The last instalment.

And,yes, it's time for the last instalment. So who nicked the money? Who made the tire tracks? Find out now. [Or as soon as you've read it.]

Chapter 9

William looked at his watch and yawned. It was another meting at the R.H.S. and just as boring as last time. Another augment had popped up and all three sides were happily proclaiming that they were right. This latest ‘conversation’ was about what to do about the hole in the flower bed. One side said that the hole should be filed in and more to go on top of it. Side two announced that they should take advantage of it and position a new load of flowers on top so as to make a new attraction[ this was criticised by the fact that Kew gardens is not a theme park]. And the last side commented that they were all wrong and they should leave the hole as it is as its part of the gardens history. This was followed by a volley of pencils, rubber bands and paper planes, all of which came hurtling through the air at well over thirty miles an hour. William took up the safest position possible,

Under the table. Then William remembered something from the lawn back at Kew gardens, behind every one of the small foot prints was a little hole. ‘Hello’ thought William to himself, ‘I think that they’ve finished that fight of theirs’. They hadn’t. William then hid under the table again, just as a rubber band propelled plane whizzed over his head by a few centimetres before embedding itself in the wall behind him. ‘Hey thought William to himself ‘you can see everyone’s shoes under here’ There was the secretary’s galosh’s, Sara’s sneakers and the head gardener’s hiking boots. William stuck his head up to have looked at proceedings. He gave a sigh of relief when it was discovered that they had all ran out of ammunition. Now it had become a staring match. The only problem was that everyone had gone cross eyed because they were trying to look at two people at the same time. Then the end of the meting came and everyone left at the same time as they were still staring at each other. William then thought over the evening, trying to extract all the clues he could. Then he remembered something from under the table. It was about the head gardeners boots. ‘Hang on,’ said William ‘I know who did it!’

Chapter 10

It was a sunny morning in Kew gardens and everyone was standing in a semicircle. There was Sara Botheringam, the head gardener, the chief inspector, the car expert and William. ‘Now’ said William stepping forward from the crowd of suspects ‘last week, a lot of tyre tracks appeared in the grass of Kew gardens, and a few days later, a large hole turned up in flower beds. But before all this happened, there was a robbery at the Natwest bank in the outer skirts of London. Now it’s time to tie all the lose ends together. First of all, you see those big shoe prints on the grass, now you may want to observe the boots of the head gardener.’ Everyone peered downward at the head gardeners boots which were actually, very large. ‘So, the head gardener could have done it.’ At this the head gardener looked very worried. ‘But he didn’t. This can be deduced by the fact that he always has a bath at ten o clock and then goes to bed. It could have been the car exert, as his car was spotted going at one hundred and thirty miles an hour and away from the police car which was in driving very quickly after it. You could also have wanted the money to keep your cars running, but you didn’t because you always give one of your cars a quick spin in the evening. It could have been Sara Botheringam, as you might have wanted the money for your new garden design and then called a detective in to try and make it seem as if you were innocent. And it was.’

‘But I don’t have any boots that size.’ She protested. ‘I know’ said William ‘but you do have a pair of very muddy high heels which are the smaller foot prints. The bigger foot prints were made by your colleague, who is Ted Dolton.’ Everyone stared except the head gardener. ‘Good grief’ said the head gardener ‘not Ted! He can hardly push a wheel barrow without making a mess.’ [Ted Dolton by the way is the rather stout gardener from chapter3 in case you were wondering.] ‘you both stole the cars from Dublin motors, drove to the bank, stole the money, drove to Kew gardens, berried the money, called in a detective, then drove back a few days latter and picked up the money. Now you may remember on that first day, that the wings went missing from the expert’s bonnet. You will also notice one thing about Sara’s car, all of it is muddy except for the wings on the front. Now, on that day as we all went to the car park, Sara remembered that her car was really the one that she used in the bank job so she had to disguise it.’ William then reached down and pulled the wings of Sara’s car. Below, there was an image of a jaguar, which looked a lot grumpier than usual. Now if, there are any problems then you’ll have to send your letters to Yorkshire as I’m going on holiday for the half term.’

‘See’ said the chief inspector to the head gardener ‘I told you that he’d solve it!’

Chapter 11

The next morning, William got in a cab and went off to King’s Cross station. It had been a peculiar kind of mystery. A bit like that time in Switzerland with the Swiss Roll Company [the one with the underground Swiss roll factory.] but that’s a different story. At the moment, the damaged part of Kew gardens had to be closed off so no one noticed the mess the Jaguar had left. William thought that was understandable enough, but the armed security guards were perhaps a bit much. As the cab stopped at the car park, William got out, paid the fares and went in to the station. He boarded the train to Yorkshire and sat down. It had been a good mystery, well performed, well thought out and –above all- very well solved.

Case closed.

deduction my dear Watson

Okay guys, next week William works out who done it, so do you know who it is? well here is this weeks instalment.

