The Poisoned Arrow (10 page)

I emerged from the maths building a few minutes later. What I expected to see was Muddy sitting quietly, on his own, maybe taking a snap or two with the Whitehouse Snoop-o-Zoom
Mark 2. What I actually saw was Muddy in the centre of a small crowd of students, laughing and joking and demonstrating the Whitehouse Snoop-o-Zoom Mark 2 to anyone who was interested.

I groaned to myself. I brushed the biscuit crumbs off my pullover and marched across to him.

‘Muddyyyy,’ I moaned. ‘I said we had to be incognito!’

‘Oh, hi Saxby,’ he said. ‘Hey, everyone, this is Saxby, the brilliant schoolboy detective I was telling you all about.’

‘Hello Saxby!’ cried everyone. There were about fifteen of them.

I slapped a hand to my forehead. ‘Muddyyyyyyyy!’

‘Most of these guys are on Nat’s course,’ said Muddy. ‘Aren’t you, guys?’

‘Yeah,’ nodded all the students.

‘Pity he turned out to be a crook,’ said one of them.

‘When Nerds Go Bad . . .’ said another in a doom-laden voice. That got a big laugh.

‘I think it’s awful what he did,’ said a third. ‘Dr Shroeder’s been very good to all of us and look how Nat repays him.’

This third student, one of several girls in the group, caught my attention for two reasons. The first reason was that she was carrying one of those trendy laptops, the Rhubarb Crumble Thingummy
400, or whatever it was called. The second reason was that she was clearly a trendsetter in more than simply her choice of computer. I don’t know how to describe fashions and similar girly
stuff, but this student was obviously one who other girls imitated and who all the boys thought was cool. She was sleek and confident, all lips and hair.

‘You’re right, Debs,’ said another girl. ‘I hope they throw the book at that Nat.’

With calls of ‘Bye, Muddy’ and ‘See ya, Muddy’ and ‘I’ll bring that bike over for you to fix later, Muddy’, the students went on their various ways.

‘Y’know,’ whispered Muddy to me, waving them goodbye, ‘not one of that lot goes to parties all the time,
or
makes a lot of noise at three in the morning. Not
one
! I’m very disappointed.’

I watched the trendsetter disappear around a corner. ‘There,’ I said, mostly to myself, ‘is a very, very pretty girl.’

Muddy snorted and nudged me in the ribs. ‘Saxby’s in luuuurve!’

‘Shut yer face,’ I grumbled. ‘I was merely making an observation.’

‘Well, you’re not the only one,’ said Muddy. ‘Nat’s in love with her too. Those students told me.’

‘Eh?’ I was about to moan at Muddy for talking to people about the case – exactly what I’d told him
not
to do. Then I realised he’d come across an
interesting fact. So I shut up. Instead I said, ‘Nat has a girlfriend?’

‘Oh no, quite the opposite,’ said Muddy. ‘That girl is called Deborah Ashworth. She’s Miss Popularity around here. Nat’s madly in love with her, but she won’t
go out with him.’

‘Why not?’

‘She thinks he’s a nerd,’ said Muddy. ‘Simple as that. He’s not cool enough. I don’t understand this yukky “love” business. I’m sticking to
bike repairs when I grow up, I’m tellin’ you.’

‘Everyone knows Nat likes Deborah, then?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Muddy. ‘He’s asked her out on dates several times, but she’s always said no. She’s also one of the best students on the advanced mathematics
course.’

‘Like Nat,’ I said.

‘Like Nat,’ confirmed Muddy. ‘He usually takes the top slot in tests and stuff, but she’s very close behind him. And did you notice something?’

‘What?’

‘Did you see what she was carrying?’

‘One of those computers,’ I said. ‘Like the one that was stolen. So?’

‘So, there’s a suspect for you!’

I sighed. ‘No. She’s had that laptop for a while. Definitely since before the theft.’

‘How can you possibly know that?’ gasped Muddy. ‘You’ve never even seen her before.’

Look back at my chat with Dr Shroeder. Can you spot how I knew?

It was taking a look at Deborah Ashworth’s computer that started Dr Shroeder thinking about buying one himself.

‘I expect Deborah Ashworth is the sort of person who bought one of those laptops the day they arrived in the shops,’ I said.

‘She must be a better technician than me, you know,’ said Muddy. ‘One of those girls saw her accidentally spill nail polish into that laptop at the weekend and she’s got
it running fine now. I couldn’t do that.’

