Sentence The Sixhundredandninth
 

But when Daphne and Maude finally arrived, early on New Year's Day itself, it wasn't from the direction of the Railway Terminus at Tweedbank, and it was sans luggage – oh, and they were dressed for a hike over rough terrain, complete with bivvi bags, binoculars and cameras; first they were closeted with Cristo and May, and not a peep did we hear, until just after 3pm, they sent for me, Isa and Milly, swore us to absolute secrecy on pain of having our eyes stapled permanently open, and told us what they had been engaged on: "we rented a sweet little cottage in Bowden, with a rosemaling decoration on the door, and have been observing the comings and goings of that baleful Ranulph Ochan'toshan and his depraved cronies and have compiled a dossier which we need you, Isa, to take to Sam Smiles, he's based in that rather nondescript little house in Darnick, the one you enter from the green gate, that's right dear, you know the one, it still belongs to the family, although it's been rarely used since poor Great Aunt Bertha had her mishap, anyway, we are sure that the Ring of Gold are still extant and various members have visited 'Uncle Ralphy' as the village children refer to Ochan'toshan, for we have seen the original MacFarlane and his man Doubleday go there, and the Lauderdale person and his so-called wife, though there seems to be a mystery about that despicable
lawyer Elginbrod – I don't suppose you saw the video posted by your chum, The Economic Migrant? oh it started on YouTube and went viral, but the Russians deleted it because it rather reflected badly on their man Trump and they seem to be protecting him after all the pre-election fuss died down, you never hear much now about his peccadilloes, do you? that's the Russians he's got to thank for that, they seem to be policing the Internet on his behalf and any perceived slurs are tracked back to their source and scrubbed. Mr Putin is very fond of his main Hacker, a little Georgian called Grigori Jug (I think his real name is Dzhugashvili and he's a descendant of old Uncle Joe) but anyway, Elginbrod is gone and his practice is now being run by one of Jock Linkumdoddie's boys from The Justice League of Auld Reekie on behalf of the sons, who are still at Primary School; but we think the other Doubleday has been creeping about, the Deputy Chief Constable, an old lady went to Hill House the other day, ostensibly collecting for charity – but she never called at other houses, so far as we could tell, and she was admitted and stayed for three hours. and if you can imagine, Isa, the DCC hunched and dressed in widows weeds, with a rather jaunty beret on his heads, you might spot him in these photos," which was when Maude spread a pack of photos across the table and Isa had no hesitation in
pointing out the Deputy Chief Constable, indeed dressed as an elderly woman (but not as Maude had described, for that was just to test Isa's independent observational skills) entering the house; "now, we don't know who all these other callers are, some of them just say a few words to Ralphy, and go, others stay for several hours, and yet others spend several days and nights there, we suspect there quite a few Embra Brahmins among them, but Sam and Jasmine have facial recognition software which is out of our league altogether, so I bet a penny to a pound, they can come up with names and background for a lot of these people!" at which point Isa, always able to say, firmly, "no!" to the advances of a Man who finds her steely gaze and the determined set of her jaw attractive, but an enthusiastic yeasayer to any request from our beloved Aunties, and forgetful of her recently debilitating illness, jumped up with a cry of "yes!" accompanied with a tightly clenched fist, and them promptly doubled over with a coughing fit that racked her body and rather startled Daphne and Maude who have been absent during the recent weeks of fever, sweats, shivers and racking coughs – not to mention the days when she had lost her voice and could only whisper – and as Milly wrapped a blanket and her arms round Isa, to comfort and protect her, Daphne turned to me and indicated that I could perhaps stand in for the indisposed WPC!