Chapter7

The thick cloud of mist was sitting in the streets of London, while the cars were moving around with there head lights glimmering in the darkness. Several shop signs were glowing among the street lamps, which dotted the pavements, as the smells of chips, burgers and something else which couldn’t quite be made out [but that’s very probably for your own good]. There were some people milling around out side the chip shop, while the night grew steadily on. Just then a sports car came down the road at breakneck speed, everyone stared as it whizzed past the chip shop, then hurtled down Baker Street and out of sight. William was crossing the road outside his house when the car came roaring down the road towards him. It was an Aston martin MKIII, which William strangely recognized. Then the police car followed. It was going equally fast to try and keep up with the speeding Aston. As they both whizzed past, William looked in thought the window of the Aston martin as it zoomed past him at what seemed to be 130mph[ oddly enough because it was going at 130mph.]. The car how either was going too quickly for William to look at the driver clearly enough. It was then that both of the cars went past William, and down the rest of Baker Street, before turning the bend in to Ass road, and disappearing in to the night. This is a fairly odd sight to see in most places and William stared as the vehicles hurtled off into the darkness. Then William remembered something that he’d seen only a few days before in the Kew gardens car park. William thought for a bit about the matter and then the answer hit him. William crossed the road and went inside to have his dinner, meat balls and spaghetti. This thought it would appear was another little piece in the quickly growing jigsaw of the mystery.

Chapter8

As the sun shone in though the window, William gazed at his note pad which lay on the desk, trying to work it all out. He knew that one of the crooks was rather short and not that much about the other one [but William didn’t think that they were both kleptomaniacs.]. As William thought, an idea struck him. He had better answer that doorbell. He opened it and there, standing there was the only person that William had ever seen who was dressed in a Mexican poncho, a sombrero and two cans of beans were sticking out from the large carrier bag which was tucked under his arm. The sales man also seemed rather short which could have been because of the bag which looked very heavy. ‘Ah, hola my amigo, this is a good morning I’m thinking is it not?’ William could tell he was a faker, he had an Irish accent. ‘Would you fancy some nice Mexican beans,’ he said puling out a can. ‘Or perhaps a gnome wearing a sombrero, maybe a Mexican herring’ he said, taking a rather smelly fish out the bag. William thought there might be something fishy here, or it could just be a red herring ‘a toilet brush which plays maraca music when used, or maybe a set of maraca that can make toilet sounds when shaken, perhaps a Mexican upside down cake.’ William didn’t know the difference between a Mexican upside down cake or other wise. ‘You might prefer a Mexican food processor with twenty nine different blades, some Mexican food which has been processed in twenty nine different ways or what may take your fancy is this lovely new statue of liberty made in Mexico.’ William read the bottom,

Made in china. ’you naughty little statue,’ said the sales man ‘you should by made in Mexico, you’s not very good.’ ‘No thank you’ said William ’good day.’ and he closed the door. Bing bong. Door bell again. ‘Hola, could I interest you in a statue?’ William read the bottom. Made in Mexico. ‘No thank you’ said William, and closed the door again. Now, were was he? Ah, yes, one crook was rather short and, just then William had a thought. Maybe this short crook wasn’t to far away.

So who did it then?

So, who do you think has done it then? The head gardener, the car expert or Sara Bothering? Here's the next instalment of The mystery at Kew gardens.

Chapter 5

William was feeling bored. This latest idea of his to join the R.H.S. was turning out to be rather boring.

So far, Sara Botheringam announced that she had an idea for a very big garden and had stared a public funding for it. The secretary, a rather short kind of person with large spectacles, declared that the tire tracks would make very good flower beds which everyone liked the idea of except Sara who commented that

 ‘you can only have a flower bed if it’s properly dug! Flower beds can’t just be put were there’s a hole.’

At that moment everyone who had their hands up stared, then hastily put them down again. There was then silence as the head gardener got up and complained about the weeds. Everyone listened closely as he said that a new kind of weed killer should be made so it didn’t kill the flowers. Farther discussions continued on whether it would be easier to make a vaccine for the chosen plants instead, so you could use normal weed killer instead. This developed in to an animated discussion with both sides firing plant seeds, pencils and paper clips at each other the ‘conversation’ was brought to close when the weed killer expert said that if they didn’t be quiet he wouldn’t make either for them.

Then the two hours of meeting finished and everyone departed quickly. William went home and had a quick thinking session in the bath tub. Why did the head gardener want new weed killer could that have something to do with the vandalism? Or perhaps the bank? Ether way, William still had quite some investigating to do. He was just getting out of the bath when he remembered something that could stop simple things from happening right now, before his very eyes. He yawned, reached in to the bath tub and pulled out his rubber duck.

