DCI Cobley Crime File
When Mr. Marble poisoned his great-aunt Augusta he thought all his troubles were over. In fact, they were just about to begin.
Mr. Marble had been brought up by his great aunt and as the closest the spinster ever got to having a child of her own he was due to inherit her substantial fortune. The problem, Mr. Marble decided, was that she was taking an extraordinary long time about dying. If it carried on like this she would be getting a congratulatory telegram from the Queen. Mr. Marble had mounting debts with the bookmakers and couldn’t wait any longer for his inheritance.
Mr. Marble was an avid reader of crime fiction and thought he had the perfect solution: poison. A small amount of hemlock water dropwort in food over a period of time was very effective in the stories. And it also did for great-aunt Augusta.
He didn’t reckon with Detective Chief Inspector Tom Cobley, a man who rarely read a book but he knew a thing or two about murder. Motive and opportunity were what he looked for. And he had both in abundance with Marble.
Cobley had the case sown up in no time. He sipped tea and nibbled a chocolate biscuit as he dictated his report to his faithful sergeant Peter Gurney.
Marble didn’t swing for it (the death penalty having recently been abolished) but he had plenty of time in his prison cell to reflect that in those crime stories the criminal never got away with it.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 