Killing Time

Sir Percy Cunningham the third was sitting under an old oak tree in the front of the estate, languidly reading from a page of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, when he felt a tap on his shoulder and heard a cough from behind him. Assuming it was Ellie, the groundskeeper, he murmured,
“In a moment, Ellie,” and turned the page. However, the tap reoccurred, stronger this time, prompting him to turn around.

“Great Scotts!” He yelped. “Whatever are you here for?” He hastily scrambled to his feet, the placid mood of the day ruined.

“Sir, you are being placed under arrest for the disappearance of Time. Please stand still with your hands apart.” A policeman with thick black hair helped to secure Sir Percy with a pair of shiny, metallic handcuffs.
“Why, I never-! I assure you, my dear fellows, this is quite a case of mistaken identity!” The officers remained stone faced.
“Afraid not, sir. Please allow us to escort you to our vehicle.”

“But-but this is an outrage, a bloody outrage! You cannot accuse me of such a thing!” Sir Percy sputtered, his face turning a livid shade of purple. The officers ignored his pleas and calmly led him to their car.

Later, after their arrival at the police headquarters, Sir Percy Cunningham was placed in a holding cell along with a rather questionable looking companion while the Constable put in a call to Scotland Yard. Sir Percy sat delicately at the edge of the hard, lumpy mattress and nervously fingered the edge of his ill-fitting and frayed prison uniform. His cell mate looked up from his magazine and grinned jovially.

“Aye, Mate, what’r yes in fer? They placed me in ‘ere fer goin’ to one too many a pub, can ye’s believe it? Like theys never had a good pub crawl aft’ suppa, eh?” The man had the beginnings of a scraggily beard, and seemed to have settled quite comfortably into his surroundings. Or, better yet, perhaps he had never left them to begin with. His reddish complexion spoke of too many pubs indeed. Sir Percy replied nervously,
“Well, rather, that is to say, they think I’ve offed someone named ‘Time.’”
“-But I didn’t, you know,” he added quickly.

The other man re-assessed him in this new light, before saying,
“Nah, you don’t have the look of er killer about ya, lad. By the way,” he said, getting up and offering a palm, “The name’s Joe. Joe Spencer, glad ter meet yas.” Sir Percy carefully took the offered hand and shook it, saying proudly,
“I am Sir Percy Cunningham, the Third.” Joe clapped his hands, grey eyes sparkling.
“Oye, you got a title to ya, isn’t it. Well I’ll be. So, who is this Time fellow, anywhos?” Sir Percy rubbed his neck.

“Well, that’s just the jilt; I haven’t the slightest idea. Do you suppose they have the wrong person?”
“Naah,” Joe said with a shake of his head. “You could ask ‘em about i’, though. Eeey, matey! O’r here!” He called out to the officer walking by, thumping the prison bars with his hand. “What’s this man in for, eh?” The officer gave him a passing glance before answering,
“None o’ your business, bloke.” Joe spit.
“Ehhh, figures.”

In a dimly lit room at the back of a pub, two darkly clad figures held a heated discussion over their beers.
“I’m telling you, Time’s flown the coop!” Said the first, who wore a heavy brown jacket out of place in the temperate climate.
“No, something’s happened to him, they even arrested that Sir what's-his-name. Anyways, he’s disappeared.” Brown Jacket pounded the table with his face, peering across the table through the smoky air at his companion.
“What are we going to do without Time? He controls everything right now.” His companion shrugged.
“I guess all we can do now is wait and bide our time.”

Later that day, one of the officers pulled out Sir Percy.
“We’re done with processing, now on to the magistrate,” he told him. Sir Percy nodded in vague understanding, and in a few minutes they were indeed in front of a judge, long robes, white wig and all. The judge pounded his gavel.
“You here, Percy Cunningham the third, are being held during the ongoing investigation of the disappearance of Cyrus Time. Your walking stick was obtained from the scene of the crime covered with blood, and until we have a body, you shall be in the custody of the court. Bail?” He asked the prosecuting counselor.
“One hundred thousand,” he replied. Nods were exchanged all around, and Percy was escorted back to his cell.