Chapter6

The time was 05:30 and William was quite happily asleep when the phone rang. William yawned and then picked up the receiver. In an instant a long stream of shouts vibrated thought the ear piece and William nearly fell over backwards and he tried to make sense of the screaming which was shooting down the wire at what seamed to be 2000 miles an hour. Translated from its less understandable form, the message was that more tyre tracks had appeared and in the flowerer beds there was a great big hole. It would also appear that this was a problem. When William got there, he discovered that there was [funnily another] a very big hole in the flowerer beds, just were the mud had been yesterday. William stared at the hole, it was about 3’ by 2’ and fairly deep. Everyone was there, the head gardener, Sara Botheringam, the car expert and the chief inspector. Everyone was looking fairly shocked except Sara who was looking rather faint. The new tyre tracks were the same as before but this time they didn’t go to the bed but stopped 10 feet away. William examined the ground quite closely. It was then that he noticed there where slight dimples on the grass, on closer examination, they turned out to be foot prints and, every now and then, there was a large, rectangle muddy patch on the grass next to the foot prints. The tyre tracks were a bit odd though, because right at the end was a dip and there were some more foot prints on the grass were the car had to be pushed out of the mud again. Then it started raining and the little droplets began to fall in to the hole and before to long, there was a little puddle at the bottom of the hole. The head gardener picked up his wheel barrow and walked off whistling happily all though not all that tunefully. Then William had a thought that made his blood run cold just to think of it. It was half past twelve and he haden’t had lunch yet.

So who made the marks?

Okay fellows, William is back again. So who made the marks? Who nicked the money? Who are the crooks? Find out a little more this week.

Chapter3

The car expert took a step forward and told everyone in a most superior manner, ‘It would appear that the mysterious vehicle in question is the cause of a very mysterious matter. And because it’s a mystery, it must be stated that, in the most intrepid investigations, expectations, examinations

 And exaltations of the highest inspections, that we can expect that it in short, can or, on the other hand of events and extents of the peculiar events that it can be explained in short hand or in long of later that perhaps or perhaps not which can explained be placing the inverted or negative position the latter be explained that the mysterious vehicle in question is now no longer a mystery because by examinations of the car tracks, it can understood that the vehicle is in the size between a lorry and a smart car!’

‘Bravo’ said a rather stout gardener ‘I like a good comedian I do.’ Everyone stared at the car expert who seamed slightly deflated at this latest remark.

 ‘Thank you for this latest addition to the investigations,’ said William ‘but, with out wishing to sound rude, unnecessary anyone who knows that there were no larger vehicles common in Britain than the lorry and it’s most unlikely that the cause for the tyre marks was a monster truck as it would not need pushing out of the mud over there by the roses, and no one needs telling it wasn’t smaller than a smart car as there are no cars which are smaller in Brittan.’ Everyone stared [again].

‘See’ announced the chief inspector to everyone ‘I told you he was a good one, I always knew, ever since I saw his business card I knew it!’

‘Hang on!’ shouted the head gardener ‘something’s up with the roses.’ Just where you would expect there to be some pretty little flowers there was [drum roll please] some pretty little flowers. The gardener’s mouth dropped, everyone stared and Sara Botheringam fainted. But it wasn’t the flowers that were the problem. Because, on closer inspection, just around the roses something could be noticed. It wasn’t all that obvious, but, William still noticed it. It was a load of raised mud, going around a small piece of the bed. Also William noticed in the mud next to the foot prints was something else. A set of slightly smaller foot prints, imprinted in the mud.  

Chaptre4

Night was coming in now. The trees, with their fresh, green leaves of spring, were now mere silhouettes

against the darkening sky. William watched as everyone left, the chief inspector got in his squad car, the head gardener got in his rather small Daewoo Matiz, Sara staggered [she has just fainted remember.] into her very muddy Aston martin DB5. It was a good job that a policeman hadn’t seen it, as the number plate was liberally coved with mud. Just then, there was a blood curdling scream from the car park. There was the car expert pointing at his car. His car was an immaculately clean Aston Martin MKIII [except for the parking ticket]. But there was something missing. To be exact it those very pretty little wings on the front which come with all Astons. William stared at the car, then at the expert who had gone a strangely pale. This mystery was getting more mysterious by the moment. William thought it would be best to check his notes.

Could the head gardener of done it? He could want to be paid more for fixing up the lawn and he did spot the mud in the rose bush.

Car expert? Perhaps he did it and removed the wings from the Aston hoping that it would cover something up.

Sara Botheringam? Probably not. That faint was pretty dramatic. But, then again just think back to Alex Walker [who wanted a detective to cover up that he robbed his own bank].

  The next day, William looked over the list a few times and thought hard about the matter. He knew that at least one of them had done it. The only problem was that they were all quite tall. [All those people who remember the first chapter will know why this is important.] Just then, William was struck by a thought, did this person have to be 5 foot tall?
 To be continued.