“Yes, sir.”
“And then what happened?”
“I was out for a few seconds, and by the time I came to she was gone.”
“Did you see the nurse after that, Mr. Bramble?” said Professor Hoxby.
“No, sir.”
“Whyever not?” said the dead bodies teacher.
“I was fine, sir. Really I was. It was nothing.”
“When someone knocks you out it isn’t nothing, Mr. Bramble,” said Professor Hoxby. “Now I want you to go to the nurse this instant. No dilly-dallying. Off you go.” He shooed Gordon out the door.
“Yes, sir,” said Gordon.
“Miss Lester, will you please stay for a moment,” said Professor Snaffle. “I have some additional questions for you.”
Gordon scrambled off and Amanda braced herself. She didn’t know Professor Snaffle and the secretive woman made her uncomfortable.
“Now then,” said Professor Snaffle, “I want to hear more about this blonde girl. Did you notice her shoes?”
Her shoes? Amanda had been so startled to see Harry kissing the girl that she wasn’t sure she’d seen them. She tried to conjure up the scene in her mind. Red T-shirt for sure. Bright turquoise shorts, check. Shoes? Wait a minute. They were bright white Amanda remembered the color combination and thought Amphora might be interested in it. Amphora. Some friend she’d turned out to be.
“They were white, Professor,” she said.
“Good. And what style were they?”
Amanda thought again. There was a lot of white, not just a sliver. They had to have been sneakers.
“I’m pretty sure they were sneakers, ma’am,” she said.
“Excellent. Now I want to tell you something. We found some unidentified footprints in the secrets trove. As you know, we’ve been maintaining a database of all the teachers’, students’, and staff’s shoe prints, although not visitors’. The prints in the trove did not appear in the database. Mr. Sheriff’s did, although of course we’re not surprised to find students’ footprints on campus. Of course this evidence is all circumstantial, but I’m now wondering if this blonde girl had something to do with the breach.
“Thank you for your help, Miss Lester,” the teacher continued. She seemed pleased. “Do you have any additional observations that may be of use to us?”
“Wasn’t there a smell in the trove?” said Amanda.
“Yes, indeed there was,” said Professor Snaffle. “It opened most of the locks, which was quite a feat. Our formula is quite unusual. There’s almost no chance it can be duplicated. What is your point, Miss Lester?”
“I didn’t get close enough to the girl to smell her, but I did catch a whiff of something on Harry,” said Amanda. “I think it was the same as the scent in the trove.”
Professor Snaffle clapped her hands so suddenly and loudly that Amanda jumped. “Chris, we need to check the decoy at once,” she said.
“Absolutely, Saliva,” said Professor Scribbish. “I’m on it.” He bounded out of the room and almost knocked Amanda down. “Sorry, Miss Lester,” he said as he ran down the hall.
“Well done, Miss Lester,” said Professor Snaffle. “You and Mr. Bramble have done good work today. We won’t forget this. Now off you go.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Amanda, and ran to tell her friends what had happened.
When the kids met in the common room Ivy said, “Do you think Blixus has got the metadata? If he found that decoy vault he might have discovered the real hiding place. Did you say it was a church?”
“It sounded like that,” said Amanda. “I don’t know which one though.”
“You don’t think it’s the one with the sarcophagus?” said Simon.
“I don’t know,” said Amanda. “They didn’t specify.”
“If Blixus has the secrets and the metadata and the Bible, we’re in huge trouble,” said Ivy. “That would mean the end of the detectives. Even the Punitori couldn’t survive that.”
Amanda didn’t even want to contemplate what life would be like if all that happened. The idea of the detectives falling apart after more than a hundred years was too terrible to imagine. What Nick would be like then—well, that would bring closure at last, wouldn’t it?
“We don’t know that he has any of those things,” said Simon. “This blonde girl, whoever she is, may not have anything to do with him.”
“We should confront Harry,” said Amanda.
“Don’t you think the teachers are already doing that?”
“Yes, I suppose they are. He could be in a lot of trouble. I’d be happy to see that happen. He’s been acting so weird to me.”
“He is kind of smarmy,” said Ivy.
“What are we going to do if this is the end?” said Amanda. “I suppose I’ll go back to my filmmaking.”
Suddenly the idea of making movies didn’t seem so appealing. Being a detective had got into her blood. Those Lestrade genes were more powerful than she’d realized. The thought of that was still scary, especially after meeting Jeffrey. The prospect of turning out like him was frightening.
“It isn’t the end,” said Simon.
“But if it is.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he said.
“I know what I’d do,” said Ivy.
“What’s that?” said Amanda.
“I’d start my own school.”
“That’s the spirit!” said Amanda. “Count me in.” Thank goodness for Ivy. She was always so positive. It was that hidden treasures thing of hers again. There was always a silver lining if you looked hard enough.
“Me too,” said Simon.
Amanda tried to imagine them as replacements for Thrillkill, Also, and Sidebotham. She burst out laughing.
A little while later, Professor Scribbish returned from Penrith. He had found two sets of fingerprints at the decoy vault. One of them matched nothing in the fingerprint database. The other belonged to Nick Muffet.