“Hey, do y’think you could tell me what exactly is going on here?” He asked the officer clutching his sleeve in as pleasant a voice he could manage. The officer looked at him, then said,
“Well, ‘spose there’s no harm in telling’ yeh even if ya already know ‘tall. A disturbance was called in for the home of Mr. Cyrus Time; the constable who arrived on the scene found the parlor a mess, your cane, and Mr. Time’s…hand…at the scene.”
“His hand? By that, I do suppose you mean-?” Sir Percy exclaimed, paling considerably.
“Yes, his severed hand, with its signature ring. Of course, we can’t be certain it belongs to Time, but it bears a close enough resemblance for us to assume so for the moment.” And with that, Sir Percy was placed back in his holding cell.

“I can’t raise anywhere near the amount I need for bail,” he lamented miserably to Joe, wringing his hands together. Joe leaned back on his mattress, reposing as if the lumpy spread were the bed of a king.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, don’t worry…time will take care of it,” he murmured sleepily. Sir Percy scowled.
“If it weren’t for that bloody Time (not to speak ill of the presumed dead, but, really now), I wouldn’t be here to begin with!” The two lapsed into silence until soon after a detective came in to get Sir Percy. The detective brought Sir Percy into a small, windowless room, and gestured for Sir Percy to sit down in a chair pulled up next to an old, beaten table; the detective sat down opposite him.

“Now see here, Sir Cunningham, I was wondering if you could give me a statement as to where you were yesterday evening around supper time,” he asked, hands folded, eyes staring intently into Sir Percy’s own.
“Why, yesterday evening? Well, I really can’t say exactly where,” he blustered. He thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose first I ate early; Elsa (my cook, you know) had prepared a pot pie for me; normally I eat later, but she said something about going in to town with her chums. Really, help these days is so trying; she isn’t even that good of a cook, not that I’m complaining, but-” the detective coughed, and Sir Percy startled, then said,
“Ahh…right. So after an early supper, anyhow, I went out for a stroll in the country side. So pleasant this time of year, you know?”

“I’m sure,” the detective remarked dryly. He glanced through a small stack of notes before asking, “So, Sir Cunningham, have you had any prior affiliation with Mr. Time, before his disappearance?”
“No, of course not! Why, I’ve never even heard of the man! Why ever would I want to kill him?”
“Well, that is rather the question at hand,” the detective answered amiably. “So basically, what you are telling me is that during the time when Mr. Time went missing, you are unaccounted for, while meanwhile your cane somehow shows up in Mr. Time’s parlor.” Sir Percy brought his hand down hard onto the table.

“You’re suggesting that I was killing Time, aren’t you! I promise you I was doing no such thing. I was occupied with observing nature; I didn’t have time to kill Time, even if I wanted to.” The detective smiled cynically and leaned forward.
“Did anyone see you, then? You have a fair amount of neighbors.”
“Yes, yes, in fact- well-no, now that I think of it, I can’t recall seeing anyone in particular.” The detective raised his eyebrows, murmuring “I see,” then coughed and took out a cigar.

“Mind if I-?” Sir Percy waved away his request.
“Sure, sure, go ahead.” The detective lit up and took a long puff, then sighed contently.
“Ahh, that’s more like it. So, Sir Cunningham. How do you explain the cane?” Sir Percy shrugged.
“I have many canes; I don’t try to keep track of them. In fact, I don’t even know which one you’re talking about.” With a flourish of the hand, the detective whipped out a photograph and slapped it down in front of Sir Percy. Indeed, it was unmistakably one of his old canes; Sir Percy couldn’t recall the last time he had seen it.

“Perhaps the fellow ran away,” he suggested hopefully. The detective stared at him.
“Ran away-without his hand? No, we are fairly certain that Time didn’t run away from us.” Sir Percy sighed.
“Isn’t it usually, you know, the wife or children or something that do these things? Not the…random strangers?” The detective gave him a disapproving glance.
“Mr. Time had no family around at the time of his disappearance, as I’m sure you were aware. Furthermore, you are only random until we figure out the connection between you two.”
“But surely Time has some sort of relative; not even a cousin or something?” The detective shrugged.

