The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely

12 May 2008

A Yankee Doodle

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Still woozy, I missed the ‘All Rise!’, and Doctor Watson jarred me awake rudely.

“Ouch!” I complained. The act of dragging the thick, heavy shackles upward seemed impossible, but I complied.

The man at the bench -presumably the Judge- set his glasses on his nose and eyed me carefully. “Is he drunk, Chief Inspector?”

“I don’t believe so sir,” replied the dignified looking old man. “I found him unconscious at the scene of the crime.”

“Very well then Spunkleford,” he says. “Let us proceed.”

The banging of the gavel brings agonized bolts searing though my bandaged head.

“What are the charges?” asks the Judge with disinterest.

“The Defendant is hereby accused of breaking into the Likely Manor, violating, and then ultimately killing livestock which is the sole property of His Lordship!”

“Man,” I says. “You got a way of making this all sound so tawdry-”

“Silence!” demanded the Judge, banging his gavel painfully again.

“Okee Dokie,” I says wincing.

“Yesterday I found him,” Spunkleford continues, pointing at me, “knocked cold from a head wound, only a few dozen meters from the body of The Cunt.”

“That old nag was still alive?”

“She was a very spirited mare Milord,” replied Spunkleford. “And as a result, Lord Likely took great care of her. She was his favorite to loan out to, eh, undesirables.”

“Your Honor,” interjects Doctor Watson. “Indeed, I found a key to her stable on the Defendant’s person.”

Lord Likely?

“And how did the horse die, good Doctor?”

The Doctor lowered his hat solemnly to his heart. “I’m afraid all the excitement of taking out one last bounder was just too much for the old girl sir.”

“That’s too bad,” sad the Judge.

“Too bad?” I complained. “That mangy cur nearly kicked my head off!”

“That ‘mangy cur’ as you put it,” interjected the Doctor, “was a thoroughbred.”

“Is that why you gave her the hospital bed and made me sleep outside? It was 45 degrees and raining!”

“I gave you a blanket,” insists Watson.

“You gave me the dog’s blanket.”

“Twas a fine blanket.”

I lunge against the chains in futility. “Yeah. That’s what the dog thought!”

“And how, exactly, did you arrive into those circumstances?” the Judge asked me.

“I don’t know. I was home changing some light switch panels, and woke up to this guy,” indicating Spunkleford.

The Judge was puzzled. “Light switch panels?”

“He was quite concussed,” offers Doctor Watson.

“Hey, I haven’t even started ‘concussing’ yet,” I says. “Who are you crazy people?”

“Order, sir!” demanded Spunkleford, drawing his club. “One more outburst, and blood will be spilt!”

“It isn’t ‘spilt’, it’s ‘spilled’! By Thag’s tangly toenails, why are you people so possessed with butcherin’ our fine American language!?”

Spunkleford’s spectacle fell out and rolled across the wooden floor. “Good heavens,” he exclaimed. “He’s a Colonial!”

“Oh dear,” smiles the Judge, returning his attention to Spunkleford. “Is Lord Likely still away?”

“He is not due back from safari for several months.”

“Lord Likely?” I ask finally.

“The very same,” replies Spunkleford, retrieving his spectacle.

“Of ‘The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely‘?”

“Indeed.”

“Adventures that took place in, like, 1850?”

“And continue to this day.”

“How?” I demand.

“Sir, on this day of November 8, 1888, Lord Likely is navigating the Amazon.”

“Probably numerous Amazons!” snickers the Judge.

1888?

“Okay,” I says aloud to myself. “I’ve got this all figured out now. It’s a bad dream. And when you figure out that you’re dreaming, you can change stuff in it.” I close my eyes. “None of this is happening. I haven’t been somehow been dropped into some nightmarish and horrifying point in history where everybody wears hats-”

“How,” asks the Judge, “Would a commoner such as yourself be acquainted with His Lordship’s Journals?”

“I’ve been reading them for years,” I explain. “My great great Indian grandmother Tee Tee claims that I’m a distant descendant. That’s how I got my tribal name ‘Little Wolf’.”

Spunkleford guffaws. “Well, I happen to be very well acquainted with His Lordship, and I can assure you there is no ‘Tee Tee’ to speak of-”

“She had a romp with some guy named Lance.”

