Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Murder on the Orion Express, the next wave

Armed with a notepad and the passenger's manifest I was grilling the next suspect, Pierre's valet.

"Name?" I asked.

"Jeeves Jarvis Pennyworth," he answered drolly.

"And your relationship to the deceased?"

Jeeves rolled his eyes ever so slightly. "I was his valet, his butler, his road manager and his confidant."

"That's a lot of hats," I commented. "And Pierre treated you well for these services?"

"Hardly," he sighed. "He treated me poorly, he yelled at me, he often berated me."

"Why did you stay with him?"

"It is my duty to serve," he answered. "For generations, the Pennyworths have served Pierre's family. That is what we do. That and the money, he payed very well up until recently."

"And you never entertained thoughts of killing him?"

"And dishonor my family? Never."

"OK," I replied. "One last thing. Do you know what his great masterpiece on Orion was?"

"I don't know," Jeeves looked down. "He just said that it was going to be his greatest masterpiece and it would be performance art, but that's not his usual medium. I have no idea what he wanted to, ungh, my ears!"

Jeeves clasped his ears and doubled over.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I apologized. "My sonic disrupter seems to have been damaged when we jumped."

I started punching the buttons on my Wristcomm and managed to turn off the stunner. I had all the information from Jeeves that I could use, next is the vagabonds.

"Who are you guys?" I asked.

"We're the Singing Von Ryan Family!" the patriarch said gleefully. The rest of the family smiled and shook their fingers.

"Hmmmmmmmm," they hummed harmoniously.

"And did you see that there is a dead man up there?" I asked.

"We sure did!" smiled the mother.

"Hmmmmmmmmm," the family hummed again.

"What are you going to Orion for?"

"The Orion by Orionwest Music Festival!" exclaimed an older son. "We're performing there!"

The other children followed up with "Yeah!" and "Boy I'll say!" and "That's right!"

"OK, kids!" said the dad with a smile plastered on his face. "Let's show him what we've got!"

And they sang:

There's a sad sort of clanging
From the clock in the hall
And the bells in the steeple too,
And up in the nurs'ry an absurd little bird
Is popping out to say "coocoo".

Regretfully they tell us,
But firmly they compel us
To say goodby to you.

So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, good night,
I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.
So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, adieu,
Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu.

So long, farewell, Au'voir, auf wiedersehn,
I'd like to stay and taste my first champagne
So long, farewell, Auf wiedersehn, goodbye,
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye,
Good bye

I'm glad to go,
I cannot tell a lie.
I flit, I float,
I fleetly flee, I fly.

The sun has gone to bed and so must I
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, goodbye,
Goodbye,
Goodbye,
Goodbye!

I couldn't stand it. I had to stun the whole family.

12 comments:

Professor Xavier said...

There's far too many suspect. The only way you can be certain you've gotten the right guy is to throw them all out the airlock. It's what Clint would do.

Jardena said...

Just stun them? Nothing more annoying than when an entire family breaks out into song, esp. in an enclosed space.

Anonymous said...

hey I liked thier singing but of course I like pickles sardines and icecream these days too



the buttle did it Jon

A Army Of (Cl)One said...

Man, now I feel like climbing the high mountain meadows of Hoth and hear if the hills are animated with the reverberation of harmonic composition (and I’m bringing Master Kenobi with me)

Son Goku said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Son Goku said...

You know if ya name a kid Jeeves. IYou pretty much have that kid's future mapped out.

Jawa Juice said...

Can we just say that the kids did it? Can we? Please? Please?

Gyrobo said...

It was totally the singing family. No doubt in my mind.

Also, your slogan array has been incorporated into the next rollover. You concerns are duly noted.

Also also, you repeated "STRENGTH • HONOR • COURAGE" twice. This may be an oversight on your part, or perhaps my browser is wrong. Or some unstable combination of magic and secret agentry.

Gyrobo said...

Yeah... if you don't want your slogans to be appropriated into the random array, you should probably say so... before I convert them into it... in a few minutes...

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

Gyrobo, I did "STRENGTH • HONOR • COURAGE" twice, because in theory that would put that one out there twice as many times. What do I know though? I am just an unfrozen caveman lawyer.

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

Holy frijole, Gyrobo, you did take 'em all! I thought it was just going to be a delicious, small sampling. I'll give you a super duper prize if you can guess the source of all of 'em.

Anonymous said...

SO !! What is a PennyWorth ?