The Poisoned Arrow (5 page)

She replied:
Have solved case.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in her glittery, fluffy, spangly, multi-coloured, multi-beanbag room. I was also out of breath because I’d run the last hundred metres or so.

‘You are so unfit, Saxby,’ she tutted, swivelling around on the chair beside her computer.

‘The case,’ I wheezed. ‘What have you found?’

‘Honestly,’ she said, collecting up a handful of printouts, ‘if you don’t start getting more exercise you’re going to start storing up problems for when
you’re older.’

‘The
case
?’ I gasped.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Good thing I decided to help out on this one. That list of names you gave me has sorted out the whole thing. After I’d done some initial research, I had
an idea and showed the list to my mum. It turns out that she already knows who most of these people are and had lots of useful information.’ (Izzy’s mum was a sharply-suited executive,
the sort of business woman who has two secretaries and a really smart briefcase. You may remember her from a couple of my earlier case files.)

‘OK, whatcha got?’ I asked.

Izzy turned the list so that I could see the names. ‘Seventeen of these people are likely to be, by most estimates, the seventeen wealthiest people in this area. You’ve got the
owners of six large companies in the middle of town, the regional directors of another four international companies, one retired professional footballer, two guys who create office software, a
property developer, the man who invented the self-fastening shoelace and two old ladies who just happen to have a heck of a lot of money.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘You never know who lives just around the corner, do you?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Izzy. ‘By far the richest person is the property developer. This name here – Jason Dreasdale. He buys land and old buildings, puts up new
buildings and sells them on. It’s thought his fortune runs into several million pounds.’

‘Wow,’ I said again. ‘He could fund saving the Turtle-Shell all by himself.’ Something vague stirred at the back of my memory, but I brushed it aside because I wanted to
find out what else Izzy had discovered.

‘What about the other five names on the list?’ I asked. ‘The ones marked with asterisks?’

‘They are, going from top to bottom,’ said Izzy, pointing a finger down the list, ‘the mayor, the leader of the town council, a member of parliament, another member of
parliament who happens to be in charge of town councils and the council’s head of planning.’

‘What does a head of planning do?’ I asked.

‘He authorises who gets to build what and where all over town,’ said Izzy.

‘You’ve done a great job, Izzy, as always,’ I said, ‘but, umm, I don’t quite see how this information solves the case.’

Izzy handed me back the list. ‘It’s very simple,’ she said. ‘There
is
no case.’

‘Huh?’

‘All those doubts you had about Tom’s suspicions? You were right first time. There’s nothing going on, no robbery being planned, nothing. You and Tom are reading far too much
into far too little.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘A couple of Christmases ago, my mum organised a big charity event for her office. Similar kind of thing, but a posh dinner and ballroom dancing rather than a play. And guess what? She
wrote down a list almost identical to this one. Well, as far as these first seventeen go, anyway. Why? Tomake sure that all the most minted guests donated the most money. She even pinpointed them
on her seating plan, so her helpers would know where to rattle their collection tins! If the director of this play . . . whatsername?’

‘Morag Wellington-Barnes,’ I said.

‘If she’s compiled this list,’ said Izzy, ‘it will be to give to Sir Gilbert Smudge, so that he knows who he mustn’t miss when he’s out there gathering
donations. Saxby, this is all entirely innocent. Morag has every reason to have a list like this in her pocket.’

‘You really think so?’ I said quietly.

‘Absolutely,’ said Izzy. ‘You and Tom are barking up the wrong tree.’

A thought occurred to me. ‘Wa it! What about that plan Morag drew? The one showing the entrances and exits to the theatre?’

‘When my mum organised her charity event,’ continued Izzy, ‘she drew a plan exactly the same. Not of the Rackham Road theatre, of course – a plan of the hotel where they
were going to hold the event.’

‘Eh? Why?’

