The Poisoned Arrow

by Simon Cheshire

  ‘How did that come about?’

  ‘The police let Nat go late on Monday. They said they needed more evidence before they could do anything.’

  ‘Wasn’t what he’d said enough?’

  Mrs Hardyman shook her head. ‘The police won’t charge someone based on a confession alone and Nat couldn’t produce the computer to prove he’d taken it. I think perhaps they realised he was making it all up. He wouldn’t talk about it when he got back. I was just glad to have him home. I thought the whole horrible business might blow over and the university would let him return in a few days, but then the police came to the house and arrested him on Tuesday. Now he’s out on bail, waiting to be taken to court.’

  ‘Because his friends backed up his story?’ I queried.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Hardyman. ‘They went to the police on Tuesday morning. All three of them said they’d seen Nat come out of Dr Shroeder’s room with the laptop. Jack also said he’d seen Nat an hour later carrying the laptop around campus. Anil said he’d seen Nat at lunchtime using the laptop in the library.’

  Wait a minute. Something else didn’t add up.

  Unless two and two had suddenly started equalling five, there was a strange mismatch here. There was a weird inconsistency between what Nat’s friends had told the police and what the police had already discovered for themselves on Monday.

  Have you noticed what didn’t quite make sense?

  On Monday, the police had asked questions around the campus. A number of students had said they’d seen Nat but nobody had seen the computer.

  Yet Nat’s three friends had apparently seen him with the computer? At three separate times? On the same day? Although nobody else had seen the stolen laptop? Only Nat’s own buddies could link him to the crime?

  And why hadn’t these friends said anything to the police on Monday? Why wait a day?

  ‘Surely the police spotted the contradiction?’ I frowned.

  ‘Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t,’ sighed Mrs Hardyman sadly. ‘All I know is that on Tuesday they had enough evidence to charge him. I think they just wanted a result. Something’s got to be done about this situation, and quickly. If Nat’s not allowed back to class, he’ll miss the exam, he’ll fail his course, he’ll have ruined his whole future! And he’s such a good boy!’

  ‘Never fear,’ I said. ‘Saxby Smart is on the case.’

  A Page From My Notebook

  There are a number of possibilities here:

  POSSIBILITY 1: Mrs Hardyman is right and Nat is being bullied. She said he’s the shy and sensitive type, and this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come across a tactic like that.

  BUT!: Why would someone go to all the trouble of making Nat own up to the crime? The real thief would risk Nat calling his bluff and leading the police to him, wouldn’t he?

  POSSIBILITY 2: Mrs Hardyman is wrong and Nat is guilty after all. Once again, this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come across an unlikely robber.

  BUT!: Why would Nat ADMIT to the theft? If he’d kept quiet, he may never have been discovered – the police were on the point of leaving. I’d be investigating The Mystery of the Nicked Laptop instead!

  There is one giant-sized puzzle lurking underneath these possibilities: WHERE IS THE COMPUTER?

  IF NAT TOOK IT, and has admitted to taking it, why not give it back? Why tell the police he’s hidden it?

  IF NAT DIDN’T TAKE IT, how can we account for what his friends have told the police?

  There are some important questions to consider about the REASON for the theft:

  Question 1: Was someone after the exam answers? Or . . .

  Question 2: Did someone just want a nice fancy laptop? Or . . .

  Question 3: Is there a less obvious motive involved? Could it be, for instance, that the thief is in debt and is planning to sell the computer on the quiet?

  My plan of action should include:

  • talking to Nat.

  • talking to Dr Shroeder.

  • talking to those three friends of Nat’s.

  Ah yes! Those friends . . .

  WHAT is going on with them? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  NUMEROUS QUESTIONS SURROUNDING NAT’S THREE friends kept preying on my mind.

  What kind of friends would rat on their best pal, anyway? No, I shouldn’t say that. That’s not fair. Suppose I saw one of my friends stealing something: wouldn’t I feel I had to do the right thing and tell the truth about what I’d seen? Even if it was upsetting to think that my friend would get into trouble?

