A Hairdresser Scorned

"It's amazing!" Trish gushed that evening as she closed the Venetian blinds over the windows of Bunnz Salon, "The way you just pieced it together like that and still got back to the salon in time for your 2 o'clock appointment!"

"It was nothing really, Trish," Chelsea said, "As soon as the Professor told me about the Malabarite belief that the Lord or Rajah who leads their sect has supernatural powers, everything else fell into place. Let me explain. You remember the Rajah of Rajpooristan who was killed in mysterious circumstances?"

"The geezer who got pushed out of his palace window by Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe, you mean?"

"Assuming that Chief Inspector Spiggot's theory is correct, that is," said, Chelsea, "Well, I've felt for some time that the Rajah was the really unexplained link in all these murky dealings. When Professor Carruthers told me about the Rajah at the head of the Malabarite cult, I suddenly had a hunch about the identity of the mysterious cult leader."

"The Rajah of Rajpooristan!" squeaked Trish.

"There are times, Trish, when the acuity of your intellect frankly stuns me. The Rajah of Rajpooristan indeed. So I made a few discreet enquiries among various personal contacts in the twilight world of international crime and the general feeling was that my hunch was indeed correct."

"Blimey!" gasped Trish, "So you think that someone from the cult had Hartleberry-Smythe bumped off as a kind of revenge killing, then?"

"I do indeed. And what's more, I know exactly who did it. There is only one person sufficiently unhinged to dare to kill the leader of a bloody-thirsty, opium-dealing Himalayan sect in order to gain demonical supernatural powers. Cast your mind back, if you will, to the Latin-American Open-Style British Ballroom Dancing Finals at the Chipplestoke-in-the-Mire Palais de Dance in August of last year."

"How could I ever forget!" Trish sighed, "The music! The glamour! The heady perfume of styling mousse and hair wax!"

"As you will recall, my old chum, Melissa Peaberry, had asked me to create some special hairstyles for her boys and girls. And thus it was that on the fateful night of the Championship itself you and I found ourselves teasing, tweaking and backcombing until our fingers were numb from exhaustion."

"I remember it well! That was the first time we used the Frangipani shampoo!" Trish squeaked.

"Indeed it was, Trish. And as the competition progressed, it increasingly seemed that our efforts were paying off. Each time the Melissa Peaberry Latino Ensemble took to the floor, gasp upon gasp went up from the crowd. I flatter myself that they were impressed as much by our stunning coiffures as by the quality of their Fox Trot."

"Yeah," Trish agreed, "Them hairdos was good…"

"At last it came to the final section. The excitement was intense. The audience was silent with expectation. You could have heard a hairpin drop. The Melissa Peaberry Latino Ensemble was by now in joint lead with the Tanya Tittlefeather Syncopated Orpheans. All that remained was the final showdown."

"Yeah. There was just the Valeta, the Military Two-step and the Cha-Cha-Cha!" Trish squealed.

"It was neck-and-neck. The Orpheans dazzled the crowd with their pink sequinned crinolines in the Valeta and their diaphanous bodystockings in the Two-Step. It all hinged now on the Cha-Cha-Cha. And, as you know, that's where we were about to unleash our secret weapon."

"Ooh, yeah!" Trish said, "I waxed down all the men's hair and you…"

"Yes! And I plumped up the women's beehives with a generous dollop of my new, experimental Sandalwood conditioner. It was the first time I'd ever gone public with that conditioner. People have told me that those hairdos might well have been the deciding factor that helped the Melissa Peaberry Latino Ensemble to win the contest."

"Tanya Tittlefeather was absolutely furious. D'you remember? Red in the face she was!"

"She had every reason to be furious, Trish. You see, in her life beyond the confines of the ballroom, she is the same Tanya Tittlefeather who owns the chain of high class salons going by the name of Tittlefeather's Titivations. I only discovered afterwards that she too had styled her troupe's hair that night using a new range of root-nourishers, emollients and highlighting gels. She had planned to launch the range the following day at an exclusive press conference in Mayfair.

