THE STRANGE CASE OF THE TRIANGULAR PHOTOGRAPH (STRANGE CASE 01)

Triangles. Paper clips. Ostriches. Waterslides. Measles. The woman called Clifton in the local bread sanctuary, horticulture and Aunt Norma's wedding. You wouldn't necessarily connect these things but one wet Thursday in the Spring of 2022, they all colluded to create the strangest case of my long career...

It all began when I received a letter, addressed to Arthur Bagley, which is one of the names I use in my role as a detective. Paperclipped to the letter was a triangular photo of an ostrich. I was intrigued, to such an extent that I ventured out of the air raid shelter for the first time in months. There was no address on the letter, but given the two letters ZR in small print at the bottom, I worked out that this was a cry for help from Hull. How did I work that out just from those two letters? Well I'm going to tell you - it must have been a cry for help from Zoe Ramsbottom, my old girlfriend from Hull. The letter was otherwise illegible, blurred beyond distinction by water damage. I set out at once for "Splashing 'Eck", Hull's premiere water park. Zoe had always enjoyed water slides.

When I arrived, I showed various people the photo of Zoe and asked if they had seen her. "That's an ostrich", they invariably replied. This was a problem. You see, Zoe always looked a bit like an ostrich, so it was easy to confuse the two, and I'd brought the wrong photo with me. This was going to be harder than I thought. Then a woman, around 42, walked past me with a nine year old kid in tow. His face was full of spots, like measles. Instinctively, I covered his head with a brown paper bag. If you can't SEE measles, you can't catch them, I'd always been told. The woman felt otherwise, and hit me between the eyes. I went down like a sack of carrots, and when I woke up, I was in the local bread sanctuary, with both my hands tied behind my back. The woman was standing over me, holding the photo. 

"Who are you?" she said. "And what are you doing with a photo of my prize cow?"

"COW?" I replied. "It looks like a bloody ostrich!"

This infuriated her immensely. 

"I know your kind"? she said, and lifted her leg as though she was about to stamp on my head and put me out of my misery, when young Measly suddenly said "Mum, when can we go zebra racing again?"

Zebra racing! Of course! This whole thing had nothing to do with Zoe after all. I booked a taxi and pulled up outside the zebra track. Instantly, I could smell a rat. There wasn't a zebra in sight. Instead the whole place had been taken over for a horticultural show. Everywhere I looked, there were nothing but daisies. I suddenly remembered that this was the venue Aunt Norma had chosen for her wedding. And sure enough, there she was, walking up the aisle with Clifton, the woman from the bread sanctuary, who had knocked me cold just a few hours before! The 9 year old kid was acting as a flower girl, still with the paper bag on his head, scattering daisies as he skipped along behind them. Clearly, there had been a murder. But who was the victim? Where was he or she? Who sent the anonymous letter? And most importantly of all, where was the toilet? I was busting to go.

Oh and whodunit? I'll tell you what I've worked out so far:

1. That damn cow WAS an ostrich
2. 'Clifton' was my ex-girlfriend in disguise 
3. The 'child' was actually Ethan, my old nemesis from preschool. How was it that he was still 9, yet I was 46?

But then it hit me - the letter wasn't a letter at all. It was a map of the zebra track, with the crime scene marked by a picture of an ostrich. If only I could get there in time, I could find the proof I needed and stop this travesty of a wedding! Fortunately I had in my pocket a hot cross bun from the bread sanctuary, which had been abused with a chocolate topping. I hurled it at the elderly woman across the street. What happened next was a comedy of errors...

The old woman fell backwards onto her pull-along shopping trolley. A dog leapt on top of her to eat the hot cross bun, wagging its tail wildly. The tail whacked 'Clifton'/Zoe so hard in the face that she hopped and yelped in pain. The Red Indian parade that was passing believed her to be doing a rain dance, so they joined in, hopping and yelping until the clouds broke open, drenching everybody. Zoe HATED being wet, so she flung open the doors to the café by the side of the track. I followed her down. She quickly removed the top half of her clothing. My eyes nearly popped out. But not because of her impressive womanliness, oh no, it was because of what I discovered amongst her discarded garments...

...The murder weapon! A paperclip, identical to the one on the letter she had sent me, covered in fresh ostrich blood. Well, she knew the game was up, but in her haste to escape, she ran out in front of the 3:15 Zebra Derby. There was nothing I could do, and I could only stand and watch as she was trampled beneath her hooves. But at least the wedding was off.

And the 9 year old boy turned out not to be Ethan, after all. That mystery was solved when, later that evening, I was playing Trivial Pursuit with my cat. I had taught the cat to both speak and play to keep myself company. He asked me the capital of Belize, and I said I knew it was Belmopan. 

I don't think I need to tell you why, but this completely gave the game away where Ethan was concerned. Obviously, his real name was Bill. 

Another case solved with absolutely no loose ends.

FIN

NOTES:
This is the first in a series of stories from the casebook of Arthur Bagley, a private detective, though as he would often point out, Arthur Bagley was only one of the names he used in the pursuit of criminal detection. These stories follow a common format; they start with a list of disparate things, things one might not necessarily put together. But to Arthur Bagley, P. I., they are all clues in what invariably turns out to be the strangest case of his long career...

This list provides a series of elements for Loz and I to construct a story around. For Bagley, the ace detective, the connection is usually obvious, but is he seeing patterns where none exist? The stories all have the following characteristics:

• The list of disparate items.

• The words "clearly, there had been a murder."

• The complete absence of a body.

• The fact that every one of Arthur's cases is "the strangest case of [his] long career."

The third story, The Strange Case of the Metal Xylophone, is where the series begins to gel into something coherent. Many of the regular characters and settings are established in that story, and from that point on, the stories are set in something more recognisable as the real world, with Arthur himself being the most eccentric thing in it.