Sentence The Fortyfourth
What a strange and remarkable co-incidence, if – unlike Detective Sergeant Gordon Brevity – one believes in such a chance occurrence, took place on the stairs leading to two quite separate sets of Advocates Chambers; coming down the stairs from the chambers occupied by Martin Elginbrod QC and his Elginbrod Faculty, were the two Sergeants Brevity, while coming up and about to take the passage leading to the chambers of Former Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Dr Hamish MacAlpine-Fandango QC, were the former Dean himself and, on his arm, Sergeant Goldy Brevity's aunt, Daphne Dumbiedykes; the former couple were frustrated at having wasted an hour waiting for their potential witness (or possibly an accessory to the attempted murder of Angus Ogilvy or Og of the Bog) only to be told eventually that he had made an unplanned trip to his dentist in Morningside and had then gone home, but he would be happy to see the two sergeants if they made their way to his home in the Braid Hills area; the latter pair seemed slightly tipsy and only able to climb the stairs and walk along the passageway by clinging to each other for support; indeed Goldy felt that her aunt's dress appeared somewhat disturbed and her eyes were definitely unfocussed, while the former Dean seemed to leer – not what the two police officers would ever have expected from so elevated a member of the justiciary, particularly in the company of Aunt Daphne; and after some stilted and rather embarrassed exchanges, the two parties went their separate ways; and firstly, if we follow the Brevitys, we will hear Gordon tell Goldy that the advocate Elginbrod was known to have been married three times – each wife was a Junior in his Chambers, each bore him a son, who was duly named Martin (though each had a different middle initial), and each marriage ended in divorce with a large settlement to the lady (including a sinecure as 'Consultant' with, I'm sure, off the books ex-gratia bonuses) and custody of the son to Elginbrod himself, and so his progeny all live together with their father and their domestic care is in the hands of an able Housekeeper and small staff of servants; that Elginbrod kept two small establishments close to his chambers; one was occupied by a young lady, still in her teens, named Maggi May, the other by a young man, in his early twenties, named Jordan Jones; Elginbrod spent a regular amount of time at one or other of these two establishments on an almost daily basis; there was a possibility, not yet substantiated by evidence, that Elginbrod had made the acquaintance of the young woman and man, through a procuress called Jeannie Deans, although no actual proof of the involvement of Jeannie Deans (or even of her existence) had ever been turned up, although he was convinced that there was definitely jiggery-pokery in Elginbrod's relationship with her; at which point in his briefing of his wife, Sergeant Brevity opened the door of his car and the two officers climbed in for the short drive to the Braid Hills, during which and in answer yo an enquiry from Goldy, Gordon admitted that much of his information came from a Phreaker hacking in to Elginbrod's telephones, at which point Goldy put her hands over her ears to shut out further revelations, and just said “Isa,” at which her husband made no reply; and if we retrace our steps and hasten up the stairs to catch up with Hamish and Daphne, just in time to slip through the door behind them, before it swing shut automatically and the locks click into place, we are able to follow them into a small, comfortably furnished, sitting room, where Daphne sinks into a welcoming sofa and Hamish turns to a cocktail bar, to fill two glasses with generous amounts of Laphroaig Malt Whisky from the Isle of Islay, just off the eastern coast of Skye; he hands one glass to Daphne and joins her on the sofa – and joins is the only term, for the soft plumpness of the sofa tends to compel it's two sitters towards an intimate closeness, in which they seem almost to be sitting on each other's laps, with arms and legs entwined, hands going wherever they can and drinks balancing precariously on the arms of the sofa, indeed – so delicate and private is their conversation – their faces are fairly well pressed together, lips murmuring into ears and occasionally brushing across each other, so that it is not easy for us to catch much beyond a mention perhaps of 'Parlane', another of 'Eros', certainly 'Gaucho', and was that 'unfounded rumours' or could it have be 'remove my bloomers' but no, that means nothing in the context of this tale, we must have misheard, so, let us draw a veil of gossamer over this private tête-à-tête involving mature and consenting adults and rejoin Gordon and Sandy Brevity as they are shown into Martin Elginbrod QC's spacious sitting room by his Argentinian housekeeper, and a young Maid, possibly from Romania, asks the two officers whether they would like tea, coffee, cocoa or Irn Bru – Goldy requests Camomile Tea if that is possible and the maid nods, while Gordon opts for the more manly Irn Bru, always his preference; and just as the drinks arrive, the maid is followed into the room by Elginbrod himself, apparently a wad of cotton wool padded into his mouth, and he sits facing his visitors with an expression of completely bemused innocence on his face; until Detective Sergeant Brevity shows him the prints which the exemplary WPC Isa Urquhart has made of screen-shots from the Crime Scene and Elginbrod, seeing them, loses his composure and drops his glass of blackcurrant cordial to the floor, where it lands on a rug made from the complete pelt of a Polar Bear, staining it dark red as if it has just been shot dead by a trapper!
