‘I think you should let me in,’ said Butch.
Loathed though he was Jim did so.
Why did you come back?
‘Less words and more drink,’ Butch replied. ‘Take me to the dinning room, now!’
Jim did so, reluctantly.
But strangely, when they got there, Butch did not drink a drop or raise a glass even!
He just stood quietly in the corner of the room…
What was he up to?
‘Well isn’t this marvellous? The whole gang reunited,’ said Ted. ‘It’s just like the old days. This is truly wonderful,’ and then he took another sip of his drink.
‘Indeed. It is good to see you alive and well, Butch. We thought things had gone bad for you. Good to see otherwise,’ said Huey.
And then Huey clashed glasses with Ted and took a sip of his drink.
‘You are a good lad Butch, and I am glad you are here,’ said Shaky. Shaky would have liked to take a sip out of his drink but had already poured half the bottle down his throat so he had had enough for the day and needed to sit down.
‘I am all in line with the others. You are a good one, Butch,’ said Tipsy. Then Tipsy raised his glass in the air, cheered and finally took a sip of his drink. ‘When they said you had gone missing Butch I got really scared. After Rod was killed I thought maybe you had gotten caught up with the war… But here you are alive and well and that is a fine thing. You are a local, Butch, and we can’t do without you. Enough of our number have been whipped out by all the fighting in the streets. O dear me it makes me so sad! So many memories have turned to ash! Sigh! I remember you when you were a foot tall, little Butch we used called you back then! Of course you were only two and we had no idea that you still had another six feet to grow… I am glad you are still going strong! Let us raise a toast to Butch and to his further health!’
‘Ah yes! This is a fine wine indeed,’ Tipsy noted. ‘I don’t usually drink the fancy stuff! I always stick to bitter, but I like this! Now I get a feel of what it’s like to be the other half! You posh types know how to enjoy yourselves!’
‘I don’t think I have felt this jolly not since my last expedition to the Congo,’ Huey put in. Huey spoke with a very loud voice that always managed to make him the centre of attention. So when he started barking on about the Congo, again, everyone turned to listen to him. ‘My party and I made our way to the Congo interior via the the waters of the Cameroon. There we were greeted by a seventeen foot mammoth…’
‘Hang on a minute aren’t they meant to be dead, Huey?’ Shaky replied. ‘I am sure I read about it in a book somewhere…’
‘This is the Congo, my boy! Did you you not know? The vast African continent is the home of many prehistoric beasts including a variety of dinosaurs! Don’t mock me, son! You cannot talk about it not unless you have been there, as I have. I have seen the Congo up close and dirty, and I have beheld with my own eyes beasts thought to have passed from this planet fifty five million years ago!’
‘Forgive my ignorance!’ said Shaky.
Shaky lowered his head in shame, and looked very sad and dejected. Everyone shook their heads at him, marking his ignorance. Shaky was indeed made to feel thoroughly useless.
‘Please continue your speech,’ said one of the other guests.
And Huey did so:
‘I was about to take aim at the mammoth, when our boat was attacked by a giant serpent. My whole team and I fell into the water. Then our boat was chomped to pieces by a twenty foot crocodile! We swam with great haste to the shore, and once on dry land again we made every effort to recover some of our equipment as well as our breath! We were stranded, but luckily I still had my loyal gun, cocked and loaded. If I was going to die I was going to take the denizens of the jungle down with me. As far as I am concerned when you enter the jungle you are at war with it. Nothing in the jungle is your friend. Everything inside the jungle is writhing in a state of perfect chaos. There is no room for civilisation in its brooding depths. Men have tried to tame the deadly green of that land only to see their homes consumed by the will of the Earth. In the jungle the Earth is the master, and all things manmade are humbled by its glorious, frantic and terrifying majesty…’
Here Huey stopped, and the man became suddenly quiet and thoughtful. Was the story over? Had he finished talking?
Finally someone felt brave enough to break the silence and put an end to the tumbleweed.
‘Anybody here in need of some more wine,’ said Tipsy. ‘I know I am! Ah! How splendid is this? I haven’t felt this good in a long time! Three cheers for Jim the Banker! What fine fellow.’
