The feathers covered the hallway carpet. There were more scattered about in the second-best bedroom. The blanket on the second-best bed was littered with the tiny grey tufts, too.
Detective Inspector Dixon sighed. Not again, he thought. Not another murder at Lush Places, the sort of quiet, picturesque place where cosy crime murder mysteries are always set, but where murders never happen.
The first had been the corpse he’d found near the bathroom door. The body was intact with little sign of trauma, just a faraway look in its eyes as if it was trying to remember where it had left its house keys. So peaceful. Still, you didn’t have to be a detective inspector to see this was an act of villainy.
Dixon searched the hall for clues. Nothing. He searched the bedrooms for clues. Nothing. He attempted interviewing the two members of the Infamous Whiskers Gang slumbering on the second-best bed. They pretended not to hear. Dixon’s investigation had hit a brick wall and seemed destined to become a case as cold as that corpse.
The second body was discovered before dawn the following day. Stepping into the hallway from the first-best bedroom on his way to make a cup of tea, Dixon noticed something strange in the half dark.
He flicked on the light, and there it was: corpse number two. With one case already colder than a ditch-digger’s bum, the inspector inspected this second body with care. It, too, showed no signs of violence, but it was clear there had been more foul play.
Dixon took out his notebook once more and began examining the hall for clues. This time, he found dirty footprints. His heart raced: the game was afoot!
But he soon realised that, although the feet had made prints, they had also made a mess and it wouldn’t be much use to his investigation.
He sighed. What he probably needed to do was a hard-target search of every warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the area. Perhaps later. His first investigative priority was to find that cup of tea and perhaps, if he extended his investigation to the fridge, some crumpets for afters.
After a slap-up breakfast, he began his search again for leads and soon discovered four members of the Infamous Whiskers Gang holed up in the second-best bedroom. Could it be them? They were definitely hard nuts. He suspected none would talk, and so it proved.
“Where were you when the deceased met his untimely demise?” Dixon asked. The gangsters stared, but said nothing.
Detective Inspector Dixon was puzzled. The feathers could mean only one thing: more murder most foul. But a search for a third body revealed not a dicky bird. The trail of feathers clearly led down the hallway to the second-best bedroom and on to the second-best bed, and then … nothing.
Dixon considered the room, the known haunt of the Infamous Whiskers Gang.
If you had a cunning criminal mind, where might you hide a body in the second-best bedroom? Under the second-best bed? Behind the door? Under the chest of drawers?
As he searched, the Infamous Whiskers Gang pretended to sleep, but he could tell they were watching him. Were the rotters laughing at him, too?
He was concluding his fruitless search when Constable Hewitson, his part-time assistant and full-time love interest, entered the room. She saluted smartly.
“‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello,” Dixon said. “What do we have here, then?”
The constable held up a once-fancy teacup that had been used as a toothbrush holder. It had been found, its bottom broken off by a fall in the bathroom sink. There were also signs that something had been interfering with a bathmat.
Murder and vandalism. These were troubling times at Lush Places. Detective Inspector Dixon felt in his dressing gown pocket for his pouch of Turkish tobacco. This was a three-pipe problem to be sure.
To be continued.