34
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
When the teachers discovered that Nick Muffet had been inside the decoy vault they went ballistic. They couldn’t figure out how he had learned of its existence. They were now certain that the Moriartys were behind the theft of the school’s secrets. They’d have to act fast to guard the metadata, unless it was already too late, or their secrets would be useless. And if the Moriartys had the Bible—they didn’t want to think about that.
While the teachers were having fits, something else was happening. Professor Redleaf’s computer was going crazy, deforming and reforming itself and shooting rainbows all over the place. The teachers debated whether to destroy it or hang onto it on the off chance that they might be able to neutralize the hacker with it. With Holmes gone they had no idea how to do that. Professor Pole was trying to recreate Holmes’s algorithm without success, and the other teachers’ skills weren’t advanced enough to tackle the problem.
As if these developments weren’t disturbing enough, Amanda got bad news from her mother. Her father had gone to live in Tibet and wasn’t coming back. He hadn’t even called to say goodbye. He just texted Lila and took off. Amanda was so upset at her father’s disregard that she burst into tears and couldn’t hold up her end of the conversation.
After she’d finished the call a thought popped into her head. What if her mother were to marry this Banting Waltz she was seeing? Would he try to be her father? With Herb gone she didn’t really have one anymore, but she didn’t want some stranger stepping in. She briefly considered running off to Tibet to find her father, but rejected the idea when she realized he wouldn’t want to see her. Now she had two choices: make peace with this new man or reject him.
Maybe she should find out something about him. She knew he had taken her father’s job and that he had, as her mother described it, “never lost a case.” But what kind of person was he? Would they get along? Was he related to any detectives? Was he truly the good guy her mother thought he was?
She had no time, but she could at leas
t squeeze in a quick search. She punched “banting waltz” into her phone. As the results were displaying, Professor Scribbish came by and said, “Miss Lester, I—what is that? Banting Waltz? Why are you looking him up?”
“My mother is dating him,” she said.
Professor Scribbish frowned. “It isn’t serious, is it?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
The teacher sat down next to Amanda and looked into her eyes. “I’m afraid he is not a good person,” he said.
Uh oh. She’d been afraid of this. “What do you mean?”
“Miss Lester, that man is a crook. You don’t want your mother seeing him.”
“How is he a crook, sir?” she said, hoping against hope that maybe he was just a kleptomaniac or something small like that.
“He’s dishonest, for one thing,” said Professor Scribbish. “He tampers with juries. He gets the police to plant evidence—the bad ones. We all know they exist. I won’t pretend otherwise.”
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately.”
“We also think he’s on the take,” said the teacher. “He’ll accept a bribe from just about anyone.”
This was not the kind of thing Amanda wanted to hear. She had enough to worry about. What was she supposed to do?
“Are you absolutely sure about this, Professor?”
“I’m afraid so. You can ask the other teachers, but they’ll tell you the same thing. You need to warn your mother.”
There was no way Lila would want to hear news like this from anyone, especially her daughter. Amanda knew exactly what would happen if she tried to say something. Her mother would have a fit and end up closer to the interloper than she might have been otherwise. She was very stubborn.
“I can’t,” she said. “You don’t know my mother.”
“I know more than you think I do,” he said. “If you can’t speak to her, at least let’s monitor the fellow. How does that sound?”
What could she say? There wasn’t much more she could do.
“Fine. If you—”
Just then there was a huge commotion in the hall. Amanda and the teacher ran out of the common room just in time to see Professor Snool pushing a cart piled high with slingshots, blowguns, darts, and boomerangs toward the parking lot. Following him was Professor Stegelmeyer wheeling a trolley filled with glassware and lab supplies, and coming around the corner to join them was Professor Peaksribbon carrying a bunch of martial arts equipment. Bits were falling off carts and out of their hands and soon the hallway was littered with broken glass, karate belts, and nunchucks.
“What’s going on?” called Professor Scribbish.
“Come on, Chris,” said Professor Stegelmeyer. “It’s time you joined us. We’re leaving.”
“What?” said Professor Scribbish, rushing over and surveying the collection. “You can’t do that. This equipment belongs to all of us. Look here, the electron microscope? You can’t have that.”
“You don’t want it,” said Professor Stegelmeyer, grabbing hold of the microscope and pulling it away. “You Realists want to throw your hands up and let the Moriartys have everything. Remember?”
“You’re twisting our position,” said Professor Scribbish, eyeing the lower shelf. “We aren’t done fighting them. Aw, come on, Richard. The DNA sequencing stuff?”
“You need the Bible and the secrets to do it. You know that.”
“But we don’t. That’s where you misunderstand us.”
“You want to close the school and go on to other things.”
“Yes,” said Professor Scribbish. “But we never said what those other things were.” He opened a box and peered inside.
“Care to enlighten me then?” said Professor Stegelmeyer.
“I don’t think so,” said Professor Scribbish. “You’ll deliberately misunderstand. I’m sorry to see you go, Richard, but I think you’re right. We can’t work together anymore.”
“Very well,” said Professor Stegelmeyer, shutting the box before Professor Scribbish had even got his fingers out. “It’s a shame you’re not tougher, but it’s best that we’ve found out now. Goodbye, Chris.”