“He had a cousin staying with him for three weeks or so, but a neighbor mentioned that Time told them the fellow had gone to London on business, so he hasn't been around. He also has a very distant relation by the name of Space, too distant to be considered. I’m going to take you back to your cell; we’re through with questioning here.”

Inspector Harris rubbed his chin, perplexed. This was one of his most difficult cases so far, and his first major one since being appointed to Scotland Yard. He had hoped for better, but decided it could have been worse. He treaded carefully around the immaculate garden of Cyrus Time, noting that the hydrangeas were in bloom. No where had there been signs of a scuffle, and they had found no residues of anything foreign at all, not even a fingerprint. Where had Time gone? He thought. That is the question at hand.

“Inspector, there’s something over here,” one of the boys called to him. He shook his head and went over.
“What is it?” He asked, then saw it, whistled, and said, “Well, this changes everything.”

Sir Percy moaned. The conditions at this place were really, at best, more than someone of his position could possibly bear, he thought. The discomfort, the apathetic nature of it; and all for a crime he hadn’t committed!
I didn’t do it without noticing, did I? He thought as a doubt crossed his mind. Perhaps I’m crazy. After all, there was that time I mistook the bed post for a kangaroo, and surely there wasn’t much resemblance; and I can’t forget Auntie Beatrice, he thought. If anyone was insane, that woman got the pie. Now that he had the time to think it over, he wasn’t quite positive he hadn’t killed Time. He knew that often during his walks, he would come home and wasn’t able to recall half of what he had seen, or of where he had gone to. He was like an auto on autopilot, he thought. But then, anyone could have killed Time, he decided. I didn’t even know him. Besides, they don’t even know if he’s dead. A hand; what’s a hand? Time can still exist whether there is a hand to keep him in place, couldn’t he?

A shadowed figure crossed over the grassy knoll, watching as various people scurried into and out of the house wrapped like a present with official yellow police tape. I got away with it, he marveled to himself. I really pulled it off. He heard a cry go up around the garden, and squinted toward the small gathering crowd, puzzled as to what they were looking at. Then he paled. He hadn’t forgotten to-? No. He had completely buried it. And even if he hadn't, what was the likeliness of them coming across it, after all? From his higher elevation, a single word drifted up from below;
“Dentures?!” He stiffened. They had found it! He tried to force down the panic that started to thread its way through his system, but was unable to curb the flow. What next?

Inspector Harris called up Detective Jasp as quickly as his fingers could fly over the grid of his phone. Jasp answered with his normal, disgruntled with the world greeting; “Yeah whata ya want already.” Harris ignored him and said excitedly,
“Jasp, you wouldn’t believe what we just found buried in the backyard!” Jasp was quiet for a moment, then said quickly,
“Don’t tell me over the phone. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Cheers,” Harris said.

“Oye, ah could use a mug righ’ now, isn’t it,” Joe mumbled as he lay with his finger extended upwards, tracing the ceiling tiles with his finger. Sir Percy sat prim and proper with his hands folded in his lap, a comical sight to be seen had anyone been there to see it.
“Sos, wha was yer cane from, anywho? I mean, if it’s such er big deal en all,” Joe said, frowning as a spider web stopped the ceiling lines from connecting. Sir Percy shrugged.
“I like to go to estate auctions on the weekends. I picked it up a month or two ago, I think. Quite a lovely thing, I think, and it was only forty pounds.” Joe spluttered.
“Only forty pounds? Why, with tha’ amoun o’ money, I could buy…I could buy…I could buy forty pounds o’ beer!” Sir Percy coughed. He decided that Joe probably did not come across forty pounds none too often. “Now, forty shillings, that’s right decent o’ a price fer a pretty stick, I spose…” Joe mused.

