those trendy machines
under her arm.’
‘Astonishing,’ said Dr Shroeder. ‘What motivated her was so feeble and shallow, and yet what motivated Nat was the strongest emotion in the world, a force powerful enough to
overcome his reason, his common sense, his rational thought.’
‘I am still in the room,’ muttered Nat.
‘Come on, mate,’ said Matt, patting Nat on the back. ‘We’ll all go over to my place. I’ve just got Star Trek on Blu-ray.’
He followed them out of the office, looking as miserable and bedraggled as a small furry animal that’s just fought its way out of a flushing toilet.
Dr Shroeder sighed. ‘You can’t choose who you love,’ he said.
The police officer arrived at Dr Shroeder’s office a couple of hours later, by which time I was back at my garden shed. She was able to confirm that Dr Shroeder’s fingerprints were
on the hard drive. (Thank goodness. If they’d turned out to be Deborah’s, I don’t know what I’d have done!)
Nat was reinstated on to the advanced mathematics course the following day, at about the same time as Deborah Ashworth was being questioned by the police. Once the situation at school was back
to normal, Mrs Hardyman started giving me extra dollops of vegetable stew whenever she saw me in the dinner queue. I’d much rather have had an extra dollop of the chocolate pudding, but I
guess she was just trying to be kind.
Meanwhile, back at my garden shed, I flopped into my Thinking Chair and vowed that I would never let my heart rule my head. Dr Shroeder had been absolutely right about Nat’s
motive.
And this is where we get back to the point I was making way back at the start of Chapter One. Remembering all the crime stories I’d read, I was reminded that Sherlock Holmes had one or two
things to say about love. Mostly rather grumpy things, I seem to recall. Emotions are funny things, certainly when it came to Nat Hardyman’s motive.
I simply hadn’t seen it because I was concentrating on my role as a detective, on staying logical. Sometimes, I said to myself, I guess you have to take account of the illogical and the
intuitive as well.
I jotted down some notes and sat in my Thinking Chair mulling over the strange and peculiar things that grown-ups do. It was only later on, as I placed my notes into my filing cabinet, that I
realised I still hadn't done my science homework.
Oh poo.
Case closed.
C ASE F ILE T WENTY-ONE :
T HE F INAL P ROBLEM
C HAPTER
O NE
I MEANT TO GET MY science homework done on time. I really did. But I got distracted.
I was in my garden shed, or my Crime HQ as I prefer to call it. I had my science homework open on the desk. I’d read through the questions carefully and I had my pen poised over my
workbook, ready to begin.
And then there was a knock at the shed door.
For the tiniest fraction of a nano-second, I thought about pretending I wasn’t in. This science homework needed doing and it needed doing right now. But when you’re a brilliant
schoolboy detective, like me, a simple knock on the door can mean the start of something big .
Hmm. Science homework, or the possibility of an important new investigation? Hmmmmmm . . .
‘Come in!’ I cried.
Two people entered the shed. The first was my great friend Isobel ‘Izzy’ Moustique, that well-known genius and St Egbert’s School’s Commander-in-Chief of All Research
Data, whose talent for finding information has played a vital part in many of my case files.
The second was Jeremy Sweetly, a boy who’s also in my class at school, and who happens to live across the street from me. He’s a nice guy and we all like him, but he’s a bit .
. . weeeeeell, I don’t want to sound unkind, but . . . he’s a bit weedy. A bit wet. A bit of a drip. (You may remember him from my earlier case file The Mark of the Purple
Homework .) I was relieved to see that he hadn’t brought his horrible great slobbery dog Humphrey with him. I hate that dog.
‘Hello,
under her arm.’
‘Astonishing,’ said Dr Shroeder. ‘What motivated her was so feeble and shallow, and yet what motivated Nat was the strongest emotion in the world, a force powerful enough to
overcome his reason, his common sense, his rational thought.’
‘I am still in the room,’ muttered Nat.
‘Come on, mate,’ said Matt, patting Nat on the back. ‘We’ll all go over to my place. I’ve just got Star Trek on Blu-ray.’
He followed them out of the office, looking as miserable and bedraggled as a small furry animal that’s just fought its way out of a flushing toilet.
Dr Shroeder sighed. ‘You can’t choose who you love,’ he said.
The police officer arrived at Dr Shroeder’s office a couple of hours later, by which time I was back at my garden shed. She was able to confirm that Dr Shroeder’s fingerprints were
on the hard drive. (Thank goodness. If they’d turned out to be Deborah’s, I don’t know what I’d have done!)
Nat was reinstated on to the advanced mathematics course the following day, at about the same time as Deborah Ashworth was being questioned by the police. Once the situation at school was back
to normal, Mrs Hardyman started giving me extra dollops of vegetable stew whenever she saw me in the dinner queue. I’d much rather have had an extra dollop of the chocolate pudding, but I
guess she was just trying to be kind.
Meanwhile, back at my garden shed, I flopped into my Thinking Chair and vowed that I would never let my heart rule my head. Dr Shroeder had been absolutely right about Nat’s
motive.
And this is where we get back to the point I was making way back at the start of Chapter One. Remembering all the crime stories I’d read, I was reminded that Sherlock Holmes had one or two
things to say about love. Mostly rather grumpy things, I seem to recall. Emotions are funny things, certainly when it came to Nat Hardyman’s motive.
I simply hadn’t seen it because I was concentrating on my role as a detective, on staying logical. Sometimes, I said to myself, I guess you have to take account of the illogical and the
intuitive as well.
I jotted down some notes and sat in my Thinking Chair mulling over the strange and peculiar things that grown-ups do. It was only later on, as I placed my notes into my filing cabinet, that I
realised I still hadn't done my science homework.
Oh poo.
Case closed.
C ASE F ILE T WENTY-ONE :
T HE F INAL P ROBLEM
C HAPTER
O NE
I MEANT TO GET MY science homework done on time. I really did. But I got distracted.
I was in my garden shed, or my Crime HQ as I prefer to call it. I had my science homework open on the desk. I’d read through the questions carefully and I had my pen poised over my
workbook, ready to begin.
And then there was a knock at the shed door.
For the tiniest fraction of a nano-second, I thought about pretending I wasn’t in. This science homework needed doing and it needed doing right now. But when you’re a brilliant
schoolboy detective, like me, a simple knock on the door can mean the start of something big .
Hmm. Science homework, or the possibility of an important new investigation? Hmmmmmm . . .
‘Come in!’ I cried.
Two people entered the shed. The first was my great friend Isobel ‘Izzy’ Moustique, that well-known genius and St Egbert’s School’s Commander-in-Chief of All Research
Data, whose talent for finding information has played a vital part in many of my case files.
The second was Jeremy Sweetly, a boy who’s also in my class at school, and who happens to live across the street from me. He’s a nice guy and we all like him, but he’s a bit .
. . weeeeeell, I don’t want to sound unkind, but . . . he’s a bit weedy. A bit wet. A bit of a drip. (You may remember him from my earlier case file The Mark of the Purple
Homework .) I was relieved to see that he hadn’t brought his horrible great slobbery dog Humphrey with him. I hate that dog.
‘Hello,
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