8:ooam, 29th of January, 1891.

“UNBEKNOWNST TO you, Likely, I was at that gala ball at Sir Muddick’s abode. I was working undercover with the CTUN, and we had tracked down the Anti-Hat League to that very destination,” explained Felicity Boondoggles, pacing up and down the room.

“Yes!” I exclaimed, my memory seeping back into my head like a runny egg-yolk dribbling over the rest of the egg. “The Anti-Hat League…the bomb There was a bomb in a HAT! Cocking arsery, we’d better get back there, woman!”

“Sit down, Likely,” Felicity urged me, in such a way that I found myself powerless to resist. “Good. Now, after the League had threatened to blow up the house and everyone in it, it seemed you decided to start drinking…”

“Oh yes,” I recalled. “I had been rather parched, my dear – ”

“Then, it seemed you wouldn’t STOP drinking.”

“Oh.”

“Before we knew it, you were completely out of your MIND, staggering about the place, your trousers around your ankles, making a complete…well, ARSE of yourself.”

“I…I was REALLY parched,” I proffered feebly in my defence.

“So, there you were, staggering about like a bloody fool, the League members shouting and screaming at you, the party guests terrified out of their minds…and before we could stop you, you succeeded in knocking the hats off of BOTH of the gentlemen…”

“Ah. So…so are we dead? Is this heavens? It’s terribly disappointing…” I mused.

“From earlier surveillance at Mr. Cockduster’s millinery shop, we already knew which of the two gentleman had been given the booby-trapped hat – Mr. Swallows,” Felicity continued, ignoring me completely. “And somehow – SOMEHOW – by sheer, dumb luck, you decided there and then to urinate on Mr. Swallow’s discarded topper. And somehow – and I do not even know how this is AT ALL possible – in doing so you managed to diffuse the bomb. You are one lucky bastard, Lord Likely.”

“Ah! So all’s well that end’s well, eh?” I beamed. “Well, where’s my reward? I take gold or paper money, but none of that tin nonsense…”

“Hmph.” Snorted Felicity. “You shan’t be receiving a PENNY, your lordship. Thanks to your larks, the Anti-Hat League managed to slip away in the confusion. They’re still out there, Likely…and they will STRIKE AGAIN!”

An awkward silence fell between us suddenly, like a piano wrapped in wool dropped onto the world’s largest cushion. All I could hear was a clock gently ticking somewhere in the room.

“Tits,” I said.

- Lord Likely.

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1:00am, 29th of January, 1891.

“NOBODY MOVE a muscle, or we start shootin’,” barked the pistol-wielding waiter, motioning toward some of the other waiters, the sour-faced butler and the ever-present force that was Mr. Wallops, who all suddenly seemed to be armed. “Now, everybody down on th’ ground, NOW!”

There was a large thud.

“Not YOU, Mr. Wallops!”

“Sorry,” grunted Mr. Wallops, picking himself up off the ground.

“Who…who ARE you yobs?” demanded Sir Rhubarb Muddick, quite incredulous with rage, as any right-thinking gent would be upon finding out that the hired help were in fact armed mercenaries.

“We are the ANTI-HAT LEAGUE!” the waiter cried, causing his accomplices to wave their guns about excitedly.

“YOU!” I cried. “Your the bounders who offed that poor fellow and then wrote that note to Scotland Yard…you FIENDS!”

“Fiends, are we?” smirked the waiter. “I say we are just honest folk trying to free ourselves from the tyranny of HATS!”

“Tyranny of HATS?” I spat. “Are completely bollocking insane? What are you blathering about?”

“SILENCE!” barked the waiter, enforcing his point with the butt of his pistol, which ruddy hurt, let me tell you. “For too long the hat has become a symbol of the upper classes dominion of the poor! We, the people, have to wear PATHETIC and UNIMPRESSIVELY small hats, like the flat cap, or the bowler…while the RICHER you are, the BETTER the hat – and the better protected your head. Well, enough is enough!”

“Well, maybe if you spent less time and money organising some silly little gang, maybe you could actually afford a decent hat, hmmm? I’m sure if you all chipped in you might be able to buy a well-sized topper between you all. Perhaps you could share it, work out some sort of rota for wearing the hat, I don’t know, I’m jus -”

“SILENCE! AGAIN!” snapped the waiter, cracking me about the head with his pistol once more. “We shall not be put upon any more! And neither will our hats! Today we send a very strong message to society, by BLOWING YOU ALL TO BITS!”

There was a shocked gasp from the assembled guests.

“I thought you said that if we did not move we wouldn’t get hurt!” Muddick reminded our captor.

“He’s got a point!” piped up a voice form the crowd.

“Well, yes, we did say that,” the waiter faltered. “But…but HE moved! Him, over there! He scratched his chin.”

“I bloody didn’t,” whined a man at the back of the room.

“Oh, Charles,” snapped his wife. “You just can’t stop fidgeting, can you? Now look where it’s got us! We’re going to be blown up!”

“I didn’t scratch my bloody chin, woman…I mean, this is typical, you always side against me, no matter – ”

“Oh, I do not Charles! Don’t be so childish! Taking sides, indeed! I mean – ”

“SILENCE!” screamed the waiter, firing his gun into the air. “Good, that’s better. Now, as you’ll notice, all the gentle-men here have taken their hats off…”

“Well, of course we have,” I countered. “We are inside, after all. Heavens, we are not monsters.”

