Muyda

Detective Sergeant Ernie Straker stood outside the half timbered, half frost glazed door that was the entrance to the office of the Smokin Sam Detective Agency. He stared at the agencies name etched on the glass subtitled with “Private Dick For Hire No Case Too Small”. Ernie had received a muffled telephone call from Sam, twenty minutes earlier and was sure he had heard a gunshot followed by a throaty “Help” before the line went dead. DS Straker’s eyes surveyed the door looking for any signs of force, there was nothing amiss. He twisted the door knob and pushed the door wide open. Slumped in his chair behind his desk was Smokin Sam, a single bullet hole between his eyes had killed his friend instantly. The bullet had sliced through his head with such ease that the ash on the end of Smokin Sam’s cigarette remained undisturbed between his lips. Without touching anything DS Straker surveyed the scene looking for a lead. The only lead he could find was the lead in the end of the pencil that was stuck up Smokin Sam’s left nostril. On the table sat the half burnt candle that Smokin Sam used to light his cigarettes from, the flame flickered from the draft coming through the open door? He walked around to Sam’s side of the desk and could see the top drawer where Sam kept his secret stash of jelly babies had been forced open and the padlock lay unlocked by the table leg. The jelly babies were missing! He had gathered as many clues as he could, the pencil rammed up Smokin Sam’s nose, was it 2b or not 2b he pondered, the locked padlock on the floor, is the key the clue he needed and the flickering half burnt candle on the desk may hold a clue to the time of death. DS Straker took the cigarettes from Sam’s waistcoat pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it off the candle flame. He felt his nasal hair catch fire; he was never any good at lighting cigarettes from candles. He pondered the clues as he inhaled the smoke from his blazing nasal hair...............

©Julian Race 14/09/2020