What a strange and remarkable co-incidence, if – unlike Detective Sergeant Gordon Brevity – one believes in such a chance occurrence, took place on the stairs leading to two quite separate sets of Advocates Chambers; coming down the stairs from the chambers occupied by Martin Elginbrod QC and his Elginbrod Faculty, were the two Sergeants Brevity, while coming up and about to take the passage leading to the chambers of Former Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Dr Hamish MacAlpine-Fandango QC, were the former Dean himself and, on his arm, Sergeant Goldy Brevity's aunt, Daphne Dumbiedykes; the former couple were frustrated at having wasted an hour waiting for their potential witness (or possibly an accessory to the attempted murder of Angus Ogilvy or Og of the Bog) only to be told eventually that he had made an unplanned trip to his dentist in Morningside and had then gone home, but he would be happy to see the two sergeants if they made their way to his home in the Braid Hills area; the latter pair seemed slightly tipsy and only able to climb the stairs and walk along the passageway by clinging to each other for support; indeed Goldy felt that her aunt's dress appeared somewhat disturbed and her eyes were definitely unfocussed, while the former Dean seemed to leer – not what the two police officers would ever have expected from so elevated a member of the justiciary, particularly in the company of Aunt Daphne; and after some stilted and rather embarrassed exchanges, the two parties went their separate ways; and firstly, if we follow the Brevitys, we will hear Gordon tell Goldy that the advocate Elginbrod was known to have been married three times – each wife was a Junior in his Chambers, each bore him a son, who was duly named Martin (though each had a different middle initial), and each marriage ended in divorce with a large settlement to the lady (including a sinecure as 'Consultant' with, I'm sure, off the books ex-gratia bonuses) and custody of the son to Elginbrod himself, and so his progeny all live together with their father and their domestic care is in the hands of an able Housekeeper and small staff of servants; that Elginbrod kept two small establishments close to his chambers; one was occupied by a young lady, still in her teens, named Maggi May, the other by a young man, in his early twenties, named Jordan Jones; Elginbrod spent a regular amount of time at one or other of these two establishments on an almost daily basis; there was a possibility, not yet substantiated by evidence, that Elginbrod had made the acquaintance of the young woman and man, through a procuress called Jeannie Deans, although no actual proof of the involvement of Jeannie Deans (or even of her existence) had ever been turned up, although he was convinced that there was definitely jiggery-pokery in Elginbrod's relationship with her; at which point in his briefing of his wife, Sergeant Brevity opened the door of his car and the two officers climbed in for the short drive to the Braid Hills, during which and in answer yo an enquiry from Goldy, Gordon admitted that much of his information came from a Phreaker hacking in to Elginbrod's telephones, at which point Goldy put her hands over her ears to shut out further revelations, and just said “Isa,” at which her husband made no reply; and if we retrace our steps and hasten up the stairs to catch up with Hamish and Daphne, just in time to slip through the door behind them, before it swing shut automatically and the locks click into place, we are able to follow them into a small, comfortably furnished, sitting room, where Daphne sinks into a welcoming sofa and Hamish turns to a cocktail bar, to fill two glasses with generous amounts of Laphroaig Malt Whisky from the Isle of Islay, just off the eastern coast of Skye; he hands one glass to Daphne and joins her on the sofa – and joins is the only term, for the soft plumpness of the sofa tends to compel it's two sitters towards an intimate closeness, in which they seem almost to be sitting on each other's laps, with arms and legs entwined, hands going wherever they can and drinks balancing precariously on the arms of the sofa, indeed – so delicate and private is their conversation – their faces are fairly well pressed together, lips murmuring into ears and occasionally brushing across each other, so that it is not easy for us to catch much beyond a mention perhaps of 'Parlane', another of 'Eros', certainly 'Gaucho', and was that 'unfounded rumours' or could it have be 'remove my bloomers' but no, that means nothing in the context of this tale, we must have misheard, so, let us draw a veil of gossamer over this private tête-à-tête involving mature and consenting adults and rejoin Gordon and Sandy Brevity as they are shown into Martin Elginbrod QC's spacious sitting room by his Argentinian housekeeper, and a young Maid, possibly from Romania, asks the two officers whether they would like tea, coffee, cocoa or Irn Bru – Goldy requests Camomile Tea if that is possible and the maid nods, while Gordon opts for the more manly Irn Bru, always his preference; and just as the drinks arrive, the maid is followed into the room by Elginbrod himself, apparently a wad of cotton wool padded into his mouth, and he sits facing his visitors with an expression of completely bemused innocence on his face; until Detective Sergeant Brevity shows him the prints which the exemplary WPC Isa Urquhart has made of screen-shots from the Crime Scene and Elginbrod, seeing them, loses his composure and drops his glass of blackcurrant cordial to the floor, where it lands on a rug made from the complete pelt of a Polar Bear, staining it dark red as if it has just been shot dead by a trapper!
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