Secret of the Skull

The

Saxby Smart

Private Detective

series:

The Fangs of the Dragon

The Pirate’s Blood

The Hangman’s Lair

The Eye of the Serpent

Five Seconds to Doomsday

The Poisoned Arrow

Secret of the Skull

To Constable Cheshire (1937-2010) who told many a detective story.

First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Piccadilly Press Ltd, 5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR
www.piccadillypress.co.uk

Text copyright © Simon Cheshire, 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

The right of Simon Cheshire to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 84812 055 6 (paperback)
eISBN: 978 1 84812 178 2

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon CR0 4TD
Cover design and illustration by Patrick Knowles

CONTENTS

I
NTRODUCTION
:
I
MPORTANT
F
ACTS

C
ASE
F
ILE
T
WENTY-TWO:

S
ECRET
OF THE
S
KULL

C
HAPTER
O
NE

C
HAPTER
T
WO

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

C
HAPTER
S
IX

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

C
ASE
F
ILE
T
WENTY-THREE:

D
IAMONDS
A
RE FOR
H
EATHER

C
HAPTER
O
NE

C
HAPTER
T
WO

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

C
HAPTER
S
IX

C
ASE
F
ILE
T
WENTY-FOUR

T
HE
G
UY
W
HO
C
AME
I
N
F
ROM THE
C
OLD

C
HAPTER
O
NE

C
HAPTER
T
WO

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

I
NTRODUCTION
:
I
MPORTANT
F
ACTS

My name is Saxby Smart and I’m a private detective. I go to St Egbert’s School, my office is in the garden shed, and this is the eighth book of my case files.
Unlike some detectives, I don’t have a sidekick, so that part I’m leaving up to you – pay attention, I’ll ask questions.

C
ASE
F
ILE
T
WENTY-TWO:

S
ECRET
OF THE
S
KULL

C
HAPTER
O
NE

S
COTLAND
Y
ARD
, L
ONDON
. FBI
HEADQUARTERS
, Washington
DC. Saxby Smart’s Crime HQ, my garden shed. Three major centres of crime-busting operations. But which is the odd one out?

The answer is: my garden shed. Reason: because the other two have got heating systems, and my bloomin’ shed hasn’t. During the coldest months of the year, instead of concentrating on
being a brilliant schoolboy detective, I have to concentrate on having enough blankets and woolly hats in the shed to stop me from shivering while I’m working on case notes.

It’s not fair. I bet Inspector Whatever-Name of the Yard never has this trouble! The only thing I like about the winter is that at least I’m free of hayfever for a few months.

I was shivering in my shed the day I was asked for help by a kid in my year group at St Egbert’s School who we always call The Skull. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was wrapped up in a
thick blanket, nestled in my Thinking Chair (the battered old leather armchair where I do all my detective-type thinking).

I was busy going through my notebook and writing up some observations on
The Case of the Shrinking Monkey
. It had been a long but fairly routine investigation, so I won’t bore you
with the details of it here. I was rapidly sliding into a bad mood, partly because of the cold and partly because the thick woollen gloves I was wearing meant the pen kept slipping out of my
fingers. I glanced up at the tall, teetering piles of gardening and DIY stuff I’m forced to share the shed with. You’d think whopping great piles of junk would at least act as
insulation, wouldn’t you? But no, apparently not.

There was a knock on the shed door and a voice called out, ‘Hello? Anyone at home?’

‘Come in!’ I called back. ‘Welcome to the South Pole – mind out for the penguins!’

An icy blast of air sliced through the shed as the door opened and The Skull came in. Calling him The Skull makes him sound like he had a black cloak and an evil cackle, but Peter Skulyevic
(pronounced skull-ee-ay-vitch) was just a regular kid. I’d walk to school with him sometimes, as he lived only one street away from me. He tramped into the shed wearing a chunky hooded anorak
to which a number of damp leaves were sticking, and fleece-lined boots which had clearly been soaking up icy puddles for an hour or two.

Everyone called him The Skull – or simply Skull, or occasionally Jack
Skull
-ington – for two reasons. Firstly, because Skulyevic is so unusual and long it was just crying out
to be nicknamed. Secondly, because of his equally unusual head. It was rather domed, and his hair was perfectly flat, and the impression you got when you looked at him was . . . well, very
skull-like.

It was a terribly unfortunate coincidence of name and looks. What made the effect worse was the way he appeared to have a permanent smirk on his face. He was one of those people who seem to be
about to laugh out loud, or start giggling about something, for no reason.

He could drive teachers barmy. ‘Perhaps you’d like to share the joke with the rest of the class?’ they’d demand, or ‘Have I said something funny?’ To which he
would innocently reply, ‘No. Honestly.’ And then he’d look like he was smirking all over again.

Nice guy. Very good at model trains.

‘Here, you can sit in my Thinking Chair,’ I said, shifting my stuff over on my desk so I could sit on it. ‘Do you want a blanket?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ he smirked. ‘I think it’s rather cosy in here.’ He settled back in the chair.

‘Now then,’ I said, ‘how can I help you? I have the feeling that you’ve only come here as a last resort. You’ve been making your own investigations? Perhaps
secretly tailing a suspect this afternoon?’

He stared at me. ‘But . . . Yes! How could you possibly know that?’

I’d made an educated guess based on three things: the freezing weather, his appearance and where he lived. Have you worked out what I’d been thinking?

‘It’s a very cold day today,’ I said. ‘Not many people are going to be out and about longer than they need to be. You live only one street away from
here, so you could reach this shed in a matter of minutes. But your boots have clearly been soaking up puddles for quite a while. You’ve been out for ages.

‘The fact that all those wet leaves are sticking to your coat implies you’ve been around a lot of foliage too. Been gardening? Hardly, in this weather. I know something’s going
on, that you’ve got some kind of problem, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. So perhaps you’ve picked up all those leaves while trying to stay out of sight? Behind hedges or trees?
Why would you want to stay hidden? So that someone doesn’t spot you.’

He scratched his round head. ‘Yes, well, when you put it like that, it’s very simple, really.’

‘Who is it you’ve been following?’ I asked.

‘My aunt,’ he said sadly. ‘Or rather, my great-aunt – she’s my grandfather’s sister.’