"Each item in the range was to have the name of a dance step - there would be a Foxtrot shampoo, a Rumba conditioner, a Cha-Cha-Cha Split-ends remedy and so on. She was planning to call them 'Tanya's Salon Swingers - the hair products that win every time!'"

"Except they didn't win," said Trish.

"That's right, Trish. Tanya always blamed me, you know. She's never really forgiven me."

"Golly!" squeaked Trish, "You don't mean to say that you think it was Tanya, who…?"

"…sent me the sandalwood boat with the frangipani flower? Yes, Trish, that's exactly what I think. Tanya had hatched a master-plan drag me into the sordid world of Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe's murderous drug-dealing empire. Hence the mysterious gifts. Tanya knew I could never resist a mystery."

"But just a minute," said Trish, "What did Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe have to do with all this?"

"Yes I wondered that at first too," Chelsea said, "It was only after I phoned up Mandy Althorpe…"

"Your exotic ingredient supplier?" Trish interjected unnecessarily.

"…that I realised what had happened. Mandy, it turns out, had employed Hiram to handle the importation of the sandalwood and frangipani for my new range of Bunnz Salon Specialities. It seems only he could supply the very finest Malabar sandalwood in the quantities required.

"Meanwhile, however, Tanya Tittlefeather was hatching a plot to duplicate my new range and flood the market with her own brand-name. Of course, she too went to Hartleberry-Smythe for her supplies. Hiram didn't tell Tanya that he had already committed all his supplies to Mandy Althorpe. So he agreed to supply Tanya too. But instead of supplying the finest white Malabar sandalwood, he sold her some vastly inferior red sandalwood, passing it off as the genuine article.

"Mandy rushed her new shampoos and conditioners into production in time for world-renowned Tonypandy And Surrounding District International Coiffeur Challenge Cup. It was, as you will recall, a disaster. Two of the models even tried to sue her for damaging their follicles."

"You did all right though," Trish said, "Won the gold, silver and bronze cups, didn'tcha?"

Chelsea blushed, "For Tanya Tittlefeather that humiliation was the last straw. She became totally unhinged, psychopathic. And, as everyone knows, hell hath no fury like a hairdresser scorned. Tanya concocted a fiendish plan that would, at a stroke, eliminate the two people who had, in her warped imagination, been responsible for her downfall. First she would kill Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe… And then she would kill me!"

"What a bitch!" gasped Trish.

"As you say," agreed Chelsea, "But in the event, due to an unforeseen turn of events…"

"Mrs Van de Graaff's poodle!" interjected Trish.

"…instead of killing me, she very nearly killed you."

Trish shivered theatrically at the thought.

"You see, it was Tanya Tittlefeather who poisoned our last delivery of shampoo and conditioner with a binary nerve agent. Fortunately, you were wearing rubber gloves at the time, otherwise…."

"Ooo, don't!" twittered Trish, "You'll give me the creeps. There's still one thing I can't figure out though, Chelsea. I can understand why Tanya Tittlefeather wanted to kill Hiram and you. But why did she bump off the delivery boy too?"

"Ah, that was the most devilish thing of all. You see, Trish, that was no delivery boy. In fact, that was no boy at all."

"You don't mean...?"

"Yes! The so-called Cedric Crackington-Haven was none other than Tanya Tittlefeather herself!"

"Gasp!"

"The moment I first set sight on Crackington-Haven, I knew there was something strangely familiar about him. Maybe it was the way he minced into the room? Or possibly it was that high-pitched, irritating voice? But, disguised in that black-leather biker's outfit and dark glasses, she fooled me completely.

"It wasn't until I looked more closely at the prize-giving photograph that was taken at the award ceremony of the Latin-American Open-Style British Ballroom Dancing Finals that I noticed how very singular was Tanya Tittlefeather's nose. An unmistakable, hooked nose. The very same nose, indeed, that I had so recently seen supporting Cedric Crackington-Haven's dark glasses."

