The Constable Problem, Chapter fourteen

A longer chapter in which an exciting street chase occurs
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

We ran as though our lives depended on our ability to run very fast, which they did. Though large and slow and lumbering, the men in the brown and the black suits acted as though they were small and fast and nimble, no doubt trained in the art of pursuiting by their respective similar but ultimately separate shadowy organisations.

“Stop running!” cried one of the suit-wearing men. We disobeyed his instruction.

“Miss Whitfield,” I panted, as we pelted at full pelt down Weymouth’s quaint cobbled streets. “The painting. The painting of Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable is slowing me down. It is too heavy.”

“Oh no!” cried Miss Whitfield, her large breasts interacting with gravity in ways that would interest a person who usually did not have an interest in physics. “That painting is the key to solving the problem of The Constable Problem!”

“I have an idea, Miss Whitfield,” I said, slipping my hand into my pocket and producing my top of the line mobile camera telephone.

I handed the camera telephone to Miss Whitfield as our feet pounded relentlessly on the ground, propelling us forward at great speed, and pulled the pillow case off the painting of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’.

“Mister Ononio!” cried June Whitfield. “What are you thinking? We are in the middle of a foot chase!”

“Activate the camera module of my mobile telephone, Miss Whitfield,” I said, the tone of my voice making it plain that I was in charge of the situation. Miss Whitfield complied.

As local businesses thundered past our running bodies I held up in Miss Whitfield’s direction the painting of ‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable. “Please take a photograph of the painting, Miss Whitfield,” I shouted above the noise of screaming passers-by.

“Do not attempt to escape!” a besuited voice behind us implored angrily.

Miss Whitfield squealed in fear, her hand twitching as she took a photograph of ‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable. “It’s all fuzzy, Mister Ononio!”

“Try again, please!” I yelled. “But hurry, being at the cutting edge of technology inevitably means I have poor battery life!”

I chose that moment to look ahead of ourselves just in time to see a pram being innocently wheeled into our path by a no-doubt distracted and over-tired new mother. Though I did not blame her, the child’s carriage was now an obstacle in our immediate path.

I quickly sized up the situation and threw the painting of ‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable into the air, grabbing June Whitfield’s arm with my now free hands and pulling her in the direction of the ground. In what would certainly be a carefully choreographed slow motion stunt in the film, myself and Miss Whitfield slid stylishly beneath the pram and out of its other side, as the priceless painting arced overhead. I hauled Miss Whitfield to her feet and deftly caught the now falling piece of art. “Ah, gravity, my old friend,” I quipped, and we continued to run, as there was still much chasing to be done.

Miss Whitfield, clearly shaken by our daring stunt, was experiencing difficulty maintaining a steady hand with which to take a photograph of the priceless work I was thrusting in her direction.

“Mister Ononio, I can’t!” she cried, her almond eyes brimming with nutty tears.

“Miss Whitfield,” I said, adopting my most inspirational voice as we flung ourselves around a nearby corner. “Miss Whitfield, I cannot carry this painting during this chase for much longer. My arms are tired. My mobile camera telephone’s battery is failing. We are being chased by two men intent on doing something to us. Think of your poor headless father, Miss Whitfield. What would he do in this situation?”

Miss Whitfield’s spine straightened, and her majestic breasts stabilised. “He would swear like a sexually frustrated nun and he would take the photograph, Mister Ononio,” she said, her womanly voice filled with pride.

June Whitfield’s hands steadied, and she held up the camera telephone, triumphantly capturing a perfect record of ‘The Hay Wain’ by John Constable in digital form. Quickly, I turned and, running backwards, tossed the irreplaceable painting at our sinister foes.

The man in the brown suit lunged to capture the painting in his hands, causing the black-suited man to veer to his right, my left, and fly dramatically through the passing window of a commercial endeavour. In his attempt to hold on to the painting, the man in the brown suit lost his footing and crashed into a large pile of cardboard boxes, leaving him unconscious.

I turned 180 degrees to face and run forwards again, retrieving my mobile camera telephone from June Whitfield’s delicate grasp. We continued to run into the distance, until a cut took us to the next scene.