Everyone cheered except Butch.
Butch stared, as still as a statue, and then said very ominously:
What a fine fellow Mr Jim is indeed… If only everyone in this room knew a little but more about good old Jim…
Jim suggested they move to the lounge where it might be more comfortable.
‘I am just going to head over to the kitchen to fetch some more wine,’ said Shaky. He seemed to know his way round the mansion house, which was mighty suspicious for a man who apparently never been inside the place before. ‘I will be back in a tick! Somebody keep a seat warm for me! I might fetch some of the cheese as well. Why not, I think it is over here in the… O my gosh!’
Shaky let out such a shrill and shocking scream one might have confused him for a girl.
Everyone rushed over to see what the matter was, and when they arrived they were just as shocked as their humble companion:
For there was indeed a dead body of a man hanging from the ceiling!
In the kitchen…
He was hanging from the lamp like an old coat with legs!
‘A dead body! A dead body?’ Everybody screamed! Huey was the only one to maintain his reserve, of course, he was a man of the wars, and of the jungle. He was accustomed to death in all its guises…
He was, however, mightily complexed by the situation.
How had a dead body let itself in the house?
It was all mighty suspicious - and Jim was at he centre of it…
Was he not the first man to enter the place?
he had to know more about this!
‘Wait a second he might not be dead, yet!’ said Jim, hopefully. ‘Maybe we should get him down and try to resuscitate him? I have heard that such things can be done.’
‘Here allow me,’ said Huey loudly. ‘I have had practice with such things!’ He drew out his pocket knife and cut the saggy body down to the ground.
‘I would give him the Kiss of the Congo, and breathe my glorious breath into his lungs - but I fear it won’t do him much good. He’s neck has been broken!’ said Huey.
It was true.
The dead man’s neck was indeed broken.
‘Why I think I recognise him!’ spoke up Shaky. ‘It’s DC Peddler! I know! I have seen him in the bar at the Short Tailed Fox quite a few times. He was something of a drunk, if I remember rightly. Poor man. You know, he seemed rather rich, always had money. But he never bought me a drink, ever. But ah well, such is life. Yes. That is DC Peddler. And he is dead!’
Shaky spoke truly!
It was indeed the body of DC Peddler lying on the kitchen floor.
And the constable was dead beyond belief!
‘This is a murder!’ Tipsy cried.
‘A murder?’ Huey echoed. ‘Yes! A murder!’
‘Someone has killed this poor man,’ Shaky replied.
‘How did you reach that conclusion?’ said Jim. ‘I think it’s obvious that this man has committed suicide!’
‘Unlikely,’ Huey replied. ‘Why would he kill himself in your house?’
‘Wait! I can sort this,’ said Jim. ‘He must have left a suicide note somewhere…’
Jim started to search the body, but he found NOTHING.
‘Then it is murder by gum!’ cried Huey. ‘How dark this day has turned! We have a murder in our midsts! We need the help of DC Peddler… o wait…’
‘I really don’t think this is a murder,’ Jim continued. ‘None of this makes sense…’
‘O it makes perfect sense to me,’ Butch quickly interjected in an abrupt and angry way. ‘I know you, Jim. You and DC Peddler were enemies. He used to threaten you all the time back in the day. I remember seeing you fight regularly with the man! He was always on to your case, Jim. So what happened? Did he finally dig some decent dirt up on you? Did he uncover something juicy, something that would see you toppled from the lofty heights you have recently attained? Something that would strip you of the Banker position? I reckon something like that happened. And what did you do in response? You decided to silence him, by ending his life that’s what you did! You murderous dog!’
‘Utter nonsense!’ Jim retorted. ‘I never put you down as a fantasist Butch! Now stop all this nonsense talk at once!’
‘This is no fantasy,’ Butch replied. ‘Take a look!’ he held up his fist holding several crumpled papers:
‘I intercepted these from a man on his way to the Rits! Photos of DC Peddler and Mrs Rits together. They were having an affair, and your were blackmailing the constable!’
‘Why are you doing this to me, Butch?’ said Jim, who was now starting to panic a little - for there was indeed a grain of truth to the story.
