Pur-Ling & the Mystery of the Missing Gunge

We all know what has recently happened to poor Clawdia. Even when she was saved, she wasn't thanks to Sassy and her 'oops!' moment. Some of you may have seen that as soon as Clawdia had been captured just over a week ago, Pur-Ling was checking out our Discord server looking for clues and information about some missing gunge. Now, we all know where it was and what happened to it...(Don't I just! - Clawdia) but at the time, all the ace detective knew was that some gunge had gone missing, presumed stolen. After interrogating some highly suspicious characters on the server, Pur-Ling got a call from officer Reeow saying that she'd been catnapped and was being held in a warehouse with "sergeant Sassy". That's all you will have seen. This, is the rest...Can you help solve the case?

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It had been a long, crime-filled day for Detective Pur-Ling. Things had all been very suspicious. Lots of suspicious cases involving suspicious people doing suspicious things suspiciously. But none was more suspicious than this latest suspicious case.

Pur-Ling pulled up outside Funky Gunky, the leading manufacturer of gunge, ooze, slime and other sticky stuffs at around 1am on the 7th September. The night shift was on but they had a problem. The entire batch of Gozo's Green Goo had gone. The whole lot. Taken from right under their noses. One minute it had been there, the next, nothing. The Siamese Cop began her questioning of the staff one by one but each said the same thing. They had been working with the gunge, mixing it, pumping it into containers, loading it into the warehouse etc, then, no matter which job they were doing, the next thing they knew, it had all just gone. Every barrel was gone. No one saw anything strange, there were no sightings of anyone suspicious, everything was going along as normal until it just suddenly wasn't. Needless to say, everyone was confused. how could they possibly loose the ooze and leave no clues?

Pur-Ling was baffled too. She checked the security cameras and what they were saying was reflected on the screen. One second the gunk was there, the next, it wasn't.

"You say you'd just come on your shift," she asked the foreman, Mr Tufty, "why were you late starting?"

"I'd just got caught up in traffic on my way back from the TV station. I'd been to watch a show and it must have run a little late, I hit the traffic and got here about 15 minutes late."

Pur-Ling made a note. "And what was the show?"

"It was that new one 'Unbe-fluffin-leivable'. New series. Great show."

"The Feral Brown one?"

"Yeah that's right."

Pur-Ling could believe that. She seemed to remember Clawdia saying that that show was being filmed in the studio next to hers all this week. And the traffic had been worse this week thanks to lots of roadworks. Ah, this was hopeless. She'd check out the details of course but this didn't seem to be much to go on and Mr Tufty wasn't exactly a prime suspect here. The poor cat was pretty stressed about the whole thing as it had happened on his watch.

Looking around the factory and warehouse drew more blanks. Everything seemed perfectly normal apart from the distinct lack of gunge.

Confused and frustrated, Pur-Ling left. as she was passing, she suddenly felt she needed to stop off at Mr Catnap's clubhouse to see if anyone there knew of anything. The place was pretty quiet at that time of night but she did speak to one suspicious guy she'd come across before. He said something about having to get his plane tickets sorted out and resisting arrest but Pur-Ling could see he had nothing to do with this. as she was speaking with him, Pur-Ling got a call. It was from officer Reeow. Pur-Ling sighed. Every time 'officer Reeow' put on her cop uniform, she would somehow wind up catnapped. And tonight was no different. Well, it was slightly different this time because this time, she had 'sergeant Sassy' with her.

The guy at the club said that he wasn't responsible and tried to suggest that catnapping Sassy may have been the work of the infamous Golarpuss. Pur-Ling wasn't convinced.

Thankfully, Reeow had managed to give enough details for Pur-Ling to work out exactly which warehouse she was being held in. Coincidentally, the warehouse was not far from the TV studio, just on the other side of the river. The detective leapt in her car and set off immediately(ish) to rescue to two hapless catgirl 'cops'.

She arrived at I-Syphons warehouse to find it in complete darkness. This wasn't a huge surprise, the place had been abandoned for months and had only recently been used by local vandals and urban explorers. Still, can never be too careful.

Pur-Ling made her way round the side of the building to where she knew she could gain entry via an old fire escape. She made her way cautiously through the building. The vandals had been in again, fresh graffiti adorned the walls telling tales of who luvs who, which football team needs urinating on, crude drawings and warnings to get out. the real local cops could deal with those. It wouldn't be hard. The graffiti artists had signed everything with their real names.

Up a flight of stairs and deeper into the building, Pur-Ling stopped and listened. She could hear the sound of scuffling, maybe heels on metal. It was coming from a room just down that corridor. She made her way to the room and opened the door.

Sitting back to back on the floor, bound and gagged with duct tape, were the two cosplaying cops. Pur-Ling watched for a moment in slight amusement as they struggled and seemed to be blaming each other for their predicament.

"I told you two, to leave the policework to the professionals!" Pur-Ling said as she crouched down beside them to peel off their gags.

"Yeah well, if sarge hadn't butted in when she did none of this would have happened!" Reeow snapped.

"If I hadn't butted in???!" Sassy replied. "I was following my own leads when you came in and messed everything up!"

Pur-Ling sighed and replaced the gags much to the captives annoyance.

She stood up and started walking round the room.

"Now," she said, "I get the feeling your catnapping may have something to do with this missing gunge. Not sure why. Just a hunch. If I take your gags off again, do you two reckon you can stop bickering for a few moments and tell me what happened?"

Both captured kitties looked a bit ashamed and nodded.

"Good!" said Pur-Ling. She peeled off Reeow's gag. "We'll start with you."

"Aren't you going to untie me first?" Reeow asked.

"Nah, not yet," Pur-Ling teased. "How did you get here? Catnap?"

Reeow shook her head. "No, it wasn't Catnap this time. It was Alleycia and Gypsy."

"Alleycia and Gypsy?" Pur-Ling looked surprised. "Why would they do this to you?"

Reeow shrugged. "No idea. Sassy and I were just going through some of our costumes when they arrived and they said they'd found this great place to do a music video. They brought us here and next thing we knew, we were sitting here like this."

Pur-Ling gently peeled off Sassy's gag. "That right Sassy?"

Sassy nodded. "Yup. You might want to ask them what they were playing at."

"I know how to do my job thank you Sassy." Pur-Ling grunted. "I shall be paying them a visit shortly."

The detective started to untie the two cops. Reeow got to her feet.

"Uugh, thank you, that floor wasn't very comfy."

"Welcome," Replied Pu-Ling, "I suggest you two get back home."

Reeow and Sassy were quick to agree and headed off. Pur-Ling stayed a while and looked round the room. Was this related to the missing gunge? If so, how? It wasn't like Alley and Gypsy to play the villains. Something wasn't right here...

Before long, she'd finished her investigation of the room and headed off to Ally's place to find out what was going on...