The Missing Dentures: The Missing Dentures

Constable Nigel Smedley and Sergeant Frank Tackle were goggling at the new Chief Constable, who had just started at Blartley Precinct that very morning. His name was William Peak and had been sent up from Scotland Yard to investigate the Blartley burglaries. He was supposed to be one of the best. And he was very tall indeed. The badge on his hat had made grooves in the ornate polystyrene ceiling as he'd walked about inspecting his new office.

 

"Blimey Smedley." said Sergeant Tackle, "He must be about six foot summat! What d'yer think?"

 

"Er... I'd say about six foot eighteen inches, Sarge." replied Smedley.

 

"At least!" Tackle's face creased a bit as he considered Smedley's estimate. "Hold on, ya daft clot. Six foot eighteen inches is seven foot bloody six!"

 

"I know, Sarge. I just didn't want to contradict yer, Sarge."

 

"Yer'll make corporal one of these days, Nigel Smedley, mark my words."

 

Smedley sighed. "I 'ope so. I've been constable for forty-two years an' I'm up for retirement in a couple o' months."

 

When Tackle and Smedley stood face to face, they looked like a man viewing himself in one of those funhouse mirrors. Tackle was short, fat and sort of wavy in the middle. Smedley was just as short, but lanky, with a head too big for his body, like a balloon animal attempted by someone with emphysema, where they've just managed to get the end inflated before having to have a lie down. They were men who had never wanted too much action in their lives, which is why they'd both joined the police force in the first place: Blartley, until just last week, had hitherto been virtually crime free. This was because Blartlians were mostly lazy buggers who couldn't be bothered plotting complicated criminal acts, let alone carrying them out. Just about the most heinous crime either one of the two veteran policemen had had to deal with, prior to the burglaries, was local kids throwing mud pies at sleeping vagrants. Before Peak had been appointed to the case involving the mysteriously disappearing dentures, Burt Limpgit had been Chief Constable. Blartley town council had  unanimously declared Limpgit as ideal for the post. In other words, he was a totally useless prat. Now that false teeth were being filched all over the place, and Limpgit's uselessness had lost its usefulness, he had been given a job instead as Executive Stamp Inspector at the local post office.

 

Peak had finished his curt tour and now came through to the main office, bowing low to get through the doorway like the world's tallest geisha with a moustache. He found a chair and folded himself into it. The sight of Peak sitting down made Tackle think of someone putting away a giant ironing board with a pair of trousers still on it.

 

"So, what's all this about old folks' teeth going missing?" Chief Constable Peak said in a voice that seemed too gentle for a fellow of his altitude. Even in repose, his eyes were level with the two other men.

 

"They gone missin' all o'er the place, sir!" gushed Smedley. "There's bin all these old codgers coming in wi' no teeth, complaining! Hundreds of 'em! It's like a bloody 'orror film wi' zombies in it sir. We can't make 'ead nor tail of it. These old folk go to bed and put their choppers in a glass by their bed and when they wake up, they bin snaffled, sir. An' the funny thing is is that they all went missin' on the same night. How can someone pinch all them choppers on the same night, sir?"

 

"I don't know yet" said Peak, "but we're going to find out, by God."

 

 

***

 

Mr Hargreaves sat at the breakfast table furiously gumming a piece of toast into submission. Mrs Hargreaves was at the sink, washing up.

 

"We got t' tell the copsh, luv." said Mr Hargreaves. He'd managed to satisfactorily mangle one corner of his toast before tearing it off and champing on it a bit more.

 

"We can't. We've been through thish before. The copsh'll think we're nutters!" said Mrs Hargreaves.

 

"But we both shaw 'im, Betty. We both shaw 'im pinch our teef and dishappear in that contraption. They can't shay we're both mad." Bob Hargreaves had given up trying to get through the toast and had resorted to dunking it in his tea until it became soft enough to swallow without getting stuck.

 

Betty frowned. "All right, then. We'll tell Shmedley. But I'm tellin' yer he'll think we're bleedin' barmy."

 

 

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