But there was no murder…
Well…
Not this time any…
Why are you doing this ti me Butch! We were good friends!
‘I am doing this because you need to be exposed,’ Butch replied. ‘If you didn’t kill him then you drove him to suicide!’
‘This is starting to make sense now!’ said Huey. ‘Jim murdered DC Peddler! The beast! Curse him!’
‘Now let me stop you right there! None of this makes sense if you really think about it,’ said Jim. ‘Yes, me and Peddler were rivals. We didn’t like one another. But if I wanted him dead then why would I leave his body in full view and invite you people over for drinks? Wouldn’t that make me the most stupid murderer in human history? And further more, If I really did want to kill him, why would I hang him?’
‘Maybe you broke his neck first and then afterwards you hung him up like that to cover your tracks? said Butch. ‘You wanted to make it look like suicide. After that you invited us over to trick us all into serving you as witnesses to attest your suicide story if the matter ever came to court!’
‘O be reasonable!’ Jim cried. ‘That’s stupid! I just wouldn’t do it. It’s madness! I did not kill this man! I protest my innocence!’
‘I shall have to detain you until the police arrive,’ said Huey.
‘Why?’
‘Because I believe you killed him! You killed DC Peddler. Call me old fashioned, call me what you like, but when a man kills another man that makes him a murderer.’
‘Now listen! I know this is all very weird, but I think I have an idea what happened here…’
Everyone was waiting to hear Jim’s response.
And Jim replied telling them this tale:
‘Okay. Let’s just go along with the idea that DC Peddler was indeed murdered. If someone did kill this man, broke his neck, hung him, whatever, it wasn’t me. It was Mr Rits. We have all seen from the photos here that Peddler was having an affair with Mrs Rits. And we have all lived in Fenwick long enough to know how passionate and quite frankly, violent, Mr Rits behaves when he smells adultery. So what happened is this: Mr Rits saw the photos, and tracked down and killed DC Peddler. Mr Rits then set the body up here to frame me for the crime.’
It was possible.
it could have happened that way.
It was indeed very likely, after all, we are talking about Mr Rits - who was well known by all to be a total and under madman especially in matters concerning his marriage to his wife.
But Butch wasn’t having it.
So Butch continued to press Jim:
‘It all sounds too convenient to me. I know you Jim. You are a scheming villain. This murder has YOU written all over it. You wanted Peddler dead and set up Mr Rits for the crime.’
‘Why would I try to frame Mr Rits?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Butch replied. ‘With Mr Rits out of the way you could run away with his wife!’
If everyone in the room was not looking so serious Jim would have burst out laughing at the notion of him having an affair with Mrs Rits, or with anyone for that matter. Twenty years of hard alcoholism and G-Juice drinking had rendered him asexual, celibate, and totally dead to the idea of having a relationship with anything except a dustbin - and that was only so he could be sick in it when he gulped too much whiskey…
‘That is ridiculous!’ Jim cried. ‘Where did you come up with that outrageous idea?’
‘You were jealous of DC Peddler because of the love he shared with Mrs Rits. Because of this you wanted him dead. And after that you wanted Mr Rits out of the way - and then you could move in and steal his wife for yourself! You killed DC Peddler because you were angry at him, because Mrs Rits chose him over you! You might get Mrs Rits in the end, marry her from behind bars, but it is never nice being somebody else's seconds.’
‘Butch. Please. Are you trying to wind me up here?’
Jim was trying to turn the situation into a joke, but Huey, loud and stern, shut Jim right down:
‘I have gone off of you this day Jim!’ said the great Belgium hunter. ‘I used to really like you - respect you even - but now I can see you for what you really are. You are a snake and boy have I ever dealt with a lot of snakes in the jungle, but you are the most poisonous of the lot! For sure you are! You are a killer, and an adulterer. Not only are you having an affair with another mans women out of wedlock, but you have blood on your hands. Someone get the police! In the interim you are my prisoner, Jim. You are going to face justice today young man!’
And just in that very second - as Huey was about to restrain his prisoner, all four men - Ted, Huey, Shaky, and Tipsy, dropped down stone dead!
