Izzy came over, holding out the ruined paper. ‘Saxby, you’ve got to catch this person!’
‘Are you really out of the competition?’ I said.
‘I can re-do this sheet,’ said Izzy, ‘but it’s going to take ages. I might not finish in time. Essays have got to be handed in at the end of this week, remember.’
‘Did you get any info out of the note that was stuck on Jeremy’s disc?’
‘Not much. I can’t tell exactly what comic book the paper came from, not without weeks of searching. The font that the message was printed with – and this second message too, by the look of it – is a standard one that’s on all the school’s computers. And on half the computers in the world, probably. Actually, the word “font” is incorrect. You should use the word “typeface”, because in lettering a “font” is —’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘OK, so the message is a dead end. Did you manage to get a list of everyone that was here after school hours the night of the first Purple Avenger attack?’
‘Yup, no problem.’
‘I’ll need a list of everyone who was here last night too.’
‘Of course! You can cross-reference them. If someone was on both lists . . .’
‘They had the opportunity to commit both crimes!’ I said. ‘That will narrow the list of suspects down even further.’
Izzy spent that morning’s break time at the school office, getting hold of all the relevant information. I spent that morning’s break time dodging the caretaker. He wanted his missing pot of waterproof DIY sealing thingummy whatsit, and he wouldn’t take ‘I didn’t do it!’ for an answer.
Once we were all back in class, Izzy gave me the lists. She’d thought ahead, and got hold of a list covering today (Wednesday) as well, just in case.
I checked through the lists while I sat gasping for breath. I’d run halfway around the school escaping that caretaker. ‘I am so unfit!’ I wheezed to myself.
As I looked at these lists, I was able to make an exact list of suspects: there were four people who could have committed both crimes.
Does your list match mine?
MONDAY LIST OF AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
The following have permission to be on school premises.
DANCE CLUB
COMPUTER CLUB
SCHOOL BAND
Mrs Womsey
Mr Nailshott
Mrs Penzler
Upper School Hall
ICT suite
Lower School Hall
Susanne Foreman
Isobel Moustique
Scott Carey
Becky Wright
James McCrimmon
Anne Darrow
Jeremy Sweetly
Iain Chesterton
Michael Carpenter
Joanne Grant
Barry Sullivan
Laura Palmer
Sarah Smith
Alison Lethbridge
Matthew Ronay
Zoe Halibutt
Harry Lovecraft
Rob Blake
Vicki Waterfield
Li Chang
Jennifer Stannis
Liz Short
George Litefoot
Keith Avon
Sophie Tate
Henry Jago
Olag Travis
Imogen Watkins
Emma Buller
Kathy O’Rac
TUESDAY LIST OF AFTER-SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
The following have permission to be on school premises.
ART CLUB
SCHOOL
FOOTBALL CLUB
Mrs Vesey
NEWSLETTER
Mr Hartright
Art Room
Mrs Clements
Lower School field
ICT suite
Paulo Pesca
William Kemp
Isobel Moustique
Jenny Maple
Jack Stapleton
Jeremy Sweetly
Bob Bell
Jonathan Small
Jasmine Winchester
Ella Eccles
John McFarlane
Anne Catherick
Sophie Tate
Charles Milverton
Percy Glyde
Netta Longdon
Ed Baldwin
Laura Fairlie
Harvey Bone
Harry Lovecraft
Vincent Gilmore
Vicki Pike
Henry Baker
Marian Halcombe
Joe Stangerson
Alex Holder
Liza Michelson
Lucy Ferrier
Susan Cushing
Alice Turner
The list was:
• Jeremy Sweetly
• That low-down rat Harry Lovecraft
• Izzy
• Sophie Tate
Izzy didn’t seem a likely Avenger. She’d been the victim of Purple Avenger attack number two, plus if she was guilty she’d hardly have left her own name on those lists for me to discover.
Sophie Tate was someone I hadn’t considered. She wasn’t part of my usual circle of buddies, but as far as I knew she certainly wasn’t the type to start covering people’s CDs and carefully-made diagrams in purple goo. All I really knew about her was the fact that she always wore chunky shoes with great thick soles on them. And that didn’t seem like a very helpful fact at all!