Murmurs leap around the courtroom, and Spunkleford’s spectacle rolls across the floor again.

“She ended up chewing my great grandpa out of her own cervix, ‘cuz she thought he was malignant,” I add.

Rubbing his spectacle clean moments later, Spunkleford stands thoughtfully quiet for a moment.

“I grow weary of this madness Chief Inspector,” says the Judge.

“Yes sir,” says Spunkleford. “But may I confer with you a moment?”

Impatiently, the Judge motions him toward the bench.

“Is it possible,” the Judge whispers, “that this is indeed the illegitimate child of his Lordship?”

“Well that would certainly explain why He would loan him The Cunt,” replies Spunkleford.

“This makes things much more complex. If I have him flogged and neutered -as is my inclination- we run the risk of infuriating the local nobility.”

“And I would wager,” adds Spunkleford. “That Lord Likely would assume flay the bounder himself.”

“So it is agreed. We free the poof, but keep him close by until His Lordship returns.”

“This seems the best course of action, given the circumstances,” Spunkleford concurs.

The Judge sighs.

Wham!

-Again with the hammer.

“I hereby release the Defendant into the strict custody of Doctor Watson until the return of Lord Likely, whereas we will then determine if charges are to be pressed.”

With his keys Spunkleford unlocks the shackles, and they fall loudly to the floor.

“Huzzah!” cries a woman in the crowd. “Now we can return our attention to Saucy Jack!”

The crowd cheers.

“Saucy Jack?” I says to no one in particular.

“A murderer most foul sir! A living breathing devil! He has hacked four women to pieces, and slipped into the shadows as if he weren’t never there!”

Another man stands, and shakes his fist at Spunkleford. “He must be stopped before he strikes again!”

“Let’s get out of here,” I nudge Doctor Watson. “All this yelling is making my head ache.”

“You can’t go into public like that sir,” gasps Watson, almost inhaling his own mustache.

“Like what?”

“Well, you don’t have a hat!”

“Look, just hand me that one on the floor.”

Spunkleford, addressing the increasingly unruly crowd, adopts an experienced, calming demeanor. “Settle down people! I assure you, Scotland Yard is doing everything in it’s power. We have men scouring the alleys and streets day and night for this ‘Jack the Ripper’. There will be no more victims.”

“Jack the Ripper?” I says.

“Indeed!”

“Look. You’re not going to find a guy named ‘Jack the Ripper’ in any alleys and streets.”

The crowd goes silent.

“What do you mean?” asks the first woman.

“Well, I mean think about the nickname Jack the ‘Ripper’. You should obviously be looking for an impossibly fat dude in really tight clothing.”

“Like Major Chudd-Fuddle!” cried a snaggle-toothed man.

“Perhaps. But that’s too simple. Plus his name isn’t Jack. If I were you, I would pull every officer from the streets, ‘an surround the one place you know this ‘ripper’ Jack must go.”

“Where would that be?” asks Spunkleford, intrigued.

“Someplace he could get his clothes fixed on really short notice.”

“To Timothy Tackle-Tuck’s tailor shop!” cried the crowd in unison.

Within moments, the courtroom was empty, save for myself, the woman, and Doctor Watson -who was draping my tattered rags with his trench coat.

“Sir,” said the woman. “I want to thank you. Tonight, for the first night in months, I can go home and sleep with my doors and windows unlocked without fear.”

“It was my pleasure, Miss-”

She curtseys. “Mary Jane Kelly“, she replies. “But my friends call me Ginger.”

I take her hand gentlemanly.

“It was all elementary my dear,” I says patting it reassuringly. “It was all elementary.”

Lord Likely is currently away, adventuring in foreign climes and seeing how many different words for ‘cunnilingus’ he can learn.

To-day’s guest post comes courtesy of Lord Lobo, from the most humourous web-log Predator Press.

His lordship is thrilled to the point of ecstasy with Lobo’s fine article, and thanks him and his wonderful wife Lady Terri for thrusting the piece upon me.

If you should like to pen a guest article for The Astonishing Adventures in his lordship’s absence, then please do send an electronic mail to lord likely at gmail dot com, and let us know what you would like to toss off for us.