The Constable Problem, Chapter thirteen

Unlucky for some, not unlucky for some others
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

Hattie Jacques looked over at the large besuited men and smiled brightly. “Hello gentlemen, and what hat-related service may I provide for your burly selves today?”

I looked at Miss Whitfield. Miss Whitfield looked at me. I blinked.

“Only,” Miss Jacques continued, “I get a lot of time wasters in here, hence the service you require must be of a millinistic bent or I will have to ask you to leave.”

The man in the brown suit spoke in a voice that was two parts gravel, one part grit. “Good day, Ma’am. I – we – are looking for a couple.”

“Of hats?” Miss Jacques enquired disingenuously.

“No,” said the man in the brown suit, “A couple of people.”

Miss Whitfield clasped my hand with her trembling variant.

“There’s a couple of people here,” said Miss Jacques, gesturing loosely towards myself and June Whitfield. “Are they the couple of people you are looking for?”

The man in the brown suit and his similarly black clad companion peered at myself and Miss Whitfield intently, their trained eyes attempting to penetrate the clever disguises Miss Jacques had applied to us. Miss Whitfield’s trembling clasping hand clasped my rock steady hand more tightly.

“No,” said the man in the black suit. “That is not the couple of people we are in search of.”

“Then I must ask you to please leave my shop at once before I call a local security guard,” Miss Jacques stated sternly.

“You’re not very friendly,” said the man in the brown suit, looking put out.

“I don’t sit in a small room by myself making hats for a living because of my sparkling personality,” growled Miss Jacques.

Cowed, the men in the brown and the black suit between them turned and left the shop unsatisfied, stopping outside the window of Miss Jacques’s establishment to discuss their next move.

“Holy hell!” I exclaimed. “Miss Jacques, that was quite a performance.”

June Whitfield’s startling breasts heaved with relief. “I agree,” she said, her voice trembling as much as her hand had been when it had clasped my hand just seconds earlier.

Miss Jacques laughed in disbelief. “Who were those black and brown suited men?” she asked.

“I believe the brown suited man was from the secret organisation ‘Under The Eye’,” I said.

“Oh yes, I’ve heard of them,” said Miss Jacques.

“But it seems they have decided to join forces with the man in the black suit in order to prevent myself and Miss Whitfield from uncovering the dark solution to The Constable Problem.”

“Gosh,” said Hattie Jacques, amazed by my ability to recount recent events.

“Now, Miss Jacques, we must leave you. Tell me, do you have a back door?”

“No,” said Hattie Jacques sadly. “I’m afraid I had it bricked up after some unpleasantness.”

I took June Whitfield’s hand and moved towards the door to the shop that we had entered only not long ago. “Thank you for everything,” I said to Miss Jacques. “Our random meeting has moved the plot forward slightly and has brought us one step closer to solving the mystery that has haunted art historyers for hundreds of years.”

Miss Jacques waved weakly as I decisively yanked open the door and we returned to the tense chase through the clean streets of Weymouth.

The black and brown suited men observed myself, Antonio Ononio, and Miss Whitfield as we looked innocent and turned to walk past them. It was then that we suddenly, unexpectedly, and without warning experienced the full, cruel, powerful force of nature.

A gust of wind gusting at a full 12 miles per hour gusted down the narrow street and blew June Whitfield’s tasteful hat off her attractive head and into the air before gravity pulled it to the ground.

“My disguise!” Miss Whitfield cried with emotional anguish.

The men in the black and brown suits looked up from their discussion and directly in our direction. I tightened my grip on Miss Whitfield’s hand and we ran.

The Constable Problem, Chapter eleven

The story slows again but continues
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

I stood, aghast, staring at the woman in whose shop of hats we hid. June Whitfield clasped my arm womanlyly. “I assure you, Miss…” I began.

“Jacques, Mister Ononio. Harriet Jacques, milliner.”

“I assure you, Miss Jacques,” I continued.

“Please, call me Hattie,” said Miss Jacques.

