Secret of the Skull (15 page)

‘D
O WE REALLY HAVE TO
do this now?’ said Izzy, on the phone. ‘I was going to go to bed soon. I think
I’m getting your cold. A day too late. The Winter Fayre was
awful
.’

‘So I hear,’ I said. ‘I’m feeling a little bit better now.’

Izzy muttered something I couldn’t quite catch.

‘I’ll put you on speaker,’ I said.

Once Izzy, Muddy and I could all hear each other, I propped myself up against my pillows. It seemed that Izzy, much to my surprise (and hers), was herself the vital witness who would crack the
case.

‘What we need here, Izzy,’ I said, ‘is an exact description of the point during Tuesday afternoon when Mrs Penzler showed the class that book. The point at which Muddy was in
the loo. And the most important question we need answering is: Was Bob Thompson anywhere near at the time?’

‘Bob Thompson?’ said Izzy. ‘Why? What’s he got to do with this? He isn’t even in our class.’

‘But did you or anyone else see him that afternoon?’ I said.

Izzy went quiet for a minute or two. ‘I think he did put his head around the door,’ said Izzy.

‘I never knew that!’ said Muddy.

‘He was delivering a message from Mrs McEwan,’ said Izzy. ‘But I can’t remember when that was.’

I turned to Muddy. ‘You missed Bob Thompson
and
Mrs Penzler talking about the book? How long were you in the loo for?’

Muddy went red in the face. ‘I got up late. I didn’t have time to go before I left home.’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘At least now we know Bob appeared while you were in the toilet, which was also when Mrs Penzler showed the class the book.’

‘Hang on,’ said Izzy. ‘I can’t be sure about exactly when he appeared. It might have been before Mrs Penzler showed us the book, or it might have been later on. I
honestly can’t remember.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘just run through what Mrs Penzler did. As exactly as you can.’

Izzy let out a slow breath. ‘Er, right . . . Mrs Penzler was talking about the new history topic. She said we’d be doing stuff about the 1950s . . . and, lemme think, the moon
landings . . .’

‘What were her exact words?’ I asked.

‘Good grief, I can’t remember that!’ said Izzy. ‘Well, not accurately.’

‘Approximately, then,’ I said. ‘As close as you can. Skip to when she showed you the book.’

‘She opened the drawer of her desk,’ said Izzy. ‘She took out the book and she walked around the desk to stand in front of us. She held the book up in one hand. She said . . .
it was something like . . . I just can’t recall the first bit, but she said something like, “This belonged to my father, who was also a teacher. He taught at a school in Dorset, on the
south coast. His father was a teacher, and his father before him. The book has no value in itself, none at all, but it’s very precious to me. In fact, it’s my most treasured possession.
I’m going to leave it on the shelf over there. You’re all free to take a look through it, but do please be careful with it. It will give you a feel for what lessons were like all those
years ago and gaining an insight like that is worth a great deal. So please treat this book with great respect.” And then she put it on one of the shelves by the door.’

‘Now think carefully,’ I said. ‘Did Bob Thompson appear just after that?’

‘Now I’ve gone over it again,’ said Izzy, ‘I think maybe he did. Maybe a minute later? We’d moved on to something else.’

‘Was the classroom door open?’ I said.

‘Er, yes, I think Muddy left it ajar,’ said Izzy.

I sat back against the pillows. ‘That’s it, then. We’ve pieced together what the two of you witnessed separately, and we’ve got an answer. I now know that Bob Thompson
had a motive to steal the book. I can see how he made a mistake and thought it was a very valuable item.’

‘How?’ said Muddy.

Have you worked it out too?

‘Bob Thompson was sent by Mrs McEwan to deliver a message to Mrs Penzler,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Izzy, ‘something to do with paperwork that was due to arrive, now I think about it.’

‘So off goes Bob to our classroom,’ I said. ‘He arrives in the corridor, outside the classroom, just as Mrs Penzler finishes talking about the book. Purely by chance, he hears
her as she gets to the bit where she says, “It will give you a feel for what lessons were like all those years ago, and gaining an insight like that is worth a great deal”.’

‘Or words to that effect,’ said Izzy. ‘I said I can’t be sure.’

‘Yes, or words to that effect,’ I said. ‘But the point is, he only hears the last part. He hears, “that is worth a great deal” and the bit that comes afterwards. He
thinks there’s now a very valuable old book sitting on those shelves.

