Free The Hangman's Lair by Simon Cheshire Page B

broken bits and pieces, and put the rest back in again. I’d made absolutely sure that I was putting everything back in the most space-saving way possible: garden hose neatly coiled, lawnmower hung up on a big hook, paint tins carefully stacked according to size, and so on. I badly needed more space for my desk, my files and my Thinking Chair. It was bad enough being forced to share the shed with all that DIY and gardening stuff, but having to shove it out of the way all the time was adding insult to injury, as they say.
    However, now that everything was back inside the shed, I was beginning to wonder what exactly had gone wrong with my tidy-up plan. There seemed to be even less room in there than before! It didn’t make sense. Had someone sneaked along in the middle of the night and added the contents of their shed to mine? The gardening gear was now teetering in a massive pile, which looked like it was about to fall over and bury all my files under half a tonne of plant pots. My desk would not sit straight! One side was higher than the other, its legs propped up on a box of paint brushes. And the only way I could even fit my Thinking Chair in was to turn it one hundred and eighty degrees, so it faced the door. It just looked completely wrong!
    I was scrambling over the top of the desk (and suddenly realising that it blocked off the drawers of my filing cabinet) when there was a knock at the door.
    ‘Come in!’ I called. Or, rather, ‘Mff eeen!’ because I was rapidly slipping down the gap between the edge of the desk and the back of the chair.
    I heard the door open, and then the unmistakable sarcasm of my great friend Izzy sliced through the dusty air. ‘Do you point your bum at everyone who comes in here, or is it just me?’
    ‘Hummlee erp, um sperkk,’ I groaned. I think the way my hand was waggling wildly behind my back must have been what told Izzy I was saying, ‘Help me up, I’m stuck’. She took hold of the waistband of my trousers and hauled me free. I sat on my desk, flapping dust out of my hair. My glasses were dangling off one ear.
    ‘I’ve been rearranging things,’ I gasped.
    ‘Why?’ said Izzy, raising that trademark arched eyebrow of hers. ‘Weren’t you cramped enough in here before?’
    ‘I think the paint pots have been cloning themselves,’ I said. ‘I can’t get it all to fit.’
    ‘Why have you got your Thinking Chair facing the door?’ said Izzy. ‘It just looks completely wrong.’
    ‘Yes, I know,’ I wailed. ‘I don’t understand it.’
    She clambered over the chair and joined me on the desktop. She perched by the shed’s perspex window, clearing herself a space in the dust before she sat down.
    I stared at the floor-to-ceiling jumble around me. I suppose it’s not just adults who can be really, seriously, dum-dum stupid. Even brilliant schoolboy detectives like me get it wrong sometimes.
    ‘I’ve got a case for you,’ announced Izzy.
    ‘Perfect,’ I said gratefully. ‘Anything to avoid having to think about this hideous mess for a while. How can I help?’
    Izzy, the school’s in-house genius and my Chief Research Brainbox, had helped me out on many past investigations. But this was the very first time she’d brought a new case to my attention. I was eager to hear the details.
    ‘Do you know The Pig and Fiddle?’ she said. ‘The big building in the centre of town?’
    ‘Er, yes, the pub? Didn’t you once tell me your relatives run it?’
    ‘That’s right, my uncle and aunt have owned it for about ten years. It’s a sort of pub, restaurant and hotel all in one. It’s got a very good reputation. They’ve had tourists from all over the world staying there, because of all the nearby castles and historic sites.’
    ‘I think I’ve seen adverts for the place,’ I said. ‘Don’t they have a theatre attached to it or something?’
    ‘Not quite,’ said Izzy. ‘One end of the pub part is a large stage. My uncle books all sorts of acts for evening