‘Forget nail polish,’ I said. ‘Tell me if there’s anything else you’ve discovered.’

‘Yes, there is one other thing,’ said Muddy. ‘Apparently, it’s not unusual for students to call on Dr Shroeder before lessons start in the morning. He’s told them
that’s the best time to find him in his office.’

‘So,’ I said, holding my chin in a detective-y way, ‘the thief could well have been someone who called to see Dr Shroeder about some routine matter, but saw Dr Shroeder
wasn’t in his office for a few minutes, and so stole the computer on a kind of spur-of-the-moment impulse.’

‘Er, yeah, that’s just what I thought,’ said Muddy. ‘But there’s more. Those students said it wasn’t unusual for people to call on their tutor at that time of
day, but it
was
unusual for them not to be seen.’

‘How so?’ I asked.

‘Because there’s usually more than one student wanting to see Dr Shroeder. The thief must have taken a huge risk, walking away with that laptop, because most days there’d be
another
student coming along any minute.’

‘That’s very interesting,’ I muttered. I hopped to my feet. ‘Right, now I must track down Nat’s three friends . . .’ I flipped back through my notebook
‘. . . Matt, Jack and Anil. Good thing they weren’t here with those others, I’d have been really mad. It’s very important I get to speak to them separately
and
that
they don’t realise I’m investigating on behalf of Nat’s mum. Very, very important.’

‘Oh,’ said Muddy quietly, pulling a whoops-a-daisy face.

I glared at him. He went red.

‘What do you mean, “Oh”?’ I murmured, eyes narrowed.

At that moment, three male students appeared. They walked around the corner of the maths building and headed directly for us.

‘Sorry,’ said Muddy with a sheepish grin. ‘I got their numbers off my new student friends. I told them you wanted to speak to them urgently.’

‘Muddyyyyyyyyyy!’ I wailed.

All three of Nat’s friends looked exactly like Nat: carefully combed side partings, trousers slightly too short, glasses, plain zip-up cardigans. Was there some sort of geek uniform in
this place?

‘Are you the detective?’ asked the tallest one, looking at Muddy.

‘That would be me,’ I said.

‘I’m Matt,’ said Matt.

‘I’m Jack,’ said Jack.

‘I’m Anil,’ said Anil.

‘We’ve only come down here to say we’re not going to talk to you,’ said Matt. ‘We’ve said all we’ve got to say, and we’ve said it to the cops.
Goodbye.’

The three of them swung on their heels and marched away. I chased after them, Muddy scuttling along behind me. Matt, Jack and Anil were heading for the car park. I wrestled Muddy’s
recorder from my pocket and switched it on. This is what I managed to record:

Muddy and I watched Matt’s battered old Ford chug and clunk its way out of the car park. I rubbed at my leg, wincing.

‘Well, that didn’t tell us anything,’ sighed Muddy.

‘Wrong,’ I said. ‘It proves they’re lying. They’ve said they saw Nat coming out of Dr Shroeder’s office with the laptop in his hands, yes?’

‘Yes,’ said Muddy.

‘Well, they’re lying.’

‘How can you be sure?’ said Muddy.

It was all a question of where they said they were, and the layout of that corridor outside Dr Shroeder’s office. Can you work out why they must have lied?

(It’s a tricky one – think carefully!)

They said they were sitting on the benches, in the plaza, outside the maths building. They said they saw, through the window, Nat come out of Dr Shroeder’s office, and
that Nat had the laptop with him.

But that can’t be what they saw. Remember the layout of the corridor? Those windows that looked out on to the plaza? They were above those lockers and cupboards. They started at a level
above my head, at an adult’s shoulder level.

If someone was outside, looking in, all they could have seen coming out of Dr Shroeder’s office was someone’s head. (And if they were sitting on those benches, they might not have
been able to see even that much – they might have only been able to see the top edge of the office door as it opened and closed!)

There was no way those three students could have seen anything Nat was or wasn’t carrying. Well, unless he swung it around over his head. And that didn’t seem very likely. So they
had to be lying.

‘And if they lied about that,’ I said to Muddy, as we waited for the bus home, ‘they probably lied about it all.’

‘But that means they’re deliberately trying to get their friend into trouble,’ said Muddy. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Nat’s deliberately trying to get
himself
into trouble,’ I said. ‘None of it makes sense.’

Little did I know, the answer to the entire problem would suddenly occur to me only a couple of hours later. In the meantime, I took out my notebook and jotted down a few thoughts.