With a clatter of dustbins and a screech of tyres and a scattering of so many belligerent alley cats, Detective Pilchard parked gracefully across the kerb outside Trifle City Bank. His car arrived sometime thereafter.
Under the tempestuous night, its rain cold, blustery and incessant, the magnificent Trifle City Bank stood with all the grandeur of a sandcastle, one which'd been sat on by a hefty and incontinent donkey. As he side-stepped his way up the steps towards the stone columns of the bank's entrance, Detective Pilchard found that the entrance had already been cordoned off with reels of makeshift police tape. (Celo with 'POLCIE' written on it in crayon. Cutbacks, etc.) Dripping with rain, collar drawn up passed his ears, a junior constable was standing guard before the bank's entrance. His moustache erect with vexation, his eyes bulging over the lobes, Detective Pilchard confronted the constable.
“Constable. Explain,” the aforementioned did confront. “Why, at this ungodly hour of the night, have you dragged me outta my nice warm bed and down to this sorry neck of the city, huh?!”
A regular gentleman (as 'regular' as anyone with eyes in their ears can be) Detective Pilchard was not usually this obtuse, but he'd read in that month's issue of Police Personing For Dummies that a competent detective 'Must always assert his or herself when faced with a tight spot.' Finding it difficult to face anything, the ear-eyed detective had misread/misheard this advice and attempted to insert his or herself into a tight spot, be it behind a fridge, inside a toaster, through a cheese grater, up a drainpipe, under a lady's undergarments, the list went on – as did the ridicule he received from his fellow officers thereafter. Anyway...
“Quit stammering boy,” his or herself bellowed ever louder, determined to maintain his or blah's supremacy; but mainly he bellowed because he was deaf. “About it, constable! What happened here? Name thy crime!”
“I'm s-sorry s-s-sir,” babbled the clearly shaken officer, the subject of the crime unusually distressing. “I think... I think there has been a robbery.”
“A robbery?” The detective rubbed his chin. (His. Not the officer's). “I see.” (He didn't.) “What are the signs? Has the vault been breached?”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The constable shock his (his) head. “I'm...I'm not sure, sir.”
“Then has anything been taken?” the detective pressed. “Money? Bonds? Loot? Give me your report.”
“I'm...I'm–”
“Come on, constable! The report! Spit it out!”
Following said demand, said constable did indeed spit said report out – all eight pages of it. With a retch, Detective Pilchard scooped the sodden report up off the pavement and wiped it with his other-other sleeve; aside than the breakfast habits of a junior constable (Lucky Charms on rye; sweet) due to the splat of the constable's spew the detective was incapable of fathoming anything from the report; thus, none the wiser as to what that night's mysterious case entailed, Detective Pilchard ambled sideways past the retching constable and into the bank, onwards thereafter (still sideways) toward the bank's imperious vault. Once inside the bank (sideways – the detective, not the bank) Detective Pilchard's crab-like advancement toward the vault was unceremoniously impeded by a pair of thuggish heavy-set square types; luckily, these square types turned out to be doors. Anti-luckily, waiting behind said doors were two more heavy-set square types, and no matter how many times the detective pulled on their handles or twisted their knobs or attempted to insert his or her-blah through their keyholes this pair were nowhere as obliging as their predecessors; in fact the two men found the detective's invasions of their beings (and keyholes) somewhat bothersome.
Judging from their thick sunglasses and thicker expressions, Detective Pilchard surmised that the two men halting his advance were vault attendants of the very highest order; both men also wore t-shirts with 'Vault Attendant of the Very Highest Order' emblazoned across the chest in bold fluorescent typeface, a detail which could easily have been missed by the untrained ear.
“Step aside fellas,” he with the ear-eyes demanded in a tone as authoritative as an alter boy's hiccup. “I'm in charge here! I need to see inside that vault. Pronto!”
“It's Colin,” responded one of the Vault Attendants of the Very Highest Order, visibly riled at being addressed as Pronto. “And I'm sorry sir, but no can do. No one's allowed inside the vault until the mayor and her team arrive.”
Detective Pilchard was aghast. “What? But I need to assess the scene before it gets all contaminated, like. I repeat, step aside,” the detective budged of these banky-blocking-buffoons. Both were unbudging. “Sorry sir. No entry until the mayor says so,” they said, budging back. “We have our orders, sir. Nobody gets in!” On the budging went, long into the night.
Despite being incandescent with rage like a very angry lighthouse with two swivelling ear-eye-lights the detective took a breath, counted to ten, and stepped back from the guards; he stepped so far back that he suddenly found himself once again outside the bank, sideways, and up to his ankles in a puddle of report.
Dejected, stinky, yet nonetheless determined, Detective Pilchard scuttled around the bank's outer walls in search of an alternate ingress; an ingress into which which he would not be ingressing-ing alone...