‘So he waits a minute or two, out in the corridor. That’s in case anyone realises he’s overheard. He comes into the class and delivers his message and he probably takes a quick
look at the shelf too.
How can I get it?
he wonders to himself. He’s seen that the donations for the Winter Fayre are also on those shelves and that gives him an idea.

‘Enter Bob Thompson, Mr Nice Guy. He volunteers to help with the Winter Fayre.
I’ll go in there tomorrow,
he thinks,
and I’ll accidentally on purpose pick up the book
with the shirts and bric-a-brac.
The problem is, someone beats him to it. Whatsisface from Mr Nailshott’s class really
does
pick up the book, thinking it’s for the Fayre.
When Bob arrives, after lunch, the donations have gone, and he has to go away empty handed.

‘
But all is not lost
, he thinks.
I can retrieve the book from among the donations later today or – if I don’t have a chance to do that – at the Fayre
itself
. By the end of school today, he still hasn’t found it. So what does he do? He spends the whole fair carrying people’s bags for them. And quietly taking a peek inside when
they’re not looking. Exactly when and how he located the book, we don’t know. But he’d definitely found it by the end of the Fayre, because at that point he turned back into the
miserable, ill-tempered bully he normally is. He now has the book, safely under lock and key, probably, thinking it’s worth a small fortune.’

‘Right!’ cried Muddy. ‘First thing tomorrow, we go and talk to Mrs Penzler and she and the Head can have a quiet word with him.’

‘That won’t do any good,’ said Izzy. ‘We don’t have proof. Correct, Saxby?’

‘Correct,’ I agreed. ‘He could deny he had anything to do with the book and unless we could point to where he’s hidden it, which we can’t, then we’re stuck.
No, we need to be clever about this. We need
him
to produce it for
us
.’

‘How on earth do we do that?’ asked Muddy.

‘First things first,’ I said. ‘Izzy, could you check the online auction and second-hand book sites? See if Mrs Penzler’s book is listed anywhere.’

‘I’m ahead of you once again,’ said Izzy, with just a hint of a laugh. ‘I’ve been monitoring them since the book went missing. Nothing’s turned up.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘That means he’s opted for trying to sell the book as quietly as possible. Am I right in thinking Bob Thompson is on the school football team?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Muddy. ‘Why?’

‘It’s football practice after school tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Which gives us the perfect opportunity to spring our trap.’

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING,
I
WAS
feeling slightly better. However, I was still dripping snot all over the
place and
WHA-CHOOOOOOO
-ing as badly as ever, so I was off school again.

I waited all day for news. I watched that patch of sky outside my window growing brighter, then duller as the day wore on. I picked up half a dozen books, but I couldn’t stop my attention
wandering. I had a go at sorting out the hideous mess in my wardrobe, but I gave up almost as soon as I started.

It was just gone half past five in the afternoon when Muddy and Izzy arrived. They were almost bursting with excitement.

‘It worked?’ I asked.

‘It worked
perfectly
,’ said Muddy.

‘We told Mrs Penzler about your plan,’ said Izzy. ‘She came with us to Rogers and Rogers, straight after school, while Bob Thompson was still at football practice.’

‘How did you know he’d go there? And today?’ said Muddy.

‘He’d want to sell it as soon as possible,’ I said. ‘This afternoon was his first opportunity. Rogers and Rogers would have been shut by the time he got hold of the book
at the Winter Fayre yesterday. And where else would someone so eager to cash in go? Rogers and Rogers is the only second-hand bookdealer in town.’

‘You should have seen his face!’ said Izzy. ‘The three of us just came out from behind a bookshelf. He couldn’t believe his eyes!’

‘Mrs Penzler has her book back,’ said Muddy, ‘and Bob Thompson has an appointment with the Head.’

I slapped my hands together with glee. Which set off my cough. Which started me sneezing. Once I’d calmed down a bit, Izzy handed me a pocket-sized photo.

‘We thought you might like this,’ she said , smiling.

It showed Izzy, Muddy and Mrs Penzler standing beside the shop assistant at Rogers and Rogers. Mrs Penzler had her book in one hand and Bob Thompson’s collar in the other. He looked as if
he’d been smacked in the face with a nasty shock.

Mrs Penzler had signed the picture in marker pen. Just above her signature she’d written,
Thank you, Saxby.

I took a drawing pin and stuck the photo to the corkboard above my desk. Every time I looked at it, it made me laugh.

WHA-CHOOOOOOOOOO!

Case closed.