Curse of the Ancient Mask Read online

  ‘People only want the most useful gadgets,’ said Keith Bletch, 37, of the Shopping Statistics Survey, which revealed their findings on the electronics industry today.

  ‘Nobody wants junk that doesn’t work after five minutes or that is not eco-friendly,’ he added.

  Companies like Microspek, Electro-World and PosiSpark are facing a bleak future, unless they can create new products which suit today’s needs.

  ‘We’re sure we’ll pull through,’ said Bill Plum, boss of Microspek. ‘My lab team are second to none!’

  ITEM 2: Print-out of www.PosiSpark.co.uk, from the What We Do section.

  http://www.PosiSpark.co.uk/whatwedo

  What We Do

  PosiSpark Inc. is the world’s most exciting and dynamic company in the field of electronics. Our products define simplicity and usefulness in the 21st century. Some examples of our brand new designs include:

  PosiSpark MP25 Projection ModulesTM:

  A range of hand-held devices for a truly portable cinema experience. Load up photos, movies and TV programmes, then project them on to a blank wall like a flashlight. [Blank wall, darkened room and good eyesight required.]

  PosiSpark Hidden Sound SystemsTM:

  A range of metal plates which can be built into furniture, to act as either speakers or microphones. Listen to music through your wardrobe, or talk on your mobile phone using your coffee table. [Super-long-life ‘Ultra-power’ PosiSpark battery packTM with 2-year guarantee required, furniture not included.]

  PosiSpark Pre-Boil KettlesTM:

  A range of kitchen kettles which switch themselves on the moment you think about having a cup of tea. Simply wear the PosiSpark Brainwave Hat at all times, and as soon as you think about tea, the hat transmits your desire to the kettle. [Water and electricity supply required, PosiSpark Brainwave HatTM sold separately.]

  ITEM 3: Article from Electronics Industry Today magazine, dated eight months ago.

  COMPETITION WINNERS

  We've had a flood of entries for our Me and My Interesting Collection picture competition, so a big thank you to all twelve of you! We printed the six finalists in the last issue, and our readers' votes have now picked the winners!

  First prize

  (a T852R circuit board):

  Miss Daphne Spottswood

  Integrated Keyboards Ltd

  For her photo of her office, with her enormous collection of cake tins.

  Second prize

  (a selection of interface cables):

  Mr P L Smith

  The Electrical Spare Parts Supply Co. For his picture of himself surrounded by his collection of postcards from British seaside resorts.

  Third prize

  (Electronics Industry Today subscription):

  Mr Kenneth Winchester

  Microspek Electronics

  For his photo of his busy study at home, featuring his collection of knick-knacks from around the world.

  I think this fabulous competition has proved once and for all that the electronics industry is not at all boring.

  ITEM 4: Print-out of the personal blog of Dr Hans Upp, tutor in applied electronics at the University School of Colleges.

  http://www.blogplace.com/fascinatinglifeofdrhansupp

  March 7

  Arrived Tokyo for fascinating conference, ‘Electronics: Perspectives In Sales And Function’. Hotel has lost my suitcase.

  March 8

  Conference begins. A lot to pack into two days! Met a number of old friends, including Daphne Spottswood, Kenneth Winchester, and the team from the labs at PosiSpark. Hardly time to talk, so much to pack in. Hotel can’t find my suitcase.

  March 9

  Conference over-runs until late. Everyone flying home soon. Winchester frantic to find quality souvenir of Japan before flight. PosiSpark gang suggest a shop to him. Nice how business rivals can get along so well. Hotel have found and destroyed suitcase, thinking it had been abandoned.

  March 10

  Arrive home. Smell awful due to lack of clean clothes. Have a bath and buy new suitcase.

  At eight p.m. the mystery was solved! Now I knew it all! I had worked out exactly what had been going on all this time. Have you?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I PHONED JASMINE AND ASKED her to arrange a gathering in her living room after school on Friday. I told her that the mystery was solved and that her dad’s job was safe.

  She asked me why I couldn’t just tell her all about it on the phone right now. I explained that all great detectives gather everyone together at the end to reveal the truth.

