“Oh dear,” I sighed, as we entered the kitchens of St. Bumthrusty’s. The scene was one of utter chaos; items of cutlery were strewn about the place, food items were spilt everywhere, and slumped next to the stove was the body of a man. I knelt down beside the corpse, which I noticed was covered with a mixture of eggs, milk, and flour. On closer inspection, it seemed that the poor bounder’s head had then been shoved roughly into a pan of boiling oil.

I sighed again, and straightened up.

“I am afraid to say,” I began, addressing the rapt audience before me, “that this poor fellow has been battered to death.“

An audible gasp was raised by the assembled few, while the rather pretty young thing who had alerted us to the crime broke down in tears again.

“There, there, m’dear,” I cooed softly, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders (whilst also taking a quick peep at her fabulous cleavage, naturally). “We shall find the cad responsible, do not fear!”

“Oh, it is awful,” the dear creature sobbed, drying her beautiful, blue eyes on my lapel. “How are we going to get our hands on that many eggs again at such short notice? I am supposed to be baking a big cake for the reunion to-day…and then this happens!”

The poor girl buried her head in my chest, weeping loudly.

“Um…yes, I see,” I said, not altogether seeing. “Well, I am sure the cake would have been delicious, m’dear…”

This attempt at placating the troubled totty failed rather miserably, and only elicited further prolonged wails from her mouth.

I am not the best chap at dealing with such outward displays of emotion, and felt increasingly uncomfortable with a weeping woman in my arms. Being an English aristocrat, I firmly believe that such emotions should be bottled up inside one’s self, until they either explode within you, leading to a full-blown mental breakdown, or letting them gush forth in a torrent of terrible twaddle when pissed out of one’s head. Much more healthy, I am sure you will agree.

Anyway, I unburdened myself of the blubbering beauty, forcing her into the arms of my bemused man-servant, Botter. I dare say Botter was even less equipped to deal with a female in any state, but I had more important things to worry about. A dead body in the kitchen of my old school, for example.

“Do we have any idea who this poor man is?” I asked. “His face is barely recognisable any more.”

Inspector Spunkleford, relishing the chance to finally do some detecting, bounded over to the body of the recently deceased, and began frisking the body earnestly – maybe rather too earnestly, in fact.

“Ahem,” I coughed politely, as Spunkleford continued to rummage through the man’s pockets for slightly too long. “Find anything, Spunkleford? Apart from maybe a new-found preference for the same gender?”

“Ah-ha!” Spunkleford beamed, holding aloft a brown leather wallet. “I believe this shall shed some light on the identity of the victim.”

“There is no need to look so smug,” I sniffed. “Just tell us who it is, man!”

Spunkleford looked slightly crestfallen at this remark, but obliged by opening up the wallet and removing a small business-card from within.

“It seems this fellow is a mister Edward. J. Crotch-Staiyne…he is a banker, apparently…”

“Wait!” I said, as another wretched memory sprang forth into my mind. “What was that surname again?…”

“Crotch-Staiyne,” Spunkleford repeated. “Why? Do you know him?”

“I believe I did,” I nodded sadly. “That is old Crotchy…another of my old school-chums.”

“Crotchy!” gasped Ginger Nadgers. “Oh my! Poor, poor Crotchy.”

“Tell me, Inspector,” I continued, a sense of dread welling up inside of me. “Do we know the name of the teacher who was murdered here earlier?”

“Ah, yes!” Spunkleford exclaimed, retrieving his note-book from his back pocket. “Let me see….ah, yes, here we are…he was a mister…Harrison. Yes, Thomas Harrison.”

“Ginger Harrison,” I sighed. “I had no idea he had become a teacher.”

“How many Gingers were there in your school, milord?” Botter asked, struggling with the still-inconsolable girl in his arms.

“Ginger Harrison wasn’t even ginger-haired,” Ginger Nadgers replied. “I believe he got his name from having been caught molesting the school cat, Ginger, if I recall…”

“Never mind all that bollocks!” I snapped, my brow furrowed in deep concentration. “Do you not see what is transpiring here? Some bastard is offing my old school chums, and has already threatened to see me run through as well. Clearly this is someone who knows something of my school-days…someone who maybe attended this very establishment with me…but not long enough to grasp the very basics of the English language, if his note was anything to go by…”

I froze.

