The Gentleman Shopkeeper by D. V. Haines

Author:D. V. Haines
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2017-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

Miss Holland Turns Detective

In the presence of two or three other customers – all goggling in fascination – she began to conduct the second of her meddlesome investigations.

“This,” she said of me to my accuser, “is Mr Crackery – the proprietor of this shop. Nothing you can tell me will ever surprise me. What type of prowling has he been up to?”

My accuser was so excited she could hardly get her words out. “He was loitering in Orchard Ash Road with a hacksaw. I thought nothing much of it at the time, but, as I later reported to Lady Bannerfield-Frishley, this man was obviously up to no good. He was very shifty-looking. Very shifty indeed.”

I now recognised this woman. She was the next-door housekeeper who had asked me to open a gate on her behalf. She had charitably mistaken me for a tramp and had promised me bread and cheese (and half a tomato). For a moment, I felt stumped. This was a jolly awkward matter to explain. But I had already been through the mill that day, to say nothing of my experiences with Asti Glertish and her step-mother. For me, to concoct an explanation about a mere hacksaw should be child’s play.

“Madam,” I began by saying, taking off my hat to her, “set your mind at rest. But you, first of all, need to explain something which has left me bewildered. Why half a tomato and not a whole one?”

Miss Holland: “James, stick to the point. Why were you prowling around with a hacksaw?”

“It was wrapped in newspaper,” the housekeeper eagerly added, “and it fell at my feet. Nearly hit my toes. Quite a heavy object. He never explained. He just picked up the hacksaw and walked off in a guilty manner. Hunched up and shifty.”

“You too would have been hunched up and shifty,” I politely told her, “if you had just been bitten by a savage dog and chased up a tree. Ladies and gentlemen,” I said to the shop at large, “I beg for your sympathy. I had been wheel-clamped that morning in Willow Tree Lane.”

Cries of surprise: “Wheel-clamped? In Dackley?”

“I was forced to pay thirty pounds before the fellow would agree to removing the clamp.”

More cries of surprise: “Thirty pounds? What’s the world coming to?”

“My reaction, ladies and gentlemen, was the same as yours,” I went on. “It was little short of blackmail. But I paid up. It was only after I had re-parked in that awful multi-storey that I decided to take action. We, the people of England, will not stand for this sort of thing.”

Cries of “Hear hear!”

“After returning to this shop of mine and working out the fellow’s name and address, I went back to my motor-car. I was determined to call upon this dubious firm – and with my big hacksaw. I intended to warn this new breed of criminals that I would use the hacksaw to remove the clamp myself if they dared to repeat their offence. I would then take the pieces to the police-station and lay charges.

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