For ElizaSky - this one was your prompting. Though I didn't think it would yield led me so much fun as it did.
March, 1930
Since the sign – It has been brought to notice that Tea is being made in the Scullery adjoining the Police Room. This practice must cease at once – was still effective in the aftermath of Archibald Choke's arrest and subsequent capture, Geordie brought in a stove. It was a little brass primus, and Jem did not trust it an inch this close to the files, records and notes everyone regularly took in an effort to keep abreast of casework. He said so and Geordie offered to relocate it to the surgery, but changed his mind when Jem pointed out this would mean sharing his tea with various corpses. Teddy just stood there looking positively green. Benwick said nothing at all; he balanced the mouthpiece of the telephone in one hand, took notes in the other, and kept his nose well close to said notes as he took them. This was trickier than one might suppose since his shoulder was attempting to pin the earpiece in place. Afterwards he rung off and grumbled about 'That old lady on Princess St that's always being burgled, you know the one, Sir.'
Geordie did know the one; they all did. Even Jem knew old Mary Hazard, who was always imagining herself burgled. It was odds on there was no burglary and she needed someone nice and sympathetic to chat with. Geordie dispatched Benwick to be nice and sympathetic, and Teddy fetched a rickety side table, purpose previously indeterminate, to set the primus on. Geordie lit the primus. Jem twitched, but he didn't actually argue, especially not when it yielded up a little pot of strong, dark tea. It yielded it up in a chipped, brown teapot that looked like it had seen at least as many battles as Jem had, which was not a thing anyone wanted to have to say about their china, but there it was. Geordie poured out and set the leftover precariously atop the filing cabinet. Jem no longer wondered about the chipped nature of the teapot.
'Reckon we're allowed into the Scullery for milk?' asked Teddy. Geordie told him to chance it. So Teddy went for milk, and Benwick went out grumbling. Teddy, hearing him, paused and said, 'Cheer up, Mrs Hazard does a better brew than the Inspector! You might even get cake out of it!' Then he fetched the milk, which was needed, because the primus-begotten tea was scalding.
Of course, pouring it in after the fact meant the milk was scorched, but Jem had been brought up on the taste of scorched milk, as had Faith. Only Geordie grimaced over the taste it left behind, and Jem thought that was less an upbringing thing, more a habit carefully inculcated by marriage to Judith Carlisle.
The phone rang again and with Benwick still out, Teddy took the call. Jem leaned against the filing cabinet, which made the chipped teapot chatter. He stood upright again, hastily, and settled against a pillar instead, and listened while Teddy took down notes on a case of suspected arson out on Rural Route 1. There were no active murder inquiries, neither were there injured police to attend to, which left Jem at something of a loose end. He would finish his tea and lope through the cells, he supposed, on the off-chance there was something to see to, and if not, he could slip back out to Larkrise and run Tuesday for a spell. It was beginning to feel like spring, the air full of wet, verdant scents; perfect circumstances in which to be a Dachshund out of doors.
The little brass primus kept them in tea for a week. The table rocked abominably when it was in use, but so far, either by luck or divine intervention, no fires had started. They had even wrapped up the arson case. Even so, there subsequently appeared a note in the Superintendent's hand pinned to the filing cabinet. It read; It has been brought to notice that Tea is being made in the Police Room adjoining the Scullery. This practice must cease at once. Geordie snorted. Benwick, who was coming off the night shift and had brewed a pot of tea in anticipation of their arrival, anyway, laughed around a mouthful of tea and began to choke. Jem thumped him soundly on the back. 'A week?' he said, incredulous. 'He has more faith in you lot and your culinary skills than I do, and that's a fact.'
'I dunno, Doc,' said Teddy. 'You were happy enough to sample the results.'
'Well said, Sergeant,' said Geordie, and grinned wickedly at Jem. Jem shook his head and sipped his tea.
'How'd you miss that note going up anyway?' Teddy asked a groggy Benwick. Jem thought that was rather self-evident, and clearly Geordie did too, because he was stifling his amusement against the back of a tartan-striped mug.
'What,' said Benwick, 'that?' He gestured at the note on the filing cabinet. 'I thought it was the new rota gone up for the week, didn't I? And I was on the phone at the time – Mrs Hazard again.'
'Not another burglary, surely,' said Jem.
'All her silver,' said Benwick. 'I promised I'd go have a look.' So saying, he grabbed his coat with purpose and headed for the door.
'But Benwick,' said Teddy, 'you're off-duty now!'
'And you're half-asleep!' said Jem.
'He'll be after a slice of Hazard cake I shouldn't wonder,' said Geordie, and set off himself in the direction of the Scullery. Presently the air was rent by a guffaw from that quarter, so Teddy and Jem hastened after him. The cause was obvious. Pinned to the door was the old sign; It has been brought to notice that Tea is being made in the Scullery adjoining the Police Room. This practice must cease at once.