"Flip me!" peeped Trish, "Your amazing detection capabilities have come up trumps again, Chelsea! There's just one more thing I don't understand, though. If the bike boy was Tanya all along, doesn't that mean she must have killed herself?"

"In the matter of the motorbike accident," Chelsea said, "I believe we see the hand of Fate at work, Trish. Just as she was putting into action the final step of her master plan, Tanya Tittlefeather's motorbike was cut down by a ten ton truck which, by a horrible coincidence, happened to be transporting a cargo of sandalwood to the Malabar Emporium."

"Spooky," simpered Trish.

"The body, of course, was pulverised out of all recognition. But Chief Inspector Spiggot of Scotland yard has ordered the grisly residue to be exhumed. I have no doubt that tests will verify that they are indeed the mortal remains of the unfortunate Tanya Tittlefeather."

"Makes your blood run cold, don't it," said Trish in a low, quavering voice before adding chirpily, "Fancy a cocktail?"

"Hmmm, well, I think I might be able to force down a teensy Singapore Sling."

"I'll go into the kitchen and make one, then, shall I?"

"You're forgetting something," said Chelsea, "Whenever I come to the end of a case, it is I who make the cocktails!"

"Oh, yeah! Sounds good to me," burbled Trish, "I'll tidy up the magazines and stuff in the salon then, shall I?"

"Good idea." As she rattled through the Moorish beaded curtain that led to the kitchen, Chelsea smiled with pleasure at the thought of another case brought to a satisfactory conclusion. In a matter of seconds she had squeezed two limes into a stainless steel cocktail shaker and added a substantial measure of gin, Cointreau, cherry brandy and a few other added extras from the fridge. Having shaken them all together with a few ice cubes, Chelsea was straining the cocktail into two pre-chilled glasses when she heard the doorbell to the salon.

"I'll get it," Trish shouted.

As a final flourish, Chelsea decorates the two glasses with maraschino cherries. She placed them onto a silver tray and was just about to take the drinks into the salon when telephone rang. Chelsea snatched up the handset from the phone bracket next to the fridge. "Bunnz Salon," she said with practised cheerfulness, "Can I help you?"

When the caller spoke, Chelsea instantly recognised Chief Inspector Spiggot's gruff voice. His message was brief and to the point - "The body," he said, "It wasn't Tanya Tittlefeather."

Chelsea put down the receiver, hardly able to comprehend the significance of Spiggot's words. A moment later, the beaded curtains rattled as Trish came into the kitchen holding a small cardboard box, about the size of a shoe box.

"Special delivery, apparently," Trish said.

In the near distance, Chelsea heard a powerful motorbike speeding away.

"Describe the delivery boy," Chelsea said.

"I don't know. Couldn't really see much under all that leather. He was wearing dark glasses."

"Hooked nose?" Chelsea asked.

Trish gasped and turned as pale as bottle of almond oil root conditioner. "You don't mean…?" she stuttered.

"Give me the box!" Chelsea said.

Trish handed it over. Chelsea tore off the wrapping.

"Be careful!" Trish warned, "It could be dangerous."

But Chelsea had already taken the lid off the box and was now staring, wide-eyed at its contents. Then she smiled. She took out a single frangipani flower and a note written in lilac ink. The note said simply, "You have missed your appointment with Death, Miss Bunn. But in my Salon, appointments are not always necessary. I'll see if I can fit you in soon!"

It was signed: "The Demon Styliste".

"Hmm," Chelsea mused, as she carefully refolded the note, "At least she has a sense of style. You know, if she weren't such an out and out rotter, I rather think that the two of us might have been good chums."

"So," said Trish, "What are you going to do now then?"

"Drink this cocktail of course. And then, quite possibly, mix another one."

And so, with the chink of glasses and a girlish laugh, Chelsea Bunn brought the curtain down on yet another adventure. However, she somehow felt that this would not be the last she had heard of the Demon Styliste.

