BDSM Library - Story: Hocus Pocus, Chapter: Part 4

Chapter 6 : Apologies & Suspicions

"Well, I’m very sorry Mr Gillstrom. It’s most unfortunate that you got caught up in this. Isn’t it Commissioner?" The Mayor, seated behind the large desk in her office at City Hall, looked across at Brown with a furious scowl.

The Commissioner looked uncomfortable. "Yes, of course mayor. I do hope, Mr Gillstrom, that you will accept the police department’s apologies. And those of Jungle Jane as well."

Jane was standing by with her arms folded looking every bit as uncomfortable as the Commissioner.

"Well, I’m sure it’s no one’s fault," Gregg smiled. "Mistakes are made sometimes. This criminal is obviously very cunning. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. I didn’t remember anything though. Nor did Ms Connor." Maxine gave the same regretful nod.

Jungle Jane looked embarrassed. The Commissioner looked squashed. Chief O’Hara looked puzzled by the whole affair. The Mayor gripping a paper coffee cup in her hand crushed it in frustration. For the first time Gregg noticed Mayor Dorothea Reynolds as more than a sober suit and decided that she was worth noticing. True she must have been almost fifty but she had taken care of herself. She’d not bothered with surgery or botox but the lines that she did have simply gave character to her face. She’d gained a few pounds down the years but somehow she carried the extra flesh well. Gregg found himself developing a less than civic interest in the holder of the office of Mayor.

Maxine noticed Gregg’s appraising look. "No. Quite," she said, as keen to distract Gregg as she was to get the two of them out of City Hall. "It’s just unfortunate that we got caught up in whatever the thieves had planned. You’ve obviously got a lot to discuss we’d better leave you to it."

After Maxine and Gregg had left the office. The Mayor sat drumming her fingers on the desk. "Well what next after this farce? Any more terrific plans to apprehend these villains? Or were you hoping that your magician friend might persuade them to disappear?"

"No Mayor," Jane apologised. "But I think I have some clues to follow up."

"Well get on with it. You were supposed to be apprehending the villains not getting trussed up with some more victims. I am really needing some results soon. Do you have any idea how much the police overtime cost for that exercise?"

"I have the figure here, Mayor," Commissioner Brown began.

Dorothea’s withering look stopped him in his tracks. "A rhetorical question, Brown," she said.

"Ah," said the Commissioner, embarrassed as the Chief, Jungle Jane and himself took their leave. "Still at least Jane managed to save Ms Leon from the thief’s attentions."

"Indeed, Commissioner," Chief O’Mara replied, "even if she didn’t manage to save herself. Has anyone spoken to Ms Leon since this farce? After all her help we’ve got nothing to show for it. She must think we’re complete fools and I’m not sure she’s wrong."

"I’m sure she understands," Jungle Jane said. "I spoke to her afterwards and her main concern was that I hadn’t been hurt." Jane still found it slightly ridiculous talking of her alter ego in the third person.

*** *** *** *** ***

Back in her flat, Jungle Jane stripped off her costume. The down side of her crime fighting persona was that she spent all day in sweaty khaki shorts and a bush shirt whatever the weather. She had three changes of costume but it was hard to make sure she always had one clean and ready to put on. Bruce Wayne’s Alfred must have spent all day pressing tights and capes, she thought. Jane headed for the shower and emerged, towel clad, as heiress Victoria Leon, trying to puzzle out what had happened. "There’s more to all this than there seems," she said to herself. "Where did that magician and his assistant come from? I wouldn’t have invited them back here whatever. Apart from anything else, there would have far too much risk that they might learn of my secret identity. That Gregg hadn’t seemed to show any interest in me, well Victoria, at the charity dinner so why was he round here last might with his assistant or wife or whoever she is."

She turned on her laptop. "Who needs a Bat-Computer when you’ve got Google," she chuckled as she keyed in a few searches and brought up a history of the performances of ‘The Amazing Gillstrom’. There were a few coincidences. He had performed at places that had later been robbed but he’d performed at plenty of other places too. And he hadn’t performed at the Museum. He didn’t seem to have had anything to do with that so.... It was then that she pulled up a press article with a picture which showed the Director of the Museum standing on the steps outside. Beside him was, without doubt, Maxine Connor. It didn’t take Victoria / Jane too long to discover that Maxine had worked at the City Museum before she had been fired. She would have had plenty of motive to get even with Aaron Rodwell and if that had been her aim she had certainly succeeded. Rodwell had been sent packing by the trustees in an attempt to save face after they had all been found naked at the Museum Dinner.

It still didn’t explain how the robberies were being committed though. And if Maxine and Gregg were responsible how come they had been left tied up with her? Victoria paced up and down. As she passed the door to her apartment she trod on something slimy with her naked foot.

"Oh, gross!" she exclaimed, reaching for a paper towel to wipe her foot. As she did so she caught a burst of a pungent, half-remembered smell; one that took her back to her childhood in the jungles with her father. She lifted the paper to her nose and sniffed again. It was unmistakeable. "Snake stools! Why the fuck has a snake been shitting in my hall? And where has it gone? Has that disappeared too?" She stopped and thought. Suddenly a number of things were starting to come together in Victoria / Jane’s head. A magician that looked like an Indian snake charmer, an assistant that had a very good motive for destroying the career of the Museum Director, the fact that the Museum robbery had involved the jewel being lifted from its protective snake pit. Somehow, Jungle Jane felt, she had to find out a whole lot more about Mr Gillstrom.

All characters fictitious