That low-down rat Harry Lovecraft was still top of the list, as far as I was concerned. I had no proof whatsoever, and nothing except my own suspicions to link him to The Purple Avenger. But these crimes were sneaky and spiteful, and anything sneaky and spiteful was Harry Lovecraft’s speciality.
I checked through the after-school list for Wednesday. There was Jeremy Sweetly again on the list for Handicraft Club. There, also, was Harry Lovecraft, down for Chess Club, and Sophie Tate, who was part of the school netball team. But no Izzy. (Izzy would have been down for Chess Club too, but they’d asked her to leave a couple of terms ago – nobody could beat her! She was still fuming over it.)
I was on the list too. Wednesdays were Book Club with Miss Bennett. That Wednesday was one I’d been looking forward to because we were going to do detective stories, and I had plenty to say on the subject (having read the huge library of crime fiction at home).
A brilliant idea popped into my head. At lunchtime, I did two things:
1. I apologised to Miss Bennett, and said I’d be late.
2. I made sure I was within earshot of Sophie Tate, Jeremy Sweetly and that low-down rat Harry Lovecraft, and talked loudly about how I was sure that The Purple Avenger would never dare purple MY essay, which by the way was tucked safely away in MY desk in THE CLASSROOM . . .
I also had a quick word with Muddy. I needed his help, as he was the school’s resident inventor.
I’m sure you’ve spotted what my brilliant idea was?
Knowing that three of the four suspects on my list were going to be in school after hours, I was hoping to catch The Purple Avenger red-handed (well, purple-handed). My own essay was going to be used as bait!
The split second the bell went for the end of school, Muddy and I dashed for the gates and headed for his house.
A Page From My Notebook
Fact: The Purple Avenger is now out to knock more people than just Jeremy Sweetly out of the competition!
I suppose I could just wait until The Purple Avenger knocks everyone out of the competition except him/herself. Then I'd know who it was . . . But I wouldn't be much of a detective then, would I?
CHAPTER FIVE
‘HOW ABOUT THE WHITEHOUSE Long-Distance Grab Mechanism Mark Two?’ said Muddy, wide-eyed with enthusiasm. ‘I developed it from an old bike chain and a garden rake.’
Muddy Whitehouse was a master at anything mechanical, but getting him to hurry up was like trying to shift a giant boulder with a teaspoon.
‘Muddy, no,’ I gasped, ‘thank you, no. I don’t need any of that. I just need that camera you said you’ve got.’
It was ten m
inutes past the end of school. We’d dashed over to Muddy’s place like a couple of rockets being chased by bigger rockets, and now we were in the garage attached to the side of his house (which is where he had his workshop). Or rather, as he liked to put it, his development laboratory.
The place was a tip. Covered in grime, littered with odds and ends, and full of half-finished ideas. Rather like Muddy himself, come to think of it.
‘Quick, quick!’ I wheezed, still out of breath from the run. ‘I am sooo unfit! I haven’t got long! Book Club is only an hour long, and I’ve got to get back and put this camera of yours in position yet!’
‘Ah!’ cried Muddy, holding up a finger, as if a light bulb had suddenly pinged into action above his head. ‘How about the Whitehouse Laser Cutter 2000?’
He dug through an old cardboard box and pulled out a device that was half fighter aircraft plastic model kit, half battery pack. ‘I adapted it from my mum’s CD player. Of course, it doesn’t actually cut things, as such. But there’s a really cool little red light. Makes you look like a spy!’
‘I’m not a spy,’ I said quietly, ‘I’m a detective. What on earth would I want a laser cutter for?’
‘You could be a spy,’ he said hopefully. ‘I’ve got tons of great spy gear.’
‘I don’t want spy gear, I want a camera.’
‘Cameras can be spy gear too.’
‘Muuuuuuddddyyy!’ I cried through gritted teeth. ‘Camera! Please! Now!’
