Jonathon Worthington: Strangelight Investigator

Case #18: The Mystery of the Purloined Past (Chapter 1)

I was quite drunk.

Never before had I imbibed such a sheer quantity of alcohol. Well, perhaps a few times lately, although this was proving to be a rather potent mix of foul vapors compared to most. That it was of such low quality rendered it an even more unpleasant experience. But such was my lot in life tonight.

"Play this one, mucker!" slurred my rather pungent companion, pushing a grubby score up onto the upright's stand. Through the haze it took me a moment to recognize the longshoreman I'd been plying for information earlier. Pity. I'd rather been hoping I'd been questioning another of the Five Finger's raucous ladies of the night again. Given enough spirits of the earthly kind they could be viewed in a haze that made them seem almost alluring. Still, the man's coarse laughter held camaraderie in it, so I let a lazy smile spread across my face as the notes swam across my eyes. My fingers moved of their own accord across the stained keys, and the badly-tuned piano screeched once more as I tried to tempt something resembling music from it.

"Oh the girl from Caspia came down the hill, down the hill, down on Bill," roared my companion as other drunken voices joined in. Apparently I'd been graced with a rather known crowd favorite. I felt the barroom pulse with its own drunken life and allowed myself to be carried away on it.

"She loved him, loved him, loved his swill, loved old Bill, enough to kill, poor old Bill," roared the crowd in approval, lending their own inebriated voices to my companion's. I seemed to be singing along as well, albeit more as a slurred humming imitation rather than using actual words. It felt as if I was trapped in a ship being lashed by the enormous waves of the Meredius, a dark storm the size of a mountain that swept my tiny boat back and forth, side to side. The urge to vomit rose up and subsided with the same violent waves as my fancy, and idly I wondered if I'd be able to hold onto tonight's supper any better than the previous excursions. As the man next to me would say, it looked to be long odds on a short race.

"The girl from Caspia stabbed poor Bill, stabbed poor Bill, he broke her will, lucky old Bill," the crowd continued, apparently uncaring that I was barely keeping pace with their bellows. I narrowed my eyes and tried to force the notes on the page to stop dancing out of time with the music, missing the next several verses and only getting a vague idea of what the girl from Caspia discovered old Bill doing with a Menite Scruntuator of questionable morals, an event that preceded the aforementioned attempt at murder. Given the descriptive verses that followed I began to truly regret lacking such vital information, and resolved that I simply must visit this tavern again tomorrow and solve the mystery.

A heavy hand laid itself on my shoulder like an unwelcome spider, and I turned to shoo it away. Rather than spindly legs five thick grey fingers greeted me like sausages far past freshness but lacking in the spoilt smell one would expect. The sausage-spider tried to drag me away, and I shooed with all my drunken might to no avail.

"It is time to go, sir," rumbled the hand's owner.

I squinted through the haze of alcoholic fumes up at my oldest and, up until recently, most trusted companion. Orsch was an ogrun of considerable size and strength, although thoroughly lacking in the brutish manners common to most of his species. He stood straight as a board, no expression on his stony face, dressed immaculately in black pressed trousers, bowler, short coat and white shirt. The goggles that were surgically grafted to his face hid his eyes, but I'd known him long enough to read the tiny annoyed twitches in his body and face. I sighed like a petulant child at his admonition. He was correct, of course, but I was rather enjoying resisting the ogrun's influence these days.

"Oi, shove off, you stiff mucker!" burbled the erstwhile drunken longshoreman who'd been singing, crushing me against his side in a one-armed bear hug. "This poofter plays better n' this pianer deserves! Pull the stick out your arse, grab a pint, and have a time with us!" The tavern rumbled with the slurred cheers of his mates and more than one grumbled threat. I'd been quite the source of entertainment tonight and no one wanted to call a halt to it yet.