Evans-the-Wood paused, the iron wavering in the air, mid-strop.
Surely if the victim had just fallen into the oven, things would have been very different: there would have been a burning smell, there would've been no reason for one finger to be missing (apparently surgically removed), and there would have been much less blood.
And how to achieve the necessary height beforehand? The oven was at least four feet off the ground and there was no sign of a stepladder anywhere.
It didn't make any sense.
He held his breath as he slid the blade back into the No. 3. Don't nick the corners this time, you silly person, he told himself. Seven hours had been spent on that perfect edge only the week before, to see it reduced to a cabinet scraper when the phone had made him jump. Note to self: do NOT, ever again, sharpen anything on top of the saw table, no matter how temptingly flat it looks.
Yet it was that very call, from sergeant Dowel down at the station, which had started him on the whole adventure, he mused... he mused a bit more... then he thought perhaps he ought to get on with it really.
Squaring up to the bench, he turned his full attention to the piece of ash before him. Five minutes later, the pile of still-steaming shavings told him his mind wasn't on the job. He selected another block, removing the sliver from the vice with a pair of tweezers. Note to self: muse or plane -- don't try to do both together.
He ought to re-examine the facts, really carefully.
The ash, substantially smaller, but now properly octagonal, seemed to flinch as the centres bit into it. Time to concentrate: he wasn't making a pencil, after all. He turned-to. Shavings flew in all directions, but he ignored the cliche (and the terrible pun). He was going to make it work this time. And the job might get done as well, and Mrs. E might just stop yelling at him.
Back at the bench, Evans reached for the fretsaw. In one graceful and fluid movement He removed the pencil from behind his ear, cursed, and vowed to reverse the order next time.
Grabbing a handful of shavings to staunch the cut, an idea struck him forcefully. Curses! They were all so thin as to be transparent! He found a larger, thicker curl, and stretched it flat between two offcuts. It would have to do.
He started to sketch out the crime scene. Luigi's Pizza Parlour had only two doors, one for customers and one for the staff at the back. Whoever had done the deed -- and he was convinced it was murder -- must have used the back door, both to sneak in and to escape after the grisly deed. There was the cash register, and there was the apparently fatal oven. There just wasn't time, nor distance...
Suddenly remembering the piece of ash, he clamped it in the jig, and deftly marked his trademark 'V' shape with the pencil. Time was short, evidently: freehand would just have to do. He reached again (carefully this time) for the fretsaw.
The alibis all checked out. Pull. The 'friends' from Italy seemed genuine enough. Pull. The cash was all there. Pull. Luigi's hundreds of 'tomato' plants though, were all gone. Pull.
The cut was deep enough. He slid the saw out. It was time for the other side.
Sometimes, he knew, he missed the mundane clue. Pull. It must be there though, hidden in plain sight. Pull. Go through it all again. Pull.
With a satisfying 'click' the centre of the 'V' detached itself and dropped away. It was done, AND he knew what was amiss!
Rushing from the workshop, he grabbed his keys from the hook by the door. Flinging the peg at a shocked Mrs. Evans, who was still holding the corner of the wet sheet over the line, he leaped into the van and reached for the ignition.
It was the chisel! OF COURSE IT WAS THE CHISEL. His very own 3/8 morticer that he was so used to seeing in its usual place above the bench. Dowel had mentioned it, but he'd dismissed it at the outset as being irrelevant...
... What had it been doing buried deep in the chest of the victim?
