4. Trouble in the Market

Christie’s Detective Agency Two. Part four THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY

“It’s always good,” smiled Jenny Marple, “when one’s chief assistant turns up on the dot of eight-thirty when he’s supposed to arrive on the dot of nine!”

Horace Sorsse plonked himself down in the chair opposite her and sighed.

“What’s all the fuss about?” he asked, “police in the market, outside the library? Blue lights flashing all over the place?”

“Are there?” she looked surprised, “that’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

Jenny and Horace were all there was of the Christie’s Detective Agency, an established business left to her by her grandfather when he shuffled off his mortal coil, as he would have put it. Since she had taken over she had been kept going by a series of low-paid and sleazy (to her mind) domestic problems in which the only solution seemed to be one divorce or another. Before inheriting the business when she was on the cusp of being thirty she had worked as a detective constable at Brumpton Police station, which is probably why Horace expected her to be au fait with what was happening in the market square when he passed through it on his way to the office.

“It seemed busy enough,” he told her, “and something on a stretcher covered in black was being carted out as I passed. It was the right shape and size to be,” and he shuddered theatrically, “a body.”

She shook her head. “I know nothing,” she said, and picked up her desk phone, tapped a number and waited.

When the phone was answered she said “Jenny here, Jenny Marple. Is Cyril around?”

“He’s out,” came the reply on speaker-phone, “can I take a message?”

“No, it’s alright. I’ll try his mobile,” and she hung up.

“Cyril’s out,” she told Horace, “and by the way I’m tired of calling you Captain when I’m the captain of this particular ship, so from now on, and I want no arguments, you’re Poiry. And in my opinion it suits you. Poiry.”

He looked at her and shook his head slowly, smiling faintly.

“Why Poiry?” he asked.

“Well, you told me that your middle name is Poirot and my surname is Marple. It’s got a ring, don’t you think, Marple and Poiry?”

He groaned. “If you must,” he said, his voice heavy with assumed sorrow.

She smiled at him, winked, flicked her long hair knowing how much such movements appealed to him and picked up the phone again, this time calling D.I. Cyril Hodbur. After a pause almost long enough for her to think of hanging up and trying again later he replied.

“That you, Jenny?” he said.

“You know it is, cheeky!” she replied, smiling at the newly renamed Poiry, “now tell me, sweetheart, what’s afoot?”

“You’ve heard that something’s afoot?” he said, “you’re quick off the mark this morning!”

“My number two happened to be passing through the market this morning when, out of the corner of his eye, he spied a corpse being carted out of the library and illuminated by blues and twos,” she said.

“Got good eyesight, that number two of yours?” asked Cyril.

“Twenty-twenty, Cyril,” she replied, “so who is it? You won’t keep me in the dark surely?”

“I ought to after that window cleaner affair,” he grunted, referring to a recent case in which the Agency had solved what the police hadn’t recognised existed, “making me look like a proper twerp, that’s what you did. I’d have sworn it was an accident waiting to happen and never dreamed that it had actually happened.”

“My number two’s quick thinking,” sighed Jenny, “so is there anything you can tell me before it gets in the papers?”

“Elderly lady with a blade in her back. Been sitting reading a book since Saturday.”

“Juicy.”

The D.I. at the other end of the phone sighed. “Discovered by the librarian’s chief assistant when she opened up just on eight this morning. She went in and saw the poor old dear sitting in her usual seat, glazed eyes blindly staring at a rugby player on the wall. Now look, Jenny, this is a police matter and you’re in civvies, so keep your nose out of it.”

“Until you come to a dead end, boss?”

“I’m not your boss any more!” Then he sighed. Look, Jenny, if I do need an extra pair of eyes I’ll let no doubt think of little you. It must have crossed your mind that our manpower has been cut and cut and cut. You weren’t replaced, you know.”

“I tell you what, boss. Sometimes you might call in an outsider as an expert in something or other.”

He sighed. “I know. And pay them.”

“That’s what I was thinking! Well, if you do need an expert to help out you can always think of me!”

“And what are you expert at pray, Jenny?”

“Surely you can remember that Christmas party before I left? It would have been in the broom cupboard if we had one, so it was in the Super’s office on his couch? Remember? I seem to recall that you were first class at it, though you did appreciate a female touch…”

“That’s blackmail!”

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. But whatever, we both enjoyed it, didn’t we?”

“Now you’re not suggesting that you’ll tell my old lady?”

“Cyril, I would never, ever do anything like that! Never! I swear it! So don’t put the idea into my head.”

“I’ll bear you in mind then, sweetheart.”

“There you go, inviting me into your honey trap! But if you could toss the odd crumb our way I’d be really grateful. I’m getting fed up with domestics.”

“We’ll see, Jenny.”

“Cheers then, Cyril,” and she hung up.

“We need to get up front with this,” murmured Jenny to Poiry, “Just in case D.I. fancy pants Cyril throws us some crumbs. He’s a good man, is Cyril, and a good detective. But even good detectives sometimes need a helping hand.”

“So is there anything you want me to do?” asked Poiry, already getting used to his new nickname. Jenny, he knew, had a penchant for creating nicknames and then changing them at the drop of a hat.

“Apparently the old lady Cyril mentioned was discovered in her seat by the chief library assistant. Can you find out who that is and chase up any background that might be useful?”

“I could take her for drinky-poos if she’s suffering from shock?” suggested her young number two.

“Now don’t be too forwards! I might end up getting jealous, my favourite teenager sharing his time with a librarian’s knickers!”

“I’ll do some research first,” promised Poiry, “for starters, I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I didn’t research colour.”

“Colour? What on Earth do you mean by that?” asked Jenny.

“Her knickers. I’m very choosy about the colour of librarian’s underwear,” he said with a grin, and switch his computer on.

© Peter Rogerson 28.09.21

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