Loathed though he was Jim did so.
Why did you come back?
‘Less words and more drink,’ Butch replied. ‘Take me to the dinning room, now!’
Jim did so, reluctantly.
But strangely, when they got there, Butch did not drink a drop or raise a glass even!
He just stood quietly in the corner of the room…
What was he up to?
‘Well isn’t this marvellous? The whole gang reunited,’ said Ted. ‘It’s just like the old days. This is truly wonderful,’ and then he took another sip of his drink.
‘Indeed. It is good to see you alive and well, Butch. We thought things had gone bad for you. Good to see otherwise,’ said Huey.
And then Huey clashed glasses with Ted and took a sip of his drink.
‘You are a good lad Butch, and I am glad you are here,’ said Shaky. Shaky would have liked to take a sip out of his drink but had already poured half the bottle down his throat so he had had enough for the day and needed to sit down.
‘I am all in line with the others. You are a good one, Butch,’ said Tipsy. Then Tipsy raised his glass in the air, cheered and finally took a sip of his drink. ‘When they said you had gone missing Butch I got really scared. After Rod was killed I thought maybe you had gotten caught up with the war… But here you are alive and well and that is a fine thing. You are a local, Butch, and we can’t do without you. Enough of our number have been whipped out by all the fighting in the streets. O dear me it makes me so sad! So many memories have turned to ash! Sigh! I remember you when you were a foot tall, little Butch we used called you back then! Of course you were only two and we had no idea that you still had another six feet to grow… I am glad you are still going strong! Let us raise a toast to Butch and to his further health!’
‘Ah yes! This is a fine wine indeed,’ Tipsy noted. ‘I don’t usually drink the fancy stuff! I always stick to bitter, but I like this! Now I get a feel of what it’s like to be the other half! You posh types know how to enjoy yourselves!’
‘I don’t think I have felt this jolly not since my last expedition to the Congo,’ Huey put in. Huey spoke with a very loud voice that always managed to make him the centre of attention. So when he started barking on about the Congo, again, everyone turned to listen to him. ‘My party and I made our way to the Congo interior via the the waters of the Cameroon. There we were greeted by a seventeen foot mammoth…’
‘Hang on a minute aren’t they meant to be dead, Huey?’ Shaky replied. ‘I am sure I read about it in a book somewhere…’
‘This is the Congo, my boy! Did you you not know? The vast African continent is the home of many prehistoric beasts including a variety of dinosaurs! Don’t mock me, son! You cannot talk about it not unless you have been there, as I have. I have seen the Congo up close and dirty, and I have beheld with my own eyes beasts thought to have passed from this planet fifty five million years ago!’
‘Forgive my ignorance!’ said Shaky.
Shaky lowered his head in shame, and looked very sad and dejected. Everyone shook their heads at him, marking his ignorance. Shaky was indeed made to feel thoroughly useless.
‘Please continue your speech,’ said one of the other guests.
And Huey did so:
‘I was about to take aim at the mammoth, when our boat was attacked by a giant serpent. My whole team and I fell into the water. Then our boat was chomped to pieces by a twenty foot crocodile! We swam with great haste to the shore, and once on dry land again we made every effort to recover some of our equipment as well as our breath! We were stranded, but luckily I still had my loyal gun, cocked and loaded. If I was going to die I was going to take the denizens of the jungle down with me. As far as I am concerned when you enter the jungle you are at war with it. Nothing in the jungle is your friend. Everything inside the jungle is writhing in a state of perfect chaos. There is no room for civilisation in its brooding depths. Men have tried to tame the deadly green of that land only to see their homes consumed by the will of the Earth. In the jungle the Earth is the master, and all things manmade are humbled by its glorious, frantic and terrifying majesty…’
Here Huey stopped, and the man became suddenly quiet and thoughtful. Was the story over? Had he finished talking?
Finally someone felt brave enough to break the silence and put an end to the tumbleweed.
‘Anybody here in need of some more wine,’ said Tipsy. ‘I know I am! Ah! How splendid is this? I haven’t felt this good in a long time! Three cheers for Jim the Banker! What fine fellow.’
Everyone cheered except Butch.
