‘You might not be being honest with yourself.’
‘I want my clothes,’ I said. ‘I want to leave.’
Mr Rune set his empty glass aside and took to the filling of the largest smoking pipe that I felt certain I had ever observed.
‘You’re not really certain about anything,’ he said, looking up at me between fillings. ‘I have an offer that I wish to make to you. As I told you last night, I do not believe that our paths have crossed through chance alone. I do not believe in chance. Fate brought you to me. I saved your life and I did so that your life should receive a purpose that it previously lacked. Throw in your lot with me and I can promise you great things.’
‘What manner of great things?’ I enquired.
‘Great things of a spiritual nature.’
‘I do not think that I am a particularly spiritual kind of a fellow,’ I said. ‘I am a teenager and I do not believe that teenagers are noted for their spirituality.’
‘Would a financial incentive alter your opinion?’
‘I wonder whether I already have a job,’ I wondered aloud, ‘or whether I am still at school.’
‘All will eventually resolve itself. Of that I am certain.’
‘Look,’ said I, ‘I appreciate the offer, but I do not know you and you do not know me. On this basis alone I feel that the throwing in of our lots together might prove detrimental to both of us.’
‘One year,’ said Mr Rune. ‘One year of your life is all I require.’
‘One year?’ I said. ‘That is outrageous.’
‘One month, then.’
‘My memory might return at any moment,’ I said.
‘Indeed it might,’ said Mr Rune, ‘but I doubt it.’
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘You’re not a homo, are you?’
Mr Rune now raised both hairless eyebrows simultaneously and then drew them down to make a very fierce face. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘no man calls Rune a homo and lives to tell the tale.’
‘No offence meant,’ I said.
‘And none taken,’ said Mr Rune, calming himself. ‘Some of my closest acquaintances have been of that persuasion. Oscar Wilde—’
‘Oscar Wilde?’ I said.
‘One month,’ said Mr Rune. ‘A month of your time. Should your memory return to you within this period, then, should you choose to do so, you may go upon your way.’
I must have made a doubtful face, although of course I could not actually see it myself. ‘I am assuming that you are offering me employment,’ I said. ‘What exactly and precisely would the nature of this employment be?’
‘Amanuensis,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Chronicler of my adventures, assistant, acolyte.’
‘Acolyte?’ I put a doubtful tone into my voice to go with the look I felt certain I was already wearing on my face.
‘I am set upon a task,’ said Mr Rune, ‘a task of the gravest import. The very future of Mankind depends upon the success of its outcome.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, softly and slowly, in, I felt, befitting response to such a statement.
‘Never doubt me,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Never doubt my words. During the course of the coming year I will be presented with twelve problems to solve, one problem per month. Should I solve them all, then all will be well. Should I fail, then the fate that awaits Mankind will be terrible in the extreme. Beyond terrible. Unthinkable.’
‘Then it is probably best that I do not think about it.’ I rose once more to take my leave, clutching the sheet about my person.
‘I can promise you excitement,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Danger and excitement. Thrills and danger and excitement. And an opportunity for you to play your part in saving the world as you know it.’
‘I do not yet know it as well as I would like,’ I said. ‘I think I should be off now to get to know it better.’
‘Go,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Go. I evidently chose poorly. You are clearly timid. You would be of no use to me.’
I was already at the door. But I turned at the word ‘timid’. ‘I am not timid,’ I said. ‘Careful, perhaps. Yes, I am certain that I am careful. But certainly not timid.’
‘You’re a big girlie.’ Mr Rune rose, took himself over to the drinks cabinet and decanted more sherry into his glass. ‘Be off on your way, girlie boy.’
My hand was almost upon the handle of the door. ‘I am not timid,’ I reiterated. ‘I am not a big girlie boy.’
‘I’ll pop around to the labour exchange later,’ said Mr Rune, returning to his chair and waving me away. ‘Put a card up on their help-wanted board: “Required, brave youth, to earn glory and wealth”, or something similar.’
‘I am brave,’ I protested. ‘I know that I am brave.’
