The Curse of the Ancient Mask - Simon Cheshire Saxby Smart: Private Detective

Скачать книгу

Thinking Chair. It’s a battered old leather armchair, which used to be red but which has worn into a sort of off-brown. I sit in it, and I put my feet up on the desk, and I gaze out of the shed’s perspex window at the sky, and I think. Every detective should have a Thinking Chair. I’m sure Philip Marlowe would have had things tied up in the space of a short story if only he’d had a Thinking Chair.

      Anyway, on that particular very hot Saturday, I was rearranging some of my notes when there was a knock at the shed door. The painted wooden notice on the door, the one which says Saxby Smart – Private Detective: KEEP OUT, fell off with a clatter. I keep nailing it up, but I’m no good at that sort of thing, so it keeps falling off again.

      The door was opened by a girl from my class at school, Jasmine Winchester. She was red and flustered from a long walk, and she wafted herself cool with her hands while she knocked some of the grassy mud off her shoes.

      ‘Hi, Saxby. Sorry, this dropped off your door,’ she said, picking up the notice.

      Jasmine is a very tall girl, the sort who overtakes everyone else in height at about the age of three and never lets the rest of us catch up. I’m pretty average-looking myself – average height, average fair hair, average spectacles – but Jasmine is one of those people you can always pick out of a crowd. Mostly because she’s poking up out of the top of it.

      ‘I know walking along by the riverbank looks like a shortcut,’ I said, ‘but it’s quicker to get here if you stick to the path across the park.’

      She stopped wafting and stared at me. ‘How on earth did you know I’d walked along by the river?’

      She looked impressed when I told her. It was a simple deduction: there was grassy mud on her shoes, she’d obviously walked some distance – because she was hot – and on a hot day, you’d only pick up mud where the ground was still damp.

      ‘How can I help you?’ I asked. I offered her my chair, and I perched on the desk (I told you there’s not enough room in that shed . . .).

      ‘Well,’ she said, taking a deep breath, ‘I can see why everyone at school says you’re a good detective . . .’

      ‘True.’

      ‘. . . so I need your help to solve a mystery. My dad is cursed.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      'MY DAD IS AN ENGINEER at Microspek Electronics,’ she began. ‘He’s worked there for years. He’s head of their laboratory, and he helps develop new ideas. He’s normally a pretty laid back, easy-going, jokey sort of dad. But recently he’s become very nervous.’

      ‘Nervous?’ I said. ‘What of?’

      ‘I know this sounds silly, but he thinks he’s under some sort of bad luck curse, put on him by this antique mask he bought on a business trip a few months ago.’

      ‘You’re right, it does sound silly.’

      ‘Yeah. But he’s convinced. Ever since this mask came into the house, things have been going wrong for him at work. He’s been getting into trouble with his boss.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘His new ideas keep being stolen. Something must be going on at his lab. He’d worked out a brilliant way of running MP3 players from your TV remote, and then a rival company, PosiSpark Inc, suddenly came up with the same thing. He’d also made a toaster which never burns bread, even if you forget it’s on, and PosiSpark got hold of that idea too!’

      ‘So there must be a spy for PosiSpark working undercover at the Microspek lab.’

      ‘That’s exactly what my dad’s boss thinks. He reckons that the spy is my dad!’

      ‘And he’s not? Sorry, I have to ask,’ I told her.

      ‘No,’ said Jasmine. ‘Definitely not. Dad’s horrified at what’s going on. And so is everyone at the lab. Every last one of them has volunteered to have lie detector tests, their emails and phone records checked, even their dustbins searched! Dad’s assistants are loyal to him. There’s no sign whatsoever of a spy. Dad’s boss still thinks Dad is the only one who could be passing such complete information to PosiSpark, and he’s just waiting to find some proof! Then Dad will be fired!’

      ‘Hmm. No wonder your dad’s feeling jumpy,’ I said. I would have sat back in my Thinking Chair at this point, but Jasmine was sitting on it. So I sat back on the desk and looked thoughtful instead. ‘This mask. Where did he get it?’

      ‘In Tokyo. It’s an old Japanese samurai mask. He found it in a little antique shop while he was on a business trip. He buys stuff like that whenever he travels. He’s not an antiques expert or anything, he just likes collecting souvenirs. The man in the shop told him there was a curse on it, but of course he thought that was nonsense. At the time. In fact, he found it amusing and pretended to scare us all!’

      ‘But if your dad now thinks the curse is real, why doesn’t he just get rid of it?’

      ‘Ah!’ said Jasmine, holding up a finger like an exclamation mark. ‘That’s the sneaky bit. There’s Japanese writing on the back of the mask. The man in the shop translated it for him. It says that the curse remains even if you throw the mask away! The only way to lift it off yourself is to give it to another person.’

      ‘And since your dad believes in the curse,’ I said, ‘he doesn’t want to pass it on.’

      ‘Exactly. He says he couldn’t deliberately give someone an ancient curse!’

      A possibility was coming to mind. The mask turns up, information begins to leak from the lab, PosiSpark snatch all the new ideas . . .

      ‘Where exactly is the mask kept?’ I asked. ‘At his lab?’

      ‘You’re thinking of bugs, right?’ said Jasmine. ‘Secret agent-type cameras and such?’

      ‘The possibility came to mind.’

      ‘The mask is at home, in Dad’s study. He works from home sometimes. The mask is nowhere near the laboratory. In any case, the lab’s been scanned for bugs, listening devices, hidden cameras, you name it. There’s nothing. Dad’s examined the mask, and searched every inch of our whole house. He’s come up with precisely zero. He’s convinced it’s the curse.’

      ‘Well, it’s a strange sort of curse that brings such specific bad luck,’ I said. ‘Must be a very intelligent and technologically-minded curse.’

      ‘The thing is,’ said Jasmine, ‘there is a leak of information. My dad will get fired. Him buying that mask could just be a complete coincidence, but one way or the other, this needs to be sorted out.’

      ‘And it will be,’ I said. ‘Saxby Smart is on the case!’

       A Page From My Notebook

      Fact: PosiSpark are getting hold of Jasmine’s dad’s ideas.

      Fact: His laboratory is not bugged and his assistants have been completely checked.

      Fact: He bought the mask in Tokyo, and now it’s sitting in his study. His bad luck began when he bought the mask.

      Question: How are PosiSpark getting the info?

      Question: Is someone lying? Is someone covering something up? Or is everyone exactly as they appear to be?

      Question: Is Jasmine right? Is the mask’s arrival just a coincidence? After all, her dad simply picked it up in an antique shop. What link to his laboratory could there possibly be? Unless . . . it really IS cursed . . .

      CHAPTER THREE

      I HAD TO ADMIT, I wasn’t feeling as confident as I sounded. Here was a genuine, serious mystery and, at first sight, a pretty baffling

Скачать книгу