The Bicycle Detective Part 1

Right, said Pliny the Elder. I think I'm ready to begin my first draft. Hmm dm dm dm dm...It was a dark and stormy night....

Pliny, I said. I couldn't help overhearing. May I suggest you don't use that as a beginning.

Why not? asked Pliny, looking surprised. It WAS a dark and stormy night.

Yes but that was how Snoopy always used to start his stories in the Peanuts cartoons, I said. It sets the wrong sort of tone.

Oh, very well, said Pliny. It was a dark and windy night, with the possibility of storms. How's that?

Good, I said.

Two bicycles were chained to two posts within metres of each other on Dover Street, near to the corner of Portrush Road. A man, lurking behind a tree, on the opposite side of Dover Street, shivered and wrapped his toga more tightly around his body.

It's you! I said.

How did you know? asked Pliny.

The toga, I said.

Perhaps I should change it, said Pliny, looking uncertain.

Well yes, if you don't want anyone to know that it's you, I said kindly.

.....and wrapped his arms more tightly around his body, continued Pliny seamlessly. He was keeping an eye on the bicycles, which he thought should not have been where they were. There were two possibilities, he thought. First, that the bicycles were there for the night, to be used in the morning for riding to work or to school. This did not make much sense. The owners would surely have taken their bicycles onto their property, and not chained them up in the street. All the nearby houses had large gardens, he could see. The second possibility was that the bicycles were there for some dubious purpose, and if that was the case, he wanted to know what it was. He rather hoped it would turn out to be the latter.

Why did he hope that? I asked.

Obviously, then he wouldn't have to stay out all night, said Pliny.

And did he have to stay out all night?

No, he didn't.

So you have solved it?

Yes, said Pliny, I have. Now please be quiet while I get on with writing it down.