'Oh, for God's sake!' said Teddy, exasperated. Jem began to laugh. It was all too absurd. And the great thing was, the Superintendent hadn't actually done anything. He'd left the little brass primus atop the rickety table, and the kettle and chipped brown teapot just where they always where on the filing cabinet next to it. He clearly hadn't stuck around, either, or he'd have noticed Benwick's flagrant disregard for the note.
'This,' said Geordie, 'is getting ridiculous. Gilbertian even.'
Teddy frowned. 'Sorry Sir,' he said, 'but where do the Doc's family come into it?'
Geordie began to whistle. Clearly Gilbert and Sullivan. If Jem were guessing it was something in the region of H.M.S. Pinafore.
'Different Gilbert,' said Jem, eyes crinkling. Teddy rolled his own eyes to do this opinion the justice he felt it was due. Jem was indifferent. The song Geordie was whistling clicked into place, and Jem joined in with the words, lazily waving his arms as if conducting the Inspector.
When I was a lad I served a term
As office clerk to an attorney's firm
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big brass door!
Geordie broke off whistling to come in with the choral echo. He polished up the handle of the big brass door!
Teddy groaned. Neither Jem nor Geordie paid him any mind, but went on singing there in the Scullery entrance, because it seemed to them in their genius just then that nothing else summed up the summation of the Tea Debacle so well as Messers Gilbert and Sullivan.
'We could always go back to that café,' said Teddy, dubiously, as they processeds, still singing, back into the Police Room. Geordie tucked the primus under one arm, and Jem hefted the kettle in one hand and the chipped teapot in the other as they marched smartly off to Geordie's office. Teddy followed them, rickety end table in his arms. They sang;
I grew so rich that I was sent
To a pocket borough in parliament…
Teddy said wryly, 'Chance would be a fine thing, Sir,' but by now he had joined Geordie on the chorus, having got the hang of the pattern. All the while, Geordie stamped about his office making a production of setting the kettle on the windowsill, while Teddy stuck the rickety end table next to a different filing cabinet. It was cluttered with overflow files pending filing. Teddy scrambled to clear them off the cabinet, and Jem nodded. They finished off the song with a rousing cry of
Stick close to your desk, and never go to sea,
And you all may be the rulers of the Queen's navy!
Teddy shook his head. He said, 'I just don't understand it, Sir.'
Geordie patted his shoulder and said cheerily, 'Tea or music, Teddy?'
'Well, both,' said Teddy, occasioning more laughter.
'We're fighting madness with madness, Teddy,' said Geordie. All credit to him, Jem thought, he made it sound positively sane.
Then the telephone rang and dispatched Teddy and Geordie to investigate the disappearance of livestock on an outlying farm, Geordie grumbling about catchment areas getting ever broader. Jem waved them off just as word came that one of their overnight prisoners needed his hands seen to, so Jem went to minister to him, Teddy went to hunt livestock and Geordie set about filing the surplus files. He was still whistling Pinafore when Jem left.
Benwick was back by the afternoon, brighter and better for Mrs Hazard's hazelnut chocolate cake, and thoroughly nonplussed about being rostered back onto duty so soon. Jem thought about writing up a memo to the effect that an overworked constable was liable to miss pertinent case details but Geordie advised against it until Tea Détente was achieved.
'I'll write that in, too,' said Jem. 'Something about tea in the Scullery being a vital part of the welfare of the Station House. Or something.'
'Think it would work?' asked Geordie.
Teddy said, 'Well, it makes more sense than your singing, Sir. Gilbertian, did you say it was?' Geordie shook his head. 'Perfectly good fun,' he said, unrepentant. 'And at least as convoluted as the machinations of the Superintendent.'
Jem thought he had a point. After that, Geordie left his office door open and waved anyone through who wanted use of the primus or the little chipped teapot when it was full. They solved the problem of the disappeared livestock with minimal bruising, to Jem's relief, though the culprit was found to have been partially trampled and thus suffered Jem to mend several battered bones in his foot. Nevertheless, their little unit celebrated the victory over tea and biscuits in the Inspector's office. By that point Geordie had even brought a tea cosy and coasters; Jem presumed this was at the urging of Judith and Geordie didn't say otherwise. He did concede that if the office were to be the primus's long-term home, they might as well make it comfortable for interlopers.
Superintendent Hassle had other ideas. They hadn't even stuck the week out when they arrived on a grey, drizzly March morning to find a now familiar note affixed to Geordie's office door. It ran; It has been brought to notice that Tea is being made in the Inspector's Office down the hall to the Police Room. This practice must cease at once.
Underneath, for a bit of variety, was added, The Inspector's Office is for use by the Inspector only, and by other persons as becomes necessary in the course of their investigative work. On no other account may persons other than the Inspector enter the office.