“Thank you,” I replied. “I assure you, Miss Jacques, that I am not who you have decided I think you have decided you think I am and that I – we – are innocent of whatever it is you think I – we – have done, as our presence in this very innocent hat shop proves.”

I glanced around nonchalantly for an escape route, should we require one. There was a door to our behind.

“Mister Ononio,” said Hattie Jacques, “I am your biggest fan. I’ve read everything about you on the Internet and in that book and I know that you, Miss Whitfield, are June Whitfield, daughter of late eminent eminentorian Barrington Whitfield. And I know that if you are together you must finally be out to solve the mystery that haunts all amateur historyers – The Constable Problem. And if I’m right, I know it must be the pair of you both who has stolen John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ and a pillow case from the Weymouth Hilton and who are now on the run from police in nearly two counties. Have I adequately summarised the story so far, Mister Ononio?”

“That is more than adequate, Miss Jacques,” I said, my complex and intricate cover story obviously lying in tatters on the floor of the hat shop, “And in the coming hours you are going to hear some terrible things about us. Awful things more terrible even than pillow case theft. Please be assured that none of it is true.”

“Mister Ononio,” said Hattie Jacques, “I may be just a humble backstreet milliner, but I know from the Internet that you are a good man and woman, and would never break the law apart from painting and bedding theft even in the pursuit of the solution to The Constable Problem. Please tell me, is there anything I can do to help you evade the forces of the police and evil?”

I looked around Miss Jacques’s shop. “Well, Miss Jacques” I said. “I think we are in need of an elaborate and convincing disguise.”

Miss Jacques nodded affirmatively and set to work. As she scoured the displays of her shop for suitable hats for myself and Miss Whitfield, I noticed that my companion in fugitiveness was very quiet.

“Miss Whitfield,” I said to Miss Whitfield. “Are you quite alright?”

June Whitfield looked up into my eyes, as I am taller than her. The eyes she was using to look at me were brimming with tears of unhappiness. “Mister Ononio, a large hairy woman is dead. Murdered. I simply cannot believe it. I don’t think I will ever get over it or be the same again.”

I clasped June Whitfield’s shoulders heroically and looked down into her wet eyes. “Miss Whitfield,” I said. “If historying has taught me anything, it’s that the past gets smaller the further away in time it goes, and with it pain and grief and death.”

Miss Whitfield sniffed deeply and smiled weakly. “Thank you, Mister Ononio, I feel much better now.”

Hattie Jacques approached us. “Mister Ononio, Miss Whitfield? I believe I have the perfect disguises for you both.”

The Constable Problem, Chapter ten

Something happens
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

As I reached down to pick up and ingest the last of my expertly prepared breakfast a fist the approximate mass of that of the Phantom Mummy King of Basingstoke grasped my ornately constructed container of pomme frites and crushed them into a starchy amalgam of cardboard and potato.

June Whitfield squeaked in shock. I looked up at the owner of the large fist and found it belonged to a suitably large hairy woman in her fifties who had a large knife protruding unhealthily from her large chest. June Whitfield squeaked again.

“Antonio Ononio,” the woman said in a thick Kent accent. “I have travelled a great distance and faced many dangers to pass on to you a message of great importance from a person of great significance which may benefit you greatly. Will you accept this message?”

I looked at June Whitfield. June Whitfield looked back at me. I returned June Whitfield’s gaze. June Whitfield volleyed my return. I paused.

“Please,” said the Kentish woman. “I don’t have much time. Will you accept the message?”

“Okay,” I said, slowly.

“Beware the salamander,” the large woman gasped. She dropped to her knees, banged her head on the table, and slumped to the floor, dead.

June Whitfield’s large breasts sank sadly as she surveyed the scene before her. In the distance, a siren sounded. ‘Mister Ononio!” she cried.

“I agree, Miss Whitfield,” I replied. “I think we should leave.”

A waitress brought us our bill and I paid quickly, leaving an appropriate tip. As other diners slowly began to realise what had happened, we hurried out of the restaurant and disappeared into the throng of shoppers thronging Weymouth’s famous throng district.