Butch stared, as still as a statue, and then said very ominously:
What a fine fellow Mr Jim is indeed… If only everyone in this room knew a little but more about good old Jim…
Jim suggested they move to the lounge where it might be more comfortable.
‘I am just going to head over to the kitchen to fetch some more wine,’ said Shaky. He seemed to know his way round the mansion house, which was mighty suspicious for a man who apparently never been inside the place before. ‘I will be back in a tick! Somebody keep a seat warm for me! I might fetch some of the cheese as well. Why not, I think it is over here in the… O my gosh!’
Shaky let out such a shrill and shocking scream one might have confused him for a girl.
Everyone rushed over to see what the matter was, and when they arrived they were just as shocked as their humble companion:
For there was indeed a dead body of a man hanging from the ceiling!
In the kitchen…
He was hanging from the lamp like an old coat with legs!
‘A dead body! A dead body?’ Everybody screamed! Huey was the only one to maintain his reserve, of course, he was a man of the wars, and of the jungle. He was accustomed to death in all its guises…
He was, however, mightily complexed by the situation.
How had a dead body let itself in the house?
It was all mighty suspicious - and Jim was at he centre of it…
Was he not the first man to enter the place?
he had to know more about this!
‘Wait a second he might not be dead, yet!’ said Jim, hopefully. ‘Maybe we should get him down and try to resuscitate him? I have heard that such things can be done.’
‘Here allow me,’ said Huey loudly. ‘I have had practice with such things!’ He drew out his pocket knife and cut the saggy body down to the ground.
‘I would give him the Kiss of the Congo, and breathe my glorious breath into his lungs - but I fear it won’t do him much good. He’s neck has been broken!’ said Huey.
It was true.
The dead man’s neck was indeed broken.
‘Why I think I recognise him!’ spoke up Shaky. ‘It’s DC Peddler! I know! I have seen him in the bar at the Short Tailed Fox quite a few times. He was something of a drunk, if I remember rightly. Poor man. You know, he seemed rather rich, always had money. But he never bought me a drink, ever. But ah well, such is life. Yes. That is DC Peddler. And he is dead!’
Shaky spoke truly!
It was indeed the body of DC Peddler lying on the kitchen floor.
And the constable was dead beyond belief!
‘This is a murder!’ Tipsy cried.
‘A murder?’ Huey echoed. ‘Yes! A murder!’
‘Someone has killed this poor man,’ Shaky replied.
‘How did you reach that conclusion?’ said Jim. ‘I think it’s obvious that this man has committed suicide!’
‘Unlikely,’ Huey replied. ‘Why would he kill himself in your house?’
‘Wait! I can sort this,’ said Jim. ‘He must have left a suicide note somewhere…’
Jim started to search the body, but he found NOTHING.
‘Then it is murder by gum!’ cried Huey. ‘How dark this day has turned! We have a murder in our midsts! We need the help of DC Peddler… o wait…’
‘I really don’t think this is a murder,’ Jim continued. ‘None of this makes sense…’
‘O it makes perfect sense to me,’ Butch quickly interjected in an abrupt and angry way. ‘I know you, Jim. You and DC Peddler were enemies. He used to threaten you all the time back in the day. I remember seeing you fight regularly with the man! He was always on to your case, Jim. So what happened? Did he finally dig some decent dirt up on you? Did he uncover something juicy, something that would see you toppled from the lofty heights you have recently attained? Something that would strip you of the Banker position? I reckon something like that happened. And what did you do in response? You decided to silence him, by ending his life that’s what you did! You murderous dog!’
‘Utter nonsense!’ Jim retorted. ‘I never put you down as a fantasist Butch! Now stop all this nonsense talk at once!’
‘This is no fantasy,’ Butch replied. ‘Take a look!’ he held up his fist holding several crumpled papers:
‘I intercepted these from a man on his way to the Rits! Photos of DC Peddler and Mrs Rits together. They were having an affair, and your were blackmailing the constable!’
‘Why are you doing this to me, Butch?’ said Jim, who was now starting to panic a little - for there was indeed a grain of truth to the story.