  So, after school, five people assembled at the Winchesters’ house: me, Jasmine, Mr Winchester, Mrs Winchester and Bill Plum, the boss at Microspek. Bill Plum was so short and round that he was having trouble sitting on the Winchesters’ sofa. His head, with a face which seemed to be permanently enraged, looked like a cherry plonked on top of a sponge cake.

  ‘What’s wrong with this sofa, Winchester?’ he mumbled.

  Mrs Winchester was busy rubbing the oil stains off her hands with a damp cloth. Mr Winchester simply sat with his head in his hands, looking doomed. Jasmine kept looking at me with an expression on her face that said, ‘Why have you brought a bucket of water with you?’

  If I’d been one of those detectives in my dad’s crime novels, I would have been standing in front of a roaring log fire, while thunder and lightning stormed away outside a country mansion (because that’s what they always seem to do). However, in reality, we weren’t anywhere near a country mansion. So I had to stand in front of the Winchesters’ unlit gas fire instead.

  The bucket of water which was beside me was there for a very important reason. Meanwhile, I picked up the mask from the coffee table in front of me.

  I cleared my throat noisily. Everyone fell silent.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  Now I was standing up in front of them all, I suddenly realised I’d never actually done this before. I’d read scenes like this plenty of times, but I’d never had to be in one before. So, I made it up as I went along.

  ‘I’ll make one thing clear right now,’ I said. ‘This mask is not cursed.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ mumbled Mr Winchester.

  ‘This mask,’ I continued, ‘is not an antique, either. But it is this mask which has been leaking information to PosiSpark.’

  ‘What?’ spluttered Bill Plum. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I mean it,’ I said. ‘All the information that PosiSpark has stolen got to them through this mask.’

  ‘Because it’s cursed,’ muttered Mr Winchester.

  ‘No,’ I said patiently. ‘Because PosiSpark made it themselves.’ I held up the cutting from The Daily Shout. ‘We know that the electronics industry is going through hard times. New ideas are the key to success. PosiSpark would love to get their hands on Mr Winchester’s brilliant ideas for Microspek. They have a clear motive for stealing them.’

  I held up a pointed finger to make sure they were paying attention here. ‘However! PosiSpark know they can’t place bugs, or spies in the Microspek lab, without being discovered. Even this house has been checked.’

  ‘Correct!’ barked Bill Plum. ‘I won’t be fooled by nonsense like that!’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘So. What can PosiSpark do?’

  ‘Nothing!’ cried Bill Plum.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘They can read Electronics Industry Today magazine.’ I held up the article about competition winners. ‘Mr Winchester likes to think that his business meetings in his study are a big secret. But in fact, the whole world knows about them.’

  Now it was Mr Winchester’s turn to splutter ‘What?’

  ‘You see,’ I said, ‘printed in Electronics Industry Today magazine was a picture of everything in Mr Winchester’s study. He sent it in as his entry in an extremely boring picture competition. A picture of his whole study – shelves, chairs, the lot. Think about it. I took one look at that study, and I deduced that those meetings took place there. The bad guys at PosiSpark c
ould have done exactly the same. They could look at the picture, see the contents of the study, and know that Mr Winchester held meetings there.’

  ‘And so they made that mask?’ said Jasmine. ‘I don’t see the connection, if the mask isn’t bugged.’

  ‘Microspek was wrong. It is bugged, sort of,’ I said. ‘But not in any way you’d normally think. That’s why they completely missed it. The whole mask works like a microphone.’

  I held up the print-out of PosiSpark’s website. ‘As soon as I found out about these PosiSpark Hidden Sound Systems, it became obvious. Notice how these systems need plenty of power. If they were going to listen in on Mr Winchester’s meetings, they’d need a very, very good power supply, one that would last for months, maybe even years. The mask is made of a light wood. But it’s heavy. The difference? Batteries! Super-long-life “Ultra-power” PosiSpark battery packs, built inside the mask, completely undetectable unless you tear the mask apart.’

  Jasmine was staring at me slightly boggle-eyed. The rest of them were staring at me slightly boggle-eyed too.