“Mister Ononio,” said June Whitfield as we ploughed through fertile fields of shoppers and throng sellers, “Mister Ononio, that woman died. She died. She’s no longer alive. And what do you think her message meant?”

“Beware the salamander,” I repeated again and again, echoing the dead woman’s words as I pushed through the crowd, pulling June Whitfield away from the large dead woman.

The sirens on the horizon moved away from the horizon at high speed and three police cars, the source of the sirens, flew towards and past us to the scene that we had left so dramatically only 34 seconds ago. June Whitfield was choking back tears and I knew the image of the small French woman with the gunshot wound dying at our feet just 41 seconds ago would never leave me.

We needed somewhere large and crowded to hide where we would not be spotted, and as we approached a small backstreet milliner I dragged June Whitfield inside.

The bell above the door placed there to indicate the presence of new customers rang ringily as we hurriedly entered. The sirens belonging to the police became muffled by the insulating properties of hats as we skulked innocently, pretending to be innocent customers, which we were, despite the opinions of the police and their sirens. Policemen ran past the shop we were now in.

As we browsed innocently a woman appeared from the back of the shop, where there appeared to be a room of some kind. “Hello,” she said.

Miss Whitfield squeaked in shock. I reacted in a more manly fashion.

“What a fine selection of ladies’ hats,” I said, careful to place the apostrophe correctly.

The woman behind the counter tilted her head quizzically, indicating she was quizzical. “Are you..?” she began.

“Innocent? Oh yes,” blurted Miss Whitfield.

“No,” said the woman behind the counter, “No, why would, how could someone like you be in my shop?”

“Excuse me?” I said, puzzled despite my intelligence.

“I’m sorry,” the woman stammered. “It’s just that you look so much like Antonio Ononio, the moderately sexy unfeasible theorist.”

Miss Whitfield squeaked again.

“I’m afraid you have me mistaken for a different moderately sexy unfeasible theorist whom I am not,” I said smoothly, concealing my identity for the sake of our continued fugitivity.

“Mister Ononio,” said the woman whose hat shop we stood fugitively in. “I am an independent small businesswoman with a brain and a sassy attitude and I won’t be fooled by your clever attempt at deception. I know who you are, and I know what you’ve done.”

The Constable Problem, Chapter nine

The plot progresses slightly
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

Using an elaborate series of procedures taught to me by Stoke-on-Trent’s most highly thought of retired art historying reclaimer, I successfully bypassed the laser powered security system guarding John Constable’s priceless painting ‘The Hay Wain’ and placed it carefully on the bed in which we had slept but not had sex.

“Mister Ononio, that was amazing,” June Whitfield said, her voice near breathless with unbridled admiration.

“Thank you, Miss Whitfield,” I said manfully. “And please continue to call me Antonio, as I mentioned earlier.”

“And remember to call me June, as I too mentioned earlier.” June paused. “Mister Ononio, I believe we should leave this hotel room and this hotel and move to another hotel, as I believe the daring theft of the genuine John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ may be discovered quite soon, and we have serious work to do if we are to uncover the solution to The Constable Problem.”

“I agree, Miss Whitfield,” I agreed, my voice containing a note of regret. “Regrettably, we may have to become fugitives from the law, yet remain the fundamentally good people that we have always been, in order that we resolve this gripping mystery and return to our adventurous but slightly less exciting normal lives.”

“While we are doing that,” June Whitfield said, “Can we get some breakfast?”

“Yes,” I replied.

With the precious painting of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ slipped inside a pillow case, June Whitfield and I, Antonio Ononio, checked out of the Weymouth Hilton hotel and paid our bill in full, then surreptitiously slipped undetected out of the back door and into a street, and a life of honourable fugitivism.

Once safely ensconced inside Weymouth’s palatial McDonald’s restaurant we ordered a breakfast fit for a king and sat down to eat it, famished from our night of sociable drinking and not having sex.

“Mister Ononio,” June Whitfield said, between bites of sumptuous egg and moist muffin. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, Miss Whitfield,” I responded, savouring a mouthful of naturally flattened sausage.

“My father. Mister Ononio,” June Whitfield said, through dewy eyes. “Was he a good man?”

