The Poisoned Arrow (3 page)

I unfolded the other sheet. It was slightly larger than the first, a printed list of twenty-two names, none of which I recognised. Five of them had an asterisk marked against them, and all
twenty-two were followed by a letter and a number.

‘Are these people from the special guest list for Friday’s performance?’ I said.

‘All of them,’ nodded Tom. ‘The whole list is about sixty names long. Why these twenty-two should have been picked out, I have no idea.’ He pointed to the letters and
numbers. ‘You see that? Some sort of code. I’ve been trying to make sense of it, but it seems random. B4, then against the next name there’s B28, then A2 . . . H16 . . . J7 . . .
I31 . . . Can you work out what it means?’

A definite possibility crossed my mind. ‘Since we know that all these people will be at the play on Friday night,’ I said, ‘then, yes, I think I’ve spotted what this code
means.’

Have you spotted it too?

‘I think this indicates the seats they’ll be sitting in,’ I said. ‘Row B, Seat 4, and so on.’

‘Ooh, of course!’ groaned Tom. ‘I should have realised.’

‘However,’ I said, ‘if these are seat numbers, then you’ve got a strange seating plan. These people must be dotted about all over the theatre. Aren’t you seating
all your special guests at the front?’

Tom almost sprang out of the chair. ‘That’s another of Morag’s crackpot decisions,’ he cried. ‘I heard her and Sir Gilbert talking about it the other day. The
guests
had
been allocated the seats at the front, but then Morag changed it. He was asking her why one of his friends had been plonked over by the toilets. She just got snotty with him and
told him her decision was final. Mad!’

Then he almost sprang out of the chair again. ‘There! That settles it! This is evidence! Morag must have made that list!’

‘No,’ I said patiently, ‘it
isn’t
evidence, and
anyone
could have made this list. The seating plan is hardly a secret, is it?’

‘Hmm. No.’

‘I still don’t see any connection with any actual
crime
,’ I continued.

‘You won’t be saying that in a minute!’ said Tom. ‘The other day, after rehearsals, I was putting the costumes away so I was a few minutes late leaving the theatre. As I
did so, I spotted Morag on the other side of the theatre’s car park. She was deep in conversation with a brutish-looking man, standing beside a shiny black Mercedes.’

‘Brutish-looking?’

‘He was built like a boulder and bald as one too. Even at a distance of about a hundred metres, I could see that half his nose was missing. And he had a huge scar down one cheek. He also
had a bodyguard in dark glasses standing behind him and the bodyguard was built like three boulders stuck on top of each other! I’ve never seen such an obvious villain!’

‘Believe me, Tom,’ I scoffed, ‘there’s no such thing as an obvious villain. Don’t judge by appearances.’

‘I’ve played many a villain on the stage,’ said Tom loftily, ‘so I know what I’m talking about. That man was a villain.’

I was about to remind him that real-life bad guys aren’t quite the same as the ones in TV cartoons, but then I thought of something more important to say.

‘Could you hear what they were talking about?’

‘Not from that distance, no. But I’m sure it was something relating to the theatre. Both of them kept looking over at it.’

‘Well, sorry, Tom,’ I said, puzzled. ‘I
still
don’t see any connection with any actual crime. What conclusion does all this point to?’

‘Oh, come on,’ scoffed Tom, ‘you’re the detective. Think about what’s happening on Friday evening. Add that to all the suspicious stuff I’ve told you about.
Can’t you see the obvious possibility?’

Suddenly, I could. A cold feeling slimed up my spine.

Can you see what crime Tom was predicting?

‘How many people are going to be in the theatre in total?’ I gasped.

‘Well, sixty-ish invited guests, plus anyone else who’s bought a ticket,’ said Tom. ‘The place seats over five hundred in all and because Sir Gilbert’s appearing,
it’s a sell-out.’

The cold feeling slimed up my spine all over again.

‘Someone could rob that entire theatre audience,’ I muttered in horror. ‘Turn up with a few heavies, block the exits. On Friday, that place will contain hundreds of people and
they’re all going to have money with them. Ladies dripping with pearl necklaces, you said. They’ll be sitting ducks. It’d be like an old fashioned stick-’em-up. Good grief,
it’d be a mass mugging!’

Tom went as pale as a slice of cheap bread. ‘Disaster! Calamity! And Morag’s up to her eyeballs in the whole despicable scheme! Do you think she’s hired a local gang or got
some bad guys in from somewhere else?’