The Malabar Rites

Roman statues and Grecian temples dwarfed Chelsea Bunn as she walked through a maze of long, echoing corridors. She turned a corner and emerged into a vast gallery filled with crumbling Egyptian mummies and gleaming golden sarcophagi. She had always thought of the British Museum as a sombre place, a great mausoleum stacked high with monuments to the dead. And today the Museum seemed more sombre than ever.

Past the ancient treasures of Western Asia she walked and on into the long, twisting galleries of the Orient. Then along a dark little corridor beyond a sign that said 'Private: Museum Staff Only' and down an old wooden staircase that led into the dusty gloom of the basement.

Finally, she arrived at a heavy oak door bearing a brass plate on which was engraved:

"Prof. Chearsby Carruthers (Snr. Curator, Crypto-History)"

Chelsea hesitated before she knocked upon that door. If anyone could help her unravel the sinister trail of events which led from the opium fields of Rajpooristan to the backstreets of Kings Cross, Professor Carruthers was that man. But all the same her mood was far from jovial. There had been too many deaths, too much tragedy in this affair. And Chelsea still trembled when she recalled once again the stark white face and staring eyes of her friend and chief styliste, Trish Winterbottom, as she had slumped to the floor of the salon.

At first, Chelsea had feared that Trish had breathed her last. But then, after a few terrifying moments, Trish's rigid features had begun to slacken into an expression of witless imbecility. At that moment, Chelsea had realised, with relief, that Trish was on the mend again.

"That was a close shave, young Miss," grumbled Chief Inspector Spiggot of the Yard who, by a fortunate coincidence, happened to be visiting the salon at the time, "If my suspicions is correct, one more squirt of that conditioner and your blow-drying days would've been well and truly done."

The Chief Inspector had immediately seized an entire consignment of Bunnz Salon Specialities shampoo and conditioner which had been delivered to the salon that very morning. After analysis by the boffins at Scotland Yard, it had been discovered that his suspicions were correct. The bottles of Frangipani Deep-Cleansing shampoo and Sandalwood Rich Emollient Conditioner had been tampered with to potentially deadly effect. Each had been contaminated by the addition of a volatile oil of a sort well-known to certain sects of the Near and Far Orient. On their own, each of these two oils were harmless. But when mixed, they were deadly. They were, in fact, precisely the same two agents which had been used to kill Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe in the unseasonal monsoon at the Malabar Emporium!

"But why would anyone want to kill Trish?" Chelsea had asked Chief Inspector Spiggot.

"I don't think this shampoo was meant for your styliste," Spiggot had answered grimly, "It is my belief that it was meant for you!"

"Yes, yes, of course," Chelsea had spluttered.

"That still leaves us with a mystery," Spiggot had said, "I mean, after all, Miss Bunn, who on earth would want to kill you?"

"Oh, it could be almost anyone," Chelsea had answered sombrely, "You see, Chief Inspector, a hairdresser makes many enemies."

Chelsea rapped upon Professor Carruthers' oak door.

"At last," she thought, "I may be about to discover who that enemy really is."

A quavering voice called out from within - "Come!"

Chelsea opened the door and stepped into a small room filled with an almost palpable gloom. Books lay everywhere. Huge, leather-bound volumes were piled upon the floor. Ancient tomes weighed heavily upon the sagging shelves. And in their midst a tiny, grey-haired man crouched over a vast cherry-wood desk, peering through a magnifying glass at a dusty yellow scroll of imponderable antiquity.

"Just a moment," he said, without looking up, "Two more glyphs and one cartouche, then I shall be at your immediate service… ah, now, ah, yes, yes! Yes indeed! I see it now. It is all as clear as day. There's the sign of the Pharaoh and there's his servant boy and there's… oh, my!"

"An Egyptian death scroll?" Chelsea asked.

