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Probability Zero Presents
Mrs. McGinty
and the Missing
Link.
A Mrs. McGinty
Mystery
Alberia is a
vaguely pointless country.
It lies between
oil rich Qatan to the north and Perilia with its gold mines to the
south. Although it has an area of approximately France, it has a
population roughly equivalent of the crowd at an MK Dons football
match. The nomadic tribesmen that live between Alberia’s oases got
the short end of the stick when the boundaries were drawn up between
the three countries. Its population had been divided between Qatan
and Perilia, some moving to the oil in the north, others to the gold
in the south.
Many years
later, Alberia had fallen under the beady eye of the Hayes
Corporation.
They had
realised that it was difficult for the people of land locked Perilia
to get their gold to the ports of Qatan. They had also realised
that if there was a transport infrastructure in Perilia linking the
oases, then there were thousands of acres of real estate that could
be bought for a couple of beads and the occasional Exocet missile.
They had decided
to build a railway line between Qatan and Perilia. The raw
materials were readily available and there was an enthusiastic
indigenous work force. Once the railway was in, they intended to
use it to bring in materials and build airstrips in the desert.
Hayes had
organised work teams in Qatan and Perilia. National pride had been
intense and both sides had set off determined to have built more of
the line before the two ends met.
Qatan was well
ahead in the race before disaster struck. A surveyor had come from
the Hayes Corporation and found that the Qatan crews had drifted
approximately three hundred miles off course.
The Qatani were
livid. They claimed that the Hayes Corporation had given them the
wrong information. They said Hayes were working with the Perilians.
It was at this
point that Hayes had called in Colonel Ephraim Pikeaway.
Pikey had got
straight to the bottom of the matter. It had turned out there was
no conspiracy, just an over enthusiastic engineer who, in his haste
to get the job done, had misread his satellite location device.
Secretly, the
Hayes Corporation were quite pleased with this outcome. They had
been worried that if one of the countries had won, the other would
not have allowed the track to be finished.
But now they
could call it a draw. The Qatani had built more track, but the
Perilians had got further into Alberia. Honour was satisfied.
The Hayes
Corporation decided to hold a joining ceremony.
Sleepers were
made out of compacted sand (there was a lot of it in the desert) and
the tracks were extruded hot (to allow for expansion) from the back
of a machine. The rails were then joined to the sleepers by what
were effectively nails. The nails came in two sizes, Brads and
Tacks.
Brads were the
longer nails used to secure the track. Tacks were smaller and used
to secure the brads.
To finish the
line, Hayes had made a Golden Tack. The President of Perilia and
the King of Qatan had agreed to both place hands on the sledge
hammer that would be used to drive in the final tack. The tack
itself would be made of twenty-four carat gold.
Hayes had three
tacks made. One was to be driven into the sleeper during the
ceremony and the other two were to be given to the relevant
countries.
The ceremony
itself went without a hitch, both the king and the president playing
their parts perfectly. The problem came when it was time to present
the ceremonial tacks.
One of them was
missing.
This caused a
major problem. It would have been easier if both had been stolen,
neither country would have been given a tack. But now there was a
single tack, so which country was to get it?
It was at this
point that Pikey called me and my aunt in.
We landed in
Qatan and Pikey had arranged a special railcar that could get us to
Al Huduh, the town where the ceremony had been held.
My aunt moaned
all the way there.
“It’s too bloody
hot,” she said, despite the air conditioning. “I’m sweating like a
rhino with hives. I’m not a sweaty old slag, I’m a slapper in
aqueous suspension.”
She broke wind
and the air conditioning groaned.
“I makes your
knickers stick to your bum,” she added unhelpfully and began to
firtle around her nether regions.
By the time we
reached Al Huduh she had managed to compose herself properly and was
every inch the English Gentlewoman. She had re-arranged her
underwear and was carrying herself erect. She carried a small
parasol and when the door opened she waited for Colonel Pikeaway to
take her hand and help her from the carriage.
“There’s been a
development,” said the Colonel eagerly. “We’ve tracked the robbers
down to the Street of a Thousand Thieves.
“That was
imaginative,” said my aunt
“It’s not called
the Street of a Thousand Thieves for nothing. When got there, we
followed them into an alley way. We knew it was a dead end and so
we let them go in.
“There were
three shops on the alley way.”
“There was Abdul
A Aneedul’s, a small scale electronics specialist. You know the
sort of thing, cheap mp3 players, CD’s, knocked off SatNavs.”
“There was Byron
B Blannibos’ which is a carpet shop.”
“Isn’t that a
bit stereotypical”
“Who’s telling
this story? I’ll tell you something though, he’s got some lovely
rugs. I’ve bought a couple to take back to Mrs. Pikeaway.
“The last shop
was owned by Cyrus C. Cantano. It’s a…er…private…shop.”
“Did you buy
Mrs. Pikeaway anything from there?”
“I was tempted
to buy something, but not for Mrs. Pikeaway.”
“So you’ve been
into all the shops?”
“Yes, but only
for a quick look round. We’re outside our jurisdiction and we don’t
have the right to search all of them. We will be allowed to search
one shop and only one. So here’s my question, which shop do you
think they would pick?”
The Challenge.
So where has the ceremonial nail been hidden?
Was it Abdul A Aneedul’s small scale electronics
shop
Was it Byron B Blannibos’ carpet shop.
Or was it Cyrus C. Cantano’s private shop.
To answer the question, you must decide which
shop would you put the golden tack in if you wanted it to be hardest
to find.
Click
here for the solution.
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