'Well, that's a new one,' said Geordie, staring at it.
'News to me,' said Teddy, who was starting to read up between work and gremlin-wrangling on the handbook regulations necessary to sit the Detective's Exam.
'He's not all that original, is he?' said Jem, reading over Teddy's shoulder.
Benwick laughed heartily. He was on mornings all this week and delighted about it. Also, Mrs Hazard was still reporting burglaries, and she refused to have anyone but Benwick look into it.
'Someone,' said the Inspector, 'ought to do that woman for wasting police time.'
'Might be easier to put Kitty on to her,' said Jem, with a shrug. 'She can't be bought with cake, and she'd love the story. What's it today, Benwick?'
'Her great-aunt Agatha's crystal.'
'Right up Kitty's ally then. The headline would be…'Jem hummed meditatively.
'Bungling Burglar Settles for Seizing Granny's Goblets,' said Benwick.
'Exactly,' said Jem. Geordie's eyebrows rose several inches.
'Anything anyone wants to tell me?' he asked in his most genial, Gilbertian mood. But Jem valued his life should idle conversation ever loop back to Kitty and by then Benwick had departed the Station House for cake and the woes of Mrs Hazard. Geordie tore the note from the door and looked expectant. Teddy returned wither he had vanished.
'Well,' he said, 'The Scullery is still denied us, Sir. I've just looked.'
'Not what I meant,' said Geordie with what Jem made excessive good humour.
He then sent Teddy for the rickety table in the Police Room with instructions to move it.
'Where to, Sir?' said Teddy. Geordie demurred answering. He began to whistle When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done…
'A policeman's lot is not a happy one,' sang Jem, but forewent the bass notes on the grounds that some things were just plain beyond him. They taught the song to Teddy while moving table, kettle, teapot and primus into the corridor, which place Geordie had decided was optimal for the new tea arrangement.
'You don't think,' said Jem cautiously, 'I don't know…we might have an increase in scaldings, or something?'
'I'm banking on it, Doc,' said Geordie and grinned a devilled grin at Jem.
So the rickety table and its primus set up in the corridor of the police house between scullery and doctor's surgery, and all day there was a steady traffic of people with hot, blistered fingers tramping in and out of Jem's cold, severe quarters. Back and forth they went, some with angry red hands, some with barely blistered fingers. Finally, Jem stuck a note to his door explaining that if the thing was smaller than a postage stamp they were still fit for purpose, and that was a fact. Soak the offended digit in nice, tepid water, and get on with desk duty for a good quarter of an hour. That done he rang Faith for no better reason than to alert her for his newfound respect for her patience in the face of even the most pointless, mundane injury.
Still the rate of splashed, splotched and generally heat-mottled hands went up. Through God alone knew what clumsiness, Detective Moss caught his ankle on the table while pouring out, but since the teapot and the rickety table were at disparate ends of the corridor, Jem took leave to disbelieve him. Even Teddy did himself an injury, and this was impressive, since Teddy was supposed to be managing a riot down at the harbour that had everything to do with over-fishing and nothing to do with the primus. Then Benwick came in with two aggrieved hands, but they weren't scalded, just chapped from cold air.
'You need gloves,' said Jem, seeing them. 'And possibly petroleum jelly. But they're not burned.'
'Oh, I know, Doc,' said Benwick, 'That's what I said. But the Inspector said…'
'Hang on,' said Jem, not letting him finish, 'You mean Geordie's been sending you lot here?'
'I was getting to that, Doc.'
'Sorry Benwick, course you were. But blast it – did everyone need to go and mutilate themselves into the bargain?'
'Nah,' said Benwick. 'Some of that just happened, and I guess he ran with it.'
'Talk about Giblertian,' muttered Jem. Benwick looked bewildered.
Benwick frowned. 'It wasn't a Gilbert, Doc,' he said. 'Not what did this, anyway.' Then, seeing Jem confused, 'The burglar! Didn't I tell you? I cracked it! She was never being burgled at all. Just chucking all that stuff in the bin store and behind her yew hedges, then ringing us up to deal with it. Wanted the company, she said.'
Well, thought Jem, it had kept poor Benwick in tea and cake anyway. And Mary Hazard in company. Jem handed Benwick a tub of petroleum jelly and waved him off. Then Jem sat down and composed a note to the Superintendent.
The following morning found a confusion of policemen clustered around the Scullery door. Benwick waved Jem over half-frantic. 'It's different, Doc,' he said. Jem hastened to join the throng, Teddy at his heels. There was the familiar writing, with that well-worn opening, It has been brought to notice…Jem read on. It was indeed different. He read it again for good measure. It has been brought to notice that Tea is being made in places hazardous to the health of our local constabulary. This practice must cease at once. Hereafter the Scullery is to be made available to police desirous of tea, effective immediately.