The Curious Case Of The Missing Alleycats - An Intrigue (Part The Fourth)

Part The Fourth - In The Grip Of Terror


As I ran pell-mell and helter-skelter through the Parisienne alleyways, I could feel the hot, fetid breath of the creature, slapping against my neck. Well, to be fair, it could well have been the fevered pantings of old Sleddy Edgars but would you have stopped and turned to check? No, and neither did I. The wet slap of its feet and the hideous unearthly bellowing issuing from its terrifying maw spurred me ever onwards until disaster struck. As Lady Coincidence would have it, we were passing the very spot of my unfortunate arrest at the very time that the upstairs neighbours chose once again to evacuate chamber pots upon the pavement below. My sense of timing being what it is, I managed to slide in the bodily by-products which were freshly strewn about the ground and sprawl full length, taking the good Inspector down with me.

The creature saw our mutual excrement-ridden despair and slowed to a stop. I couldn't be absolutely certain but it appeared to be savouring our discomfort as it moved in for the kill. The abomination moved closer and closer, the stench from its hideous countenance almost overpowering. Now, dear reader, we come to the part of the story of which your good Squire is not overly proud. I could attempt to explain it away - the fear, my fatigue from a nights carousing followed by foreign incarceration - but the fact of that matter is this: I let fly with a high pitched scream of utter terror, much in the fashion of a small girl.

Lady Coincidence, having strewn our path with human waste, decided to step back and let Lady Luck make her dramatic entrance. My distinctly unmanly scream of fear had the most startling effect on the monstrosity. Several of its hands flew to its head, it let loose a terrifying cry and keeled over to the floor, apparently out for the count. The Inspector, being a practical man who was quick to rally, took this opportunity to shoot it several times about the head area.

I had assumed that was the end of story. Yet here was I was, recovering from gentle head injuries in the presence of Inspector Edgars once more, wondering exactly what use I could be.

"I say, old sock," began I, "what possible use could I be on this caper? I was more of a hindrance than a help last time. Any assistance on my part was, I assure, purely accidental."

"It was your girlish scream that stunned the bugger last time," gruffed he, "and well be using it again this time."

"I thought you killed it."

"Must be tougher than we thought," he mumbled.

"Wont you need to draw the ghastly blighter out first?" I rather foolishly enquired.

Edgars grinned at me in much the same way that a fisherman grins at a particularly juicy worm he is about to place to a hook. As the sinking feeling in my stomach began to reach down to somewhere around my knees, I began to cudgel myself about the cranium in the hope that unconsciousness would be some form of defence. In retrospect, I really should have stayed a little more compos mentis...


To Be Expounded