I have always done my not-insignificant best, to make of my time on Earth, an example which might prove beneficial to the young, whom, I am given to understand, embody the future of our species and, dare I say it, race, upon this globe which, as a mighty poetaster has observed in time of golden memory, [illegible] damn it my pen has blotted.

Very well, I shall continue. I should like to state at the outset, that the price my stationer charges for a simple steel nib is a travesty, and a blight upon the name of commerce. Also, and I say this with due consideration, I believe it is unarguable that he does, in fact, water his bottled ink. If this continues I shall be reduced to scratching upon foolscap with a goose quill and oak-gall ink.

Our story so far.

‘Ashford!’ Pomfritz’s voice echoed from the ceiling. ‘What are you doing out of your hole?’ Inwardly, I cringed. Outwardly, I attacked.

‘Detection, Lieutenant. Have you heard of it?’

‘That’s my job, Ashford. I asked about you.’

‘Who poo’d in your pudding, Lieutenant?’ You may as well know, Pomfritz brings out the schoolboy in me, to an inconceivable degree. He had already caught me on the back foot, and no good would come of it.

It was a dark and stormy night, followed by a dark and stormy morning, and leading directly into a dark and stormy day. In early afternoon the clouds abated for a period, but by evening the weather had returned, and continued d. and s. throughout the night-time hours. The second morning was dark, but not stormy.

I had not left my rooms for some days, as there was tea and jam, and nothing outside to engage my attention. In the afternoon, however, the insatiable ‘gas’ meter having consumed my last ha’penny, it became necessary to make a sally.

It was in the evening of the 22nd day of Octobuary, 18__, that I attended a popular lecture given in the auditorium of the Royal Society. The speaker, Sir Hubert Thumberberry, was a renowned expert in the field of theoretical agrostology, speaking on a subject close to my heart: the intersection of didactics with dialectics (or, as it is sometimes called, Dianetics).

After the lecture, I waited with the throng hoping for a word from Sir Hubert, as I was (and still am) a dedicated amateur of the same study. As I stood waiting, with a bouquet of Thuringerwurst in token of my appreciation, there arose a clamour from the backstage area of voices raised in distress. Abandoning all but one of the sausages (for I had not eaten), I pressed through the press to find a beadle holding back the crowd which proposed to rush the speakers’ lounge whence the uproar proceeded.

This is not an American pulp ”detective” novel, so when I write that the door opened and a “dame” came into my room, I mean simply that it was Dame Edith Thorndyke.

“You must help me, Mr Penrose,” she said. “I am at my wits’ end.”

“My name,” I said, “is Ashford.”

“I thought we’d settled on Penrose.”

“No, it was quite unsuitable. As were Grimbald and Lydgate.”

“Were you not at one time using Deane?”

“Yes, Mr. Deane”, he said, his bow tie wabbling beneath his mutton-chops, dewlaps, and flews. “Those ‘in the know’ were limited to a select few: you, Harry, and I. But, as you may know, three can keep a secret only if two of them are dead. And the total is still wrong by one!” He produced, like a stage-magician, an enormous horse-pistol.

When the ringing had stopped in my ears, I stood and dropped my revolver into my coat pocket, without replacing the spent cartridges. I next stepped to the door, placed my grey Homburg topper on my bonce, and reached for the door-latch.