The Sprouts of Wrath

26

Inspectre Sherringford Hovis paced the floor of the Professor’s study. “No,” he said, shaking his head fervently, “no, I will not be having with this.”

Professor Slocombe offered a passive smile to the great detective. “Nevertheless I have no doubt that it occurred very much in the manner that I have stated.”

Hovis sank into a fireside chair and spread out his long legs before him. “You are suggesting that these young people invoked some kind of spirit, in the form of a mythical griffin no less, and that it turned upon them?”

“Not exactly, it is far more complicated than that.”

“More complicated? Such a concept alone is surely enough?”

“Do you have another theory then?”

Hovis shook his head once more. “None immediately springs to mind. But my superiors will not buy ‘griffin’, Professor. They have little truck with the supernatural and even less with me at present.”

“You have the plastercasts, you have the blood samples, I offer you the explanation, you must do with it what you will.”

Hovis rose from his seat and resumed his pacing. “But it won’t do.” He worried at the knot of his tweedy tie and sought other things to do with his hands. “I can’t make a case of this. My superiors will fall on me from an impossible height. And what of the games? MYTHICAL BEAST STALKS OLYMPICS, FIVE DEAD SO FAR. This won’t do. It is disaster, spell it as you will.”

“You have two witnesses,” suggested the Professor.

“Ah yes, the nocturnal ‘bird watchers’ who just happened to be on the island.”

Professor Slocombe flinched inwardly; Omally had been bound to come up with some explanation other than the truth for their being there. “Well, they would testify to what they saw, they have nothing to hide.”

“Indeed?” Hovis took from his pocket a morocco wallet and from this a charred photograph. “And what do you make of this, Professor?”

The sage examined the photograph. “It would appear to be a drunken holidaymaker in a foolish hat,” said he.

“It would appear to be your Mr Pooley.” Hovis returned the snapshot to his wallet. “Well then?”

Professor Slocombe shrugged. “Whatever can you mean?”

“I discovered this photograph amongst the debris of the Cider Island explosion. A rare coincidence, do you not think?”

“The science of coincidence has never been fully explained, formularized and understood. I have made a study of it for some years now. My conclusions, however, still remain open to personal interpretation.”

“Be that as it may, I feel that an in-depth interview with Mr Pooley down at the station might yield interesting facts.”

“A little uncharitable, don’t you think? He came forward upon his own volition to report this incident.”

“You phoned it in, I so recall.”

“At his prompting.”

“Hm.” Hovis took snuff from the tip of his cane. “If he has nothing to hide then he has nothing to fear.”

“Hm,” said Professor Slocombe. “History teaches us that this is not always the case. More sherry?”

“Yes indeed.” Hovis found his discarded glass and the Professor refilled it. “Something very odd is going on in Brentford,” he said, “and I am the man who will get to the bottom of it.”

“Of that I have no doubt, but tell me, Sherringford, what exactly brings you to the borough?”

“I am here following the course of my inquiries.”

“What else? But would you care to enlarge?”

Hovis pressed shut the french windows and leant upon them; he stared about the Professor’s study, the walls of books, the stuffed beasts, the thaumaturgical objects, the domed wax fruit and antique furniture. “It is a queer business,” said he, “and one which has cost me no small embarrassment.”

“I have no wish to pry.”

“I know this, but no matter. It is gold that has brought me here. The airport gold bullion robbery.”

“Yes, I read of it, a curious business. I had no idea that you were personally involved.”

“My name has stayed thankfully out of the papers, but I was responsible for the security of the entire operation. I was to supervise the loading of the gold at the Bank of England and then its unloading for freight at the airport.”

“And so what went wrong?”

“Herein lies the mystery. The bullion was loaded. I supervised this myself. Unmarked lorries delivered it to the airport. These were sealed into the high security compound for the night. When they were opened the next morning, again under my personal supervision, they were empty.”

“Ah,” said Professor Slocombe. “Of course a thousand questions spring immediately to mind.”

“And not without due cause. My head is on the block over this entire affair, I am being made the scapegoat. If I do not recover the gold then it is farewell Inspectre Hovis. The best I can hope for is to sell my memoirs to the Sunday press and retire with the loot to a bit of beekeeping on the Sussex downs.”

“It won’t be the first time, but it would be an ignominious end to a fine career. So tell me, Hovis, as I am sure you shall, what led you here to Brentford?”

“Logic, Professor, what else? The gold went on to the lorries and the gold was not upon them when they were reopened. I have examined all possibilities. The gold could not have been removed whilst the lorries were in the airport compound. The sheer mechanics of such an operation preclude it. To penetrate the security, unload the bullion, move it out, such is an impossibility.”

“Not an impossibility, but I follow your reasoning.”

“Then follow it to the logical conclusion, if the gold was not removed at the airport then it must have been done so somewhere along the way.”

“The thought had already crossed my mind. So did the lorries make an unscheduled stop en route?”

“They did,” said Hovis, “right here in Brentford. I will not go into the details, the thing has been an almighty balls-up, the lorries were left unattended for more than an hour.”

“Oh dear,” said the Professor. “But surely, even if this was the case you would have no reason to believe that the gold is still here. It could be anywhere.”

“Oh, it’s here all right, Professor, I know it.”

“And how do you know? Intuition? The reliability of this faculty, if faculty it proves to be, remains uncertain.”

“I hear whispers.” Inspectre Hovis tapped at his nose in a significant fashion. “The gold is here all right, the entire invidious operation stemmed from here, the heart of it all is here. It is here and I shall find it.”

“As indeed you must. You have your constables scouring the area day and night, I trust.”

Hovis shook his head. “Perish the thought. There is sufficient going on here without complicating matters further. A hoard of flat-footed bobbies turning out every lock-up garage in the area or giving the local padre the dawn call is the last thing I want. No, I’ve got them all on traffic duty and litter patrol. I will go this one alone.”

“But you are out-borough,” said Professor Slocombe. “I mean, well, you will find it hard going on your own.”

“I have enlisted the help of several locals, who, shall we say, owe me a favour or two. I am not completely on my own. Thus, I regret that for now, last night’s incident must be left to hang in the files. Should further evidence, in the shape of bodies, appear, then the matter will be dealt with accordingly. Other than for that I have no further wish to know what is going on around here.” Hovis held up his hand towards the Professor, whose face now expressed outrage. “I am sorry, but there it is. I have spoken to you in confidence and I trust that you will respect same. The matter is for now closed. There will be no further word of it spoken. Do I make myself clear?”

“You are making a very grave mistake, Hovis.”

“Be that as it may, I have leads to be followed, a skein to be untangled, I must be gone. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” said the Professor, “and good luck, for you will surely need it.”