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Mayfair Mystery Magazine
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Welcome...
Welcome
to the new updated Mrs. McGinty Website. Some things have been
added and others taken away, but the horrible yellow and red colour
scheme of the old site has gone missing. Perhaps it's a case
for Mrs. McGinty.
In this issue...
The start of a new Mrs. McGinty Mystery Mrs, McGinty and the gang are discussing suicide when Colonel Ephraim Pikeaway comes round and offers them a job. What awaits them in the mysterious Sphere? Home Probability Zero Previous Chapters Notes Contact Mrs McGinty Other Mrs McGinty Text Download Audio Download
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Mrs. McGinty
And
The Man in the Sphere
Chapter 1
The Colonel Makes a Call
We were sat in the kitchen talking about killing ourselves.
“What about an overdose?” I asked.
“Rubbish,” said my aunt. “At best it’s a cry for help, at worst a
stupid accident.”
“What about car exhaust fumes?”
“Tart’s way out. Put Classic FM on the stereo, shove a hose pipe
through the window, drink half a bottle of cooking sherry and sleep
forever.”
“It’s ironic,” chipped in Rogers, my aunt’s butler. “If they could
have got a good night’s sleep in the first place, they probably
wouldn’t have wanted to commit suicide in the first place.”
Despite it being first thing in the morning, my aunt was already on
her third bottle of brown ale and she belched noisily. She was
dressed in an old dressing gown that was definitely in need of a
wash and a pair of slippers that didn’t match. Rogers, as always
wore neatly pressed trousers and tails jacket, but when we’re alone
in the house, he only has a string vest under it. I was wearing an
old sweatshirt, jogging bottoms and a pair of slippers in the shape
of Homer Simpson’s head.
Courtesy of Rogers, we always started the day with a full cooked
breakfast, even if we didn’t eat later in the day.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” my aunt said.
“Because of health and safety these days, there isn’t much chance of
pushing someone off a cliff, you’d get nowhere near. The same with
high buildings. There’s barriers, fences and locked doors, not to
mention CCTV. In the old days, you could just lure someone up
there, wait for them to turn their backs and whammo! Push them off”
“What about poisons?” I asked, looking at the lump of black
pudding swimming in a lake of grease.
“You can’t get hold of any of the good ones any more, I mean, where
can you buy rat poison? When I was a lass you could get hold of all
sorts of things, strychnine, cyanide, arsenic. There’s chuff all
left. Do you know what’s toxic enough in the average kitchen to
finish you off? I don’t, and I’m in this line of work. Plus, if it
was something like bleach, you’d have to mix it with something else
just to get it down your neck.”
She paused to finish off yet another bottle of brown ale. She did
this in such a fashioned that made me think that she’d probably have
no problem drinking anything, let alone bleach. Rogers handed her
another bottle and she took the top off with her teeth.
“There’s just no good way of doing it any more,” said my aunt.
“It’s just about impossible to get access to any firearms.
“You could probably get hold of a shotgun,” I said.
“I’d have to nick it from somewhere, and that’s not easy. I’d
probably get caught that would be an end to it.”
“You can apply for a license.”
“Yeah, but you need two referees who are reasonable and upstanding.
If you’d got two friends like that, you probably wouldn’t be the
kind of sad bugger who’d put a gun in their mouth anyway.”
“You could do it if you were in the military. They let them have
guns.”
“If you’re in the military, there’s plenty of other ways that you
could commit suicide. You could crash a plane into a mountain or
run naked through Basra shouting ‘Osama Bin Laden is a Girl’.
Beside, that’s not the point. We’re not really talking about
committing suicide; we’re talking about committing murder and making
it look like a suicide. In the old days, you just shot somebody,
wiped off the gun and stuck it in the victim’s hand.”
“Making sure you got the right hand,” said Rogers.
“Or the left hand if it was a left handed person,” I added.
My aunt mimed pushing someone off a cliff with an inappropriate
amount of glee.
“There’s still the problem of the note,” I said.
“I’ve got that sussed,” said my aunt, taking another swig of brown
ale. “Text message.”
“What?”
“Send a text message. It’s not going to be long before some sad
bugger does it.”
“I’ll write that down. I can use it in a story.”
“You do. But do you see what I mean about the murder? It’s just
not the same.”
“Actually, I remember you telling me how you would commit suicide.”
“Oh yes?”
“Yes, it was years ago. You said you’d accidentally drink two
litres of petrol out of an unmarked lemonade bottle.”
“Did I? How odd.”
At that moment, Killer, my aunt’s cat, came dashing through the cat
flap and leapt onto my aunt’s lap. This usually meant one of two
things; either he’d annoyed Mrs. Carpenter’s dog, Bunty, or there
was someone coming up the path.
