The Treasure of Dead Man's Lane and Other Case Files

by Simon Cheshire

  That piece of information was the last piece in the puzzle. I now knew exactly what had been going on. I knew what those non-break-ins were all about, and I knew what Harry had been up to.

  But catching the intruder would still be difficult.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Thursday, 10:55 a.m.

  “Can’t we park outside the house?” asked Miss Bennett.

  “No!” I cried. “We can’t be seen, we can’t let the intruder suspect anything.”

  Miss Bennett stopped the school van, and we all got out: Miss Bennett, me, the six students in Miss Bennett’s class who’d already been visited by the intruder, and a seventh student, a scruffy boy named Oliver.

  “I live at the other end of the street,” said Oliver, as Miss Bennett locked up the van.

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s why we’re here. Okay, everyone, most of these houses have hedges around their front yards. Keep down, below the bushes, out of sight.”

  Everyone crouched down and shuffled along the street toward Oliver’s house. An old lady walking a tiny dog passed us on the other side of the road. Both of them gave us a funny look.

  “Honestly, Saxby,” said Miss Bennett crossly, “is this really necessary?”

  “It’s vital,” I whispered.

  “Why couldn’t you have talked to us at school?” said Miss Bennett.

  “Because until we’ve caught the intruder red-handed, news can’t get out at school that the mystery’s been solved. One sneaky phone call from Harry Lovecraft, and the intruder will bail on the whole scheme and make a run for it. I’ve got Muddy covering for me back in class. As far as Harry’s concerned, I’m at the optician’s getting my glasses adjusted.”

  “You’re making some pretty serious allegations about that boy,” said Miss Bennett quietly. “You’d better have your facts straight.”

  By now, we’d reached Oliver’s house. Luckily, the bushes around his yard were particularly tall and thick. We all scrunched down, at a point where we couldn’t be seen from the front door or any of the windows.

  I checked my watch. 11 a.m. precisely.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now, we all know that right at this moment there’s a weekly de-stress session going on, which the mothers of all seven of you are attending. This week, it’s over at Liz Wyndham’s house.”

  “Right,” said Liz Wyndham.

  “The homes of six members of that class have already been visited by a mysterious intruder,” I said. “Oliver here is the only person we know of whose mom is at that class but whose home has not yet been visited by a mysterious intruder.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Miss Bennett. “Surely there are more than seven people at this session? How can we know which house is next on the intruder’s list?”

  “Wellllllll,” I said, “strictly speaking, we can’t…”

  “So we could all be crouching here behind a bush, like a bunch of idiots, using up class time, for nothing?” said Miss Bennett.

  “Strictly speaking…yes,” I admitted. “But I have every reason to believe I’m right, and that the intruder is right now, as we speak, in Oliver’s house.”

  “Well, let’s get in there and grab him, then!” cried Oliver.

  “Shhh!” I hissed. “No good. If we barge in there, the intruder could simply dump the evidence we need and run out the back door. We have to wait. We have to catch them.”

  “But what’s this evidence you’re talking about?” said Miss Bennett. “And how do you know this is the right house?”

  “Look at what we know so far,” I said. “In every case, the intruder has struck at a house they know will be empty. Think about it from the intruder’s point of view. Mom X attends a gym class. So she’s out of the house, but half a dozen more people might still be at home! An intruder will want to minimize the risk of finding the place still occupied. That is the link between all seven of you here. All seven of you can confirm to a third party that, on a Thursday morning, when Mom’s at her gym class, there’s nobody else at home.”

  “A third party?” said Oliver.

  “You mean…Harry Lovecraft?” said Miss Bennett.

  “Exactly!” I said. “He’s been unusually friendly lately. He’s been chatting away with people left and right. And the interest he takes in all his new friends covers up the fact that he’s fishing for information. About your moms and dads, about what goes on at home…”

  “That stupid, slimy, double-crossing…” muttered Liz Wyndham.

  “So,” said Miss Bennett, “cross-referencing the addresses of the people who attend the gym class, with the information gathered by Harry, means that the intruder can know which houses would make for the best targets.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Of course, the intruder only needs to have an address, and can use various tricks to find out if there’s someone else at home, but the information provided by Harry would be a perfect shortcut to targeting houses left unattended.”