But there was no murder…
Well…
Not this time any…
Why are you doing this ti me Butch! We were good friends!
‘I am doing this because you need to be exposed,’ Butch replied. ‘If you didn’t kill him then you drove him to suicide!’
‘This is starting to make sense now!’ said Huey. ‘Jim murdered DC Peddler! The beast! Curse him!’
‘Now let me stop you right there! None of this makes sense if you really think about it,’ said Jim. ‘Yes, me and Peddler were rivals. We didn’t like one another. But if I wanted him dead then why would I leave his body in full view and invite you people over for drinks? Wouldn’t that make me the most stupid murderer in human history? And further more, If I really did want to kill him, why would I hang him?’
‘Maybe you broke his neck first and then afterwards you hung him up like that to cover your tracks? said Butch. ‘You wanted to make it look like suicide. After that you invited us over to trick us all into serving you as witnesses to attest your suicide story if the matter ever came to court!’
‘O be reasonable!’ Jim cried. ‘That’s stupid! I just wouldn’t do it. It’s madness! I did not kill this man! I protest my innocence!’
‘I shall have to detain you until the police arrive,’ said Huey.
‘Why?’
‘Because I believe you killed him! You killed DC Peddler. Call me old fashioned, call me what you like, but when a man kills another man that makes him a murderer.’
‘Now listen! I know this is all very weird, but I think I have an idea what happened here…’
Everyone was waiting to hear Jim’s response.
And Jim replied telling them this tale:
‘Okay. Let’s just go along with the idea that DC Peddler was indeed murdered. If someone did kill this man, broke his neck, hung him, whatever, it wasn’t me. It was Mr Rits. We have all seen from the photos here that Peddler was having an affair with Mrs Rits. And we have all lived in Fenwick long enough to know how passionate and quite frankly, violent, Mr Rits behaves when he smells adultery. So what happened is this: Mr Rits saw the photos, and tracked down and killed DC Peddler. Mr Rits then set the body up here to frame me for the crime.’
It was possible.
it could have happened that way.
It was indeed very likely, after all, we are talking about Mr Rits - who was well known by all to be a total and under madman especially in matters concerning his marriage to his wife.
But Butch wasn’t having it.
So Butch continued to press Jim:
‘It all sounds too convenient to me. I know you Jim. You are a scheming villain. This murder has YOU written all over it. You wanted Peddler dead and set up Mr Rits for the crime.’
‘Why would I try to frame Mr Rits?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Butch replied. ‘With Mr Rits out of the way you could run away with his wife!’
If everyone in the room was not looking so serious Jim would have burst out laughing at the notion of him having an affair with Mrs Rits, or with anyone for that matter. Twenty years of hard alcoholism and G-Juice drinking had rendered him asexual, celibate, and totally dead to the idea of having a relationship with anything except a dustbin - and that was only so he could be sick in it when he gulped too much whiskey…
‘That is ridiculous!’ Jim cried. ‘Where did you come up with that outrageous idea?’
‘You were jealous of DC Peddler because of the love he shared with Mrs Rits. Because of this you wanted him dead. And after that you wanted Mr Rits out of the way - and then you could move in and steal his wife for yourself! You killed DC Peddler because you were angry at him, because Mrs Rits chose him over you! You might get Mrs Rits in the end, marry her from behind bars, but it is never nice being somebody else's seconds.’
‘Butch. Please. Are you trying to wind me up here?’
Jim was trying to turn the situation into a joke, but Huey, loud and stern, shut Jim right down:
‘I have gone off of you this day Jim!’ said the great Belgium hunter. ‘I used to really like you - respect you even - but now I can see you for what you really are. You are a snake and boy have I ever dealt with a lot of snakes in the jungle, but you are the most poisonous of the lot! For sure you are! You are a killer, and an adulterer. Not only are you having an affair with another mans women out of wedlock, but you have blood on your hands. Someone get the police! In the interim you are my prisoner, Jim. You are going to face justice today young man!’
And just in that very second - as Huey was about to restrain his prisoner, all four men - Ted, Huey, Shaky, and Tipsy, dropped down stone dead!
(Remember! All spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are intentional - the author 😆)
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