The Murder of Hubert Thumberberry
It was in the evening of the 22nd day of Octobuary, 18__, that I attended a popular lecture given in the auditorium of the Royal Society. The speaker, Sir Hubert Thumberberry, was a renowned expert in the field of theoretical agrostology, speaking on a subject close to my heart: the intersection of didactics with dialectics (or, as it is sometimes called, Dianetics).
After the lecture, I waited with the throng hoping for a word from Sir Hubert, as I was (and still am) a dedicated amateur of the same study. As I stood waiting, with a bouquet of Thuringerwurst in token of my appreciation, there arose a clamour from the backstage area of voices raised in distress. Abandoning all but one of the sausages (for I had not eaten), I pressed through the press to find a beadle holding back the crowd which proposed to rush the speakers’ lounge whence the uproar proceeded.
Catching the man’s attention, for I cut then, as now, an imposing figure, I attempted to offer my services.
“Sir!” said I, “I am Mr Cedric Ptolemy Ashford, of the Northumberland Ashford-Canterfells. I hope I may be of some assistance in this hoorah.”
“‘Ere, I knows that name, I does,” remarked the, for lack of a better word, person. “You’re that detective bloke. Summat awful ‘as conhanced in the back. You goes right on through, you does.” He exhaled a token “Blimey!”
Edging my way around the stout figure, carefully lest I should accidentally come into contact with the jackanapes, I followed the uproar and banshee-wailing to a door at the end of the corridor.
With the hullabaloo in full cry, I wasted no time by announcing my presence, but opened the door and insinuated myself. An astonishing tableau greeted my eyes. After perusing the tableau for some moments, I examined the scene.
All the furniture was upset, as were the gentlemen clustered around Sir Hubert, or rather his body as it lay in disarray in the center of the room. A doctor, identifiable by his Gladstone bag and bone saw, knelt by its side. As I watched, he gently closed the corpse’s eyes in clichéd fashion.
I stepped forward. Examining the tableau (not the same as the previous one), I saw the body lying on its back, with a large wound at its breast. Looking closely, I perceived a scrap of paper clutched in its hand. There was an inkwell upset upon the carpet. There was ink upon his forefinger, and marks from it upon the carpet.
“I don’t understand,” remarked the chirurgeon. “He has clearly been shot, but there is no projectile in the wound.”
“Nothing?” asked the secretary of the Society, a man known to me, Mr Ethel Butler-Stoke.
“Nothing. Only a bit of dampness.”
A florid gentleman who had just entered cried, “Touch nothing! I have sent for the law.”
“The police will be as baffled as we are,” said Butler-Stoke. “We need the services of a top-flight detective.”
This was my cue. I backed out quietly, made my way back to the auditorium, and left. Walking home, nibbling at my sausage, I reflected on Sir Hubert’s speech, rife with cliché and infelicitous phrasing as it had been.
At home I unloaded by Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver and oiled it to remove any trace of dampness. Afterwards I sat gloomily with a pot of tea, reflecting. Would my passage through it leave the world a better place?
I was still sitting, the tea now cold, as night came on.
Read on for The Enigma of the Errant Editor.