I paused a moment. “He was as mad as an insane person, Miss Whitfield. Completely, alarmingly, mentally deranged. Barking. Off his tea trolley. He had a serious mental illness that it would be wrong to make light of. He was,” I paused again. “Out of his marbles.”

June Whitfield’s large breasts heaved unhappily.

“But in the 12 years I worked with your father, putting to one side the ambitious art historying reclamation, his terrifying mood swings, and the bleating lunacy, he was the best man I ever knew.”

June Whitfield reached across the table and clasped my hand with her feminine clasping hand. “Thank you, Mister Ononio,” she said. “Sometimes I think my father knew you more well than he and I knew me and him.”

“Miss Whitfield,” I said, “I can say with almost certainty that your mad father was very fond of you.”

My eating companion in crime took a deep and shaky breath. “You don’t know what that means to me, Mister Ononio,” she said, overcome with womanly emotion.

I nodded my acknowledgement in a sympathetic yet manly manner, and sucked up the last of my strawberry milkshake. We needed every ounce of the nutritious food placed before us, as I had a feeling this was going to be a long and invigorating day.

The Constable Problem, Chapter eight

The mid morning after the morning before but before the afternoon later
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

“Do you realise what this means, Mister Ononio?” June Whitfield asked, unable to remove her gaze from the genuine John Constable painting ‘The Hay Wain’ which hung before us.

“I believe I do, Miss Whitfield.” I, too was unable to begin to stop staring at the oil painting in my line of sight. “But perhaps you should say it out loud to ensure we are both thinking the very same thing.”

“That seems reasonable, Mister Ononio,” June Whitfield said. Her voice was weakened and tremulous from excessive shock and disbelief. “What I’m thinking that you might also be thinking is that this is the most valuable art find the art historying world could feasibly imagine on its most imaginative day. We will be famous. We will become rich. Our names will live on in history for as long as art historying and museuming exist. This is monumentous.”

“I was thinking exactly the same thing,” I replied with gravity.

“But this stolen painting is also a clue to solving The Constable Problem, and without it we would be back at square one, with square two a mocking distance away. If we gave this painting back we would never find out whatever it is we wanted to know when we set out on this thrilling adventure, and I would never be able to look my father’s headless corpse in the eye.”

“What do you suggest we do, Miss Whitfield?” I asked, raising an eyebrow enigmatically.

“This may shock you, Mister Ononio, but I suggest we steal the painting.” June Whitfield turned her head and large breasts towards me and smiled. “And I suggest you call me by my first name, June.”

“June,” I said, utilising the muscles in my neck to turn my head towards my companion. “Such a beautiful name. June, you have minty foam on your chin.”

June elegantly wiped away the toothpastual residue and leant forward to lift the priceless painting from the wall.

“Wait!” I squeaked manfully. “This painting is in plain sight to any guest of this room. What’s to stop an unscrupulous or dishonest thief or a couple of people investigating a secret society from simply taking it away? I’m suspicious that it may be booby-trapped!”

“Good point, Mister Ononio,” said June. Resourcefully, she produced a small mirror from one of the side pockets of her suit jacket and handed it to me. Remembering my secondary school security system circumvention lessons, I ignored the tense background music and placed the mirror on the wall at right angles and next to the priceless John Constable painting. Carefully, I breathed on the mirror’s reflective surface and the mistiness of my breath revealed the infra-red beam behind the painting that, if broken, would trigger an alarm or possibly a small explosion.

“What do you see, Mister Ononio?” June Whitfield asked, wiping her chin with a fresh, clean white towel.

“Problems. Big infra-red problems,” I growled, dejected but undispirited. “And please, call me Antonio.”

“Okay,” said June Whitfield.

“If I am to defeat this system,” I declared, “Rather than have it defeat me and prematurely conclude our stimulating escapade, I will require all my skill and an opaque cream of some sort.” I turned to June Whitfield. “June, would you by any chance have a tube of toothpaste about your person?”

The Constable Problem, Chapter seven

The morning after the night before the morning after
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

“Antimatter!” I yelled, waking me from my drunken stupor into a cold painful reality.

