News of the burglary was in all the papers. It was reported as the worst crime ever to hit our school, with over two hundred twenty pound notes being stolen. Everyone at school was talking about it.
The following Monday evening I saw two police cars outside Victor Criddle’s house at number 24. Within a few hours he had been arrested. A police car apparently collected him from the campsite and took him off for questioning.
They say the police found some of the stolen money and the key to the school safe in Victor Criddle’s bedroom. By the end of the week he was charged with theft and everyone was saying that he’ll be sent away.
Since hearing that news my life has never been better.
So what do you think of my Sherlock Holmes skills? You may think the police didn’t need my help at all. Even so, you have to admit that the result was just what I wanted. It was perfect, especially as (now brace yourself for a bit of a surprise) Victor Criddle was totally innocent, for once.
Honestly – he didn’t do it. Only I know who did.
Can you work out who really committed the crime?
Before I tell you, you ought to stop reading on and think about the evidence
for a while. Try a bit of detective work of your own. Who do you think the thief was?
One of the people I’ve already told you about was the real burglar, but only I know who it was.
The answer to who stole all the money is hidden in this blog. Their name is in my NUMBERS CRUNCH LAW 2. So go back and take a look. It’s on page 33.
Look at the first capital letter of each sentence in LAW 2 and see what they spell backwards. It’s the name of the burglar.
Are you shocked?
Just in case you need a second clue, see if you can make a four–word sentence from HE TIME FAITH . Or if you prefer it in just three words AIM WEST.
Hannah sent me a text: Up locked him get to Shahdan frame as well as crime the commit to you of clever was it.
She’s started sending texts backwards. Even so, I’ve deleted it, as well as her final anagram: MEET RICH PREFECT .
Maybe I need to explain a bit more, in case you are still a bit puzzled. The last part of my blog will make it all clear ... before I wipe everything clean forever.
I’d planned it for ages. The day was perfect. I sent Mrs. Gibson (my Math teacher) an email from Mrs. Eve’s computer at morning break: ‘Please can Eliot come to the library for 5 minutes straight away? Thanks.’
I was let out of the classroom at 11.14 and I went straight to the library to collect a carrier bag I’d hidden behind the shelf marked CRIME. I took it to the finance office, making sure I avoided all CCTV cameras on the way.
Mrs. Harris had just left her office for the usual finance meeting, so I quickly nipped in, took the safe key from the purse in her handbag, opened the safe and stuffed all the banknotes from inside into my carrier bag, after removing my items in it.
I carefully left those bits of evidence at the scene, apart from a bottle of Ribena, from which I poured a trickle onto the floor
outside the door. I did all this in 29.4 seconds and I quickly left, passing Victor Criddle in the corridor.
I’d also sent an email from Mrs. Eve’s computer to his teacher, asking for him to go to the finance office for an urgent message and to come through the main entrance. (All emails I’ve since deleted.)
Criddle evidently walked into the finance office just as I planned, treading the Ribena into the carpet tiles and leaving his shoeprint. PERFECT .
There were a few items in my school bag that Victor Criddle had rummaged through on the bus that morning, in his usual search for money or food. His fingerprints were all over them, but mine weren’t. So, using rubber gloves, I’d placed the roll of Sellotape from my bag onto Mrs. Harris’s desk, as well as a Pritt Stick (with a perfect thumbprint on it). A plastic money bag he’d taken a pound from also had his fingerprints all over it, so I put that inside the safe.
When he’d got off the bus that morning, Victor Criddle had thrown two things at me. One was the tissue he’d used for his nosebleed and the other was the core of my apple he’d just eaten. I’d kept them both, then simply dropped one in the corner of the office and the other under the desk.
My real stroke of genius was planting evidence in his bedroom. It was Hannah who gave me the idea. It wasn’t anything she said: just her name. What do you get from an anagram of HANNAH WIDDOWS ?
On Saturday night at two in the morning, I crept out of bed, got dressed and sneaked downstairs. Mum was fast asleep, having taken her usual tablets.
I took from the ice compartment in the fridge a special ice cube (bigger than average) that I’d made before bedtime. It had a rolled- up twenty pound note frozen inside. It was the twenty pound note with the serial number EE33 876678 that I’d deliberately shown to many people. They all knew it was one of the banknotes that had been locked inside the safe.
With that ice cube beginning to melt in my gloved hand, I walked out into the night and went to number 24 Rutland Drive – the dreaded Criddle house. Everything was very quiet and, just as I expected on such a warm night, all the upstairs windows were open. I gently pushed open the front gate and crept up the path to stand beneath Shahdan’s empty bedroom.
While he was sleeping in a tent at camp, somewhere beneath the stars, I was taking careful aim at his open window. The ice cube flew through the air and disappeared into his room with the faintest plonk. A dog howled somewhere at the back of the house, so I quickly hurled a second missile: the key from the school safe. It landed inside without a sound and I ran.
By the time the police would search his room, the ice would have melted and evaporated, leaving the incriminating banknote near the stolen key somewhere in the suspect’s bedroom. PERFECT .
I turned to look back at the bedroom window. All was still and the dog was silent again. I smiled as I headed for home, with that unquestionable evidence waiting to be discovered inside the SHAHDAN WINDOW (the answer to the last anagram, if you hadn’t worked it out).
When I got home, I went into our back garden, took a box of matches and some scrunched-up newspaper from the shed and lit a fire on the path.
I removed the rubber gloves from my hands (the same gloves I’d used at the crime scene at school to ensure none of my fingerprints were anywhere to be found) and I threw them into the flame from the flaring newspaper. The gloves melted, bubbled, sizzled and dribbled before being engulfed in purple flames. Soon they were gone – nothing left. Just the perfect anagram:
ELIOT’S NUMBERS CRUNCH LAWS
which equals
STOLEN CASH WRM I BURN CLUES .
BTW, I wrote a letter to Victor (care of the police). The numbers down the side are important but he’s not clever enough to work it out. He’ll just think someone is trying to be helpful. (I didn’t sign it, but he may guess it’s me.)
All letters sent to suspects must get checked by officers who are trained in deciphering puzzles. That’s a job I’d like one day. So here’s the letter I sent to Victor – although it’s really meant for the police to use in court. Then the judge will understand just what Victor is really like.
LETTER OF SUPPORT
Thank you for reading this so carefully.
Yours faithfully,
Never Even But Odd
Can you see what I’ve done? They’ll find my real message hidden inside the letter by taking only the lines with odd numbers and joining them together.
Clever, don’t you think? As I said, Never Even But Odd. I bet Sherlock Holmes would be mega impressed.