Sure enough, there was a sharp rap on the door followed by the
ringing of the door bell. We looked towards the monitor that showed
pictures from a camera carefully hidden above the front door. It
was Colonel Ephraim Pikeaway.
“Oh bugger,” said my aunt. “Looks like it’s Showtime.”
My aunt and I headed for the stairs while Rogers quickly tidied
himself up. He kept a number of cardboard shirt fronts in the
kitchen and he quickly put one over his string vest. There was a
cardboard collar that went with it which already had a neat black
tie attached. He smoothed back his receding dyed black hair and
within seconds he looked every inch the gentleman’s gentleman.
In private, my aunt is an inebriate harridan, but to the world in general my aunt is a sweet little old lady and the
job of transforming her into that takes slightly more effort than
turning Rogers into a butler.
First, her long grey hair needs to be brought under control and tied
up into a neat bun. Then she requires corsetry, her waist is shoved
into a girdle and her not inconsiderable busom requires a brassiere
that she refers to as “The Sheepdog” because, as she says, it “rounds them up and
points them in the right direction”. On top of this she wears a
full length Edwardian dress in grey or black, trimmed in white
lace. The net result is that she looks like Whistler’s mother but
slightly older. She makes this effort because it’s what people
expect.
My transformation is quicker. In the house, it’s expected that I’ll
be wearing a T-shirt, jeans and trainers. The T-shirt had to have
some geekish message on it. Due to a mistake in ordering, today’s
T-shirt said “Insert Text Here”. My aunt, however, likes a
little time with her guests alone so I waited a while before joining
her.
By the time I got back downstairs, Rogers had allowed the Inspector
into the lounge and he was talking to my aunt.
A gruff voice from somewhere in the parlour answered her.
“You’re a temptress Mrs. McGinty and no mistake.”
The voice belonged to Colonel Ephraim Pikeaway. He was a man of the
old school who believed that all that it was impossible to be good
at anything without a short haircut and clean fingernails. He was
tall and immaculately dressed. He had short cut, greying hair and
an anachronistic, thin moustache which he thought made him look
distinguished.
He was wearing a twill suit and a tartan waistcoat. I saw this as a
vain attempt to impress my aunt that he had a more relaxed side to
his nature.
My aunt and I had worked with him before and on our first meeting he
had taken an immediate dislike to me which made things easy, for I
had taken an intense dislike to him. He tolerated me because of my
aunt who he accorded the kind of respect reserved for royalty. This
was because on their first meeting she had immediately charmed the
socks off him.
He was the public front of some sort of nebulous governmental
organisation that dealt with top secret research and the wholesale
gathering of information. This was how we had met him. There had
been a murder and an abandoned child at a top secret establishment
investigating time travel. Colonel Pikeaway had not wanted to
involve the conventional police force so had brought my aunt in to
work on the case.
Rogers was serving him with sherry when I entered. The dosage could
in no way be described as “wee”. He appeared to be pouring half a
pint into a small glass bucket.
If Pikeaway was impeccable then Rogers was immaculate. I was amazed
at the transformation that he had worked in such a short period of
time.
“Ah,” said Pikeaway as I entered. “There you are, young Sidney.
Still not got that hair cut then?”
Pikeaway always said this, despite the fact that I was over thirty,
called Nigel and slightly balding. I was about to point this out
but Rogers rescued me from the inevitable argument that would have
resulted.
“Would the young master enjoy a beverage?”
“Yep,” I replied, “I could murder a cuppa,” playing my part as the
idiot nephew.
Rogers disappeared off to the kitchen.
“Mr Pikeaway has a job for us,” said my aunt putting down her
knitting needles. “He wants us to do some top secret work for the
Ministry of Defence.”
“Well,” said Pikeaway. “I’m none to sure whether I’ll be able to
get security clearance for young Sidney here. I know it will be
difficult getting clearance for Rogers.”
“Och,” said Mrs McGinty. “I’m no sure I can work without young
Nigel here, he’s my right hand man.”
Pikeaway looked less than impressed.
“I’m sure something can be arranged,” he agreed. “He’ll just have
to lay off the .... well, you know.”
My aunt nodded knowingly.
“After our success at the LTTL Research Centre the Colonel wants us
to check the security on very secure establishment.”
Pikeaway nodded.
“Not just very secure,” he said. “But the most secure in the
country, possibly the most secure in the world. The Sphere is to be
the home for all the most secret research that has ever been carried
out by the boffins of her majesties civil service. Everything
you’ve never heard of is going to end up there.”
He suddenly looked very pleased with himself.