June Whitfield lay beside me in a fully clothed state, her large breasts safely contained within her tasteful blouse or shirt. As I rolled off the bed onto the nearest floor, I blinked against the shaft of sunlight shafting through the poorly drawn curtains that alit lightily on the label of the empty bottle of vintage Dutch malt whiskey on the desk. I squinted and blinked, rubbing my manly eyes, kneading them, showing them who was boss. The empty bottle of whiskey slowly came into focus and I could see the sunlight had travelled 93 million miles to highlight the portion of the bottle’s label that read ‘38° PROOF’.

PROOF.

I gasped. In the movie, a piece of music denoting realisation would play, followed by another piece of music written to make quite a boring scene seem more exciting than it actually was.

Remembering my University of North Anglia prism lessons, I precisely aligned the concave base of the empty bottle of whiskey at an angle of 38° to the Sun. The rays of the mighty star travelled instantly through my glass bottom and shot out of its opening, focussed into a beam of light as powerful as a small laser. The beam reflected off the key in the wardrobe door and back out of the window, striking the solid diamond finial of the flag pole atop the cathedral across the road, before shooting around an indescribably complex series of lightning conductors and weather vanes on the roof of the holy building and being directed back into our hotel room, coming to rest on a painting on the wall – a print of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’.

“I appear to have acquired a hangover,” said June Whitfield sleepily, sitting up to say the words she had just said.

I turned to her and was dramatic. “I have a clue,” I said. “And also yes I have a hangover as well.”

June Whitfield inspected the print of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ as she brushed her well tended teeth. “Did you know,” she said through a mouthful of agitated dental cleaning paste, “That since the theft of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ in 1987 from the Skipton branch of the National Gallery Of Pictures, the number of prints of the painting has been in steady decline? Have been in steady decline?”

“There are now believed to be less than 247 prints left in the world,” I responded promptly and knowledgeably. “Fewer than 247. Less than 247. Fewer probably.”

June Whitfield’s eyes widened as far as they could within realistic physical constraints. “So this print, in and of itself, and beside any relevance it may have to our exciting investigation, could be worth upwards of seventy-five pounds sterling.”

“A remarkable figure,” I said. With serious intent I intently peered at the print of the painting scrutinisingly, then I gasped.

“What is it?” asked June Whitfield, her large breasts heaving inquisitively.

“I’m not an expert in the field of the paintings of John Constable,” I said as tense music, possibly with some light drumming, played in the background, “But without a shadow of a doubt I can tell you that I have no doubt that this print of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ is in fact undoubtedly the original painting of John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ as painted by John Constable himself in 1821 and stolen from the Skipton branch of the National Gallery Of Pictures in 1987!”

It was June Whitfield’s turn to gasp, and as she did a dribble of minty foam escaped her intelligent mouth and was pulled by gravity to her chin.

The Constable Problem, Chapter six

A slightly longer chapter this time
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

After finishing a delicious crème brûlée and our second bottle of Chablis, we left the restaurant and walked slowly to the Weymouth Hilton, uncertain if we would be able even to secure a room in such a bustling resort. The evening air was cool and a stiff breeze annoyed at my face, but we took our mind off our situation with light-hearted talk about breakfast cereals.

Our luck, as it turned out, was good rather than bad and we were able to easily obtain a room at the Weymouth Hilton hotel. It was obvious we made a good impression, as the manager himself accompanied us to our room and, almost in tears, begged us to stay as long as we possibly could. I tipped him a whole two pounds sterling and we were left in peace.

I sat on the bed and reached for the phone on the bedside table by the side of the bed, dialling the 11 digit number for room service.

“Hello, room service?” I said, unnecessarily. “Yes, I’d like a bottle of vintage whiskey sent to our room, please. And two glasses. Thank you.”

I hung up and stood up.

“Mr Ononio, I really should be getting to my room,” June Whitfield said. “I suspect we will have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, possibly involving a chase of some sort and maybe even a small explosion.”

“Stay and have a drink with me, Miss Whitfield.” I said, persuasively. “Tell me about yourself. We’ve been through so much together and yet I know nothing about you except for your headless father.”