“All of you except THOSE TWO!” the waiter shrieked, pointing at two men standing by the door.

“That’s because we just got here,” one of the men said forlornly. “No-one has offered to take them from us yet.”

“That’s because one of your hats conceals a BOMB, gentlemen! Ha-ha! A bomb designed to go off the MOMENT the hat leaves the head! Now, we’re going to play a little party game, seein’ as how we are at a party an’ all….if you can guess which man is sporting the bomb hat, you get to live.”

The guests mumbled excitedly among themselves.

“At least, you’ll get to live a little longer. By a few seconds, anyway. Because then…” the waiter chuckled evilly. “Then we’ll force the other man to take his hat off anyway!”

The party-goers fell into an uproar, the two men looked justifiably panicked, while I calmly tried to figure out my next move.

“So which is it to be, ladies and gentle-men?” the waiter cackled. “Mr. Spitts here, or Mr. Swallows? Ha-ha!”

- Lord Likely.

*SO: which chap has the bomb hat? Vote SPITTS or SWALLOWS, friends! Leave a comment below, or on Twitter (using the #1score4 tag), and/or Facebook – quick, time is of the essence!

12:00am, 29th of January, 1891.

“AH, IT’S Lord Likely, is it not?” someone asked, their voice cutting through the hubbub of the crowd like a word-knife cutting though air-butter.

“Gug-gak! Yes! ‘Tis…’tis me! Eck-excuse me if I don’t get up,” I grunted, finding myself trapped beneath the hulking great form of Mr. Wallops.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,” said a pair of black leather shoes next to my head. I craned my head slightly and saw that the shoes belonged to Sir Rhubarb Muddick, the press baron and host of this charming shindig. Which was something of a relief, for talking shoes were not something I was quite prepared to deal with at this juncture. “Come on, Wallops, do get up off of our guest,” Muddick continued. “You’ll have to forgive Wallops, he’s a little hard of thinking, I’m afraid.”

“No, no, not at all,” I said as I was helped back to my feet. “Nothing wrong with a little bit of exercise before a night of drunken revelry and debauchery, eh?”

“Precisely!” chuckled Muddick. “May I get you a drink, your lordship?”

“I’d much rather you got me several, frankly,” I quipped, although I was actually being deadly serious, for I was drier than a nun’s mimsy and wanted lots, and lots of BOOZE.

“Ha!” Muddick laughed, snapping his fingers to summon a nearby waiter. “Ah, there you are – could you get the esteemed Lord Likely here a…whisky, is it not?”

“Indeed! You know me well!” I nodded.

“Ha, well you have had many column inches in my news-papers, you know!”

“I have done no such thing,” I snapped, before realising what the fellow was talking about. “Oh, yes! I see. Yes, I suppose I have!”

Muddick gave me a hearty slap on the back, before turning his attention back to the waiter, who had decided to go precisely nowhere.

“What are you waiting for, waiter?”

“It’s my job, sir.” came the lightning-fast riposte.

“No, I mean…why are you still here?” Muddick clarified. “You have our order, now go and fetch it for us, you cretin.”

The waiter, who was rather  a thin man with a thin face, a thin moustache and thinning hair, just smiled slowly, before dropping his serving-tray to the ground, and pulling a pistol from within the pocket of his apron.

“How ’bout this,” he snarled, his personality transforming in a flash. “You take OUR orders, and no-one gets hurt, right?”

I sighed again out of complete and utter dismay. When, when, when, WHEN was I going to get a cocking drink to-day?

- Lord Likely.

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10:00pm, 28th of January, 1891.

“SO, LIKELY,” said Spunkleford as he joined me in the hall-way outside his office. “Have you decided where to go? Mr. Cockduster’s millinery, or the ball?”

“Well, as enticing as the prospect of hanging around an old man’s dusty hat-shop may be, I believe that the notion of attending a gala ball, replete with many fine, delectable ladies, rather has the edge…just by a smidgeon, mind.”

“Oh, right,” said Spunkleford.

“A GREAT BIG COCKING SMIDGEON!” I yelled.

“Yes, yes, I understand what you’re saying, Likely, all too clearly. Then it is decided – I shall take a couple of officers around to Mr. Cockduster’s millinery, and we shall keep watch there.”

“An excellent plan, Spunkleford, one which I am fully behind, grinding suggestively at it’s hind-quarters. I shall go and ready my ride for the journey…” I stopped momentarily. “I wonder, inspector, do you have any sugar lumps?”

*****

BOTTER COLLAPSED to the floor again, wheezing and puffing like an asthmatic steam-train. I nonchalantly hurled a few more sugar lumps at his panting frame, and turned away. As a man-servant, Botter was rather sub-standard. As a horse, he was titting AWFUL.

Botter and I had ridden across town to the extravagantly luxurious abode of the Sir Rhubarb Muddick, one of the so-called ‘press barons’, who owned several news-paper titles, a fair few magazines, along with a publishing house of his very own.

In addition, he owned a town crier in a small village in Shropshire. Quite an impressive empire, by anyone’s reckoning.

The old coot was holding a charity ball this evening, to make it look like he cared for starving orphans, or some such nonsense. This was, of course, complete balderdash. He cared as much for the poor as the next man, and as the next man was me, and I didn’t give even the tiniest damn about the scruffy urchins blighting the city, that meant he didn’t either.

Still, a party was a party, so I made sure that I was looking as damnably attractive as ever, plastered on my best smile, and set forth into his mansion to mingle…

- Lord Likely.

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