Inspector Harris led Jasp around the house by way of a cobblestone path and led him to the sight of the discovery. As they walked, he explained,
“I was just looking around, trying to see if we missed anything or the like, and one of my lads come upon this on the very edge of the backyard while he’s taking a smoke.” At Jasp’s raised eyebrows, he added, “Yeah, they’re not supposed to at crime scenes, so I tell them to do it out of my sight. Anyhow, he noticed something queer like under his feet when he was stamping it out, and, well-” he reached into his pocket to retrieve an evidence bag with an unusual specimen inside. Jasp frowned.

“He found…dentures?” Harris nodded.
“That was just the start of it, though. On a hunch, I had the boys dig a wider hole in the area, and, well…” they were now in front of the area in question.
“Well, bloody hell, if I never…” he got out, tongue-tied for once. “It’s a bloody body!” Harris smiled wryly.
"So now the question is what really happened to Time to begin with?"

Two officers matter-of-factly arranged the body into the body bag, but the rest stared in unrestrained wonder. Time's head was bashed in beyond recognition. Harris stared at the copse, then said,
"It seems as if there's more going on here than we thought; I doubt Cunningham is strong enough to inflict those kind of wounds." Jasp nodded.
"I think so, Harris. Time isn't who we thought he was. It's more complex than we thought."

A man with dark orange hair and sharp features carefully unrolled a stack of notes from his pocket and counted them to make sure he had not missed any. Yes, they were all here; he could leave. No, he remembered, gritting his teeth once more. He couldn't leave, not just yet. He still had one thing to retrieve, and he couldn't leave it. He had no choice; he couldn't leave without it, no matter what the cost of getting it back. He had to act soon, for the time to flee safely was running out. That settled, he closed his eyes, leaned back on his heels, and started to plan.

The sky twinkled with the new arrival of stars that had come to greet the moon; shadows rose and fell as the headlights of an auto momentarily caught them off-guard; the sound of an engine died away as someone parked their car several houses down from the late Time household. As per required, one officer was posted in front of the house, but the newly arrived soul feared little trouble from him; as he had passed the car he was able to see that the officer had been asleep for quite a while. The man quietly closed his car door and started to pad softly towards the garage door of the house.

In the adjacent home, Bonnie Lillipux peeked out through her drapery, expecting to see her apologetic husband; this time, she thought assuredly, he must have realized that it was definitely his fault. It's a good thing I waited up for him, she decided. However, when her eyes rested on the driveway, no car was there. Confused, she decided to go onto the front porch to see where he was. I know I heard an auto, she thought. I'm positive. And who else in the neighborhood would be returning at such an hour? The next moment, when she saw in full view a walking, solid, breathing "ghost," she got her answer. For a second, she simply stared in horror, and then she opened her mouth and did what came naturally; she screamed.

Officer McIntire awoke with a start, bashing his head on the dashboard.
"Oye, what was that?" He muttered, and then realized what he was hearing was a truly terrified, bloodcurdling scream; and it was coming from the house right in front of him.
"Bloody," he swore, and then picked up his transmitter to call in reinforcements.

"Get your bloody paws off me!" The man snarled as officer Clinton held him steady as his partner cuffed him, McIntire's gun never swaying from the area of the man's temple. Clinton chuckled and said to him,
"Sorry buddy, but it looks like your time's run out." McIntire stifled a snigger, and the man's knees buckled as he tried in vain to escape. After they were all securely in the officer's vehicle, McIntire wired in;
"This is McIntire, get Harris in; we've found Time."

Later that morning, Harris emerged along with Jasp from interrogating the man, looking tired but satisfied.
"Well, boys, our mystery is solved," he remarked heartily to the officers gathered expectantly around. As they all spoke up, he raised a hand to quiet them, and then continued.
"I'll tell you the whole story as I know it. It goes something like this; Time was your average country man, quite your harmless banker. A couple of weeks ago, his cousin, Julius Stopt, came to visit. Or at least, that's what Time thought he had been doing; in reality, he had been...in company of a much older lady" here he paused as the officers snickered at the failed gigolo- "But, as it were, she died rather suddenly. It seems as if he had run her dry with his gambling debts, and so her daughter was forced to liquidate the house by having everything auctioned.