‘Wait, wait, wait!’ I cried. ‘Hang on, be sensible. We still can’t be sure about
any
of this. All we’ve got are vague suspicions and theoretical
possibilities.’

‘But a robbery
is
a possibility,’ said Tom, ‘and you’ve got to admit these papers suggest that one
is
being planned.’

‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘Only maybe. You say it’s evidence. Well, if it is, it’s the thinnest evidence I’ve ever seen. But I ought to have a bit of a dig around.
Just in case. Can you get me into your next rehearsal? We don’t want to alert any villainous elements that might be around, so I could pretend to be interested in joining the Society,
something like that?’

‘No problem,’ said Tom.

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

I
N THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
,
the old-fashioned, stick-’em-up bank robbery has become almost impossible. Security
technology has become so good that the would-be thief has very little chance of getting away with anything like that any more.

So villains – serious, organised villains, I mean, not the grab-something-by-chance type – are becoming sneakier. Why not apply the principle of the traditional bank raid to new
targets? Theatres, cinemas, offices, anywhere people might gather in numbers. A raid on
The Poisoned Arrow
would end up looting cash, phones, jewellery, whatever people happened to have with them.

Disturbing thoughts like this kept spinning around in my mind from the moment I woke up the following day. And the more they kept on spinning, the more worried I became. I began to understand
why Tom had such an uneasy feeling about Friday’s performance.

The morning’s lessons were as painfully slow as an earwig pushing a brick up a hill. The voice of Mrs Penzler, our form teacher, seemed to slide into one long, droning sound, like the
distant honking of a ship’s horn.

At last it was lunch break and after collecting a tray of something which looked like it had already been eaten a couple of times (‘It’s vegetable stew,’ whispered the kid next
to me in the queue, and ‘Ohhh,’ I whispered back), I went to sit down next to my great friend Isobel ‘Izzy’ Moustique.

She was unwrapping the sandwiches in her packed lunch and flipping through a magazine. Izzy is St Egbert’s School’s number one Brain, as well as being the girliest girl you’re
ever likely to meet. If it’s information you need, head straight for Izzy.

‘No,’ she said, glancing up from her magazine.

‘I haven’t said anything yet,’ I cried.

‘You don’t need to,’ she said, turning a page. ‘You’ve got that look on your face, Saxby.’

‘What look?’ I said, innocently.

‘That look which says, “I’m stuck on a case and I need your help again”,’ she told me, trying to squash down a smile.

‘Am I really that predictable?’ I mumbled. ‘Am I really so transparent and easy-to-read? Does my face really betray my every innermost thought?’

‘Yes,’ replied Izzy.

‘Oh. Well, anyway, I’m stuck on a case and I need your help again.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I’ve got a load of science homework to finish. And so have you, come to think of it! We’ll both be in trouble if it doesn’t get
done.’

We chatted about school stuff for a minute or two, while I sniffed cautiously at the vegetable stew. I took the two pieces of paper Tom had given me out of my pocket and looked over them
again.

‘What are those?’ asked Izzy.

‘Oh, nothing really,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Just possible clues leading to a serious crime which might engulf around five hundred people at the end of this week. Anyway,
we’re both busy, as you say, so, er, I’ll see what I can find out for myself. Not a problem.’

I guessed it would be roughly thirty seconds before Izzy’s curiosity got the better of her. Twenty-six seconds later, after she’d glanced at the papers eight times, she finally
blurted, ‘OK, what do you need to know?’

I told her about Tom’s visit to my shed. Then I handed her the mysterious list of names.

‘What I’m particularly interested to know,’ I said, ‘is why these twenty-two names should be on a separate list like this, and also what the asterisks against these five
names might signify. Don’t worry about those letter-and-number codes, because I’ve worked out —’

‘They’re just seat numbers, obviously,’ said Izzy, examining the list.

‘Er, right, yeah,’ I said hurriedly. I finished the rest of my stew. It tasted better than it looked.

The bell went for afternoon lessons. Izzy pocketed the list and stood up.

‘If I’m late handing in my science homework,’ she said with mock annoyance, ‘I’m going to blame you.’

‘I knew you’d give in,’ I said grinning. ‘I can read you like a book.’

Once school was finished for the day, I caught up with Tom and we headed over to Rackham Road. Tom talked about the play – and about how brilliant he was in it –
non-stop
from the moment we left the school gates. By the time we arrived at the Turtle-Shell, my brain was beginning to boggle at the way one human mouth could produce so many words in so short a time.