It was a rather rainy day here at 17 Redwood Lane and our famous detective, Victor R. Certhup, was behind his desk, on his favourite red velvet armchair, feet propped up on the Ottoman, and enjoying the latest issue of The British Courier. Taken, with a cup of tea. Suddenly, there was a frantic knocking upon the door.
“George, get the door!” Yelled Victor, unwilling to remove himself from his chair.
“George!” He tried again, but there was still no response from his faithful waiter.
“Drat. I must have sent him out to the market to purchase eggs and bacon for my breakfast!” With a groan, Victor got up and went to answer the door.
“Hello?” He asked as he opened the door. There was a prestigious looking man outside. He sported a handlebar moustache, a well-shaved head with only a fine layer of jet black hair, and looked to be of French ancestry.
“Good morning Monsieur! I’m looking for a certain detective Certhup. I was told he resides at this address and currently holds the rank of captain. May I speak to him, please?” Victor, looking rather taken aback, hastily responded that he was, in fact, Captain Certhup.
“Come quick monsieur! There has been a robbery of the highest degree! It is the theft of the Crown Jewels!” Victor immediately paled.
“I must have misheard,” Thought Victor, “But I’m sure the man said the crown jewels. That should be impossible! The jewels are located in the Royal Vault with a rotating platoon of elite guards on high alert at all times!”
Turning to the Frenchman, The Captain asked: “Did you say the Crown Jewels?”
The Frenchman replied “Yes monsieur! Come with me!” and with that, the two set off on a journey to recover the Crowns’ stolen Jewels.
As they got to the road, Victor hailed a taxi. They hopped in and went straight to the police headquarters. There, they picked up detective equipment and ran straight to the crime scene. When they got there, Victor began looking for clues. He found that instead of the customary 18 guards, only 13 remained.
With a bit of questioning, he gathered that the thief both possessed trained back-up and was skilled in hand to hand combat. It was also gathered that the thief had climbed up a tree on the east side of the building, where an inside man was waiting for him. There, he was given a sack to smuggle things out of, as one of the delivery trucks had reported one less sack this morning. There, he had rappelled down using a hemp rope, stole the Jewels, and left. The only people he ran into were the people now in the hospital.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“It looks as if we are dealing with a master criminal.” Thought Victor as he was examining the floor.
Suddenly, he saw a scrap of paper on the floor. Picking it up, he saw that it was a valuable piece of evidence. On it was the words “9:44, by the dock”. Glancing at his wristwatch, Victor found that it was only 9:20.
“Come quick!” he cried! “The search is afoot! To the docks!” As he hailed the taxi, he asked the Frenchman his name. As it turned out, the Frenchman was named Francis Lavigne. He was a new recruit and as such, was going to be the messenger boy for a while. As they pulled up to the dock, they spotted two shadowy figures exchanging hushed words and glancing around fugitively.
One of them pulled out a wad of bills and handed it to the other. The one receiving the bills in return gave a sack. The two parted ways and the one with the sack turned and walked towards a parked yacht with gold and silver lettering which read “The Harmony”. Victor, seeing enough, jumped out of the cab with a cry of “Stop in the name of the queen!”
The man turned, eyes wide, and then turned, taking off full speed at the yacht. He jumped on, and the yacht took off. Seeing his lead escaping, Victor hijacked a nearby fisherman’s whaler and along with Francis, the chase was on!
The criminals zipped by, weaving between the buoys and disrupting the peace. The whaler wasn’t too far behind. All of a sudden, Francis had a brilliant idea. “Monsieur- if this is a whaler, why don’t we shoot the yacht with a harpoon?” With that, the harpoon was pointed at the aft of the yacht.
There was the sound of a popping balloon and there was a hole in the yacht. The steel cable strained but held. The criminals, noticing their sudden sluggishness, turned and frantically began attempting to saw through the steel cable with pocket knives. Francis began reeling them in and soon enough, they were within leaping distance.
Francis and Victor leapt over and knocked the first thug into the water. There were three criminals that they could see (excluding the one in the water), but suddenly two more emerged from the cabin. They were wielding brass knuckles and one of them held a handgun. Victor pulled out his own Webley Revolver, and Francis pulled out his trusty baton. They had their guns pointed at each other, but as fate would have it, both boats left their engines running. It smashed into a pier and everyone aboard was flung into the water. Shots rang out as criminals fired in a blind panic. A wave flung everyone onto the sand beach and Victor blacked out.