"What? This? No, no! Ha-ha! Certainly not! No, no, just some ancient pornography, I fear. Deary me, yes, the scribes of the Middle Kingdom, you know, had a rather fine line in smut, do you see? Tut-tut, dear, dear. Quite crude, really! Yes, yes, smutty, crude and vulgar," and with that the professor put down the magnifying glass and put on a pair of half-moon spectacles, "And who, I wonder, may you be?"

Chelsea presented her card.

"Ah," said the old man, "Miss Bunn! I am a great admirer of yours. Oh yes, indeed. The manner in which you solved the case of the Afghan Dung-Beetle Murders has become quite legendary."

"Oh, that?" said Chelsea, "A mere trifle. As soon as I discovered the trap-door in the Queen Anne commode, the case practically solved itself."

"You are too modest, indeed, Miss Bunn. Yes, yes, too modest by far, I must protest. But how on earth can I, a mere crypto-historian, be of service to such a notable sleuth as yourself?"

Chelsea explained, in brief, the macabre chain of events in which she had become an unwilling link. When she had finished her story, she produced from an inner pocket of her poncho a scrap of red paper. "I believe," she said, "That this scrap of paper may hold the key to this mystery. But of its true significance I am ignorant."

The professor took the scrap of paper, pushed his spectacles back above his voluminous eyebrows and, using his magnifying glass, examined it with care and attention. When he had finished, he slid his spectacles down upon his nose again and looked Chelsea straight in the eyes.

"Where in the name of Amun Ra did you get this paper?" he said.

Chelsea told him about the mysterious delivery of a pound of coffee from an anonymous benefactor. The paper, she explained, had been wrapped around the gift.

"You are in more danger than you can dream of," the Professor said, his voice quavering with dread, "Would I be right to assume that the precise variety of coffee formerly enclosed by this fragment of paper was of the Malabar variety?"

"Quite right," said Chelsea, "I am told it is known as Monsoon Malabar."

"What do you know, may I ask, of the Malabar Rites?"

Chelsea thought a moment and then answered with confidence, "Nothing, Professor. Not a single thing."

"Then let me explain."

Sitting there in the comfortable gloom of that tiny office, Chelsea could barely believe the strange and fearful histories which Professor Carruthers unfolded to her.

"It was in the year 1605," the Professor began, "...that Father Roberto de Nobili, a missionary of the Society of Jesus, began to serve his apostolic apprenticeship in the Southern part of India. Father Nobili was a man of ferocious religious fervour by all accounts, and threw himself into his devotions with a passion that was terrifying to behold.

"But no amount of missionary zeal could convert the equally zealous Hindus to the faith of Mother Rome. And so Father Nobili conceived a more audacious plan. After studying the secret rituals and holy emblems of the high caste of Hindu ascetics called the Saniassy, he began to adopt a most curious manner of dress and was frequently to be seen wearing crimson robes and a tiger's skin. These garments, as you are no doubt aware, were regarded as signs of high learning among the native peoples of that time. Furthermore, it was reported that father Nobili claimed to be none other than the great sage, Tatuva Podagar Swami."

"Through his cunning, Father Nobili mixed the Hindu and the Christian doctrines in such a bizarre and, one might say, blasphemous manner that the matter of those so-called 'Malabar Rites' was brought to the attention of the attention of Pope Clement XI at Rome. Apparently, particular objection was made to a fashion among the Christianised Hindu women in Father Nobili's flock, of engraving a cross upon the traditional golden tingum or, ahem, male organ, which they wore between their breasts.

"But several Popes and dozens of decrees later, the whole thing was more or less brushed under the Papal carpet. After all, converts were converts. And better a corrupt Catholic than a virtuous Hindu." - the Professor broke off at this point, cleared his throat slightly and looked sheepishly at Chelsea over the rims of his spectacles, "Oh dear, oh dear," he said at last, "I do hope I'm not offending you with my perhaps over-forthright views."

"Not at all," Chelsea assured him, "A hairdresser is not easily shocked, Professor."

