Sentence The Fourhundredandtwentyeighth

And meanwhile, back in Melrose, the hue and cry had sent searchers scouring the lower slopes of The Eildons, the back gardens of Dingleton Hill and all the way up to the old Dingleton Hospital, now a very select housing development – with flats in the original hospital buildings that for several generations had been a byword in modern psychiatric treatment and success, while the extensive grounds where, in yesteryear, patients could wander freely along wooded lanes to gather tussie-mussies to brighten their wards, or admire the reflections in Dingleton Loch, are now the location for expensive family homes - with no sign of Sir Pantagruel MacFarlane; and in Aunty Crist's study,

Jasmine Juniper-Green is beside herself, frantic, distressed and oft-times incoherent: “yes he was here . . . . at nine o'clock . . . . . at ten to nine . . . . . he seemed to have a stroke . . . . . and then he disappeared . . . . . at nine o'clock , , , , , the clock struck nine, twice , , , , , the only way out was through the window . . . . . Professor Dane saw him in the garden . . . . . after the clock struck nine and then before it struck nine again . . . . . maybe ten minutes later . . . . . after the Professor went back out to look for him,” and the attentive WPC Isa Urquhart looked up from her notebook and glanced at the bubbly Trainee WPC Gertie Mountcastle who took up the baton: “has it ever happened before, to your own knowledge, personally?” and Jasmine thumped the arms of her chair, staring wildly at her two cater-cousins as if they were rather zany extras from Central Casting: “not to my own personal knowledge, no, I've never heard it do that, why? do you think it's a MacGuffin?” at which Gertie blushed to her roots and dropped her pen and when she reached down for it, felt something prick her finger and she squealed, raising her hand to see a drop of blood well up from the surface of her skin and drip to the carpet, Isa knelt and shone her torch under the chair and spotted the needle beside Gertie's pen, “don't!” she cried out and Gertie, he finger raised to her lips and about to suck it looked down, eyes wide in astonishment!”