10 January 2009
The Mystery Unfolds
“RIGHT then, Squire,” said the brutish oaf in front of me, waving his hacksaw menacingly in my face. “You’re going to sit still and let me relieve you of your feet.”
“I am afraid that simply will not happen,” I eventually replied. “I have grown rather attached to my feet. In fact, you might say that they have become a part of me.”
“And I have the lower foot, which I plan to keep. Plus, I have this!” I cried, brandishing my newspaper proudly.
“Pffft. Whacha going to do, read me to death?”
It should be noted at this point that I am something of an expert in the Japanese art of paper-folding – or origami, as it is known. I meant to mention this a while ago, but it had somehow slipped my mind. Possibly due to booze.
It was whilst travelling that I met Master Ai-Phor, a wise and learned old man who was a teacher in the art of origami. Naturally, he sensed something special in me, and so begun my careful tutelage under Master Ai-Phor’s watchful eye, and his other slightly-less watchful eye.
I started with the basics – folding a piece of paper in half, then in four – but I was clearly a gifted student, for in no time at all I was able to create far more complex paper sculptures, from swans and doves; to intricate, finely-detailed models of Buckingham Palace, including an anatomically-correct figure of Her Majesty, the Queen.
Despite my undeniable flair with paper, I was eventually banished from Master Ai-Phor’s school. I had gotten completely and utterly rat-arsed on some Saki, which – along with a particularly heavy meal I had eaten that night – conspired to give me a severe case of the shits. I headed straight for the lavatory, but after having expelled the contents of my colon, I realised that there was no toilet paper to be found. Luckily, using my incredible paper-manipulation skills, I managed to locate a couple of old scrolls which I swiftly transformed into paper with which to wipe my poop-splattered posterior. Master Ai-Phor was far from impressed with my incredible initiative, revealing that the old scrolls were, in fact, hundreds of centuries old and had been passed down from generation to generation of his family. He was not terribly pleased to find them now smeared with effluence, no matter how noble and prestigious it may have been
Anyhow, despite being unceremoniously expelled from Master Ai-Phor’s school, I had not forgotten those paper-folding skills, and thus I was able to quickly turn my copy of The London Illustrated Picture-Post News into an thoroughly convincing cutlass.
“Stand back, you blaggard!” I roared, waving my makeshift weapon in the bounder’s face.
“‘S very impressive,” the fellow noted, entirely correctly. “But that ain’t gonna stop me!”
The cad advanced upon me, and so I had no choice but to slice at him with my creased-sheet cutlass. The swine staggered back in shock, clutching his arm.
“Ya…ya bloody cut me!” he whimpered.
“Oh, don’t be such a ponce,” I retorted. “‘Tis just a paper-cut, I’ll warrant.”
“Some paper-cut!” the man replied, moving his hand so that I could see the wound. Surely enough, there was now quite a deep gash in his limb. Good lord, I thought. I am even better at this origami lark than I had first thought.
“Well…quite. Now, unless you want more of the same, you skank-infected carbuncle, I suggest you cooperate with me fully, understand?”
“U-understood!” the man whined.
“Good. Now who are you? What is your name?”
“Isn’t…isn’t that just the same question twice?” the man replied.
“Ah-hem!” I coughed, holding my slightly crumpled cutlass.
“Alright, alright!” the fellow bleated. “My name is William Swishbuckle. I’m…I’m a bootblack by trade, sir. And this,” he gestured to the small boy by his side. “This is me apprentice, Jack.”
“I see, I see. And what, prey tell, are the two of you doing stalking the streets of London, stealing people’s feet, hmmm?”
“I…I…I…”
“Out with it, man!” I yelled, thrusting my cutlass at the wretch’s neck, letting the point come to a rest by his throat.
“She made me do it! She made me do it!” the pathetic creature wailed.
“She? She? She who, exactly?”
“That baking lady, sir. Mrs. Bapps. She made me do it!”
“Mrs. Bapps?” I repeated, recalling the comely lass and her heaving bosom, which instantly gave me a ferocious hard-on. “But why? What has she got to do with this sorry affair?”
“She’s demented, sir,” the bootblack whimpered. “She demanded we get her human feet for her bakin’…said they was a ‘special ingredient.’“
I felt my stomach churn at the very notion. Could it be possible? Was Mrs. Bapps really a foot-baking fellon? Or was Mr. Swishbuckle telling lies? I would have to probe deeper…
- Lord Likely.
How Should Likely Further His Investigations?
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Toodle-pip!