June Whitfield gave a weak smile. “I know even less about you, Mister Ononio, assuming your father still has possession of his head.”

It was my turn to weak smile. “He does, Miss Whitfield, but unfortunately it is buried with his body in a coffin six feet under the grass of High Wycombe’s second largest cemetery.”

“He’s dead?” said Miss Whitfield, her blue eyes widening.

A knock at the door startled me and I glued my eye to the spyhole.

An unfamiliar voice spoke from the other side of the door. “Room service,” it said.

Mollified, I opened the door. The unfamiliar voice from the other side entered and delivered a bottle of vintage Dutch malt whiskey and two bone crystal glasses to the table by the window. I tipped the man with a fifty pence piece and he left.

I unscrewed the bottle top and poured two shots, one in each glass, not two shots in each glass. Handing one glass to June Whitfield, I held the other aloft and said, “A toast. To your prematurely foreshortened dead father; to the end of ‘Under The Eye’; to semi-colons; and to the solving of The Constable Problem.”

“Peristrova,” June Whitfield toasted, and downed her whiskey in one sip. I followed suit, feeling it burn all the way down to my 100% lycra socks.

“To John Constable,” I said. “And his problem, whatever it may be. Oh, I already said that. Forgive me, I’m preoccupied.”

June Whitfield laughed. “Don’t worry, pour me another drink,” she said.

I did as I was requested and our drinking continued in a non-addictive and social way until the early hours of the following morning. Eventually, tired and overcome by the intoxicating effects of excessive alcohol consumption, we lost consciousness on the bed, fully clothed, with no danger of any sexually related misunderstandings occurring the next morning which, technically, was the same morning.

The Constable Problem, Chapter five

Some kind of middle ground between the beginning and the middle
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

The relaxing candlelit atmosphere of Weymouth’s premier Pizza Hut calmed our nerves, and the top quality freshly prepared food comforted our fugitive stomachs. The service was efficient and friendly and the quiet conversations of patrons and unobtrusive background music allowed June Whitfield and me, Antonio Ononio, to talk.

I sipped my crisp Chablis and looked at June Whitfield. “Did you work with your father when he was alive at Bicester Museum of Modern Art too?” I asked smoothly.

“Yes, Mister Ononio, I did. Do. He did. I do. He doesn’t any more since his fatal accident.” June Whitfield paused. “He was grooming me, and if the rumours were to be believed several other people on the internet, to take his place when he retired. I don’t think he was counting on being forcibly bisected at the neck before I was ready, though.”

I fiddled with my Hawaiian, not knowing what to say.

June Whitfield continued. “I’ve closed the Bicester Museum of Modern Art until I feel I am qualified to fill my father’s shoes. If I can get to the bottom of The Constable Problem, I believe then I will be ready to continue his good work. There are six employees’ livelihoods at stake, Mister Ononio – not to mention a napkin signed by Jackson Pollock and the artistic reputation of Bicester. I cannot fail.”

“Miss Whitfield,” I said out loud, “I believe, with your father’s help, that we can find the truth about the secret group ‘Under The Eye’ and prove to the museuming world that you are worthy to take up your father’s reins.”

At that moment my sleek mobile telephone vibrated cheekily. I removed it from my pocket. It was a text message from a phone number neither I nor my mobile telephone recognised. I pressed a number of buttons in a specific sequence and the message appeared in front of my eyes. It simply said “PROOF”.

“Holy hell!” I exclaimed.

“Mister Ononio,” June Whitfield said, with concern in her voice. “I’ve known you for more than nine hours now and I’ve never known you to be so deeply unsettled. Whatever is the matter?”

I showed June Whitfield the text message. “Oh my word,” she breathed, breathily. “Mister Ononio, does this mean what I think it means?”

“Yes, Miss Whitfield. I don’t know who it is, or what their motivation is, but I believe we have an ally.”

I shifted in my seat and looked around the classy restaurant. I could see no-one suspicious and no-one I recognised.