‘OK,’ muttered Muddy. ‘Keep your hair on.’ He opened a small cupboard that had once been part of a kitchen, and took out a camcorder. It was small and light, and so ideal for my purposes. It also had Whitehouse VideoTron B marked in serious-looking lettering on the side.
‘The hard drive will store loads,’ said Muddy, ‘but the battery will need a recharge after an hour or so.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘An hour is plenty.’
‘Of course, I rebuilt this thing from scratch. It dropped into a trifle last Christmas, but I managed to get every last bit of custard out of it.’
‘This is brilliant! Thanks!’ I shouted, already thirty metres away and heading back to school.
When I arrived back at our classroom, I quickly checked to see if my essay was safe. Luckily, it was still untouched. The Purple Avenger hadn’t struck yet!
Nobody was about. Which was lucky, since they might have thought I was The Purple Avenger!
I placed the camcorder on the bottom shelf of the racking in the corridor outside the classroom (where lunchboxes and sports gear got dumped during the day). Here, it would be hidden from sight (unless The Purple Avenger was only about sixty centimetres high), and would have a perfect view of the classroom, and anyone entering or leaving it.
I set the recorder going. A tiny red light started blinking beside the lens. I gave it a quick wave and a grin, and hurried off to Book Club. I was still in time to amaze Miss Bennett and the rest of the club with the depth of my knowledge on detective fiction. Ta-daaa! The following morning, I could barely contain my giggles on the way to school. With a bit of luck, I’d be able to conclude the case in a matter of minutes.
I scooped up the camera while nobody was looking. Its battery had run down, and the light had stopped blinking. Nervously, I looked inside my desk. Had The Purple Avenger taken the bait? Was my essay now covered in waterproof DIY sealing thingummy whatsit?
W-w-was it . . .?
YES!
I peeled the ruined remains of my essay off the inside of my desk lid and held them up. Set into the middle of the goo was another of those notes:
Everyone spun around and stared. At that moment, the entire class gave the third and last in their trilogy of loud gasps. After they’d finished gasping, they started talking in low whispers about keeping their work under armed guard from now on.
‘Hang on a minute,’ I muttered to myself. ‘I’ve just spotted a flaw in my plan. Why didn’t I put a dummy essay in my desk . . .?’
Making a muffled whining noise, I dropped the rubbery remains into the waste-paper basket. Izzy gave me a look which was one third sympathy, one third horror and one third why-didn’t-you-put-a-dummy-essay-in-your-desk-you-silly-twit. Muddy gave me a big grin and a thumbs-up sign, and pointed at the camera.
That low-down rat Harry Lovecraft appeared at my shoulder, as if from nowhere. He was smiling like a python in a box of mice.
‘Tut tut,’ he slimed. ‘This Purple Avenger has really got one over on you, hasn’t he, Smart? Tut tut.’
I tried to think of a witty reply. But I couldn’t, I was too busy seething with rage.
Muddy rooted around through the sweet wrappers in his pocket and produced a spare camcorder battery. ‘Thought you could use this,’ he said.
‘Perfect!’ I cried. ‘Harry Lovecraft will be smirking on the other side of his shiny face when he realises I’ve caught him on camera!’
Quickly, I slotted the fresh battery into place and rewound the tape. While the rest of the class had moved on to talking in low whispers about keeping their essays in a bank vault until the end of the week, Iz and Muddy squashed up beside me to view the evidence.
‘Right,’ I said, pressing the Play button. ‘This is the moment when I prove what a low-down rat Harry Lovecraft really is.’
On the camera’s tiny flip-out screen, the video flicked into life. There was me, giving a grin and a wave at the camera . . . Aaaand I walk away . . . Aaaand we can clearly see the classroom door . . . Aaaand there’s a long pause when nothing happens . . . Aaaand the picture goes tzzzttt.
‘WHAT?’ I cried.
Suddenly, the screen was filled with a crackly fuzz. All you could see was a thin strip of floor at the bottom of the picture.
‘WHAT?’ I cried.
