14. GRISELDA ENTWHISTLE

THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND DENTURES 14

When Royston came to the bit about the barmaid seeming to climb onto one of those old fashioned besom broomsticks and zoom off into the heavens, the policeman who was questioning him didn’t appear to bat an eyelid.

“Not her again,” he murmured, “it’s becoming a chore, chasing her around.”

“What do you mean, not her again?” asked Royston, “it makes the daftest account I’ve ever heard of a serious crime like murder, and you seem to be taking it in your stride as if it happens every day.”

“Ah, but it does. There’s a strange old woman in Swanspottle,” sighed the policeman, a well-intentioned Inspector with the unfortunate name of Gadgett. His name may have slowed down his promotion but his keen mind and incisive actions hadn’t. He looked at the trio of Curmudgeons apologetically. “It’s said she’s got witch’s blood coursing through her veins, not that I believe everything that’s said bout her,” he continued, “and I dared say there’s something odd about her,and I dared say that can be said about many an old lady, but whether it has anything to do with witches is besides the point except that it has been reported that she’s been seen riding between the clouds on what looks very much like an old fashioned broomstick. And one of those telling us about it was the Chief Constable himself, though he had been to the golf club for a drop of scotch or three before he had his vision.”

“Oh. And does this old biddy have name?” asked Blinky sarcastically.

“Maybe it’s her name that helps convince people of her evil ways,” sighed the Inspector, “Entwhistle, that’s her name, Griselda Entwhistle, and for the last few weeks she’s had a younger woman, maybe a niece, staying with her, a most undesirable woman with a terrible reputation for mischief, Janie Cobweb, she’s called, and like a cobweb it’s said she traps the unwary in webs of bother! The two of them make a troublesome combination but there’s not a copper in the force who can do anything about them because they wriggle out of everything! And it’s said that the older one is the brains behind most things that go wrong in the county, and beyond it. It’s even said she’s in league with the devil himself, for her sins!”

“That’s nonsense,” boomed Blinky, “back when I was in the force the moment anyone made comments about leagues with devils and superstitious claptrap like that I had them locked up before they could do any more harm!”

“She’s greasy,” muttered Inspector Gadgett, “as greasy as one of them poles naked women like to dance round in seedy nightclubs. Not that I’ve ever been to one nor seen what goes on there, of course: it’s just what a bloke picks up on the beat...”

“I have,” smiled Angelina, “all in the line of duty, of course, and before I was promoted to being Blinky’s right hand. But there was one of those clubs in Brumpton and I went undercover as a dancer. I can be quite a mover when I want to, or so they say! It was really quite good fun and most of the lonely men were really rather sweet, and I had loads of cash tucked into my knickers. Trouble is, I had to hand it in because I was on duty and never got to see a penny of it myself.”

“Shame,” sighed Royston.

“It was most unfair,” agreed Angelina, and she grinned at him with the sort of grin that made him shiver inside.

“Anyway, I’ll pay a visit on the cottage where the Entwhistle women lives,” muttered the Inspector, sounding very much like a reluctant schoolboy would have sounded after he’d written a very rude word on the Headmaster’s car in permanent paint and had been called to his office for a thrashing, back when such discipline was the order of the day.

“We’ll come with you if it’s all right,” shouted Blinky who had suddenly become blind and more dependant on his ears for sensory input. “I would say more,” he added, “but we’re on Government business and walls have ears. And lamp-posts. They have ears too.”

So have police Inspectors, thought Inspector Gadgett, but he merely nodded his reply. “As long as you keep in the background and leave the questioning to me,” he mumbled, only too pleased to have what he perceived as a sort of back-up army for what could turn out to be a dangerous operation even if it was only with a scurrilous old woman.

The country cottage where the elderly Entwhistle woman was supposed to live gave just about everything away as they approached it up its short path. There was an ancient broom, twigs fastened to the end of a knobbly unplaned stick, leaning against the wall next to a front door that looked as if it came out of a child’s horror comic, with a small yellow window above a huge knocker shaped like a turtle’s head and rows of blackened studs that were probably the weathered ends of old iron bolts. And the whole lot was on a blackened oak door that looked considerably too heavy for the small cottage. The whole effect was Gothic in the extreme, and it wasn’t helped by the cast iron cauldron they could just about see round a corner that led to the rear of the forbidding cottage.

And cobwebs. There were strands of cobwebs everywhere.

“The whole place could do with a darned good fettle,” grunted Blinky as his eyesight returned.

“You can say that again,” muttered Royston, and Blinky obliged.

“The whole place could do with a darned good fettle,” he repeated solemnly.

Angelina decided it was going to be down to her to knock on the door because the two men seemed to have engaged in a game of repetition, and the noise made by the gigantic knocker echoed through the building, sending a little cascade of straw from the thatched roof down onto their heads.

There was a brief pause during which Royston considered running away and forgetting they were on a job involving national secrets.

Then the door opened with a heart-wrenching creak and a lady who looked as though she might be in her late hundreds appeared in the shadows of the hallway beyond it.

“Miss Entwhistle?” asked the Inspector, clearly nervously.

“Ye-es,” the ancient creature replied, “what can I do for you, deary?”

“It’s been reported,” began the Inspector, then he decided to make his questions sound less authoritative, “it is rumoured,” he continued, “that you have a niece staying with you? A young lady by the name of Janie Cobweb, lately employed as a barmaid at a hostelry known as The Ginger Nut?”

“Ah, my gorgeous niece,” smiled the old lady, winking at the Inspector, “was it her knickers you were after, you naughty boy?”

The question felled Inspector Gadgett. He had no reply, no means of refuting the indirect assumption in it and he took a step backwards.

But that was, to Blinky Curmudgeon, a display of weakness to be avoided at all costs, and he stepped round the police officer and scowled at the woman standing in the doorway.

And she scowled back at him, then smiled, revealing a set of glittering, gem-like teeth the like of which Blinky had never seen before.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth, and Griselda Entwhistle turned and quietly closed the door, still smiling.

© Peter Rogerson, 25.01.20

Both Griselda Entwhistle and Janie Cobweb are old characters of mine, created in my MySpace days.