  ‘But how did PosiSpark expect to get that mask into my dad’s study?’ said Jasmine. ‘He just bought it in a shop.’

  ‘Ah, but not any shop,’ I said. This time, I pointed to the print-out of Dr Hans Upp’s blog. ‘It was partly luck. From the magazine article, PosiSpark knew that Mr Winchester buys souvenirs when he travels, and from the photo they knew what kind of thing he liked. They knew he was going to Japan. They made the mask, and then what they needed to do was get him to buy it!’

  ‘Couldn’t they have just given it to him?’ said Jasmine. ‘As a present or something?’

  ‘They could, yes,’ I agreed. ‘But think how suspicious that would look. PosiSpark give him a pressie, then PosiSpark start getting hold of his ideas. You’d spot a connection at once. No, they had to make your dad think he was choosing it, not the other way around. And this was where they had a stroke of luck. Time at the conference was very short. Mr Winchester made it clear that he wanted to go and get a souvenir quickly, before everyone had to fly home. So what do those lovely, helpful guys from PosiSpark do? They tell him where there’s a nearby shop. They tell him.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jasmine, quietly, a smile spreading across her face. ‘All they had to do was place the mask, bribe the shopkeeper to tell Dad all about a curse, and bingo.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Your dad buys the mask, brings it home, starts having some bad luck, remembers the curse, normal sensible attitude to curses goes out of the window, can’t make the connection with PosiSpark, and so on. You know, that might explain why the mask wasn’t accurately Japanese. PosiSpark couldn’t be sure they’d get it into your dad’s hands on that trip. They might have had to wait for the next one, somewhere else, so they might have made the mask fairly general-looking, to fit into several possible overseas locations.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ said Jasmine, nodding.

  ‘It makes no sense at all!’ spluttered Bill Plum. ‘A devious, underhand, nasty little scheme like that? The explanation’s much more simple. Winchester here is selling secrets to PosiSpark! I’ve had enough nonsense. Winchester, you’re suspended!’

  ‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘What if I could prove that the mask is one giant microphone? Would that convince you? I’m going to switch it off, by dropping it into this bucket of water. If I’m wrong, then nothing will happen. If I’m right, then the batteries inside will short circuit, and there’ll be a spark.’

  I picked up the mask and held it over the bucket. There was absolute silence in the room. A stab of nerves hit me. IF I’m right . . .

  I let the mask go. It plopped into the water. Instantly, there was a flash, a sharp cracking sound, and a smell like burnt toast.

  ‘Ah,’ said Bill Plum. ‘Winchester, you’re not suspended after all. I’m going to call the police.’

  ‘I should be quick,’ I said. ‘PosiSpark will have just overheard everything I said. They might start covering things up!’

  Bill Plum struggled wildly to get up off the sofa, his arms and legs flapping. Mr Winchester bounded to his feet and starting skipping about like a girl, emitting squeaks of delight. He kissed Mrs Winchester, he kissed Jasmine, he kissed Bill Plum.

  Mrs Winchester helped Bill Plum up on to his feet and he scrambled out of the room as fast as his tiny legs would carry him, dialing on his mobile phone. He scrubbed at his cheek where Mr Winchester had kissed him.

  ‘Oh joy!’ squeaked Mr Winchester. ‘Oh I’m so relieved! Oh Saxby, you’re a genius! Oh how wonderful everything is! Oh joy! Oh happiness!’

  Oh good grief! Apparently, he didn’t stop yattering and skipping about for two days. I think I preferred him when he believed in the curse!

  Anyway, Jasmine told everyone at school the whole story on the following Monday morning, and I felt like a hero. At the end of the day, I returned to my garden shed, and my notebooks, and my Thinking Chair, and I sat for a while and thought.

  Case closed.

  CASE FILE TWO:

  THE MARK OF THE PURPLE HOMEWORK

  CHAPTER ONE

  I DON’T LIKE DOGS. They’re grubby, noisy, jumpy-up-and-downy animals. They walk around in fields in their bare paws and then slob out on the sofa! Yuk!

