The story so far: Awake from his hundred year sleep, Fetlock Graves is attempting to come to the assistance of a young lady in distress.
Fetlock Graves knocked his pipe out in the coal scuttle before filling it once more with his once favourite tobacco which for over a hundred years had hung in a silk sock at the fireside.
‘Would you care to join me in some ancient shag?’ enquired Graves at length. To his great surprise the young woman doubled up in hysterical laughter.
‘I don’t think anyone’s asked me like that before!’ she eventually mustered, wiping her eyes.
‘Most singular,’ murmured Graves, sucking bitter fumes into his lungs. ‘Your hilarity suggests I have committed a faux pas, as the French might say. A double entendre? I submit that it is the phrase ‘ancient shag’ which forms the bedrock of your amusement?’
The young woman exploded with giggles again. Graves sucked his pipe ruminatively.
‘Quite so,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘How the language changes when one sleeps.’ For several minutes neither spoke. Then Graves suddenly leapt from his seat and started pacing once more on the hearthrug.
‘Enough of this quiet contemplation!’ he exclaimed. ‘To business! Madam, tell me all you know about the demise of your acquaintance.’
‘The what?’
‘The demise, the expiration, the fall – do I have to work my way through the whole alphabet?’
‘Nah – “death” would do it.’
Graves smiled. ‘Touché,’ he acknowledged. ‘His death, then, if you please.’
‘I dunno much, do I?’
‘That is what I need to establish,’ Graves responded keenly. ‘Tell me all you do know, and I shall tell you how much you know.’ His guest gave him an odd look, then helped herself to another of his Moldovan darks, as if intimating that no story would be forthcoming without further ingestions of nicotine. Graves bent down and lit her cigarette without question.
‘Well, I been dancing at this joint in Shoreditch for a few months now. Up beyond the Broadgate, near the new station. It’s a bit of a sleazy dive, innit, – calls itself a ‘gentleman’s venue’, but it’s not much more than a strip joint. Not that I do stripping!’ she added quickly, to Graves’ raised eyebrow. ‘I just dance around the pole, and sometimes at the tables. A bit scanty in me panties, but nothing more than that. Anyhow, that’s where I met him, this city geezer. James he was called. I didn’t know nothing about him when I first started dancing for him – but you get to know regulars, ’specially good tippers. And he was good. Always giving it large with his mates, and sticking fifties in me knickers. This was a few months ago mind you, before all this credit crunch stuff, innit?’ She paused for a long drag of her cigarette.
‘I shall take your word for it,’ Graves demurred. ‘Though I fear I shall need to consult my Index to establish precisely what a credit crunch is.’
‘There you go again, not knowing stuff. Like you been hibernating or something.’
‘Hibernating. Yes indeed,’ assented Graves, smiling.