‘You wouldn’t believe the forms that have to be filled in if you want to hold a public event,’ Izzy replied. ‘The Turtle-Shell is like any other venue – it has to
have a licence to put on shows. Several of the official forms that have to be sent in are about Health and Safety regulations. Morag will have had to show the authorities that the theatre has
proper fire exits, access for emergency vehicles and all that. I bet you didn’t know about any of that, did you?’

‘Er, no,’ I admitted.

‘Actually, neither did I, not until Mum mentioned it. But once again it shows that Morag isn’t planning a robbery of any kind, in any way, at any time.’

I had to admit what Izzy was saying made sense. I folded the list up again and put it in my pocket.

‘Now then,’ said Izzy, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to get that science homework done. And so have you.’

As I walked home, I felt more confused than a hedgehog in a hairbrush factory. I also felt very relieved. It seemed that, just for once, my worst fears wouldn’t come true.

Even so, I couldn’t help also feeling a certain . . . hmm, I’m not sure what you’d call it. Worry? Nervousness? Something small and elusive was still nagging away in the back
of my mind.

So, had I simply misinterpreted Morag Wellington-Barnes’s apparently strange decisions (the keeping on of the house lights, the ditching of the play’s minor characters, etc)? Was it
all merely a question of her doing things her way?

Technically, I still had a motive for Sir Gilbert to plan a robbery. However, once I took everything else that might raise suspicion out of the picture (the plan, the list, the odd decisions),
it left me with absolutely no reason to suspect Sir Gilbert at all. Or anyone else, for that matter.

But even so . . .

I couldn’t help thinking about those other five names, the ones marked with an asterisk. I could see why those people might be on the overall guest list, but why were they on this
special
list, this list which otherwise only included those seventeen names? If Morag had compiled that list for Sir Gilbert’s benefit, as Izzy had suggested, then why had she added
these other five? And why mark them separately?

In the end, I had to tell myself to stop letting this whole business prey on my mind! There was no evidence that anything sinister was going on. None at all. I could relax. I could let it go. I
could move on to other things. Hey, I could even get my science homework done!

Little did I know . . .

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
,
AT SCHOOL
,
I explained Izzy’s findings to Tom. I didn’t mention the
lingering doubts that were still hanging around in my head, like sullen teenagers on a street corner.

‘Hmmm, I dunno,’ said Tom. ‘I still have lingering doubts.’

‘Well, I haven’t,’ I lied. ‘I think we can safely say that this is a case I can label
The Adventure of the No Case After All
.’

‘Oh well,’ sighed Tom. ‘At least it gives me a chance to concentrate on the play. I’ve got some radical and very exciting ideas for the battle scene. I’m sure
Morag will stick her nose up at them, still, I can but try.’

At that, he swanned off to geography. Tom had given me a ticket to Friday’s performance (each member of the cast was allocated a few freebies), and by the time Friday arrived I was really
looking forward to it.

I arrived at the Turtle-Shell in plenty of time so that I could pop backstage and wish Tom and everyone else good luck.

‘Agh!’ squealed Tom, already in his medieval peasant costume and plastered in stage make-up. ‘You can’t say that! It’s bad luck! We actors are very superstitious!
You mustn’t say the G-L phrase. You must say “Break a leg”.’

‘Really? I’m supposed to wish you’d break a leg?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘Quickly!’

‘OK. Break a leg.’

‘Thanks. Much appreciated. By the way, Morag actually
liked
my radical and very exciting ideas for the battle scene. Everyone’s going to love it.’

I gave him a quick thumbs-up and went back to the main auditorium. The performance was due to begin in a few minutes.

It turned out that my seat was next to Tom’s parents. I’d met them before, during the case of
The Stranger in the Mirror
.

‘Hello Saxby,’ they said with a cheery nod.

Tom’s mum was a slight, plainly-dressed woman. If Tom hadn’t told me, I’d never have guessed that she could speak fluent Chinese and was a fully qualified plumber.