“What is it, Likely?” Spunkleford asked, noticing the look of horror etched across my handsome face.

“I know who the culprit is.” I said slowly. “If my hunch is right – and I am very rarely wrong, of course – then this murderer is Loathsome.”

“Loathsome?” Spunkleford repeated. “Downright despicable, I would say! Now who is it?”

I rolled my eyes in despair. “Loathsome, my dear, slow-witted Inspector, is a name in this instance, rather than an adjective. Although, truth be told, the adjective does suit him well. You see, I am almost one hundred per-cent certain that the killer is none other than…”

I paused for dramatic effect.

“…Harold Loathsome.“

There was a stunned silence.

“Who?” said Spunkleford, rather ruining the mood somewhat, the tedious little twat-bag.

- Lord Likely.

Next Time in The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely: Looking for Loathsome!

Lord Likely would like to thank everyone who sent him birthday well-wishes earlier this week. So wrapped up in his adventures was his lordship, that he quite forgot it was his birthday. Many thanks to you all!

Hungry for more inter-net based fiction? Then may I suggest you peruse The Web Fiction Guide, Pages Unbound or The Blog Fiction Blog, all of which are thoroughly excellent, due in no small part to the fact that I am listed with them all. Huzzah!

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Having assured myself that my wretched man-servant, Botter, was not trying to expediate my exit from this life to the next, I turned my attention back to the fact that there was a twisted fiend still on the loose, who had not only murdered a teacher at my old school but who had threatened the same fate upon my lordly self. I had to track this bounder down, and swiftly bring him to justice.

Also, I was rather keen to bash his face into a pulp for even entertaining the notion of slaughtering one as incredible as I.

A hansom cab carried us to the scene of the grizzly crime, the school which I had attended in my early years: St. Bumthrusty’s School For Boys.

As we drew up outside the educational establishment in which I had spent my formative years, I noticed that the old place had barely changed in the ensuing years since my attendance. It still looked as curiously monochrome as I remembered, although it no longer seemed as imposing as it had seemed to my young eyes. Whether that was due to the fact that I was now considerably taller than I was back then, or whether the building had shrunk in the elapsed time, I could not tell. Plus I was rather tipsy, having sipped heartily on my hip-flask of whiskey during our journey.

We all quickly exited the hansom cab, although I must confess that my exit was rather less than graceful, as I seemed to fall out of the cab, rather than step out of it in a dignified manner. Furthermore, I then threw up on the pavement.

Having emptied my stomach thusly, I took the time to soak in the familiar surroundings.

“Ah, yes,” I smiled, as we walked up to the school. “‘Tis all coming back to me now.”

“Oh dear! Are you going to be sick again, milord?” Botter interjected.

“Silence, you irksome bell-end,” I snapped. “I am taking a brief dip in the waters of nostalgia.”

“I think he is really, really drunk,” Botter whispered to Inspector Spunkleford. “He thinks he’s in a river or something.”

I ignored my stupid servant’s blatherings, too wrapped up in the various memories staggering through the booze-fogged haze of my mind.

“Ah, yes,” I smiled, pointing to a wall half-hidden by a large tree. “That was where Ginger Nadgers and I were caught smoking. Heavens, we got in terrible trouble that day. And over there,” I continued, pointing to a part of the courtyard. “There is where Tugger Johnson and I once set fire to Harold Loathsome’s boots. Haha! How we laughed! Well Loathsome did not find it so funny, but he was a bloody twat-hole, so it did not matter.”

“You certainly had the most colourful school-days, Likely,” Spunkleford observed.

“I’ll say!” I beamed. “Why I can still remember the day three of us got blind, roaring drunk on one of the School-Master’s secret stash of gin. We were all discovered, naked and completely comatosed, in that hedge, over there,” I indicated, chuckling at the memory, which Spunkleford echoed. “And right over there,” I said, pointing to a doorway just out of sight. “Is where I gave Mrs. Agnes Wilkins, my old Latin teacher, a damned good rogering, when I was just fourteen years old.”

Spunkleford stopped chuckling, and regarded me with open-mouthed astonishment.

“Good lord, Likely!” he exclaimed.

“Good? She was alright, as I recall. Rather noisy, though. ‘Agnes Cum Loudly‘, I called her. It was a surprise we were never discovered in the act with her screaming and gasping like that.”