“Professor, don’t go!” said Amanda.
“Ah, Miss Lester,” said Professor Stegelmeyer. “You were really starting to come along. Your lab work has improved tremendously. You and Mr. Binkle make quite a team.” Amanda and Simon had never been lab partners, but they had spent a lot of time together in the lab working on their own. That was probably what he meant. “I’m sorry your crime-fighting lives have been cut short.”
“But they haven’t,” said Amanda. “We’re not giving up.”
“Well, then,” said Professor Stegelmeyer. “When I get settled I’ll let you know where I am. Perhaps there will be a way for us to continue working together.”
“No!” she yelled. “Don’t go!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and shuffled down the hall, glasswork tinkling.
“We have to stop them,” she said to Professor Scribbish.
“No,” he said. “Let them go. It’s too late.”
“But it isn’t,” she said. “My film—”
“It was an interesting idea Thrillkill had, but it won’t work. We need to move on.”
For the second time that day Amanda burst into tears. “This is terrible,” she said, snuffling. “I don’t want it to be this way.”
“Sometimes we just have to accept things as they are and start over,” said Professor Scribbish kindly.
She knew that. Nick had taught her that lesson. She’d never been able to do it though. She was starting to collect baggage and she didn’t like it.
“What will they do?” she said.
“I don’t know. It seems that they’re looking for a new location.”
“Where?”
“I heard something about an island, but who can say?” he said. “Oh, look. There’s Honoria Pargeter digging up her poison plants.” He pointed out the common room window.
“Out of my way, Scribbish,” came a voice. Professor Feeney was trundling a library book truck down the hall. It was piled high with thick volumes. As she passed where they were standing, a couple of them fell off. “Oh, nuts,” she said. “Miss Lester, would you get those for me?”
Amanda scurried to pick up the books: The Criminal Mind over the Centuries: A Comparison of Twenty-first Century Murderers and Their Predecessors and The Bad Bairn: Are Criminal Children Born or Made? Seeing the second title, Amanda started blubbering so hard that she got the book all wet. All she could think of was Nick.
“Oh, never mind,” said Professor Feeney. “Give them here.”
She snatched the books away from Amanda and put them back on the truck.
“You don’t have to be so irritable with her,” said Professor Scribbish. “She was just trying to help. This is upsetting for her. It’s upsetting for all of us.”
“You should have thought of that before,” snarled Professor Feeney. She was so mad Amanda could almost see smoke coming out of her ears. “If you Realists had been sensible, we could have pulled this all together ages ago. It’s your fault Moriarty has made so much headway.”
“How can you say that?” said Amanda, no longer snuffling. “It’s nobody’s fault. Don’t blame the Realists. They’ve been trying to help as much as you have.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Professor Feeney.
“Don’t speak to her like that,” said Professor Also, appearing from nowhere. She was carrying her snow globe with the Hobbit house inside. The snow was swirling around like a real blizzard. “She’s a child.”
“Not so much,” said Professor Feeney. “We don’t take children here. You know that.”
“I’m not a child,” said Amanda. “I’m a detective.”
“You are a student,” said Professor Feeney, glaring at her. “You are neither a detective nor a child.”
“Stop it, Seashell,” said Professor Also. “Isn’t it enough that we’re leaving? You don’t have to
be nasty to the students. Miss Lester has more than proven her worth. Give her some credit.”
“Worth schmirth,” said Professor Feeney. “This is serious business, not playtime. You students have caused more trouble than can ever be compensated for. That Wiffle boy—”
“That Wiffle boy lost his father,” said Professor Also. Amanda was glad to see that she still had some compassion. “He didn’t know what he was doing when he destroyed the Bible.”
“Death is no excuse,” said Professor Feeney. Amanda gasped. The woman had no sympathy at all. “His father was weak too.”
“Wink was not weak,” said Professor Scribbish.
“Oh really?” said Professor Feeney. “Involved with Mavis Moriarty? What a fool. He should have checked her out.”
“I feel sorry for you, Seashell,” said Professor Scribbish shaking his head. “You have no heart.”
“Detectives don’t need hearts, Chris,” she said. “Hearts get in the way. Now if you’ll pardon me.”
Was that true? If so, Amanda would never make a good detective. She had so much heart that she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she had two of them.
Professor Feeney pushed her book truck down the hall and disappeared through the south door. As she exited, Professor Peaksribbon reentered the hallway.
“Miss Lester,” he said, “I want you to know how sorry I am about the way things have turned out. I wish I could stay and be your teacher.”
“Why don’t you, Professor?” said Amanda.
“I can’t. It’s all got too late, you see.” He looked very sad.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” said Amanda.
“It’s detective stuff,” said Professor Also. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Then tell me,” said Amanda.
“There’s no time,” said Professor Also. “And it doesn’t matter now anyway.”
“Please don’t go,” said Amanda.
Professor Also smiled at her sadly. “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Take my snow globe. Keep it safe. Perhaps it will bring you good luck.”
“But you don’t believe in luck, Professor,” said Amanda.
Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set Page 99