London Blitzed!

Inspector Haberdashery II

London Blitzed!

An Inspector Haberdashery Tale

By Mike Stevens

 

     It was a gray, overcast, threatening evening after a gray, overcast day; the kind of evening that perfectly matched Inspector Walt Haberdashery's mood, for it had been one of those days where nothing had gone right; he'd woken up to the far away sound of Big Ben announcing to the world that it was now 9.00am, which caused him to leap from his bed, as he was supposed to start work at 8.30am; he was late.  He threw on his uniform, skipped breakfast, cleaned up as well as he could and as fast as he could, staggering out the door to run to the front door of Scotland Yard.  When he got there, he snuck to his desk and immediately his hopes for his tardiness going unnoticed were dashed, as Chief Inspector Roger Razor yelled his name across the entire room,

 

     "Haberdashery, in my office, now!"

 

     Oh s**t, he thought, for Razor was new and had the reputation of being a no nonsense kind of guy. 

 

 

******

 

 

   "Why are you late, mister?  I won't tolerate late; this police station has a lazy, slovenly reputation and it eats Chief Inspectors for breakfast; well, I'm not going to let that happen, do I make myself clear?"

 

     As clear as the glass of s**t I wish I could throw in your beady-eyed rat face!  thought Haberdashery, but as usual he didn't have the stones to actually say it.  "Yes sir."

 

     "What, I thought I heard a mouse squeak!"

 

     He was trembling with anger; oh s**t, was that saying lame!  "Yes, SIR!"

 

     "Better, Haberdashery; dismissed!"

 

 

******

 

 

     Almost quitting time; about fricking time!  Haberdashery thought to himself.  If this day blew any more, a hurricane would descend on his desk.  It had started out with the late thing, then the reaming by Chief Inspector Razor, what a granite mountain of s**t he was going to be, then all of the clues he's gathered on his latest case had turned into dust and blown away.  All he wanted was to get the hell out of there and sit in The Staggering Bucket Tavern and drink himself into a stupor so he could forget this blow-chunk of a day.

 

 

******

 

 

     Ah, here came the serving wench with his liver-demon.  She set down the tankard of ale in front of him and said, "There you go sir," and sashayed away, but Haberdashery was too absorbed in other thoughts to answer her or appreciate the view.  All he wanted to do was slam this grog down as fast as he could and block out Chief Inspector Razor's sneering face and his failure to make any progress on his latest case.  Hey, that rhymes!  he thought, then he thought big fricking deal, Haberdashery, pull your head out! 

 

 

******

 

 

     Three hours and several ale's later, he was feeling a little bit better; he had almost forgotten all the s**t he was so eager to forget.  It was working.  The only problem was making it to the front door; man, was he drunk!  He was chuckling to himself and was thinking about trying to rise to go home, when he saw the very last person he wanted to see and his trusty portly shadow come through the door. 

 

     "S**t!" he mumbled under his breath.  Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson came towards where he was sitting, trying to will himself to invisibility. 

 

     "Don't look, please don't look!"  he whispered; but no such luck. 

 

     "Well, well, would you look who's here, Watson?" Sherlock Holmes said.  "Mind if we share a table?"

 

     S**t!  "Sure, but I was just leaving," he answered, and went to stand up, only he did The Elusive Candlelit Donkey Dance sideways and fell on his a*s.  

 

     "Whoa there Inspector; here, let me help you," said Holmes, rushing around the table.  He started to say he was fine, but the truth be told he wasn't feeling so good.  Maybe it would  be smarter to sit here for awhile.  He let Holmes grab his arm and guide him back to his chair, where he gratefully slumped back in his chair.  Unfortunately, he slumped so forcefully that his chair went over backwards and he wound up at the feet of Dr. Watson, who said with a disgust he didn't bother to hide,

 

     "I say, you'd better not heave on my shoes!

 

     Haberdashery immediately hoped he would, but no such luck.  So far at least he was just slightly dizzy but the vomit fountain had stayed away.  Pity!  he thought as he gazed at the shiny new dress shoes that Watson was sporting.  He struggled to his feet after shrugging off Watson's half-hearted attempt to help him and gingerly sat down at the table.  Holmes looked at him with concern, and it seemed to Haberdashery, with disgust also.

 

     "What's that look for?"

 

     "What look is that, my dear man?"

 

     "Oh, dear man is it?  I always suspected you of being a little light in the buckled shoes!" he shouted angrily.  Holmes's face radiated livid anger and he replied,

 

      "It's elementary, Inspector, your head will lose after it recoils off the floor when I tee off on your face!"

 

     All the dislike for the man flashed through Haberdashery's mind.  "Oh, did I offend the great Sherlock Holmes?  I'm sorry, I assure you it was quite intentional!"

 

    With that reply, Holmes gave an angry high-pitched scream of rage, jumped up and laded a devastating right cross to Haberdashery's exposed and unready face, sending him flying over backward yet-again, where he lay there dazed, and anger swelled in him, this time it was in the form of an all-consuming rage.  He struggled back to his feet and charged, plowing into Holmes and sent them both flying.  They were exchanging punches and swear words and Haberdashery was giving Holmes a beating, so Holmes decided to change his luck.  Instead of trying to hit Haberdashery in the face, he threw a left jab right into Haberdashery's groin.  An unworldly keening filled the air as Haberdashery grabbed his nuts with both hands and staggered backwards.  Holmes immediately followed that up with a right to Haberdashery's jaw, and he went down.  Holmes was so enraged that he didn't let a little thing like his adversary being unconscious stop him.  He stood over Haberdashery and grabbing him by the hair, kept unleashing punch after punch on Haberdashery's face until at last Dr. Watson grabbed his fist as he was preparing another blow.

 

     "That's quite enough my dear Holmes.  We need to get out of here!" 

 

     Watson's yelling shook Holmes out of the dark place he'd gone to and his senses returned.  "Yes, of course you're correct, Watson.  Come on, let us take our leave!"

 

 

******

 

 

     Haberdashery swam towards the light.  A strange man was feeling him up.  "What the f**k are you doing; get off of me!" and he arched his back off of the floor, sending the strange pervert flying off of him. 

 

     "Sir, I was called to this location with a report that there was a fight in progress.  When I got here you were unconscious on the ground and whoever you were fighting with was long gone."

 

     He'd had by this time collected his thoughts and noticed that the strange man did indeed have a police uniform on.  He searched his memory for an inkling of what had happened to him.  At first he drew a blank, but then as he continued trying to remember, the face of Sherlock Holmes flashed into his groggy mind, and he vaguely remembered fighting with him.  "Ah, it was nothing; I just slipped and fell, striking my head on the corner of the table; I'll be okay."

 

     "Well, if you're sure you don't need to go to the hospital and you say you just fell, although the red marks on you face say otherwise, I'll return to the station."

 

     "Yes constable, thank you for responding; I feel kind of silly for wasting your time," and with those words the constable took his leave.

 

 

******

 

 

     As Haberdashery sat at a table, trying to recover from the beating Holmes had given him, he was filled with an overwhelming desire for revenge.  He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but Holmes would pay for what he'd inflicted on him; oh yes indeed, he would pay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

    

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

    

 

 

 

 

     

 

    

 

    

        

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Marie]

Your heros (or anti-heros)seem to be uniformly (no pun intended) stupid, lazy and bad tempered. You've even made the great Sherlock behave like an idiot.

[Michael Stevens]

Thanks Marie; yeah, I thought it might be fun to portray Sherlock as the compete opposite of the way we know him!