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January 6th
By Freddie Clegg
A Short, Festive Story
© Freddie Clegg 2006 Not to be reproduced or reposted
without permission.
freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
It was the twelfth day of Christmas……
The Great Detective sat back in his wing back chair.
He reached out with the poker and prodded at the remnants of the fire in the
grate. A stream of sparks sputtered from the last of the logs and spiralled
away up the chimney and out into the night.
He turned to the assembled audience who were
stood waiting on his every word. The Inspector was there too, looking on with
the same bored expression that always accompanied these affairs. He was tired
of turning up to have the whole thing explained to him. He’d have liked to
solve a case on his own just for once.
“I expect that you are all wondering why I have
brought you here together,” the Great Detective began. The Inspector found it
hard not to yawn. The butler looked uncomfortable, he wasn’t wondering at all.
He’d been at too many of these things and they had often turned out badly for
him. The rest of the group leant forward expectantly. Presumably someone was
feigning interest and was, in fact, concerned that their crimes had been
detected.
“Now, you may recall this all appears to have
started with a very simple robbery at the Garden Centre.” The Great Detective
picked up his enormous meerschaum pipe, stuffed the bowl with a large pinch of
tobacco, and lit it blowing a stream of blue smoke across the room. “Why anyone
should seek to steal an ornamental fruit tree was a puzzle for the local
constabulary especially as it was not a case of simple shop lifting. They were,
of course, worried by the violent attack on the young woman working there. She
had been seized, bound, gagged and rolled up in a bale of chicken wire. But it
was only after the events at the pet shop that Scotland Yard were called in.”
He took another suck on his pipe and nodded to the Inspector. “Who in turn were
good enough to consult me.”
“Luckily I had just completed my monograph on
‘Varieties Of English Pear Trees And Their
Cultivation’.
Sensing that some of his audience were becoming
restless he pressed on.
“As I was saying it was after the pet shop
robbery that I was called in. The pet shop robbery was particularly disturbing.
The three women that were serving there were rounded up and forced into the
store room by masked assailants. All three were bound with dog leashes and
gagged by having rubber bones tied across their mouths. They were then forced
into the cages left vacant by the theft of the stock. Though why anyone should
want a partridge, two turtle doves, three French hens, and four calling birds
was still a mystery at this stage. Even after the girls were interviewed the
police had little to go on, although apparently a man had been in to the shop
the previous day enquiring about various sorts of poultry which he had in mind
as a Christmas present for his ‘true love’. It was that remark that first led
me to suspect that there was something obsessive about whoever was involved.”
The Inspector looked at his watch. The Great
Detective picked up the glass of port kindly poured for him by the butler. He
held it to the light of the fire. It shone with the deep, dark, red of rubies.
The sight seemed to trigger his next line of thought. “Then of course there was
the jewellery shop. It is not unusual you may think for jewellery shops to be
robbed. Especially at this time of year when there are often so many fine items
stocked for gifts. We were very fortunate that Jenson’s Jewellers have a closed
circuit television camera system installed. From the tapes we were able to
observe the robbery in progress. The interesting thing here, however, is not
what was taken but what was not taken!”
The Great Detective flourished his meerschaum
but was disappointed by the lack of response of the family and staff.
“Huummph,” he went
on. “What was not taken was most of the stock. The manager, three assistants
and two customers were herded into the strong room and three masked individuals
then proceeded to ransack the shop. A very careful inventory taken after the
robbery revealed that the only things missing were five gold rings. The robbers
ignored diamonds, expensive watches and a vast quantity of other jewels. All
that they took were these five, very simple golden bands, certainly not of any
great value. They could have taken far more valuable items from the necks of
the customers.”
The butler leant forward with the decanter of
port and refilled the Great Detective’s glass. He nodded his thanks.
“It was after that our attention was directed to
the farm. Now as you know Halfpenny Hill Dairy Farm is quite isolated. We think
it was that fact that attracted our villains. I interviewed one of the farm
hands who saw what happened. His attention was attracted by a great deal of
squawking coming from the pen where the farm was keeping some geese in readiness
for Christmas. Apparently there were six of them, one the family planned to
have for their own Christmas dinner, the others were
destined for sale in the village. Our witness saw three men rounding up the
geese and putting them into crates. They even gathered up the eggs that the
poor creatures had laid, He was about to challenge them when he saw that they
were carrying shotguns. Unfortunately he could not get to the house and the
telephone otherwise we might have apprehended them in the course of the robbery
as their next target proved far from easy.”
“Swans, as you will know, are not the easiest
of birds to handle. Coaxing seven of them from off a lake is a challenge at
best, although our robbers appeared to have some way of attracting them to
shore. Well, what with the honking of the geese and the flapping of the swans,
the robbers had to take a great deal of time rounding up the swans and driving
them across the farm yard into the back of a truck. It was only after they had
succeeded in getting the birds into the truck that two of the men headed off
towards the cow shed while the other stayed behind to guard the truck.”
The Great Detective puffed again on his pipe.
