The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVII

As cocoa applied its healing properties to the inside of Hugh's abdomen, as well as Ben's less discontinuous - and hence less interesting - stomach lining, revealing both astounding sloppiness on the part of Deirdre and remarkable genius on the part of the unnamed, unseen chef of the establishment when it came to selecting ingredients, they bathed for a moment in the secure knowledge that nobody wanted them dead after all, before going about their business.

Unfortunately, Freeman chose that very moment to stab them.

A quick stop-and-stitch later, they emerged once again and sat facing their abductor-in-chief.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said the very same. "So good of you to come on such short notice."

"We would have come if you'd just asked," Hugh said, grouchily rubbing his arm.

"Yes, I apologise for my assistant's, shall we say..."

And then Freeman stabbed them.

"I'm getting sick of this," Ben said a short while later, spiking his cocoa with a dash of the saline flowing from the IV behind him to the needle in his wrist.

"Sorry about that," their host replied. "As I was saying, Freeman here has been less than subtle in his requests."

"Not to worry," Hugh said, barely noticeable in his slide away from Freeman's side of the table. "It's just a trio of flesh wounds, really."

"Only a couple of ruptured organs," Ben said, rubbing his kidney. "Water under the bridge!"

"Ah." The man sitting across from them took a moment to try and work out whether there was as much sarcasm in these statements as he felt there should be.

A moment during which Freeman stabbed them.

"Okay," the host called, "he's gone now!"

"You promise?" answered Hugh.

"I've locked him in the kitchen! You're totally safe, I promise!"

Hesitantly, the detective duo made their way into the parlour, on the lookout for anything remotely stabbish-looking or Freemanesque. Seeing little enough to increase their confidence, they stood upright as though they had never been afraid at all and strode as boldly to the table as people who had been stabbed so many times could.

"I'd better introduce myself," their host began. "My name is Hogart Schotologeny."

"Ahh," Hugh said, nodding understandingly. He followed up on this shortly with "what?"

"You see, I am the mayor of this village and the father of Freeman, Hillary and Stephven."

"Not Shelly?" asked Ben, making an effort to keep up.

"Shelly's a half-sister on their mother's side."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. Freeman takes after her."

"So, could you possibly see your way clear to explaining what the hell actually happened today?" Hugh asked, feeling understandably irritable from the myriad mistreatments he had suffered.

"Well, let's see. It all started with these two people named Joshua and Mary, and they couldn't find an inn."

"Let's start this story yesterday," Ben suggested helpfully.

"Freeman stabbed Stephven and he hired you to work out who did it."

"Right, that's all we needed to know. Thanks for your time," Ben said, scribbling Freeman's name into a fairly bloodstain-free notebook and secreting it upon his blue-robed person before standing to leave.
"Hang on," Hugh interrupted. "Let's start a little further back than that. I wasn't Keith'd, Freeman'd and Ben'd all day for anything less than a good story."

"Ben'd?"
"Shut up, Ben."

"Um. Okay?"

"Well," Hogart said thoughtfully, "I guess you could trace the events of the last couple of days to the evening before when I ousted that uncouth orgier from Die Ölige Dame, this bar I have a share in, when I had a thought that it might be time to train my son in the ways of the business world."