"Ah yes, quite so, quite so. But to get to the crux of the matter. As far as most scholars of divinity are concerned, the Malabar Rites are no more than a minor curiosity which passed into the oblivion of history more than two and a half centuries ago.”

"But you don't believe that?" interrupted Chelsea.

"Quite so, quite so," agreed the professor, "As a crypto-historian, my study takes me into strange highways and byways of both past and present and I have discovered that the Malabar Rites live on to this very day, and in a far more depraved and malevolent form than in the days of Father Nobili.

"As the centuries have passed, the Rites have grown into a distorted and malignant mixture of dark mythology in which the Lord Siva and the skull-garlanded Kali ride, each in twin incarnations, upon four horses signifying War, Strife, Hunger and Death. Upon the horse of Hunger sits Siva's incarnation as Sundashvara the beautiful. Upon the horse of War sits Siva's incarnation as Bharaiva the terrible. On the horse of Strife sits the goddess Kali Yuga the destroyer. And finally, on the horse of War sits Bhavani the Kali to whom the Thugee murderers dedicated their victims.

"This impious admixture of the Hindu Vedic traditions with the Christian Apocalyptic legends forms today the dark core of the secret society of the Malabarites. A more ruthless, vicious and dangerous sect I know not. Curses are their prayers, blood sacrifice their sacrament, murder most foul is their daily bread. They believe that the world is passing from the light into a new dominion of darkness - one which they, and their dark Lords, shall rule! They further believe that Father Nobili possessed the supernatural powers acquired from blood sacrifices to demons and gods and that his powers have been passed on from generation to generation to an earthly Lord or Rajah who leads the Malabarite sect."

"And how are these powers passed on, Professor?"

"There are only two ways. Either the sect leader appoints his successor. Or he is killed by a more powerful adversary."

"Murdered? How ghastly!"

"It has happened several times in the bloody history of the sect."

"Who, then, is their present leader?"

"Nobody outside of the cult itself knows his identity. But surely, Miss Bunn, your sleuthing activities can not have brought you into contact with these most barbarous of heathens?"

"I…" Chelsea hesitated, "To tell you the truth, Professor Carruthers, I am not entirely sure. On the one hand, there is the evidence of the scrap of paper which you hold in your hands. Wrapped around a package of Monsoon Malabar coffee bought at the Malabar Emporium, it bears a hand-written addition that can only be a reference to the Malabar Rites."

Staring once again at the scrap of paper, Professor Carruthers read out the inscription: "'Two wrongs for Two Rites?' I suppose," he suggested, "This might be some sort of practical joke?"

"I don't think so," said Chelsea, "It is my belief that the two wrongs refer to the two deaths - first, the fatal accident that claimed the life of Cedric Crackington-Haven as he made another delivery of Monsoon Malabar coffee to a restaurant in King's Cross. And then, the following day, the murder of the proprietor of the Malabar Emporium, Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe. I was there as he died, Professor. His final words were, 'The Malabar Rites'."

"Ah, I see," murmured the Professor, "That is, indeed, compelling, if somewhat circumstantial, evidence!"

"It is the final piece of a complex puzzle," Chelsea said, "I believe now, I know who the killer is!"

"How very, very thrilling!" bumbled the Professor, patting the palms of his hands together excitedly.

"Would you have a telephone to hand, by any chance?" Chelsea asked.

"Oh, indeed I have!" said the Professor, sliding an antique two-piece instrument across his desk. When Chelsea picked it up, an operator at the Museum asked if she required an external line.

"I certainly do," Chelsea said, "Get me Chief Inspector Spiggot of Scotland Yard."

Salon Of Death

"The awful truth of the matter is that Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe had gone to India to kill his old friend, the Rajah” (Spiggot continued), “The Rajah, you see, was the drugs lord of the region. The Opium grown in them there hills is, by repute, of the very finest quality money and human misery can buy. Between them, the Rajah and Hartleberry-Smythe had a very profitable importation business in hand. But now it seemed the Rajah had begun working with a new partner. His supplies to Hartleberry-Smythe had started to dry up. And as the quantity diminished, so the price rose.