‘Awww,’ said Muddy. ‘It’s always doing that. I think the custard must have damaged it more than I thought.’
‘WHAT?’ I cried again.
‘Camcorders are very complicated,’ said Muddy to Iz. ‘He’s lucky it works at all. I offered him the Whitehouse Laser Cutter 2000, but oooooh noooo, he didn’t want that.’
They carried on yattering, while I peered at the little screen, trying to pick out whatever details I could.
Suddenly, my heart gave a twitch. There was a shadow appearing on the screen! Someone was sneaking into the classroom. I pressed Pause.
Almost all the image was a blur, but in the thin clear strip at the bottom I could see a pair of ordinary brown shoes, tiptoeing.
And at that moment, I knew who it was. I didn’t need to see their face on the screen. By a process of elimination, I could work out which of the people on my suspect list was the guilty one.
My heart stopped twitching. It sank instead.
Have you worked it out?
It wasn’t Izzy: she hadn’t been in school after hours yesterday. It wasn’t Sophie Tate: she wore shoes with thick soles. It wasn’t Harry Lovecraft: his shoes were black and shiny. It could only have been Jeremy Sweetly.
The shoes on the video were rather stained and scuffed. Like a great slobbery dog might have chewed them here and there.
For the first time that morning, I looked over at Jeremy Sweetly. Or rather, I looked at his feet. Those shoes were unmistakable. I caught Jeremy’s eyes. He could see what I was thinking, and I could see what he was thinking! He knew the game was up!
CHAPTER SIX
I HAD BEEN TOTALLY WRONG.
I simply could not believe it.
It really WAS him after all?
There had to be more to this than I was seeing.
At break time, I took Jeremy to one side. He knew I knew. And I knew he knew I knew.
‘Jeremy, why?’ I said.
He looked as if he was about to cry. Which, to be brutally honest, wasn’t all that unusual for him. He’d looked as if he was about to cry when the class experiment in growing cress seeds had gone wrong.
‘Why?’ I said again. ‘You’re so sensible. And sensitive. And . . . some other
things beginning with “s”. Why?’
He made a dramatic shrug. ‘Why not? I, umm, er, umm, I was fed up of being sensible and sensitive. I thought I’d do something mean and nasty for a change.’
‘To your own work?’
‘Yes. That’s how mean and nasty I can get! Even my own work isn’t safe! Yeah! Mmm. Mean and nasty, that’s me,’ he said. He was completely unconvincing.
Then he said, ‘Are you going to tell Mrs Penzler?’
‘If I thought for one minute that you’d done it just to be mean and nasty, then yes, I would. But you didn’t, did you? Who put you up to it, and why? Was it Harry Lovecraft?’
‘No!’ said Jeremy, rather too quickly.
I let the subject drop. Jeremy scampered away like a startled rabbit, clutching the latest issue of The Purple Avenger to his chest. He was scared, and it had nothing to do with being found out.
More than ever, I was sure Harry Lovecraft was at the bottom of this. But it wasn’t simply a question of brute force. For one thing, Harry Lovecraft might have been sneaky, and sly, and underhand, but he wasn’t the sort of bully who went in for rough, head-down-the-toilet stuff. He was much too fussy about his shiny hair and his spotless school uniform for that. He’d never dirty his hands by pushing little kids over on the sports field.
And for another thing, Jeremy Sweetly was no fool. If someone had started pushing him around, he’d have said so. He knew that bullies were always cowards, just as the rest of us did. There was something else going on. Something was keeping his mouth shut. Someone had some kind of hold over Jeremy Sweetly.
But what? Harry Lovecraft never had anything to do with Jeremy. The pair of them certainly weren’t friends, they had no friends in common, and as far as I knew they’d hardly so much as exchanged hellos. (In fact, thinking about it, the most that Jeremy and Harry Lovecraft had ever interacted was early last term, when Jeremy caught him stealing someone’s PE kit. Nothing unusual there. Izzy and I had reported him only a few weeks later, when he tried getting money off some younger kids by calling it ‘School Dinner Tax’.)
Curse of the Ancient Mask Page 5