“Whoever has sent this short message must be tracking our movements,” I said. “Certainly they know we are in Weymouth. Perhaps they sense we are on the verge of uncovering something important.”

“But we know nothing, Mister Ononio, we have no information, no leads, not even a ridiculously tenuous hunch. We are clueless.”

“That’s as maybe, Miss Whitfield,” I said, raising an eyebrow for some reason, “But one thing we certainly are not are homeless. Is homeless.”

The Constable Problem, Chapter four

The Beginning Again, But Of The Adventure Not The Story
By Lazarus Q. Beefbaum

“Who was that man and those men?” asked June Whitfield, fumbling in her purse for loose change.

“I don’t know,” I replied, eyeing the increasingly impatient bus driver as I attempted to pay our fare with an insufficient number of twenty pence pieces. “Have you got four pounds fifty sterling?”

“I’ve only got a ten pound note,” June Whitfield said.

The bus driver frowned. “Correct change only, or I’ll have to ask you to alight the service,” he said.

“This is the express service,” I reminded him. “You don’t stop again until you reach Southwell Business Park, gateway to Weymouth.”

“Don’t talk to the driver or otherwise distract him,” the driver said, flustered by my command of logical argument.

We moved to the back of the bus and sat down, looking out of the rear window for signs of suits in pursuit.

“Who were those men?” June Whitfield asked.

“I don’t know, but my guess is they were from the secret organisation ‘Under The Eye’,” I answered.

“But why did the man in the black suit and the men in the brown suits both threaten us?”

“That,” I mused, musily, “Is a mystery as old as The Constable Problem itself.”

The bus thundered along the motorways, winding country roads and busy city streets, a bullet from the gun of Chichester aimed squarely at the heart of Weymouth.

We sat in silence for a while, before curiosity overcame me.

“How did your father’s terrible cranial amputation accident happen?” I enquired, because I had already used ‘asked’ a few paragraphs earlier.

“It was so unexpected,” said June Whitfield, her blue eyes glistening with the tears of remembering. “He had been very down for weeks because of all the death threats he’d been receiving, and after the brakes failed on his car and it exploded, he barely left the house any more. But on the morning he died he received a phone call and told mother he had to leave urgently, and that she should lock the doors and phone the police. It was just as well she did as he said, because the guillotine that some poor soul had lost in the woods by my father’s head could have killed someone else too.”

“That’s so tragic,” I empathised. “Did your father tell your mother who had phoned him on the telephone the morning he was accidentally decapitated?”

“He never said,” June Whitfield said. “But mother said she found the word ‘PROOF’ written on his desk blotter in large difficult to miss capital letters. She said she never understood what that meant, but then mother never was terribly bright. Does ‘PROOF’ mean anything to you, Mr Ononio?”

“Proof is what we all search for, Miss Whitfield, in our jobs, and in our lives,” I said, comfortingly. “If your father had discovered proof of something important to him, then he would have been accidentally decapitated a happy man.”

“Thank you, Mr Ononio, I hadn’t thought of it like that before. That’s such a comfort.”

The wide boulevards, glamorous casinos and bright neon lights of Weymouth flashed past the windows of the bus as we quickly approached our destination. June Whitfield stretched and yawned. “We should find somewhere to stay,” she said. “And find something to eat. I’m so hungry my stomach thinks it’s empty.”

Weymouth’s art deco bus station, designed and built in 1922 by Ronald Biro, was almost deserted as the bus hissed to a stop. The bus driver glared at us as we stepped back onto dry land, the doors closing angrily behind us, leaving us stranded in a strange land.

“If those suits know we’re trying to crack The Constable Problem, they’ll know we’re in Weymouth,” said June Whitfield. “I have a feeling things could get quite bad for us, Mister Ononio. I wish I’d withdrawn more than thirty pounds sterling from the cash machine now.”

“Never fear, Miss Whitfield. Head of Unfeasible Theories at the Chichester Museum of Middle Aged Fantasy, in Chichester, is an important position, and with that important position comes an expenses account. I think, given the gruelling road ahead for us both, that an open-ended stay at the Weymouth Hilton and a trip to Pizza Hut are in order.”