“Well, you can imagine our man’s astonishment at what he saw next. Eight girls
were marched out of the cow shed at gun point. All of the farm’s milk maids had
their hands up and were pushed towards the truck by these villains. They were
herded into the truck and driven off. It was only then that the farmhand was
able to call us. Unfortunately the police did not succeed in spotting the
truck.” The Great Detective looked critically at the Inspector. The Inspector
looked embarrassed. “As a result of confusion over the call, the police thought
that the caller had said that eight milk shakes had been stolen. As a result a
considerable effort was put into catching and interrogating a number of milk
men who were otherwise going about their quite legitimate business. In the
confusion our quarry escaped.”
“It was unfortunate that the police failed to
intercept this truck as this was just the first of a series of mass abductions.
You, Colonel Mustard and you Miss Scarlett were, I understand,
at believe, at Bodleigh Hall on the occasion of the
next of these crimes.”
“I hope you are not implying that I have any
knowledge of this, Sir,” Colonel Mustard bridled. “Or indeed
that my relationship with Miss Scarlett is anything other than one that any
doting uncle might have with his young niece.”
Miss Scarlett gave a giggle which did nothing
to support the Colonel’s last remark, but the Great Detective ignored the
Colonel’s interjection and continued. “So the good folk at Bodleigh
Hall were enjoying their new Year’s eve festivities. Lord and Lady Bodleigh’s ball had attracted most of the county set and
there was considerable distress when a group of armed and masked men burst into
the ball room. The men were scandalised, the women terrified. Everyone assumed
that it was some sort of robbery. The gang forced all the guests to sit on the
floor and then made the women get up, strip off their dresses and dance in
their underwear. After that the man who appeared to be leading the gang pointed
out nine of them. These were tied up and led away. The sobs of the remaining
women and the anger of the men gave way to disbelief as the gang forced the men
to engage in a game of leapfrog. You must be asking yourself, as we did, what
manner of criminals are these? This time the leader pointed to ten of the men
and they were taken away at gun point too. But the madness didn’t stop there!”
The Inspector was finding it hard to see where
things were going. The
“No,” said the Great Detective, “not at all.
Now I must confess to not being a great fan of things Hibernian. It is my
belief that the greatest contribution of those from
The Reverend Green took a sip of his sherry.
“What I don’t understand is what this has to do with any of us,” he said. “Why
have you brought us all here to listen to this? It’s all very upsetting. To think that these maniacs are at large in the countryside.
It’s awful, just awful.”
“There, there, Reverend,” Professor Plum said
comfortingly. “You’ve no need to be upset. I’m sure there is no danger to any
of us and I am sure none of us had anything to do with this.”
The Great Detective looked at the two of them
for a moment and then went on. “The interesting thing is,” he said, “that none
of you, except the butler here,” he looked relieved and poured himself a
surreptitious glass of sherry, “have an alibi for any of the crimes. You,
Colonel, possess the military mind able to plan crimes like these. You, Miss
Scarlett, I know to have the ruthless streak needed to carry them out. You,
your reverence, are a man of such sexual ambivalence as to have an interest in
abducting both men and women, not to say swans. Plum, you are obsessed with the
Reverend here; you could have committed these crimes to demonstrate your love
for him. Mrs White here has the knowledge of both gardening and poultry needed
for some of the robberies and you Mrs Peacock would be well able to recruit a
gang of thugs given your contacts with the underworld. In short any or all of
you have the opportunity and the means to commit these offences. So we are just
left with the question…..”
The Great Detective’s monologue was interrupted
by the ringing of the telephone. The butler crossed the lounge to where it
stood on a small table and picked up the receiver. “Cobleigh
264,” he said, “Arlington Grange.” There was a pause. “I see,” he said. “Yes.
Yes, Very well. I see. Yes. I’ll tell him.” The butler replaced the handset and
turned to face the assembled group. The Great Detective and the Inspector
looked at him quizzically.
“Well,” said the Inspector.
“It was the police station, Sir. Your Sergeant, I believe. He had a message for you.”
“Well spit it out man,” the Inspector demanded.
“He’s just had the most extraordinary thing
happen. You’ll remember that there was a steel band giving a concert in the
Town Hall this afternoon? Apparently they were in full flow when masked men
burst in and forced them out of the Town Hall and into a truck. All twelve of
them, driven away just like that.”
“Good grief,” said the Inspector. “When did
this happen?”
“About fifteen minutes ago, Sir. So, you see,
no one here could have had anything to do with it.”
The Inspector turned to the Great Detective.
“Well,” he said, “that seems to put the tin lid on your theories at any rate.”
The Great Detective took a deep draft to empty
his glass of port. He put it down carefully on the mantle shelf. He knocked his
pipe out into the fireplace, refilled it slowly, lit it and puffed it
thoughtfully. He looked around at the faces of the assembled group, taking in
their looks of studied anticipation.
He drew himself up to his full height before
picking up his
“Well,”
said the Great Detective, “I’m buggered if I know who did it, but one thing is
certain. They must have a really attractive girlfriend.”
++++ The End. ++++
© Freddie Clegg 2006 Not to be reproduced or reposted
without permission. freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Download PDF copies of my other stories at my Yahoo Group
:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freddies_tales/
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