  But . . .

  Why was there that strange mismatch (as I mentioned near the end of the previous chapter)? Was there something going on here that I hadn’t accounted for yet?

  Or . . .

  Could it be that Nat’s friends were making a mistake? Could it be that what they saw was perfectly innocent? What if, following Nat’s declaration of guilt, they had misinterpreted what they saw? That might account for the mismatch.

  But . . .

  How can you misinterpret seeing someone with a flashy new computer?

  I tried to shoo all such thoughts from my mind as I walked over to Mrs Hardyman’s house a little later that day. I told myself that I should concentrate on hearing Nat’s side of the story, and that I should keep both my mind and my eyes open for clues.

  The Hardymans lived only a few streets away from me. Their house was very like mine – rather plain-looking from the outside, a kind of upturned shoebox-shape lined up along the road with a load of other upturned shoebox-shapes.

  ‘He’s still in his room,’ whispered Mrs Hardyman. ‘He wouldn’t touch his lunch and I made his favourite – beetroot and pickle sandwich.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, feeling glad she hadn’t made lunch for me. Then I remembered that on school days she did make lunch for me.

  I went up to Nat’s room, knocked and went in. It was at the top of the house, overlooking the tiny garden and the backs of the houses in the next street along.

  There was an enormous wipe-board fixed to one wall. All over it, mathematical formulae were scribbled in long, weaving lines. You didn’t have to be a detective to see this guy would definitely not have the same kind of trouble with long division that I’ve always had!

  The rest of the room was what you might call ‘neatly cluttered’ – full of stuff, but not a tip. A laptop bag was propped against the wardrobe and the entire under-bed space was crammed with books.

  Nat himself was sitting at a desk under the window, flicking through a textbook on an e-reader. He had a carefully combed side parting in his hair and his trousers were slightly too short for his legs. He wore glasses and a plain zip-up cardigan. To be perfectly honest, he looked like a bit of a nerd.

  ‘Hello,’ I said brightly. ‘I’m Saxby Smart.’

  ‘’lo,’ he grunted, eyeing me suspiciously. ‘You are Saxby?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘You’re the detective my mum says she’s hired?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Good grief,’ he muttered. ‘How old are you? Are you even a teenager?’

  ‘Er, no, not yet,’ I said. I wasn’t quite sure if he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing. Hmm, a bad thing probably, from the look on his face. ‘Don’t worry,’ I chirped up, ‘I’m brilliant.’

  ‘If you say so,’ he said flatly.

  ‘I need to ask you some questions. I assume you’re sticking to your story? You’re still claiming you stole that computer?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Any chance of you telling me where it is, then?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Any chance of you giving it back?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You’ve still got it hidden somewhere, have you?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘You’re going to have to give it back at some point, you know.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ He went back to his readin
g.

  He was starting to annoy me. Just a teeny tiny little bit.

  From the angry embarrassment that was flushing his cheeks and turning his bushy eyebrows into a sharp frown, I got the distinct impression that he didn’t know where that computer was. Which backed up the idea that he was innocent. (Unless, that was, he’d either already sold the computer or he’d stolen it on someone else’s behalf and handed it over to them.)

  I shook my head. Stop it, I told myself, I’m going to start thinking in circles if I’m not careful! I decided to try a different line of enquiry.

  ‘Your friends,’ I said. ‘Matt, Jack and Anil. I’m very puzzled. Why didn’t they say anything to the police on Monday, right after the theft? Why did they wait until Tuesday?’

  Nat glanced at me, then back at his textbook, then back at me again. ‘They knew what I’d done on Monday. But they’re my best friends. They gave me a chance to own up first. Do the right thing.’

  ‘And you did own up,’ I said. ‘But then you wouldn’t hand the computer over. You said you’d hidden it. You’re still saying you’ve hidden it. So the police came to a dead end. And then, let me get this straight, your three friends came forward and told the police what they’d seen. How kind of them. You wouldn’t give the police proof that you’d stolen the laptop, so your friends stepped in and made sure the police had three witnesses and therefore enough evidence to charge you. You’d think they wanted to make sure you’d be charged.’

