Having cut the antenna's power with his shears (and having recovered from twenty-thousand volts through the heart) Detective Pilchard hurried up the stairwell to the radio tower's rooftop. As well as smoking like a blown fuse, the detective was racked with apprehension; he fully expected to find his friend, the city's crumpety-saviour, as crispy as a roadkill r?sti.
Thankfully the detective's fears were soon allayed. When he reached the rooftop he found our hero (relatively) unscathed. Having put himself out for the second time today, Crumpet-Hands Man was already fitting The Slumberer for a set of crumpet-handcuffs.
“You haven't heard the last of me,” the villain wrathed and wriggled against his bings. “I'll be back!”
“Save your breath,” Crumpet-Hands Man said. (Sage advice: Trifle City's prison had recently flooded, and was currently underwater.)
From somewhere, Mayor Sperkins arrived on the scene; as one befitting her stature she was flanked by a platoon of TCPDK's policemen of the kinda-highest-order. She told the policemen to take The Slumberer into custody, charge him with theft, breaking and entering, and exposing his-or-her-blah in all the wrong etc., then she turned to Crumpet-Hands Man and Detective Pilchard; if they'd been expecting a gracious “Well done! You is both like truly great!” from their illustrious mayor, they were to be disappointed, for the mayor merely posed for the taking of the press' photographs, told said photographers to put them back, then left in a huff. Our heroes remained in a contented smoulder, leaning on the roof's ledge, looking out wistfully across the city's panoramic skyline. (So he could actually see said skyline, Detective Pilchard stood side-on, facing our hero, one ear/eye over yonder. This made for a somewhat strange posture.)
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“I say, detective,” our hero asked of his frazzled side(on)kick, “do you know what goes well with a crumpet?”
“*Retch?*”
Crumpet-Hands Man tittered, patting a crumpety palm on the detective's detectivey shoulder. The detective mistook the palm for a penguin, and screamed out in fright.
“The perfect accompaniment for a crumpet, my dear detective,” our hero declared, throwing back his head in heroic gaiety,” is tea, jam, and... Hot-buttered justice!”
Having lost sight of “that damn penguin!” Detective Pilchard holstered his shears, licked his sleeve (the other-other-other-other blah-blah-blah!) and joined in his partner's gaiety. Oh, how the tears poured from his ears!
“By the way,” ear-balls asked, “have you heard about this trend of putting breakfast cereals on toast? I hear that a baguette filled with Sugar Puffs is reet tasty, like. Howay the puff-ette!”
Our hero promised the momentarily-Geordie detective that he would someday try such a diabetes-inducing delicacy. “But only if you'll partaken in one of my crumpets embalmed with Cheerios.”
“Ha! It's a deal,” Detective Pilchard ha!-ed. “Ha!” Crumpet-Hands Man also ha!-ed, before retching uncontrollably into his partner's hat.
And so, shoulder to shoulder, ear/eye to eye, our dynamic and unorthodox duo strode off into the sunset – in doing so they stroded straight off the radio tower's rooftop, landing bot-bot and butter side down with two heroic thuds on the streets below.
And so the first of Crumpet-Hands Man's many marvellous adventures comes to a close! I hope you enjoyed it! Or at least tolerated it...
Next time: When a mysterious foe lurks in the clotted sewers of Trifle City, Crumpet-Hands Man and Detective Pilchard don disguises and get sleuthing in... Undercover the Cover of Darkness!
