32. ALL GOOD THINGS MUST END

THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND DENTURES 32

The disappearance of the dentures from the medieval boudoir changed everything from the perspective of our heroes.

It was amazing how swiftly paramedics arrived and carted off the Prime Minister, to have his leg fixed after arranging it in a temporary splint, and asking him how on Earth he came to be suffering from such an injury in so harmless a place as a bedroom. His reply, forgotten already, varied from the truth in that it contained none of it, not a syllable, just a load of incomprehensible mumbling that language specialists vowed to spend as long as it took to translate it into English. They still haven’t managed it.

Then it was the turn of everyone else, even Igor who refused to open his mouth and bid everyone farewell, to melt away, including the two officers who had supposed to be gorillas but turned out to be anything but. The one with the head full of straw from a mattress that ought to have been replaced long ago turned out to have a soft side whilst his mate grunted, said he was going to resign and did so, there and then, by walking out and subsequently putting a claim in for his pension which nobody dared refuse on account of what he may or may not have witnessed and what he may or may not say about it.

All this left Blinky, Royston and Angelina comforting a distraught conservator who wanted the whole room, damaged mattress, shattered floorboard, everything, put back to how it had been that very morning. She was, she said, a recovering alcoholic, had been dry for almost two decades and now all she was determined to do was buy a bottle or two of gin and enjoy them in the privacy of her own home until she woke up with her head down the toilet like in the good old days.

And then there were just the three Curmudgeons who found their way out and, miraculously unhindered by any form of authority, ended up on the streets of London where nobody recognised them or even pointed giggling fingers at them despite the less than normal appearance of the two men. Their boxer shorts were taken as summer apparel, and a wise choice at that, seeing as how the country was basking in the sort of heatwave that made minimal clothing advisable and prophets of doom suggest that the planet was about to burst into flames on account of too many cows farting in South America.

How they got back to their headquarters is a miracle of using several forms of transport, including the trailer of a tractor that was taking straw to a piggery and a canal narrow boat that was on a summer break near Rugby. But they not only arrived back before nightfall but managed to get at least half of a well deserved forty winks as they glided or rattled or bounced along.

By the evening of that day they were back at 221c Butchers Close, Badgerbrook where Blinky and Royston dug out spare trousers which they found to be far too uncomfortable bearing in mind the heat, and when Angelina suggested that Royston looked quite all right in his underwear he took his off again. Blinky didn’t, though. He’d had enough of the sight of his admittedly rather knobbly knees since the mess of the landfill site and the storm in the night.

“It’s been a long shift,” said Angelina when she had prepared coffee for the three of them, with a generous measure of single malt whiskey in hers, “and besides being paid double time for it I want to get my head down for a good night’s sleep.”

“Double time nonsense,” growled Blinky, switching on the television in his office, “let’s see if any of this made the news before we call it a day.”

“Or a week,” growled Royston, “I’d rather call it a week. A day’s not anywhere near what it’s felt like.”

The moment they found a rolling news channel they all sat bolt upright and gasped. Not only were the events they had been part of in the Tower of London, including the Prime Minister’s fractured leg and visible shin bone, all over the first rolling news channel they found but the whole event, including the arrival and departure of the barmaid Janie Cobweb, caught in the most spectacularly perfect High Definition imaginable. It was as if the medieval boudoir had been relocated to the television of 221c, and the reason was easy to see when there was a shot of Igor at the end of the report, with his smile displaying a set of the most brilliant diamond teeth.

“He must have made a second pair!” muttered Blinky.

“Which explains why he had precious little to say while we were there,” murmured Royston.

“Isn’t he an angel!” giggled Angelina, “of course he had to have made more than one pair. He’s probably got a whole collection! Let’s see the Prime Minister lie his way out of some of the things he said there, and mark my words, there’ll be snippets of that on Twitter for as long as there’s Twitter!”

Following a detailed report on the events in the medieval boudoir there was a second item that caught their attention. It wasn’t so much the account of how the launch of a mysterious private space rocket towards the sun was imminent, but the reporter.

It was Igor looking like the brain-box that he really was, and he was still wearing boxer shorts, though he’d changed them into a more sober looking pair in teal, and he introduced the world to the two astronauts that were going to accompany an exciting and potentially marvellous probe to an orbit as close to the sun as they dared go.

He didn’t name them, but that was probably because he hadn’t actually asked them by then, and he never suggested that there could be something extraordinary about the private space vehicle or that he thought its mission vital.

“Whoever’s agreed to that is going on a fool’s mission,” growled Blinky.

“I hope he doesn’t mean my sister,” added Angelina.

He remained mysteriously quiet about that mission or why is was so vital, but that was Igor all over.

THE END

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