10. TINY BLOXAM

THE CASE OF THE GOLDEN EYEGLASS 10

“Another day is another day!” growled Blinky Curmudgeon, sitting behind his desk. at an awkward angle and addressing his anglepoise lamp standard rather too fiercely. “Today we go to investigate the demise of poor young Bloxam, may he rest in peace...”

“Ahem,” coughed Sergeant (retired) Royston Williams. “I'm over here, sir, and raring to go. I have my little pistol firmly gripped in the waistband of my underpants and nobody can stop me now!”

“And what underpants,” sighed Angelina Parr. “I was never more delighted than when I came face to face with that particular waistband and the riveting image in fluorescent pink on those underpants...”

“Shush!” hissed Royston, not wanting echoes of what he and she had ben up to during the night made too public. But the truth of the matter was they had shared the same bed and Angelina was the sort of young woman to whom the sharing of a bed must inevitably lead to only one thing. And when she started her nocturnal demands there was very little stopping her until exhaustion sent her into an easy and satisfied sleep.

Royston was only too please to hear Blinky continue as if he hadn't heard anything about underpants and their waistbands. He preferred keeping some aspects of his life as private as he could.

“Then off we go, comrades, and one word first,” declaimed Blinky. He coughed and prepared to say more than the one word because he was the sort of man to whom one word would never do if he could use a dozen, “If we should fall in battle, then the cause is good,” he enunciated in sombre tones. “If we should be filled with enemy lead then so be it. We are going on a cause worthy of the highest motives of our race, into a mighty battle at the late PC Bloxam's house. So off we go, and may the best man remain standing!”

Royston felt a tear forming in the corner of one eye, and it might have been joined by one in the corner of the other eye had he not caught the expression on Miss Parr's face. It was one of almost joyful amusement at a speech designed to stir bold thoughts in any man anywhere. But she wasn't a man and found it very easy seeing into the heart of most things masculine.

They trooped out to the car, Royston's older vehicle, a geriatric Land Rover, this time seeing that he had little faith in the shiny self-driving one favoured by his boss who, being blind, needed the kind of interface offered by futuristic technology. But that vehicle filled his heart with fear and dread, and he was scared that would all have died as a consequence of something drastic like a burnt out silicone chip before they reached the first corner.

It wasn't too far to the home of the recently murdered PC Tiny Bloxam, and Royston decided to drive slowly out of respect for the the constable’s demise. So he pulled into the middle of the road and reduced his speed to five miles an hour, holding his head still and sober as he drove sedately down the road, which would have been all well and good had his been the only vehicle on the road, but it wasn't. What followed hard on his decision for pomp came a fanfare of hooters as other cars wanted to pass, but couldn't.

“Don't be silly,” hissed Angelina, “you're drawing attention to us!”

“Come on! It seems all right to me!” exclaimed Blinky, blindly.

“Put your foot down,” urged Angelina, craning her neck to look through the rear window, “I don't like the look on the face of that bloke behind us one little bit!”

“Oh, all right,” sighed Royston, and as a peevish contrast he accelerated to exceed the speed limit and pulled away from the centre of the road.

They arrived at Tiny Bloxam's house. The last time they had been there it had been surrounded by emergency vehicles with their excited occupants milling around. Now the road was still and quiet without even a length of tape to cordon off the officer’s house.

“Like a graveyard,” muttered Blinky, whose eyesight might have been made non-existent and whose hearing had certainly been enfeebled by the blast that had all-but killed him ... but the latter actually worked, sometimes curiously well, despite the need for hearing aids.

“On a Sunday afternoon,” added Angelina. “What are we going to do?”

“We need to take a good look around �" and by we I mean you two,” decided Blinky. “There's no way I can actually look anywhere, though I can do some thinking while you're at the sharp end of investigation.”

“There won't be any gunmen here,” sighed Royston. “They'll have packed up and gone ages ago. I'll go and knock the door just in case, though. He may have relatives clearing up for him. The poor sod hasn't been dead for twenty-four hours and they'll be wanted to scrub any sign of his existence from the face of the planet!”

“There's no decency any more,” put in Angelina, “no respect for our elders and betters. There was a time when the recently dead were allowed to decompose in peace...”

“He wasn't your elder...” began Blinky, who still believed that the woman was a septuagenarian and wanted to remind her that Tiny had been a very young constable. His own degraded hearing imposed an old person's waver onto the young woman's voice, and his blindness did the rest.

“I'll take a peek, then,” said Royston. “I'll be careful and ready to dodge out of the way at the first sign of trouble...”

“There won't be any!” boomed Blinky, confidently

Royston made his way to the front door of the late Tiny's home. Yesterday, when they'd been here, it had been surrounded by policemen and ambulance crew, all milling around, all trying desperately to save the man's life according to the officer they'd asked.

He was in good hands, sighed Royston as he reached the green front door with its plastic 23 shining silvery in the morning sunlight. At least everything will have been done that could have been done... it's impressive what they can do these days, almost waken the dead if they get to them fast enough … but poor young Tiny...

He pressed the doorbell and he heard it playing the pompous the grand old Duke of York somewhere in the house.

That was my favourite tune when I was a kid, he remembered. I had military tendencies back then … but not any more! I'm all for a peaceful life and what happened to poor old Tiny �" I mean poor young Tiny �" is evidence of the wisdom of that attitude!

To his surprise he heard the tread of someone inside the house, someone walking positively towards the door and preparing to open it.

I thought Tiny lived on his own, he thought. Maybe he had a wife tucked somewhere and never mentioned her … maybe it's just that I'm out of touch...

Someone on the inside gabbed hold of the handle and the door opened.

Someone stood there, and Royston ducked at what he thought was a gun in the hands of a desperado.

But it wasn't a gun and it wasn't a desperado.

Tiny Bloxam stood there, blinking and very obviously alive, and he was holding a rolled-up copy of the Daily Telegraph as if he was preparing to swat a fly.

Dead men don't read papers, thought Royston, and he blacked out in that old familiar way he had.

© Peter Rogerson 24.08.14, revised 05.01.20