"But Hartleberry-Smythe had an alternative supplier in the region - someone who was working in cahoots with a bunch of native warlords and priests of a strange and vicious blood cult - a nasty bunch of fellas, by all accounts, who inspired in the Opium farmers a terror as great, or greater than the terror of the Killer of PooshMurtran itself! With the Rajah out of the picture, Hartleberry-Smythe believed that he and his associates would be able to take over the entire Opium production operation in the area.

"And thus it was that, one day, Hartleberry-Smythe suggested to the Rajah that it might be a bit of a jape to go on a tiger hunt, to track down the legendary Killer and bring it back alive or dead.

"One morning, as the mists of dawn still clung to the scummy waters of the mangrove swamps, a strange party wended its way out between the huge marble gateways of the Rajah's palace. The Rajah himself led the way on his largest and most fearsome pachyderm. Hiram and some half a dozen skilled native hunters followed close behind, perched on top of armoured elephants.

"After almost six hours tracking the Killer, one of the native hunters finally caught sight of the beast. In an uncharacteristic turn of bravery, Hiram immediately suggested to the Rajah that the two of them should at once dismount and hunt the animal alone and on foot. The plan appealed to the Rajah's reckless nature and he assented without a moment's hesitation.

"Unknown to him, two of Hiram's associates - professional assassins - had secretly been following the hunting party and, at that very moment they lay in wait in the undergrowth. Everything was going according to Hiram's devilish plan. All being well, within a few moments the Rajah would be brutally slaughtered. The assassins planned to tear his living flesh so that, as far as anyone would know, he was just the latest victim of The Killer of PooshMurtran. But, as Shakespeare said, the best laid plans of mice and men often gang awry…"

"Burns," muttered Trish.

"What does?" sputtered Spiggot.

"It was Robert Burns who wrote that, not Shakespeare."

"I beg your pardon, young lady," said Spiggot, "But I believe you'll find that it was Shakespeare. Sonnet Number 323 if my memory serves me well."

"It obviously doesn't," said Trish, "Because it was Burns and it's not the best laid 'plans', it's the best laid 'schemes' and, what's more, he didn't write 'gang awry', he wrote…"

"Trish!" Chelsea interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"I believe Mrs Van de Graaff's poodle is about ready for its shampoo and blow-dry now. If you'd care to…"

"But I was just in the middle of…"

"Trish!" Chelsea pointed imperiously at the dismal dog, "Shampoo Foo-foo! Now!"

Grumbling to herself, Trish snapped on her rubber gloves and unceremoniously dumped the poodle into the nearest sink. Opening a new box of Bunnz Salon Specialities, she took a bottle of shampoo and started to massage it vigorously into the unhappy-looking animal. Under her breath, Trish could be heard grumbling, "The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley…"

Chief Inspector Spiggot twirled the ends of his moustaches briskly and threw himself into his tale with renewed vigour - "As Fate would have it, while the Rajah hunted the Killer, and the two assassins hunted the Rajah, the Killer of PooshMurtran himself was not idle. There in the undergrowth, the beast cowered, its whiskers bristling with the scent of its future meal. Suddenly its muscles tightened and whoosh! Out it leapt, taking down the two assassins in one fierce leap! Then slash! rip! tear! bite! It gorged itself monstrously upon their still pulsating flesh! The Rajah heard the melee and, in a flash, he spotted the beast and brought it down with a single bullet straight between the eyes!

"Two days later, Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe contrived to push the Rajah through an open window of his own palace."

Chelsea sucked the dregs of her Singapore Sling and bit the cherry off the end of the little paper umbrella - "So," she said at last, "That may explain the murder of the Rajah. But what about the murder of Hiram Hartleberry-Smythe? Not to mention his, er, 'delivery boy'?"

