Resignation!

  “Well Fotheringay……..”
    “As well as can be expected, thank you for asking Colonel.”
    “What are you talking about Fotheringay?”
    “You asked me if I was well.”
    “No I didn’t.”
    “I beg to differ sir, I distinctly heard you say well Fotheringay?”
    “You didn’t let me finish Fotheringay.”
    “Sorry sir.”
    “Well Fotheringay he’s done it!”
    “Who has done what sir?”
    “ZM Seventy-three, he’s resigned!”
    “He can’t have done, it’s not allowed.”
    “Well he has!”
    “What are we going to do about it?”
    “We’ve had him under close surveillance for six weeks now, we should have seen this coming. I want you to go to his house and talk him out of it. Get him to take his letter of resignation back.”
    “I’ll do my best of course Colonel.”
    “For once Fotheringay, do better than your best!”
    “Yes sir.”
    But Fotheringay was too late. He took a taxi to number one Buckingham Place, but there was no answer to his knock on the door. And yet ZM Seventy-three’s Lotus Seven was parked in the street. A woman called to Fotheringay from a house across the street.
    “Are you looking for someone?”
    “Yes madam, the gentleman who lives across the road at Number One.”
    “That’s his car parked there” the woman said.
    “Yes I know. Have you seen him today” Fotheringay asked.
    “He arrived home this morning. He had a dwarf with him.”
    “A dwarf, can you describe him?”
    “Short!”
    “I’ll need a little more information than that.”
    “Short and bald!”
    “And?”
    “He wore black tails, black gloves, he looked like a little butler.”
    “What exactly happened?”
    “Well I only noticed because I was watering the flower boxes.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well the man who lives over the way at Number One, came walking along the street with the dwarf.”
    “They didn’t drive down the street….in the Lotus?”
    “The car? No that was parked outside the house. It was the two undertakers that drove passed.”
    “Undertakers?”
    “In the hearse, it drove passed very slowly.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “Well the man who lives at Number One got into his car and drove off.”
    “And the dwarf?”
    “Oh he went into the house. It was curious when I think about it.”
    “Curious, what was curious, the dwarf?”
    “No, the fact that someone inside the house opened the door.”
    “He didn’t have any servants did he?”
    “No, but someone had to be in the house, because someone opened the front door, but it wasn’t the dwarf!”
    “Well thank you madam.”
    “Were you a friend?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I only ask because you look like the insurance man.”
    “Insurance man?”
    “Well I thought you were a bit previous, seeing it only happened this morning. Thinking about it those two undertakers were a bit quick off mark!”
    “Undertakers?”
    “Well yes, they came back. The hearse parked a little way down the street. Just before the man at Number One drove back in that car of his.”
    “He jumped out, walked up the steps and went into his house.”
    “The dwarf let him in.”
    “Did he? I didn’t see him. Oh no, he let himself in with a key.”
    “And you saw this because you were……..”
    “Oh I was sweeping the front steps by then. A few moments after the man had gone into the house, the two undertakers got out of their hearse. One opened the back, while the other went to the front door of Number One.
    “And he was let in?”
    “No, he let himself in, with a key. Then after a few moments the undertaker came out, and between them the two undertakers carried a coffin into the house.”
    “What happened then?”
    “They came out carrying the coffin between them. Put it into the back of the hearse and drove off.”
    “Well thank you madam.”
    “It must have been really sudden, and those undertakers, they give marvellous service. You’ll be going to the funeral?”
    “Funeral?”
    “Well someone died in that house, why else the undertakers?”
    “Yes, why indeed madam.”

    “So Fotheringay, how did you get on concerning our friend?”
    “He wasn’t at home Colonel, at least he didn’t answer the door. His car was parked outside, so he couldn’t have been too far away. He was seen with a dwarf.”
    “A dwarf, what was he doing with a dwarf?”
    “Apparently walking down the street. The woman said he looked like a butler.”
    “What woman?”
    “The woman who lives opposite Number One.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Yes, she told me there had been a hearse and two undertakers who called at Number One. Between them they carried a coffin into the house, and out again.
    “But no sign of our friend? Not unless he was carried off in that coffin!” quipped Fothergay.
    “What would undertakers be doing calling at our friend’s house?”
    “I really don’t know Colonel.”
    “Then find out Fothergay, and while you’re about it, have Special Branch remove their cameras from the house, while our friend isn‘t there.”
    “That butler, the dwarf, he might be there.”
    “If he is, have Special Brach question him, and while you‘re about it have our friend’s car put in our garage before it’s ticketed and towed away!”
    {The red telephone on the Colonel’s desk begins to ring, he picks up the receiver}
    “Yes who is it?………….Ah, yes sir……….well Fothringay called at our friend’s house, but he didn’t answer the door………….well yes I could, but I’ve one or two meetings this afternoon……………would two-fifteen suit you?………Very good sir.”
    “Who was that?”
    “The General, I’m seeing him at one-thirty. Are you still here Fotheringay?”
    “No sir!”
    “Good!”
    A file lay on the Colonel’s desk, stamped across it in capital letters a single word RESIGNED.

BSEEINU