  Nat suddenly slapped the e-reader down on his desk.

  ‘Enough!’ he shouted. ‘Shut up and get out! I don’t want some stupid kid hanging around me!’

  For a moment or two I was too shocked to speak. Then I started with, ‘But —’

  ‘But nothing! Go on, get out! It’s got nothing to do with you! I stole a computer, I’ll take the consequences and that’s the end of it! Get out!’

  Without another word, I scuttled quickly out of Nat’s room and back down the stairs. Mrs Hardyman had heard the shouts and came hurrying along, apologising for her son’s rudeness and assuring me that he was a good boy who’d never been in trouble before in his life. I told her not to worry and that I would now go and carry on my investigation. No matter what Nat thought about it.

  I went over to Muddy’s house. My great friend George ‘Muddy’ Whitehouse was St Egbert’s School’s Number One Mr Fixit, and I needed to borrow one of his gadgets.

  I found him working away in the garage attached to the house – or his Development Laboratory, as he prefers people to call it. Whereas Nat’s room was what you might call ‘neatly cluttered’, Muddy’s laboratory was what you might call ‘disgustingly heaped with every sort of spare part and broken machine you can imagine’.

  He was turning dials on a piece of electronic equipment, making a circuit board attached to the wall shoot out flashes and showers of sparks.

  ‘Woohoo!’ he beamed. ‘Nice one!’

  ‘Isn’t that thing appallingly dangerous?’ I asked nervously.

  Muddy shrugged. ‘Well, only if you touch it, or go near it, or you aren’t wearing rubber boots. Otherwise, it’s fine.’ He took off the plastic goggles he was wearing to reveal clearly defined clean patches around his eyes. He looked like a panda in reverse.

  We chatted for a while and I told him all about the Hardyman case. ‘Do you have a small recording device of some kind that I can borrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Ooooh, like, y’know, a wire?’ said Muddy gleefully. ‘Like undercover cops use in movies?’

  ‘No, like schoolboy detectives use to tape ordinary conversations,’ I tutted.

  ‘Oh,’ said Muddy, disappointed.

  ‘I’ve already written down heaps of notes,’ I said, ‘and I’ve still got several people to talk to. I thought I’d record my chats with them and write up any observations later on.’

  Muddy ferreted around in a couple of cardboard boxes, then produced a regular handset with a couple of extra bits sticking out of it. ‘I adapted this from my mum’s old mobile phone,’ he said. ‘It records for a couple of hours before it needs a recharge. I was trying to make something that would automatically turn voice messages into written ones, but for some reason they kept coming out in Swahili.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I said, ‘it’s only the recording function I need. Thanks.’

  ‘Is this case turning out to be a real brain-mangler, then?’

  I sighed and gave my glasses a quick polish on my sleeve. ‘I have to admit,’ I said, ‘my talk with Nat has only made the entire mystery seem even more alarmingly deep and complex than ever. I think it’s looking less and less likely that he did commit the crime. I think. But if he didn’t commit the crime, what sort of terrible hold has the real crook got over him? Must be something pretty extreme. And what is going on with those friends of his?’

  ‘Maybe they’re not friends at all,’ said Muddy. ‘Maybe they’re out to get him for some reason.’

  ‘Hmm, dunno,’ I muttered. ‘Every angle I look at this problem from, all I can see are more problems. Anyway, thanks for this I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Hang on!’ cried Muddy. He dived back into his cardboard boxes and came up with a small camera to which he’d attached a big lens. ‘I’ve been itching to try out the new Whitehouse Snoop-o-Zoom Mark 2. I’m coming with you!’

  I groaned. ‘Do you have to?’ I said, one hand over my eyes. ‘Do you really, really, really have to?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded, grinning. ‘I want to see if the students at uni are like the students on telly, going to parties all the time and making a lot of noise at three in the morning!’