‘Not brave enough to be my assistant, I’m thinking. Not brave enough to be my partner in the fight against crime.’
‘Crime?’ I said. ‘What do you mean by this?’
‘Oh, didn’t I mention it?’ Mr Rune made a breezy gesture, the breeze of which wafted across the room towards me and right up my bed sheet, too. ‘I am a detective,’ said he, drawing himself to his feet. ‘In fact, I am the detective. I solve the inexplicable conundrums that baffle the so-called experts at Scotland Yard.’
‘You are a policeman?’
‘Heavens, no. I am a private individual. I am the world’s foremost metaphysical detective.’
‘Like Sherlock Holmes?’
‘On the contrary. He was a mere consulting detective and he would have been nothing without me.’
I raised an eyebrow of my own. A hairy one.
‘Go,’ said Mr Rune. ‘I tire of your conversation.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I am not timid. I am brave. And I am not going.’
‘You wish then that I should employ you?’
I chewed upon my bottom lip. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Timid and indecisive,’ said Mr Rune.
‘Count me in,’ I said.
‘You will be required to sign a contract.’
‘Count me in.’
‘In blood.’
‘Count me out.’
1
The Hound of the Hangletons
The Hangleton Hound
PART I
I did sign Mr Rune’s contract, and I signed it in blood.
I don’t know exactly why I did it; somehow it just seemed to be the right thing to do at the time. Ludicrous, I agree; absurd, I also agree; and dangerous, too, I agree once again. And perhaps that was it – the danger.
I did not know who I was.
I did not know who Mr Rune was.
And even now, some one hundred years later as I set pen to paper and relate the experiences and adventures that I had with Hugo Rune, I cannot truly say that I ever actually knew whom or, indeed, what he really was.
Although—
But that although is for later.
For the now, from that day before yesterday to which I had been returned from the dead, I inhabited rooms at forty-nine Grand Parade, Brighton, in the employ of Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune, Mumbo Gumshoe, Hokus Bloke, Cosmic Dick, Lad Himself and the Reinventor of the Ocarina.
And he and I were bored.
Perhaps the life of ease and idleness had never appealed to me. Perhaps I had never experienced it before and therefore did not know how to appreciate it properly.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
On the day that I had signed Mr Rune’s contract, with blood drawn from my left thumb, he had taken me off to the tailoring outlets of Brighton and had me fitted with several suits of clothes. I recall that no money exchanged hands during these transactions and that there was much talk from Mr Rune about ‘putting things on his account’. And much protestation from the managers of the tailoring outlets. But somehow we gained possession of said suits of clothes and I became decently clad and most stylishly clad, also. Which Mr Rune explained was just as one should look when one engaged in regular dining out.
Dining out was evidently one of Mr Rune’s favourite
occupations. The man consumed food with the kind of gusto with which a Blue Peter presenter might consume cocaine.* Mr Rune really knew how to put the tucker away. And he did it, as he did everything else, with considerable style. Although, sadly, he enjoyed the most rotten luck when it came to restaurants. No matter where we dined, and I recall that we never dined in the same restaurant twice for reasons that I will now explain, the outcome of each meal was inevitably the same. Mr Rune would fill himself to veritable excess, consuming the costliest viands upon the menu, along with the most expensive wines on offer, and would sing the praises of the chef throughout the consumption of each dish.
And then, calamity.
We would be upon our final course – the Black Forest gâteau or the cheese and the biscuits – when Mr Rune would be consumed with a fit of coughing. I would hasten to his assistance, patting away at his ample back and thereby mercifully sparing him a choking as he coughed up a bone.
A rat bone!
I genuinely felt for the fellow. How unfair it was that it should always be he who suffered in this dreadful fashion, he who appreciated his food so much, who chose only to dine in the most exclusive restaurants. Our evening would be well and truly spoiled. Words would be exchanged, harsh words on the part of Mr Rune, words which included the phrases ‘a report being put in to the Department of Health’ and ‘imminent closure of this establishment’.
