30: The problem with Modern, Historic, and Ancient Detectives

Cadbury: In any case, let me now give a grand speech on The Case Of The Missing Self.

A mild rustling around the table indicated a modest increase in the general level of attention being paid.

Cadbury: The problem with Modern, Historic, and Ancient Detectives is that they try to reverse engineer the Crime Process by working backwards from the Scene, through the Victim, to get to the Culprit. Well, that’s exactly what the Culprit would have you do! So much easier for them to lay false paths while you are moving in the opposite direction.

Jeb Smithikins was pleased to receive a new whiskey.

Cadbury: Cadbury’s Detective Agency instead starts with the Culprit and moves forward through the Crime in the same direction as it was committed. This makes 99% sense, which is an extremely high degree of sense. If you’ve heard that Cadbury solves your case backwards, nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, Cadbury is only Detective that solves your case forwards, in exactly the same direction it was created.

Some seat rocking on this point may have, from a distance, been  interpreted as nodding.

Cadbury: So it is that whereupon we get the case, we say that it Is Solved, and then we move onto details such as who the Victim is, what the Subject is, and how to handle the PR.

The PR division of Cadbury’s Detective Agency, under the umbrella of its marketing department, was an undisputed leader in the detective industry.

Cadbury: In this case, The Case of The Missing Self, the Victim is the young lady that sits, in a distressing state, before you. Selia. And the Victim is her former boyfriend, Mark von Cola, the Politician. Occasionally those two get mixed up and I don’t want to be clear about whether they have been in this case or not.

Jeb Smithikins was pleased to receive a new whiskey.

Cadbury: However, what is certain is that Mark von Cola has walked into something and has not walked out. And that is not in keeping with the long history of a man that typically walks out of things that he walks into.

Cadbury smiled knowingly at the audience. They may have been less attentive had their food been edible.

Cadbury: Well, the latest news is that I have deduced what that last thing he walked into was. I am not talking about his relationship with Selia. I think we all know the real story with that. I am talking about fishing.

Jeb Smithikins was pleased to receive a new whiskey.

Cadbury: No, I am not talking about some abstract concept of extracting our embedded desires from our soul, I am talking about [He stood up and opened his arms, in an invitational fashion] FISHING.

Most of the table looked perturbed. Ted Fudd looked distressed.

Cadbury: Yes, you are all invited.

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