  “But we’re still no closer to knowing how or why these things are happening,” said Miss Bennett. “The intruder can’t be the man running the classes. He’s running the classes.”

  “How is Monsieur Jacques involved?” said Liz Wyndham. “My mom thinks the world of him.”

  “I’m afraid Monsieur Jacques is really Monsieur Harry Lovecraft’s uncle, a man with a criminal record as long as an anteater’s tongue. He got out of prison last year, set up Dragonfang Gym, and is using it as a front for his latest con act.”

  “You mean he’s holding all these classes as a kind of distraction, so that the intruder can get to work?” said Miss Bennett.

  “Oh, he’s doing a lot more than that,” I said. “Remember how there’s never any sign of an actual break-in? That’s because the intruder is using a key. You see, because Monsieur Jacques has his classes in people’s homes, he’s got every opportunity to snoop. He sends people off around the house, doing their exercises, and all he needs are a few seconds to locate the owner’s key ring, and take an impression of the keys with a bar of soap or a block of modeling clay.”

  “But if he’s going to all that trouble,” said Miss Bennett, “why is so little being taken?”

  “On the contrary,” I said. “A great deal is being taken. Look at the types of things that were disturbed each time. Computers, bills, even trash cans. The intruder is stealing words and numbers.”

  “Words and numbers?” said Oliver.

  “Bank account numbers, computer passwords, login details, financial records. Personal information of all kinds. Identity theft.”

  “But none of the parents’ bank accounts have been emptied or anything like that,” said Miss Bennett. “Surely he’s not simply stocking up on all that information?”

  “Yes, that’s precisely what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s already told everyone that he’s closing Dragonfang Gym and moving abroad. Not to Africa, as he claims, I’m sure. But somewhere. And when he’s safe on the other side of the world, he can use all that info to whatever criminal ends he likes. It’s all done by computer. He could be on Mars and still launch raids on one bank account after another.”

  “Of course,” said Miss Bennett, “if he’s in another country, it’ll be that much harder to trace him, and that much harder for the law to catch up with him.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “He’s been running tons of different classes, so by now he’s probably got passwords and account numbers for dozens of people, possibly hundreds.”

  “If that’s true,” said Liz Wyndham, “why haven’t more people in more gym classes noticed these intrusions?”

  “Why would they? You guys only noticed by accident. If the intruder is careful enough, most of this scheme’s victims won’t even realize the intruder visited them.”

  “Why steal the money?” said Liz Wyndham. “Won’t that look suspicious?”

  “A little bonus for Harry?” I said. “For services rendered? If Harry wasn’t so flashy with his spending, I might not have noticed! In most cases,
for most classes, Monsieur Jacques will have had to spend time cozying up to his customers to find out the sorts of household details the intruder would benefit from. But once he realized that several members of this one particular Thursday morning de-stress class were moms at St. Egbert’s, he spotted an opportunity. He had a nephew he could use as an inside man!”

  “So who is in my house, then?” wailed Oliver. “Who is this intruder?”

  I was about to answer him when two things happened. First, the front door of Oliver’s house swung open. Second, I felt a distinct and sudden itch in my nose. I glanced at the hedge: it was one of those flowering types. I’d been crouching down with my head in an air current loaded with pollen.

  “Ohhh, wonbberful!” I sighed.

  But I had no time to feel sorry for myself. The door of Oliver’s house was standing ajar. So far, no movement came from inside.

  Nobody dared to breathe. We all stared through the tiny gaps in the hedge, between the leaves, watching the front door.

  11:04 a.m.

  Suddenly, moving swiftly, a figure emerged. A woman. She was wearing a long red coat and chunky boots, and a cascade of blond hair fell around her shoulders. She was facing into the house, away from us, as if making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. The upper part of her was deep in the slab of shadow thrown by the balcony that jutted out above the door.

  “Nobobby bake a sound,” I whispered. “She bite rubb away before we cabb get her.”