"I thought that was obvious," Spiggot said with a hint of a sneer, "The delivery boy as you call him was, in fact, an agent of the Rajah's new partner, to whom, you will recall, I alluded earlier. A fellow by the name of Cedric Crackington-Haven"

"Hartleberry-Smythe's rival, you mean? Are you really asking me to believe that Hartleberry-Smythe's delivery boy was, in reality, the same man who'd secretly been importing drugs from PooshMurtran into London?"

"Precisely!" rapped Spiggot, "Unbeknownst to Hartleberry-Smythe, he was actually employing his rival in iniquities! It was Crackington-Haven who had placed the first toxin into the sprinkler system of the Malabar Emporium and had impregnated the second toxin into the kipper tie!"

"How terribly fiendish," said Chelsea, with an appreciative smile, "But tell me, Inspector, how was it that Cedric Crackington-Haven came to meet with a fatal accident the very night before Hartleberry-Smythe was also bumped off?"

"Pure chance, miss. It is my experience that the quality of driving in the King's Cross area at that time of night often leaves a great deal to be desired."

"And I still don't understand who sent me the wooden boat? And the coffee?"

"Oh, I shouldn't worry about those, Miss," Spiggot said dismissively, "They are probably completely unconnected and quite innocent. Have you, f'rinstance, considered the possibility that you may have an anonymous admirer?"

"One with a very morbid sense of humour, if that be true," mused Chelsea, "Ah, but there's yet one more mystery to be solved, Chief Inspector."

"Miss?"

"The man in the Malabar Emporium. Somebody entered just after I myself arrived. He departed moments before the sprinkler system went to action. But before doing so, he had set a flame to a great number of Oriental joss sticks. It was the smoke from those joss sticks which triggered the sprinklers."

"Aye, miss," Chief Inspector Spiggot grumbled, and played nervously with the ends of his moustache, "That is a mystery and no mistaking. Then again, I shouldn't worry about it. In my experience, if Scotland Yard was to try to solve every piddling little detail of a case we'd never solve a damn' one of them."

At the back of the Salon, Trish had just finished towel-drying the wet poodle and was now ripping open a box of conditioners. "I like the new design," she said, as she took out a bottle.

"What new design?" said Chelsea.

"Flowers," Trish said, holding up a bottle, "All the shampoo bottles in the box they delivered this morning have got flowers on them. And the conditioners have got pictures of trees. Quite nice, actually."

"Odd," said Chelsea, "The agency didn't say anything about a redesign."

"Maybe there's something in this letter?" Trish said, and she handed Chelsea a sealed envelope from a plastic pouch that was stuck to the outside of the box.

The envelope was simply addressed to 'Miss C. Bunn'. There was something oddly familiar about the lilac ink in which the name had been written.

"So, Chief Inspector," Chelsea said as she tore open the envelope, "If your theory is correct, then our murderer is already dead and we have nothing more to worry about."

"Precisely so," rumbled Spiggot, "The case of the poison kipper tie is, as we say down the Yard, well and truly closed."

When Chelsea set eyes upon the sheet of paper contained within the envelope, she gasped involuntarily. The letter comprised just one short sentence: "Frangipani and Sandalwood is a killer combination, cha-cha-cha!"

At the far end of the salon, Trish was squirting a blob of green goo from one of the bottles into the palm of her hand. "Hmm," she said, "Smells nice."

Suddenly Chelsea realised the awful significance of the note in her hand.

"Which shampoo did you use on that poodle?" she screamed to Trish.

"The new batch," said Trish, "Frangipani."

"Hold that conditioner!" Chelsea yelled, "Or the poodle's dog-meat!"

"What's the matter?" said Trish, taking an appreciative sniff of the gunk in her hand, "Hmmm, this Sandalwood conditioner smells yummy. Good enough to eeeeeeeeee……"

But Trish never finished the sentence. She slumped into a vacant styliste's chair which spun around once on its axis before depositing Trish's lifeless body onto the black-and-white tiled floor beneath the sink containing the poodle, Foo-foo.

"Shitbags!" murmured Chelsea, "And Trish was my best styliste!"