On the bright side, I never saw Mr Rune actually pay for a meal; indeed, on occasion he received a cash sum in compensation for the unfortunate incidents. And, hearty and unfailingly cheerful as the man was, he always wore a smile when he and I walked away from the restaurant in question.
We dined out, and we purchased clothes and sundry other necessities, mostly of an extravagant nature, and always ‘on account’, but if the solving of crime was Mr Rune’s métier, then it appeared that either there was no crime at all upon the streets of Brighton to be solved, or that it was all being amply dealt with by the local constabulary. No one, it seemed, required the talents of ‘the world’s foremost metaphysical detective’.
I had been with Mr Rune for three weeks now and I was no nearer either to recovering my memory or to aiding him ‘to solve the inexplicable conundrums that baffle the so-called experts at Scotland Yard’. Although I had heard him play the ocarina many times.
Upon this particular day, an unseasonably sunny day in March, Mr Rune and I lazed in deckchairs upon Brighton beach enjoying the contents of a hamper that had recently arrived from Fortnum and Mason, for which Rune had failed to pay cash on delivery due to some oversight upon the part of his banker that would be dealt with at the earliest convenience.
‘I do not wish to complain,’ I said to Mr Rune, ‘for I am certainly enjoying my time with you and I am sure that I have never been so well dressed and well fed in my life, but I do recall you saying that you would have cases to solve, the outcome of which would save Mankind as we know it, or some such thing.’
‘I will pardon your lapse from articulacy upon this occasion,’ said the Logos of the Aeon, adjusting his sunspecs and straightening the hem of the Aloha shirt he was presently sporting, the one with the bare-naked ladies printed upon it. ‘I assume it to mean that you are presently piddled.’
‘Are you suggesting that I am drunk?’ I enquired.
‘You have imbibed almost an entire bottle of vintage champagne, one of the finest that salubrious establishment, Mulhollands of Hove held in their reserve stock.’
‘You drank the first bottle without offering me any.’
‘The thirst was upon me. I abhor inactivity.’
‘That is what I am talking about. Where are these exciting cases of which you spoke? What about the danger and adventure?’
‘Marshal your energies, for these things will shortly come to pass.’
‘But when?’
Rune drew in a mighty breath and sighed a mighty sigh. Bare-naked ladies rose and fell erotically upon his bosom. ‘No one knocks,’ said he. ‘I would confess to perplexity if I did not bow to inevitable consequence and fortuitous circumstance and understand how the transperambulations of pseudo-cosmic anti-matter shape the substance of the universe.’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I said. And I did not.
‘All right,’ sighed Mr Rune. ‘Cast your eye over this and give me your considered opinion. Your considered opinion only – do we understand each other?’
‘Not very often,’ I said and snatched at the object that Rune tossed in my direction. It was an envelope.
‘I retrieved it from my post-office box this very morning,’ said the Cosmic Dick, by way of small explanation.
Rune had previously opened the envelope, so I removed its contents – a letter – and read it aloud:
Dear Mr Rune
I saw your advert in the Evening Argus, that you ‘offer satisfaction to those cheated of justice by the British legal system, the constabulary in particular’ and that you ‘specialise in crimes that are above and beyond the ordinary’. Well, I have one for you.
I am a breeder of rare canines; indeed, my family has been so for several generations. We are well known for it in these parts. And famous, too, having won many ribbons at Crufts – two First Places, a Best in Show and a Wettest Nose three years running. My husband Neville didn’t want me to contact you. He says that you blokes don’t know sh*t from sugar—
‘What is “sh*t”?’ I asked Mr Rune.
And Mr Rune told me.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, that is cr*p, in my opinion.’
‘Continue reading the letter.’
I did so.
But I want this sorted. It’s not right, this kind of thing, and someone should do something about it. I hope you can.
Yours sincerely,
Aimee Orion (Missus).
‘What do you make of it?’ Mr Rune asked, as he acquainted himself with a jar of pickled quails’ eggs.
‘Seems a bit vague,’ I replied. ‘It does not actually say what crime has been committed.’
