The Matter of the Case of the Skinny Girl, Perhaps With Teeth

The following is from The Jonathan. It's alright.

Jonathan mulled it over once more. He looked edgewise at the envelope, squinting. But for a thin manila line, it mightn’t have been there at all. This didn’t help matters and so Jonathan was forced to concede that this was indeed a conundrum of a mystery, akin to an enigma. He pincered his fingers for the third time into this foolscap phenomenon, retrieving the card with its uppercase inscription:

JONATHAN DO WHAT YOU MUST JONATHAN AT THE EGG SEVEN THIRTY TUESDAY WEEK SKINNY GIRL SMALL HANDBAG MURDER INEVITABLE BE SURE NOT YOURS JONATHAN FOR SAKE OF THE COMPANY PERHAPS GRIZZLED MAINE IF PRESENT OF USE DONT FORGET PRE DAWN REPORT BE SHARP MR CURTIS WATCH PS HER TEETH WHILE SINGING

He used or attempted to his analytical now on account of crash course mental awareness training the previous week mind to unravel layers of meaning and sense from this correspondence. Murder a factor. Perhaps be armed. Investigate skinny girl – perhaps the teeth are hers, in which case expect her to sing. Grizzled Maine may be a person – male? – in which case perhaps grizzled. Avoid preconception. Try not to die. Report perhaps by phone – Ms Ex works nights. The Egg is a notorious night-spot. He knew that. The handbag was unfathomable at this early stage of enquiry, and Jonathan could neither associate nor disassociate the handbag with or without the murder, which itself might be anyone’s. Forthwith he attired himself with revolver, kerchief and fedora, for it was Tuesday week from last Tuesday and early evening six-thirty, sky forming night and full of oxygenated air useful for breathing. Jonathan slammed the door with himself on the other side and dismounted stairs and hailed a taxi and walked down the stairs to the basement Egg twenty minutes having paid his fifteen pound fare to see what he might find, hoping it would work in his favour to arrive a good forty minutes before the allotted time and he made sure to look for features in faces but not too closely so as not to draw undue attention. Was it the skinny girl or the handbag that would be small?