Tom’s dad was a chunky man with a moustache which couldn’t make up its mind which direction to grow in. He worked for the local council, in charge of the drains. There was a faint
whiff of wet earth about him.

‘I expect there’s quite a few people here tonight you know from work,’ I said to him. ‘The guest list includes several council officials.’

‘Yes,’ said Tom’s dad. ‘I’ve been seeing faces I know since I got here. One or two surprises, too, I must say.’

‘Surprises?’ I said. ‘Why’s that?’

Tom’s dad nodded in the direction of a weasly little man sitting a couple of rows in front of us. ‘That’s our head of planning. He wouldn’t normally get invited to a
staff party, let alone a charity do. He’s a miserable little skunk.’

Head of planning? Ah, yes, one of the asterisked names Izzy had told me about back in Chapter Five.

‘Hmm,’ I pondered. ‘Who’s the other surprise you mentioned?’

‘Oh, Jason Dreasdale,’ said Tom’s dad, pointing over his shoulder at chest level so it couldn’t be seen from behind. ‘The only person I know who’s even more
poisonous than our head of planning.’

Dreasdale, the property developer, was sitting beside one of the aisles, several rows behind me. He reminded me of a bulldog: he was broad and bald, with an enormous mouth and limbs which looked
like they were designed for levering tree trunks out of the ground. His nose looked like it had lost a fight with a lawnmower, and down his right cheek – from eye to chin – was a
creased and livid scar.

He was so wide, he kept elbowing the woman sitting next to him in the ribs. He was ignoring her protests. The look on his face was a mixture of impatience, simmering temper and more
impatience.

My stomach suddenly felt as if it was dropping towards the centre of the earth.

Of course!
Why hadn’t I realised before?

I knew more about Jason Dreasdale than Izzy had told me. I knew there was a direct link between Jason Dreasdale and Tom’s first suspicions about Morag!

Have you spotted it?

That scar. That nose. It was
Dreasdale
who Tom had seen talking to Morag in the theatre car park! Dreasdale was the mysterious man Tom had called an ‘obvious
villain’. So . . .

Was Izzy wrong about there being no case?

Was something going on here after all?

Quickly, I turned back to Tom’s dad. ‘Why is it surprising to see Jason Dreasdale here? Has he got some connection with this place?’

‘Connection?’ said Tom’s dad. ‘No, not at all, not unless you count the Dreasdale Tower.’

‘The Dreasdale Tower?’

‘The huge block of flats he wants to build on this site. It’s Jason Dreasdale who wants to bulldoze this theatre.’

‘
W-W-What?
’ I spluttered.

‘Oh yeah, he’s been trying to buy it for years, but the theatre people have always just about scraped together the rent in time, so the council have never allowed him to get his
greedy mitts on it. There’s no love lost between the council and Jason Dreasdale, that’s for sure. That’s why I’m surprised to see him here. He’s not exactly a fan of
this place. Oh well, I guess whoever invited the likes of Dreasdale and our head of planning had their reasons.’

Ideas were beginning to stir in the dusty storage cupboard tucked away under the stairs at the back of my brain. Tom’s dad leaned closer to me to whisper. I think that smell of wet soil
was coming from his coat.

‘Between you and me, Saxby,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve heard some nasty things about Jason Dreasdale. It’s said that he’s resorted to all kinds of dirty tricks to
make his millions. Sabotaged rivals, threatened people, all sorts of ugly stuff. I’m surprised you’ve never come across him before, you being a detective. Anyway, I’m glad
tonight’s fund-raiser looks like it’ll go well. It’d be a crime to bulldoze this place.’

At that moment, a fanfare sounded. The stage curtains slowly parted and the play began. Tom (as Wilbert the peasant boy) and half a dozen others were in the middle of a banquet. Tom had the
first line.

‘’Tis evil work afoot, my lords, when the Baron doth plot to seize the throne from our noble King Lionel!’