“I’ve been given the task of testing security and to be honest, I
can find nothing wrong with it, but then I thought ‘two heads are
better than one’.”
He nodded towards Mrs McGinty and for a short while I pictured
Colonel Pikeaway with two heads. It was not a pleasant image.
“Indeed,” said Mrs. McGinty. “He’s asking us to give the place the
once over and see if we can spot any gaps.”
“If anyone can do it, you can,” said Pikeaway. He almost purred.
“There’s just one wee problem,” said my aunt, looking at me. “We’ve
got to leave almost immediately. The Colonel wants to send a car
for us within the hour. What do you say?”
I was sure my aunt would know my answer.
“I say we do it,” I answered immediately. My aunt nodded. She knew
it was exactly the kind of problem I loved. Pikeaway seemed
surprised by my decisive response and I quickly returned to my role
of the idiot nephew.
“Just as long as I don’t miss match on Sat’day,” I said and just for
good measure, I added, “By ‘eck.”
“Then it’s all arranged, I’ll send a car round for you in two
hours. That should give you enough time to get a few things
together.” Pikeaway drained the last of his sherry and stood up.
Rogers seemed to find the Colonel’s coat from somewhere and helped
him into it.
“Remember, two hours,” he said and with a small wave he headed
towards the door.
“Och, I’ll look forward to it Chief Inspector.”
Pikeaway smiled weakly and left.
As soon as he’d gone, My aunt pulled herself out of her chair and
drew herself up to her full height.
“What a tosser,” she said, immediately dropping the squeaky Scottish
accent and returning to her gruff northern voice. “Did you see that
waistcoat? He looked like a cheap box of shortbread.”
She broke wind noisily.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “I shouldn’t have run up the stairs.
It always makes me fart.”
“Breathing always makes you fart.”
I looked over to Rogers. He had taken off his white gloves and torn
off his cardboard fronted shirt. He was busy picking his nose.
“You were laying it on a bit thick,” said my aunt. “’By ‘eck lad
sithee,’ or whatever it was. You sounded like the Tetley Tea Folk
on Benzedrine.”
“Pikeaway wouldn’t have noticed. He wouldn’t have thought it odd if
I’d said ‘Ee By Gum, Ecky Thump,’ and hit him over the head with a
black pudding.
“Beside,” I added. “I know you’re supposed to be Scottish, but when
did you start saying ‘Och Aye’?”
“I never,” she said. “But we need to calm it down a bit. We'll not
be able to keep it up and Pikey’s not that stupid.”
She reached into her knitting bag and pulled out a bottle of
Newcastle Brown. She pulled off the bottle top by smacking it on
the edge of the table. The last time I’d attempted this, I’d broken
my wrist.
“How you do that without getting carpal tunnel syndrome and
repetitive strain injury.” I said.
“Practice.” She winked and took a good swig, downing the
entire
bottle. She practiced by opening another one in the same way.
“Got it!” said Rogers. He held up his index finger, showing the
lump of solidified mucus that had been the cause of his rhinal
investigation. He flicked it into the fire where it burned with a
light blue flame.
“What do you make of the job?” he asked.
“Sounds like a belter,” said my aunt. “Mysterious top secret
establishment, fate of the nation, all that stuff.”
Rogers was picking his nose again.
“Should be worth a few bob as well,” he said.
“Especially if that ponce Pikey going to be signing the expenses,”
said my aunt.
“I, for one, am looking forward to the intellectual challenge,” I
interjected, hoping for the moral high ground.
“Well you would be,” said my aunt, giving a very theatrical yawn
“I’ll tell you something, I nearly burst out laughing when Pikey
said he’d been put in charge of testing security. I’m surprised
they let him into the place.”
“Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps that’s what they want us for.”
“While we’re on the subject of what Pikey said, what did he mean by
‘he’ll be alright if he lays off the …you know?’”
“That’s my fault,” said Rogers. “When we were a bit slow answering
the door, Pikey had a scout round and Pikey spotted your aunt’s
empties. It’s hard to miss two-hundred-and-seventy-two empty
bottles of Newcastle Brown. He even spotted the two litre bottles
of Shandy Bass. So I told him that the Shandy was for her and that
you were an alcoholic.”
“Oh, great. Thanks a lot. I’m sure that’s made his impression of
me far better. I wouldn’t mind, but it was my Shandy Bass.”
“How long do you think we’ll be gone?” asked Rogers.
“A couple of days at the most.”
“And Pikey’s already sending round a car.”
“We’d better be ready then,” said my Aunt. “Nigel, you’d better nip
and pack a bag. “
“Rogers, you need to get yourself sorted out, but one thing before
you go.”
“Yes?”
“Get me another bottle of Brown.”
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