  “Who is she?” whispered Miss Bennett.

  Oliver made a slight whimpering noise. “I don’t believe it. That’s my mom. My mom is the intruder.”

  The woman shut the front door behind her with a clunk. She took a key from the pocket of her coat and double-locked the door, giving it a rattle to make sure it was firmly closed.

  “So your mom’s been the intruder all along?” gasped Liz Wyndham.

  “Hold on a sec,” whispered Oliver. “This is her own house…”

  “Be quiedd,” I breathed. “She can’t…know… we’re…AHHHH-CHOOOO!” My sneeze was so loud it sent a flock of sparrows into a panic at the other end of the street.

  The woman spun around instantly. Spooked, she made a dash for the gate at the side of the yard.

  We all leaped from our hiding place. Miss Bennett, with that willowy frame of hers, would have made a good athlete. She caught up with the woman in less than a dozen loping strides, grabbing her by the shoulders.

  The woman cried out angrily. As she tried to wriggle free of Miss Bennett’s grip, she lost her balance and toppled onto the lawn.

  Her long blond hair had come loose while she fell. The wig dropped to the grass, revealing a short, dark haircut underneath.

  “What?!” cried Oliver, from the back of the group. “My mom wears a…Hey!”

  “I thingg you’ll find your bubb is safe at her gybb class,” I said, accepting some tissues from Liz Wyndham. “Say hello to Uncle Jack’s wife, Harry Lovecraft’s aunt Sharon.”

  Miss Bennett had her securely pinned on the grass. Aunt Sharon glared up at us, a mixture of anger and defiance on her face.

  “But why was she disguised as my mom?” said Oliver. “How does she even know what my mom looks like?”

  I blew my nose a couple of times. “I told you, Harry’s uncle, Monsieur Jacques, has been busy snooping around all your houses whenever he held a class there,” I said. “Along with copying keys, he also looked in closets. His wife here, the intruder, could then get hold of similar clothes and hair, and disguise herself as the correct mom every time. With the right key, and the right look, anyone who saw her come and go would think they were seeing someone else. Which happened twice, remember. Those nosy neighbors didn’t see your moms, they saw Aunt Sharon here.”

  With Aunt Sharon pinned on her side, items were starting to drop out of her coat pockets. The house key she’d used, a pair of gloves, and a notepad. I stooped down and picked up the notepad. Clipped inside it, next to a string of copied-down account numbers and e-mail addresses, was a USB memory stick.

  “Downloaded a batch of browser cookies and firewall settings, have you?” I asked, wiping snot off my upper lip with Liz’s tissue.

  “Never seen that before in my life,” snarled Aunt Sharon.

  Miss Bennett handed her phone to Oliver while trying to keep hold of the wriggling woman beneath her. “Here, call the police. Then call the school. We’ll need to speak to all of your parents.”

  Once the police had taken charge of Aunt Sharon and been given the address of where they’d find “Monsieur Jacques,” we returned to school in the van. Miss Bennett’s entire class gave me a huge cheer, which was nice, and Harry Lovecraft got called into the principal’s office, which was even nicer.

  As it turned out, the police had been on the trail of Uncle “Jacques” Lovecraft for half a dozen different crimes. Although, I’m sorry to say, impersonating a Frenchman wasn’t one of them. Aunt Sharon’s USB stick was shown to contain personal details pertaining to seventy-seven local people, and to another two hundred and thirty from other parts of the country.

  Unfortunately, that low-down rat Harry Lovecraft got off scot-free. His uncle and aunt denied his involvement, and he denied even knowing his uncle and aunt. In the end, there was no firm evidence against him—the money for those new goodies of his could have come from anywhere—and the principal had to drop the matter.

  At the start of class the next day, he glided past me with a sneer so extreme it almost fell off his face. “Don’t think I’m going to forget this, Smart,” he whispered. “One day, I’ll have my revenge. One day.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I said, with a polite smile.

  That afternoon, I retreated to my shed and my Thinking Chair. I propped my feet up on my desk, and jotted down some notes for my files while the sun slowly set outside the window.

  Case closed.