Hopjoy Was Here

The gripping sight of four burly policeman manhandling a bath down
the front path of a respectable villa isn’t one the residents of
Flaxborough see every day.

Net curtains twitch furiously, and neighbours have observations to make to Chief Inspector Purbright
and Sergeant Love about the inhabitants of 14, Beatrice Avenue. Nice
Gordon Periam, the mild-mannered tobacconist, and his rather less nice
(in fact a bit of a bounder) lodger Brian Hopjoy had apparently shared
the house amicably.

But now neither man is to be found and
something very disagreeable seems to be lurking in the drains… Then a
couple of government spooks turn up, one with an eye for the ladies –
the drama is acquiring overtones of a Bond movie!

Witty and a little wicked, Colin Watson’s tales offer a mordantly entertaining cast of characters and laugh-out-loud wordplay.