Sentence The Fourhundredandseventyfourth 

The unflappable WPC Isa Urquhart was now well and truly in a flap! she had managed to corner MI5 man, Sam Smiles, together with her own cousin Jasmine Juniper-Green, and was giving them the Third Degree (and Isa's Third Degree was far more bumptious than anyone else's Fifth) so they were both sweating and fair quaking in their shoes, in that little interview room in the normally sleepy

Melrose Cop Shop, the one that has for many years been largely un-manned in response to almost non-existent crime in the town; but Isa was waving copies of the warrant to entre and search Ranulph Ochan'toshan's Hill House in Bowden, the very warrant which had been thrown out by the Chief Constable and resulted in Ochan'toshan's release from Hawick in his own cognisance and the search for his 'chums' called off – even though they had stolen a Police Black Maria, which was now being portrayed as having simply chosen to avoid media attention, while still, technically, in Police custody, because of the presence of DS Larry 'Knickers' Lauderdale and PC Barry 'Caber' Lauderdale his reputedly well-endowed brother; but Isa wasn't to be propitiated by that: she knew a cover-up and a whitewash when she smelt them and this was both! “this warrant is sound as a pound,” she said firmly, “you know it and I know it. So who got at our misanthropic Chief?” and Sam couldn't meet

her eyes, while Jasmine squirmed in her chair; but then Sam looked up: “it seems Doubleday probably has something on the Chief, we don't know what and maybe we never will, but it's enough, and the Chief was so afraid it would come out that he buckled, and we can't prove a thing, Isa,” and Isa flashed such a look at him that he put his hands over his face; so then Isa changed tack:”and how is it that Roxy is going to be the first one down into the Cavern?” she asked; “ah, well,” said Sam, “that was a mistake on my part,” and Isa sneered: “it certainly was, the place is a Crime Scene, it should have been Carolina Moonbeam, with some of her SOCOs, now shouldn't it?” and Sam had the good grace to blush to his few roots, as he nodded; “someone suggested a draw from all the names of people who volunteered, and the Chief thought: why not? and approved it; he felt it might be a good-news story on the TV with him standing at the top and looking down, and the draw was done fairly, you know, hurriedly, nudiustertian,” he gabbled, “the day before yesterday, with the Duke of Edinburgh drawing the name out of one of his top hats,” and Isa stared at him: “and how many different names were in the hat?” she demanded: “ah, well, yes, there you may have a point,” conceded Sam, “it seems there was a little error and while five hundred slips of paper went in, it seems they all said Roxy Davidova on them, and no-one’s admitting anything about how the slip-up occurred! most embarrassing for Prince Philip!"