I awoke in a whiskey and laudanum haze after a rough week in this burg, or, as the locals called it, Floodville.  I knew one way or other I was going to get this burg cleaned up:  it was what the old man had paid me to do, and damned if I was going to leave the job to the newspaper men and their armchair games.

It had been easy as pie to stir things up in this dirty town of dirty loggers, dirty cops, and even dirtier hippies.  All you needed was a good spoon, and that was what I had.  The plumbers and pipefitters local was nothing but a front for fakeloo artists and flim-flammers.  I had  riled them up but good, and before I knew it the filth flowing in the streets of Floodville began to corroborate the burg’s reputation.

But this morning,  my problems looked a bit different.  I craned my aching head over to survey the damage.  A broken glass and an empty seltzer bottle lay on the floor, and leading away from them, in a kind of crooked line, was a set of tiny, yellow footprints.  I stared at the prints.  The prints stared back.

What could this mean?  Whence had they come? It was like a wee traces of insolence, taunting me. Had someone been here in the night?  Had I been slipped a mickey?  Could that account for my jingle-headed condition?

I knew I would need more than just a spoon if I was going to stir answers out of this problem.  I was also going to need a glass, and possibly an ice pick. I called room service and requested my assistant Jameson be sent up on the double.  Floodville had more depravity in it, and I was ready to wring it out.

Case Status: Pending