Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [78]
Reasonable enough words, but the delivery was hollow.
I pointed a rigid finger straight at his heart. ‘You stole the needles. You sent the parcel. You left the chocolate. It was all you. On a crusade to prove to the wife who walked out on you that you could raise May on your own. A pushy father who refused to accept the fact that his daughter could not dance.’
‘She can dance!’ blurted Devereux. ‘She can. Like her mother used to. All May needs is some encouragement. A confidence booster.’
‘Daddy?’ May was centre stage now, eyes wide and wet. ‘Tell them it’s not true. Tell me.’
Devereux realized what he was saying. How close he was to a confession. He closed his eyes for a second, collecting himself. When he reopened them, they were sincere and almost merry.
‘Of course it’s not true,’ he said, smiling in fatherly reassurance. ‘I care about your dancing, of course, princess. But that’s all. I would never do anything. Never hurt anybody.’
May was convinced. Of course she was. He was her daddy.
‘There,’ she said to me. ‘I hate you, Fletcher.’
My heart quailed but I forged ahead.
‘May had the motive and the opportunity, but there were a few pieces of the puzzle that just didn’t fit until you showed up on my radar, Mr Devereux.’
‘Oh, you have radar now!’ joked Devereux, but nobody laughed.
‘First there were the strange footprints left in my garden, by the one who attacked me. Giant-like prints. Then I realized that the marks were not made by feet alone but by kneepads and toes. The kind of marks that would be made by an adult kneeling down. An adult pretending to be a child, wearing gardening pads. I see there are faint strap marks on the knees of your trousers, Gregor. Are you wearing the same trousers tonight?’
‘Ridiculous,’ scoffed Mr Devereux.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But my father uses a home-made fertilizer in our garden. An absolutely unique concoction. I am sure the police lab can match any soil from your soles to the fertilizer in our garden.’
Mr Devereux was blinking fast and sweating. His fringe flopped into his eyes and he pushed it back. Flattening the hair to his head.
‘Nothing,’ he said, appealing to the audience for support. ‘None of this means a thing. The delusions of a strange boy. We’ve all known it for years, haven’t we? We’ve all known that little Half Moon is not quite right. A midget detective? Please.’
He was right. People did think I was strange. They still do. But that didn’t change the truth.
‘But let’s go back to Mercedes’s music. The missing minidisc. We found your footprint under her window, and there was also evidence of a frenzied search. As though the thief had lost something. But what could he have lost?’
Hundreds of chairs squeaked as the audience leaned in.
‘I forgot the most basic rule of investigation: the most obvious explanation is usually the right one. The only thing you could have lost was the thing you came to find, the minidisc that you had overheard Mercedes talk about so many times.’
‘Fantasy,’ bellowed Mr Devereux. ‘Pure Fantasy.’
But his blink rate jumped as though it was wired to the power grid. I was right!
‘You lost the minidisc during the break-in. I saw the flower bed outside May’s window. It was torn apart. You had no option but to return home and hope the minidisc didn’t turn up before the talent show.’
My big speech had ended with a whimper rather than a bang. My entire theory was bordering on the incredible. It was a stretch. I knew it and so did everyone else. I needed a trump card, and Mr Devereux provided it. He strode purposefully down the centre aisle, vaulting on to the stage. He speared me with a withering look and grabbed the microphone. The Sharkeys were elbowed from his path. Herod stumbled at Mr Devereux’s feet, remaining there for a moment before joining his sister in the wings.
‘How much more of this insanity are we supposed to stomach?’ asked Devereux. ‘You all know me. Frank, Seamus. We play squash together. Is any of this the least bit credible? I don