  However, strange as it seems, it was a dog called Humphrey who provided the vital link in the chain of clues in a mystery I like to call The Mark of the Purple Homework.

  Humphrey wasn’t just a dog. He was a big dog. A huge, heavy, bloodhoundy-floppy-eared-wrinkly-skinned thing. And he had a habit of sitting right in front of the door to my shed.

  He belonged to a boy in my class at school, Jeremy Sweetly, who lived just across the street from me. Jeremy absolutely adored this slobbery great lump of a dog, and to this day I have no idea why. Humphrey could do no tricks, had no doggy training of any kind, and spent most of his time sniffing around for food. The only thing he WAS good at was drooling. That dog could have been World Slobbering Champion.

  On the morning of March 16, I was hurrying out to my shed to collect my notes in the case of The Tomb of Death. I was already running late, and would have to jog to school. And there was Humphrey, with his bum parked right in front of the shed door.

  I whistled. I spoke nicely. I tugged at his collar. He wouldn’t move. I yelled. I shouted. There was no way I could get the shed door open with that dopey great hound plonked there.

  I went round to Jeremy’s house. ‘He’s outside my shed again!’ I cried.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jeremy with a weak smile. ‘There must be something in there he likes the smell of.’

  ‘Isn’t there any way to keep him safely in your house?’

  ‘He keeps getting out. He likes to wander around. He’s a very intelligent dog.’

  ‘Really,’ I said flatly.

  Jeremy followed me back to the shed. He made one little ‘tkk-tkk’ noise and Humphrey lumbered to his feet (or rather his paws) and lolloped after his owner. I stepped over the puddle of drool outside my shed and collected my notes.

  Jeremy Sweetly. He was a nice guy. Nicey-nice. Too nice for his own good. He was, to be brutally honest, the St Egbert’s School resident wet drip. He showed no embarrassment whatsoever at admitting he carried a miniature teddy bear called Norman around with him.

  Don’t get me wrong, I liked him. Everybody did. He was so kind-hearted he made charity workers look like an evil villain’s henchmen! But he was never exactly the first with his hand up in class – ‘Oooh, me, me, I know!’ – even when he knew the answer.

  The basic nature of Jeremy Sweetly was to be highly significant in this case.

  I was almost late for school that day. Running like mad, I nearly collided with the school caretaker’s ladder on the way in (he was fixing the leaky roof over the toilets).

  Jeremy was almost late too, probably because he’d spent several minutes getting Humphrey back into his house, and then several minutes more saying bye-bye-my-wikkle-doggie, etc, etc.

  That d
ay marked the official launch of this year’s School Essay Challenge. Every spring term, all the local schools took part in a competition; we all wrote illustrated essays on whatever topic happened to appeal to us. There was a winner in each school (who got a twenty-pound book voucher or something like that) and the winners from each school had their essays judged by all the head teachers. The overall winner got a big prize, like a bike or a games console.

  ‘This year’s prize,’ said Mrs Penzler, our form teacher, ‘is a laptop computer.’

  ‘Oooh,’ said the class. All of the class except me, that is. I made a sort of wheezy noise because I was still out of breath from running to school. ‘I’m so unfit!’ I gasped to myself.

  Mostly, everyone kept their essay subject a secret until handing-in time. I don’t know why. We just did. It made for some fun gossip. But, me being a detective, I tended to work out what most people were doing for their essay within the first week.

  All eyes were on Jeremy Sweetly. He was hot favourite to win this year: he’d come second two years ago, and won the overall prize last year with a very interesting piece entitled The Life Story of My Dad.

  For a few days, the entire class spent their lunchtimes sneaking around the school library and downloading stuff in the ICT suite. I saw Jeremy a couple of times in the local records section at the library in town and talking to the people who’d lived in the house next door to the school since roughly the beginning of time. I’d decided to enter a certain case file, entitled The Curse of the Ancient Mask.

  I swapped titles with my two friends, Izzy Moustique and George ‘Muddy’ Whitehouse, partly because we were best buddies and partly because there was no way Muddy would be able to keep his essay secret for long. He’d get too excited and blab.