I strolled off, lost in my thoughts, leaving a rather shocked Spunkleford in my wake.

“Is that you, Likely?” came a voice behind me, interrupting my particularly erotic reminiscences. I turned sharply on my heels, to face a tall, angular gent with receding hair.

“It is I,” I confirmed.

“I thought it was!” the man beamed. “I recognised your vomit on the side of the road, there. I thought, ‘only one chap can spew in such a perfect circle – that simply has to be Likely’! And I was right! It bally well is you!”

“In the handsome flesh,” I said. “You shall have to forgive me, sir, but I am struggling to place a name to your face. It may be that I am still slightly drunk from earlier, or it could be that we have met before, but you are simply to dull and uninteresting to remember…”

“Ha!” cried the man. “That old Likely humour! Well, I cannot say that I am surprised that you do not remember me, as time has not been so kind to me. The hair is a little further back now, and the colour is somewhat dimmed, but it is I, Likely…Ginger Nadgers!”

“Ruddy hell!” I roared, taking Ginger’s hand in mine and shaking it furiously. “Ginger! What are the ruddy odds? Why, I was just talking about you mere moments ago, you know. Tell me, do you recall the time we were caught smoking behind that tree, there? And that day we were found passed out in that hedge by the wall, there?”

Ginger guffawed heartily as the memories flooded back to him, and we both began babbling at high speed, throwing out memories in all directions, and roaring with laughter at some of our more outrageous exploits.

“Bugger me,” I said, wiping a tear from my lordly eye. “We really were a bunch of terrible reprobates back then, were we not?”

“Indeed!” Ginger agreed. “Although I would say some us are just as bad to-day, eh, Likely?”

“Too bloody right!” I grinned, slapping Ginger heartily on the back. “‘Bummers ‘Til We Die’, eh?”

“Bummers ‘Til We Die!‘” Ginger repeated, hollering our old school motto at the top of his lungs.

“So what brings you back to this old place anyway?” I enquired of my old chum.

“Why, the reunion, of course!” Ginger explained. “Is that not why you are here, Likely?”

“Reunion? I do not recall anything about any reunion. Botter!” I yelled, summoning my miserable man-servant to my side. “Why was I not informed about this reunion, hmm?”

“Uh, well, milord…” Botter stammered. “It’s…well, I…you…”

“Spit it out man!” I bellowed. “Or heaven help me I shall drag it out of you through your filthy anus!”

“Well, you did recieve an invitation, milord. Do you not remember? You told me to throw it in the fire, because you were not inclined to attend as you considered all your former classmates to be…now what was it you said?….ah, yes. You described them as ‘awful, shit-stabbing cretins, who have all amounted to precisely nothing, and who are worth less than a pube on a gnat’s sack.’” Botter concluded.

There was a distictly awkward silence. I regarded Ginger with a weak smile, but found it not quickly reciprocated. Indeed, Ginger’s demeanour had changed considerably, and he was now glowering at me with visible disdain.

“Ha!” I laughed. “You shall have to forgive my man-servant here. He is suffering from a most terrible concussion.”

“I…I’m not suffering from a concussion,” Botter countered, to which I replied by thumping him heavily atop his head, forcing him to collapse to the floor like a sack of particularly unappealing potatoes.

“Shall we go and join in the revelries?” I asked Ginger.

- Lord Likely.

The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely have finally been recognised for their excellence by the national press. To-day, Likely’s journals have been selected as one of the Best on the Web on The Guardian’s website.
Please go here, and peruse the bottom right-hand side: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree Huzzah, and indeed, hoorah!

Next Time in the Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely: Likely runs into an old flame!

humor-blogs.com never went to school.

ATTENTION: Lord Likely’s official scribe, Mr. A. D. Fanton, has penned some rather moving and touching verse, which he wishes to share with you, the word-reading masses. Do please take the time to peruse his writings at Digital Sickbag, lest he gets all stroppy and shuts himself in his room for a week.

Hungry for more inter-net based fiction? Then may I suggest you peruse The Web Fiction Guide, Pages Unbound or The Blog Fiction Blog, all of which are thoroughly excellent, due in no small part to the fact that I am listed with them all. Huzzah!

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