman.’

‘Stop interrupting,’ said Izzy. ‘She said this textbook would be good background information for us. It would give us an idea of the sort of things that were studied at school
all those years ago. She left it on the row of shelves beside the door and said we could take a look at it whenever we liked, so long as it didn’t leave the classroom, OK. One or two of us
had a look before we went home yesterday and I saw a couple more taking a look first thing this morning before registration. Then, late this afternoon, Mrs Penzler asked where it was. Nobody knew.
It wasn’t on the shelf. “Who’s got it?” she said. No hands up, nothing. And she blew her top.’

‘And out comes the extra homework,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ said Izzy. ‘It’s put everyone on edge. Mrs Penzler can be a bit of a grouch, but it’s not as if we all
dislike
her or anything. None of us would
steal
something of hers. She started going on about how she can’t trust her own class any more, and how sad it was that one of us could take something she values so much. She got quite
teary.’

‘Mrs Penzler?’ I gasped.

‘Yes, Mrs Penzler! The whole class is feeling sorry for her one minute and glaring suspiciously at each other the next. I dread to think what things are going to be like in that classroom
tomorrow. You’re well out of it.
And
you’ll miss the Winter Fayre tomorrow, you lucky —

‘Wooo-hoo! I’d forgotten about the Winter Fayre,’ I said. ‘Missing that is the best news I’ve had all term.’

The St Egbert’s School Winter Fayre was an annual torture which took place on the coldest, darkest, most miserable day of the entire school year. Pupils, teachers, parents and other family
members would cram into the main hall after lessons. They would shuffle from one feeble stall to another, buying assorted tat and revolting-looking homemade cakes. Everyone would get jostled, bad
tempered and boiling hot in their winter coats. Then the next day, the Head would declare what a marvellous success it had been and how it had raised a record amount of cash for school funds.

‘Could you cough on me a bit,’ said Izzy, ‘so I’ll have an excuse to miss it too?’

‘Tell me about this textbook first,’ I said. ‘I assume it’s a valuable item, being so old?’

‘No, just the opposite,’ said Izzy. ‘That’s the mystery. It’s worthless. You might as well steal a toilet roll. It has huge sentimental value for Mrs Penzler, but
that’s it.’ ‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘That’s odd. Describe it.’ ‘It’s a small, pale green hardback. Quite tatty, battered at the edges. It’s about
three centimetres thick, about ten centimetres wide and about twenty centimetres high.’ ‘Not a large object, then?’ I said.

‘No,’ Izzy said, shrugging. ‘Pretty standard book size.’ ‘And who knew it was there, on the shelf?’ ‘Only Mrs Penzler and our class. Nobody else.
That’s why she’s sure one of us took it.’

‘Nobody could have seen it there and thought it was worth nicking?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Izzy. ‘Like I said, it’s a tatty old thing.’

‘Has anything else happened today?’ I said. ‘Anything unusual been going on?’

‘Actually, yes,’ said Izzy. ‘Bob Thompson’s been acting weird, but that’s nothing to do with the book.’

‘Weird? How?’

‘Well, sort of . . . helpful, pleasant. Rather creepy, really.’

‘Bob Thompson? Being nice? Eurgh, yeah, gives you the shudders.’

Bob Thompson was the school’s premier league bully. He looked like a walking block of concrete with a head poking out of the top – the sort of person you’d expect to see
chewing on broken bottles and new-born kittens. Luckily, his class was at the other end of the school. (For more information on Bob Thompson, see my earlier case file,
The Hangman’s
Lair
.)

‘Why’s he being nice?’ I asked.

‘I guess the Head’s threatening him with permanent exclusion again,’ said Izzy. ‘He’s been running errands for teachers and helping out with the Winter Fayre. But
that’s the only other unusual thing that’s been going on.’

‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘Well, if Bob Thompson has been volunteering for the Winter Fayre, that’s one more reason not to go!’

‘I’d better be getting home,’ said Izzy. ‘Extra homework to do, don’t forget.’

She stood up to go, then paused. From her bag, she produced a jumbo-sized bar of chocolate. She placed it on the bed beside me.

‘You didn’t really think I wouldn’t bring you anything, did you?’ She grinned. ‘I could tell you were wondering why I’d been home before coming over. I
didn’t want that thing melting in my bag all day, did I?’

I smiled and blew my nose.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

T
HE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING
book preyed on my mind that night. I still couldn’t get to sleep, what with the coughing and
the sneezing and the
WHA-CHOOOOOO
-ing. The problem swirled around inside my head like an irritating tune you can’t stop humming.

At about eleven on Thursday morning, I texted my other great friend, George ‘Muddy’ Whitehouse, St Egbert’s School’s leading inventor of all things gadgety. I needed a
detailed account of what had happened in our classroom while I’d been away. I needed a reliable witness!

My text asked him to give some careful thought to the exact sequence of events on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. And then to come and see me straight after school. Well, straight after the
Winter Fayre, which was straight after school.

‘Hi!’ I said. ‘Have you brought me anything?’

He looked confused. ‘No.’

‘You’ve just been shuffling around a school hall full with things to buy – haven’t you got me anything at all?’

‘I didn’t get anything for
you
, you cheeky —

‘What did you get then?’ I asked.

‘Wrapping paper, cards, birthday pressies for my aunties and three boxes of sponge cake with icing on top. And my mother doesn’t like any of them.’

‘Wasn’t she there?’ I said.

‘No, she stayed in the car,’ grumbled Muddy. ‘Said she couldn’t face the Winter Fayre again. Gave me a list. I told her if she didn’t like the cakes I chose, hard
luck. That’s what you get for being a yellow-bellied chicken!’