32
The fliers and business cards worked well. Maybe too well, in fact, because over the next week, Mick had quite a few ‘hamptoners and non-‘hamptoners visit him. Taking down the particulars of a case took a lot longer than he’d expected, since the more background knowledge he got from his clients, the better equipped he was to help them.
The problem was if he was sitting at his desk, then he wasn’t actually working on his cases. Hence his dilemma. He couldn’t afford an assistant to handle his admin, nor could he stay in his office all day.
The solution to his problem came on Monday evening, in the tavern. Mick and Nell had met up for a quick drink. Lee Hunter was in the nearby forest trailing ratbats, while Spruce had enrolled on an advanced chef course at Sunhampton school. The headteacher, Penelope Ladbrook, rented out the classrooms to people who wanted to host evening classes. Part of a way of making extra gold for the school’s budget.
Mick had just finished telling Nell about how busy he was. Nell, of course, was busier. For all her virtues, his friend’s one flaw was that you couldn’t say a word about how busy or tired you were, without her being even busier or more exhausted.
Flo Anderson was sitting at the table next to them, drinking straight whiskey with her friend, Martha Peters.
“Sorry to eavesdrop, duckie,” said Flo. “And I don’t like to stick my oar in where it’s not needed, as you well know.”
Mick actually didn’t know Flo too well at all. Only that she was always talking about birds, and that she worked with Lewis and Jack Cooper. The fact she had listened to him and Nell indicated that she very much did like eavesdropping. Still, it was nice to be nice.
“Of course not,” he said.
“I just couldn’t help but hear that you’ve got yourself a little administrative pickle. Well, I was a fully classed administrator, you know. I could help.”
“That’d be great. You’d really do that?”
“I don’t like to use my old class. The past is the past, I always say, but I’ve been having this little problem.”
“Oh?”
“Someone keeps stealing my milk bottle caps, Mick.”
“The little thin metal ones?”
“The very same. Rodney Franks leaves the bottles on my doorstep, and he swears they’re fine. When I open my door to collect ‘em, the caps are always missing! I love my milk, Mick. Love my cereal. Can’t start my day without it.”
“It’s probably just birds. Have you tried just setting a box with a closeable lid down on your doorstep?”
Flo nodded. “That doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem, duckie. I want to know why it’s happening. If I start leaving a box out there, it’s almost like I’m living with the problem. You know, allowing it to go on. Not my style. You don’t sort out a fire by putting a screen in front of it to hide it away, do you? I need to know what’s happening to my milk bottles, why it’s happening, and then put a stop to it.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Mick promised to take a look into Flo’s milk bottle problem, and in return, she gave him a few pointers about staying organized and managing his time. These were obvious things, obvious as heck, but like most good solutions, they were the very ones he had overlooked.
So, taking her advice, Mick bought a sheet of timber and painted on it in white. Unlike with his fliers, he wasn’t too fussed about it looking particularly neat.
Mick Mulroon – Apprentice Sleuth For Hire *
Consultation times: Weekdays, 09:00 – 11:00 **
* Subject to current caseload
**Subject to workload, consultations may be cancelled
Feeling like his work balance was just a little more under control, Mick took on a few new cases. This being his own enterprise, he was free to choose what to work on. He began to make a sort of priority system in his head. If an actual crime had been committed, then as head guard, he needed to look into it. All other cases were taken at his discretion, though.
He needed to have ethics, for instance; though not all of his sleuthing cases were related to his official capacity as Sunhampton’s guard, the Full Striding Guard Commission was still sponsoring his apprenticeship. If he did something to bring himself into disrepute, they might revoke his tokens.
Once he was a fully classed sleuth, it didn’t matter. They couldn’t do a thing about his tokens; they were his. For now, though, until he passed his apprenticeship, he needed to be careful.
Besides that, he couldn’t have taken on a case that went against his personal morals, anyhow. Some sleuths did. A coin was a coin. But not Mick. So, when Percy Tattersall asked Mick if he could find out Paisley Porter’s secret plans for her next window display so he could copy it, Mick declined.
What he tried to do was take on cases according to what best fit his skill trees. After a few days of early morning consultations with clients, he had a healthy caseload. For now, he focused on mysteries that would involve him using his Observation skill tree. If people visited with a mystery that suited a different skill tree, he still took their particulars, but told them he had a waiting list.
Mysteries to take a look at:
1) Tim Ritson’s Missing Moggy
Help the old man in Full Striding find his missing cat
2) The Lady with the Red Neck
Why’s her neck so red? Find out without being weird about it.
3) The Mysterious Statue on Coiner’s Way
Who put the monster statue in the brick wall? Why?
4) Flo Anderson’s Milk Bottle Mischief
Find out who’s messing around with Florence Anderson’s milk bottles
5) Where does the Black Carriage Go?
There’s a carriage that parks up on the outskirts of Perentee town every Monday. It’s there for exactly one hour, and nobody gets on or leaves it. Why does it come here, and where does it go? Alderman Woot, assistant to the mayor of Perentee, wants me to find out.
6) The Flight of the Birds
The birds on the Tattersall farm are acting funny. Jon Tillwright wants to know what’s happening.
Solved Mysteries
The Mysterious Key
Find out who left the key and what it unlocks
There were other cases, too. Ones not even worthy of adding to his case sheet, but which he took on because he was a starter sleuth trying to build up both his business and his experience. And besides that, gold was gold, and he’d written on his fliers that ‘no case was too small.’
This saw him filling the odd hour or two here and there solving ‘cases’ such as Hattie Greave’s missing keys, finding out who smashed the Sunhampton school equipment shed window (it was a freak weather event where the wind blew an acorn at the already brittle glass), and tracking down Seelka Syrne’s missing rabbit.
Cases like these didn’t bring in much gold, on their own. Then again, they didn’t take very long, and they slowly but surely chipped away at his experience. Layering them in with his bigger cases, Mick started to see his skill trees in the distance.