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  ‘AWWW, WOW, LOOK AT THAT! And that! And that! Ooooh!’

  ‘Muddy,’ I growled through clenched teeth, ‘pack it in. People are staring.’

  ‘But look,’ he cried, ‘they’ve got a proper laboratory. And have you seen the size of their canteen? And that sign up there says IT Centre. Not just a room like at school – a whole centre! I can’t wait to be a university student. A real laboratory, plus parties all the time and making a lot of noise at three in the morning!’

  The university was certainly an impressive place. A narrow road wandered through the main campus, passing all kinds of buildings, each of which was totally different in size and style to the ones either side. It looked as if teams of builders had raced each other to finish one idea after another. Signposts and diagrams pointed here, there and everywhere, to the Department of This-Subject and the Institute of That-Studies.

  Muddy and I were surrounded by flowing streams of students, all of them way taller than us and most of them wearing designer jeans. By the time we found the Department of Mathematics, we’d heard nine languages being spoken and seen about a dozen contenders for Cool Dude of the Year.

  ‘This is amaaaazing,’ Muddy said grinning.

  The maths block was fronted by a large, paved area. In the middle of this plaza was a tall tree, its branches fanned out in an elegant dome, surrounded by a series of benches.

  ‘You stay out here, Muddy,’ I told him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Muddy, parking himself on one of the benches.

  ‘Pack it in. Seriously, don’t go talking to anyone. I want to investigate incognito.’

  ‘Wearing a what?’ asked Muddy.

  ‘No, incognito,’ I said. ‘It means “undercover”, “on the quiet”.’

  ‘I bet Izzy told you that word,’ muttered Muddy.

  ‘Doesn’t matter where I got the word,’ I said, blushing slightly. ‘Don’t start talking to people about the case. I know what you’re like. I don’t want anyone knowing there’s a brilliant schoolboy detective here. My enquiries are strictly off the record, so I don’t need a blabbermouth like you asking questions. OK?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said Muddy, saluting.

  ‘Oh, play with your camera or something,’ I said crossly. I crossed the plaza and went into the maths building through sliding glass doors.

  I found
Dr Shroeder’s study without any problem. It was on the ground floor, only a matter of metres away from the entrance. Right opposite the plaza I’d just left, in fact.

  The corridor off which it stood was closed at the far end by heavy fire doors. On the right were various tutors’ private offices. On the left, all along the corridor, were a series of wooden lockers and storage cupboards. These were roughly the same height as me. Above them, starting at about adult-shoulder level, were glistening windows, about a metre tall, which also ran from one end of the corridor to the other. They faced the plaza – I could see the top of that tree.

  Pay attention to the layout of this corridor. It will become important later on!

  I knocked on the door of Room 9B. I had no idea if Dr Shroeder was there or not, but I wanted to —

  ‘Come in!’ called a musical voice.

  In I went. Dr Shroeder was a short, smiley man with a patched-up corduroy jacket and hair which rose in huge, fuzzy grey tufts above his ears. His eyes blinked behind owlish spectacles and he flitted about from one thing to another like a hummingbird darting from flower to flower.

  I introduced myself as a friend of a friend of Nat Hardyman. Dr Shroeder ushered me in and shook my hand enthusiastically.

  ‘Delighted to meet you, young man,’ he said. ‘Come on in, can I get you a cup of tea? Or coffee? Or milk? Or lemon squash?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’m fine,’ I smiled.

  ‘Thank goodness for that, I’m out of all of them,’ said Dr Shroeder. ‘Now then, you wanted to talk to me about poor Nat?’

  I checked it was OK for me to record our conversation, and set Muddy’s home-made recorder down on a workbench which ran along the wall beside the door. The room was a sort of half-classroom, half-office, with a large whiteboard at one end, a scattering of chairs and an assortment of bookcases and filing cabinets.

  This is exactly what was said: