Busybody - May 2009

Written by Jack Popplewell
A murder mystery spoof

Detective Superintendent Harry Baxter is plagued by a head cold and busybodies - a corpse that vanishes and the officious office cleaner, Mrs Piper, who found it. Trying to glean facts from the morass of Mrs Piper's chatty verbosity requires all Baxter's never large store of tact and patience. Motives for murder abound - all the office staff and corpse's wife are suspect. His self-control snaps completely when the corpse himself walks in alive and well. But Mrs Piper still insists that there was a body, though she no longer knows whose. Baxter is persuaded to continue the investigations, enthusiastically hindered by Mrs Piper. However, it is she who finally identifies both corpse and murderer and actually obtains a confession. Very typically she then tidies the office and throws away the confession.