‘Oh, come now.’ Mr Rune leaned over to me and snatched back the letter. ‘It says a great deal more than that.’
‘It does?’ I asked. ‘What does it say?’
‘It says, for one thing, that it was not written by a woman.’
‘It does not? Or rather, it does? Does it?’
‘You are piddled,’ said Mr Rune. ‘This is written in a man’s hand.’
‘It is typewritten,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’
‘What?’
‘Lost dog,’ said Mr Rune. ‘Or, more accurately, stolen.’
‘A lost dog. That is not much of a case.’
Mr Rune tapped his nose. And did so with the quails’ egg jar, spilling vinegar all down his front. The bare-naked ladies looked even more appealing when wet.
‘You intend to track down a lost dog?’ I reacquainted myself with the champagne bottle, or more accurately sought to, as Rune had drawn it beyond my reach and was guzzling freely from its neck.
‘Call me a cab,’ said Mr Rune.
‘You are a cab,’ said I, giggling foolishly (I confess it).
‘Buffoon,’ said Mr Rune. ‘What do you know of Hangleton?’
‘Hangleton?’ I scratched at the knotted hankie that adorned my head to stave off sunstroke.
‘Hangleton,’ said Mr Rune once more. ‘The address at the top of the letter. Hangleton.’
‘Sorry,’ said I. ‘I did not read the address. But I have been to Hangleton. I have wandered all over Brighton during the last three weeks, in the hope that something would stir my memory. Hangleton is a rather nice place, lots of nineteen-thirties-style houses. They even have their own loony bin.’
‘Suggestive,’ said Mr Rune.
‘I am not,’ said I.
‘Call me a cab.’
‘It’s not funny twice.’
‘Do you have a mobile phone?’
‘Obviously not,’ I said. ‘They have not yet been invented.’
‘Details, details.’ Mr Rune raised his left hand. Upon the promenade above, a cab slewed to a sudden halt. ‘Bring the hamper,’ said the Hokus Bloke. ‘We are travelling to Hangleton.’
The cab conveyed us to Hangleton. The cabbie, a truculent fellow who rejoiced in the name of Jonie and supported Newcastle United ‘no matter what, and the Devil take the man who says otherwise’, discoursed upon the nature of cheese throughout our journey, lingering long upon its supposedly medicinal qualities and how his wife’s gout had been cured by Gouda.
Mr Rune sat passively throughout both journey and discourse, occasionally drawing melodic notes from his reinvented ocarina, and only raised the stout stick that he always carried with him and struck down the cabbie when, upon reaching our destination, the surly fellow had the effrontery to protest about Mr Rune’s suggestion that the fare be put on his (Mr Rune’s) account.
‘You knocked him unconscious,’ I said, as we strolled along Tudor Close, the midday sunlight prettifying the mock-Tudor houses, clipped box hedges and front-garden ornamentation.
‘Gouda for gout, indeed!’ said Mr Rune in a mocking tone, ‘It’s Roquefort for gout and Gouda for goitres. I can’t be doing with a cabbie who is ignorant in The Way of the Cheese.’
‘I have to agree with you there,’ I said. ‘I think this must be the house.’
‘Why?’ Mr Rune asked.
‘Because of the big sign in the front garden saying “Dogs R Us”.’
Mr Rune nodded approvingly. ‘And that sign brings to mind something that I should have mentioned to you earlier – to whit, the Chevalier Effect.’
‘And what might that be?’ I enquired.
‘An effect most pertinent. You will find that when you come to write up your memoirs of our time together – memoirs which, be assured of this, will become an international bestseller – certain details will become subject to the Chevalier Effect.’
I did thoughtful noddings of the head, at which Mr Rune rolled his eyes.
‘Allow me to explain, in as few words as are necessary,’ said he. ‘It will be many years before your book is published, and when it is, some reader will take issue with the accuracy of what you have written. They will feel absolutely certain that there were no establishments called “Something Or Other R Us” in the nineteen sixties.’