"Unfortunately for Stopt, he was out gambling when the lady died, and by the time he came back the daughter refused to let him in, knowing what he had done to her mother. The thing was, Stopt had hid a sizable amount of money inside the house; more specifically, he hid it in a hollowed out cane, which was being auctioned. He, however, came to the auction and noted who took the cane. As it turns out, this someone was Sir Cunningham. He decided to follow Cunningham for a couple days, and much to his delight found that Cunningham often went on walks, and while sitting on rocks or observing nature this or that, would often set down his cane for long periods of time. Taking advantage of this, he simply made sure to walk by Cunningham as much as possible, and of course eventually there arouse the opportunity to take the cane, which he did. He went back to Time's. Thinking Time was in his study, he pried open the cane and took out the money as soon as he returned.

"Sadly for Time, though, he witnessed the doing, and when Stopt realized that, he brashly attacked Time with the cane, killing him. Stopt, when gambling, had assumed the name of Time because it would make him more difficult to trace if and when he owed people money. In a bit of an ingenious plan, he decided to get rid of all his troubles at once; the game sharks would assume "Time" was dead, and because of the cane, the police would go after Cunningham and not think to question the cousin in London; he buried the body because he realized that, while he could pull it off for a couple of days in order to trick the neighbors into giving him an alibi, his gambling partners if they were to see the copse would realize it wasn't him, but the real Time. So he left only the hand for identification. He then departed, but realized he had to come back for something; this," he said, holding out a wallet.

"He left his wallet with all his information, including his passport; had we found it later, we would have probably done a country-wide search for him, as he expected. That's basically it, I believe." Jasp shook his head, bemused.
"Who would have thought; this whole time, Time was Stopt." Harris shrugged.

"You could see it that way, if you like. The facts stand though, that Time is truly dead, and that I am tired after working on this for so long, so if you guys don't mind, I'm going to go home and catch a wink." And with that, he smiled and left. Jasp smiled to himself.
"I'm still used to just calling him Time," he mused. "'Time' thought he could control us, but in the end, we figured him out. We always do."

Sir Percy reclined on his cot, close to being bored out of his mind; for fun, he was imagining all the different ways he could arrange his bowties upon his return to the estate. By pattern or color, that was the question. On the one hand, a rainbow effect was always rather aesthetically pleasing.

"But the diagonals next to the hound’s-tooth always look so nice," he murmured aloud.
"Wassat?" Joe asked loudly, and Sir Percy was about to describe to him his esteemed collection when a tall, proud, but benevolent looking man appeared in front of their cell along with the officer they were familiar with. The man looked pointedly at the lock, and at once the officer unlocked the door for him and opened it wide. The man stepped in and offered his hand to Sir Percy.
"Sir Percy Cunningham, I believe?" He said cheerily, shaking his hand firmly. Sir Percy smiled.
"The third," he said. This time it was the man's turn to smile.
"Ah, of course. Sir Cunningham, the Third. As you are probably aware of already, you are innocent in the disappearance of Time. We realize you had no hand in the matter, and for jumping to the conclusions that we did, no matter what evidence we had supporting it, I apologize to you personally, one gentleman to another, on behalf of our entire department." Sir Percy puffed out his chest.

"Thank you, I'm sure it was all just a misunderstanding. Everyone makes mistakes," he said diplomatically.
"Oh, by the way, I'm Chief Constable Biggleby. Anyhow, my good man, you are quite free to go; one of my officers will take you back to your home, and I believe everything will be back to normal for you in no time at all." Joe laughed.
"Cor, it's th' head const'ble hisself! "Lo there mate! I'm Joe. It's an honor t' meet ya, such a person of high rank as yerself." Biggleby smiled benignly.

"The pleasure is all mine," he remarked, but Joe shook his head adamantly while Percy polished the face of his watch with his shirt hem.

"No, no, it's mine! This is one time that I'll never forget!"