1.ONE POSH LADY

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND DENTURES 1

Inspector “Blinky” Curmudegeon was pleased with himself. He’d managed to finish the TIMES crossword without consulting any of the clues, and all the words sort of fitted together except for one, breathwit which made sense to him if to nobody else, and he’d managed it all before his eyes failed again.

They failed quite spectacularly (to him) several times a day. Sometimes he was able to see what he described in a 20/20 way like he had in the good old days before the accident with a gun and the next he was blinder than a bat. It had to be blinder because bats aren’t actually blind unless they’ve accidentally flown into something sharp and penetrating with both eyes open.

His own disastrous vision all had to do with an accident he’d had with a handgun in the practise range when he’d been a serving police officer. One had gone off all wrong when he’d pulled the trigger, and left him with partial blindness. And his variety of partial was in the sense that sometimes he was blind and sometimes he wasn’t.

It was when he was congratulating himself on his morning’s effort that two things happened at once. His eyes switched off, completely and infuriatingly off, and a potential customer knocked on his door. He barely had time to pull his blacked-out spectacles into place.

“Come!” he barked, and Mildred Kampinella-Plonker came.

Mildred was quite the lady. The words posh bird described her exactly. She was dressed in so many floaty layers that it was hard to tell whether she was fat or thin and her hat resembled a fruit salad with a bouquet of roses thrust into it, not that he could see either when he pointed his eyes at where he thought she was standing.

That was another thing about his affliction: he had a poor concept of direction and could spend ages debating the weather with a coat stand. Meanwhile, Mildred Kampinella-Plonke floated up to him. Had he seen her he would have used exactly that terminology.

“Are you Curmudgeon?” she asked in the sort of voice that suggested that he’d better be or she’d turn nasty.

Even though his eyes had switched off, he recognised the type. She was, he decided, a spinster in her nineties and poorer than a church mouse during lent, which means that he got it wrong in so many ways because, in actual fact, she was a moneyed lady possibly in her forties and had never met a church mouse nor paid a moment’s attention to lent nor any other religious festival.

He made a noise that may have been affirmative or may have embraced any other response.

“Then you’re the man I’m after,” she said, her voluminous voice filling every corner of the room with echoes.

“Let me call my PA then,” he said.

Constable Angelina Parr, later of the local constabulary, was his secretary, a position that he occasionally referred to as personal assistant (or PA) when it suited him. But everyone who knew them was fully aware that she was the power behind his desk, so to speak.

“That won’t be necessary,” she boomed, “I told the lass to take a break. What I’ve got to say to you is top secret and most important. A matter, indeed, of national interest. It’s been stolen.”

“Really?” he asked, afraid that if he asked what it was the question might show too much ignorance on his part and the Curmudgeon enterprise might lose a valuable customer, a loss that it could ill afford.

“I was in the bath with loads of nice refreshing bubbles,” she said, her voice even for a change, “and with Clemence,” she added.

Now who in the name of Dickens is Clemence? he wondered.

“Clemence is my boyfriend,” she said, realising that he might not know. “He calls on me on Tuesdays and he’s always in quite an extraordinary state of filth, so I let him take a bath with me. It’s perfectly natural, you know, bathing with the librarian even if he does get smears of black ink from the stamp-pad on his shirt sleeves and fascinating private parts! Anyway, we enjoy bathing together. It’s comforting. you must know what i mean. Anyway, it’s been stolen and I want you to get it back. Find it. You are a private investigator, aren’t you?”

“I am, madam,” he said, wondering what a woman in her nineties was doing bathing with the local librarian even if it was only on Tuesdays.

“Then you’ll find it for me, then?” she asked. He couldn't see, but she was beaming at him, bright as a sunbeam on a summer’s day through eyes that were well nigh less than half a century old.

“Just leave it to us, madam,” he murmured, still having no idea what it might be as she swept magisterially out.

He sniffed the air and when he was quite sure she had gone he managed to find the door that connected his office with Angelina’s corner of creation.

“Are you there?” he barked, and sniffed. Yes, she was there. He could smell her, a unique combination of Jasmine and Columbine which he found particularly attractive.

“Switch your eyes back on,” she said, “then you’ll know.”

He had no idea how to switch his eyes back on so he merely came out with a haughty grunt and tried to sit on the chair he knew was in front of her desk.

“To the left, about a foot,” she directed him and somehow he managed to locate the chair without locating the floor with a bump first.

“She was a game old bird,” he said, not sure what he wanted to say. “Sharing her bath with the librarian at her age!”

“What about her age?” asked Angelina, “she’s not much older then me!”

“I’d put her at ninety-odd,” he murmured, not sure what clues she’d provided for him to be so certain on what might prove to be an important point.

“Then switch your eyes back on,” she growled, “her name is Mildred Kampinella-Plonker and her husband is in Government, at quite a high level. That’s why she came to see you.”

“Nothing to do with taking a bath with a dirty librarian, then?” he asked.

“Nothing whatsoever,” she replied, “and if you don’t mind me suggesting it, we could do with the sergeant in on this one.”

“Of course, of course,” he nodded, “I’ll send word when we’ve figured things out..”

“I’ve already done that,” smiled his PA.

“So did she happen to mention… I mean, did she say?” asked Blinky nervously. “I thought that maybe…”

“She didn’t tell you, did she?” asked Angelina, “which doesn’t surprise me at all. It struck me that she must have heard of our success with the golden spyglass...”

“Of course, of course!”

“So she’s brought us a case involving a diamond set of false teeth. Just think of it: diamond dentures! One that’s been stolen and somehow has got something to do with the government. She wasn’t so clear on that.”

“Only that? Nothing’s that clear to me, not one syllable of one word! And oh dear! The government, you say? Messing about with valuable teeth? Now what can that all be about, I wonder,” grunted Blinky.

“And librarians needing a bath on Tuesdays?” came a voice from the open doorway. It was Sergeant Royston Williams, and his face was a mask of enthusiasm. “Just what we need,” he added, “It’s been a bit quiet of late. We need something to get our teeth into!”