| Subject: Inspector's Journal; page 127..... |
Author:
Inspector Jimbo
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Date Posted: 17:57:08 01/21/03 Tue
In reply to:
Inspector Jimbo
's message, "A tribute to my good comrade, Pandora" on 17:55:04 01/21/03 Tue
This is a story from one of my many cases in London, when I was sent to assist a pathetic and poorly minded local police force with what they called a "suicide". What first bothered my magnificent mind was the how clean the inside of the vehicle was. Someone had vacuumed the interior rugs with a care I haven't seen since my housemaid quit in 1957, claiming I was a drunk. Foolish girl. Anyway, carrying on, there wasn't a speck of dust anywhere on the dash or steering column, and even the stalks of the radio knobs had been wiped clean.
The leather cover on the gearshift box, while not nearly as nice as the fine Roman leather of the armchair in my study, was impeccably cleaned of any grit in the crevices. Clearly this was not a casual or spontaneous effort.
The car was not new. I made note of it having 47,583 miles on its odometer when I leaned in to inspect it in the dim light of the garage in which it was sitting.
At this point I leaned over and flicked the switch on the passenger side armrest to let the window down a bit and get a damn bit of air in the wretched vehicle. The young officer standing nearby did not protest, although I should have given him a severe tongue lashing should he have chosen to do so. The whole area smelled foul, but inside the automobile was ten times as rank. It was a smell I hadn't gotten used to by that time, but am now more than accustomed to - that of a body in decomposition. It's quite sickening. And since the auto doors had only been opened long enough to take a few photographs and remove the corpse - a young woman, perhaps 40 - there was little hope the odor would dissipate at any speed.
Moving on, according to the twitty little moron who passed for a competent coroner in this tiny, backward Hamlet, the car had been backed into the garage by the deceased woman some forty to fifty hours before. She then proceeded to shut the garage door, and sit with motor going until her life was extinguished. Her body had gone unnoticed for a bit under two days.
This was the report I had been given, and was contemplating with rapid speed through my vastly superior intellect, when I was rudely interrupted by another local "officer".
This bloody idiot clearly felt he deserved the rank of Captain that he wore on his chest, although being Captain of this force was, in my opinion, akin to being the General of an army of pigs. Anyway, this lesser man said to me sharply, clearly unaware to whom he was speaking, "You didn't touch anything, eh? I surveyed that scene myself and I'll know if you moved something."
To this, I responded by pointing to the radio on his waist and saying "Can you contact London on that?"
"Of course" he said.
"Then call and get someone with brains down here for me to talk to, you snively, cocky little half a man. You've missed something."
"Oh, and bring me a brandy, will you? Dealing with you people has driven me to drink."
My question to all of you is this: Just what had I noticed that these other men had not?
The first to correctly reply wins the grandest of all prizes: A drink with me from my private collection! Chop chop!
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