I think that you might find this of interest,' said Mr Rune to me, as we sat a-breakfasting in our rooms at forty-nine Grand Parade upon a fine morning in April. 'Give me your considered opinion.' And he flung the morning's edition of the Argus in my direction.
My hands being occupied with cutlery, the newspaper fell into my breakfast, mashing the fried egg that I had been saving for last.
'Damn and blast it,' said I, putting down my knife and fork and plucking up the eggy newssheet.
'Front page,' said Mr Rune, availing himself of the last piece of toast.
I took the Argus and viewed the front page, and at once saw the headline printed there: HORRIBLE INCIDENT IN HANGLETON And what was printed below this? Police were called last night to a house in Tudor Close, Hangleton, when concerned neighbours gave the alarm. They had heard dogs howling repeatedly and although having knocked upon the front door, they had been unable to elicit any response from the tenants who were presently renting the property, a Mr and Mrs Orion. Fearing foul play, the officers of the law, once summoned, gained entry to the property by applying reasonable force to the front door with their helmets. They were ill prepared for the scene of horror that waited them. The house was literally alive with spaniels.
Constable Runstable, who was one of the first on the scene, told our reporter, "There were literally thousands of them, ranging from the size of a Shetland pony to that of a bluebottle. All identical – but for the size, of course.'
No trace whatsoever was found of the tenants. The police wish to contact Mr and Mrs Orion as soon as possible to help with their enquiries. The spaniels are being held in police custody. ' "From the size of a Shetland pony to that of a bluebottle"?' I quoted. 'Whatever is that all about?'
'I should have thought that to be perfectly obvious.' Mr Rune dipped the last bit of toast into my wounded egg. 'It was a Russian spaniel, after all.' 'You have lost me,' I said. 'And leave my egg alone.'
'The spaniel reached critical mass,' said Rune. 'Surely you've seen those sets of Russian dolls that fit inside each other? Such it is with Russian spaniels – a great big spaniel, with a lesser-sized spaniel within it and so on and so forth.'
'Ludicrous,' I said, drawing my breakfast plate beyond Mr Rune's reach and beating back his hand with the morning's Argus. 'And I suppose these spaniels get smaller and smaller for ever and ever.'
'Don't be absurd,' said Mr Rune. 'You can't divide things in half for ever.'
'Oh, I beg to differ there,' I said. 'Space is infinite; you can always multiply a distance by two and never come to the end of it. It therefore follows that you can similarly divide something in half for ever and ever and ever.'
'You can't,' said Mr Rune, 'because your diminishing object will eventually become so small that it will weigh less than the light which falls upon it, and then cease to exist in this dimension.' 'Oh,' I said. 'Well, I never knew that.' 'Nor did Einstein until I put him straight on the matter.' 'But what does it mean?'
'It means, young Rizla, that you should not take anything for granted. I am Rune, the physical manifestation of all astral possibilities. I knew from the first that we were dealing with no ordinary spaniel.' 'But you stole the spaniel!'
'Had it stolen. One does not own a dog and bark oneself. It is well to know your enemy, to gauge his strengths and weaknesses.' 'The spaniel was your enemy?'
'Not the spaniel. Tell me, Rizla, when we were there in that house at Hangleton, what observations did you make? Do you recall that I asked you to keep your eyes and ears open?'
'I do,' I said, as I helped myself to the very last pouring of coffee, 'and I made quite a few observations, as it happens. For one thing, those two were not married.'
'Very good,' said Mr Rune. 'And how did you reach this conclusion?'
' "Mrs Orion" was not wearing a wedding ring, and she was a very fastidious woman, very clean, her nails beautifully manicured. And he was a right scruff, all over shabby with nasty black fingernails. I do not think a woman like that would ever marry a man like that. And he called her Janet, not Aimee, as was written in the letter you received.' 'Excellent,' said Mr Rune. 'Anything else?' 'I do not think there were any other dogs there,' I said.
'Then how do you explain the continued howling that came from the rear of the house?'
'It was a tape recording, a loop tape – you could hear the pattern of the howling as it repeated itself.'
'I am very impressed,' said Mr Rune. 'However, I would have been more impressed if you'd mentioned these details to me at the time.'
'I drove back here in a stolen cab and then you gave me all that toot about Chronovisions and zodiacs.'
'Well, nevertheless I am impressed. You are wrong on almost every count, but nevertheless.'
I topped my coffee up with the last of the milk and sugar. 'So how am I wrong?' I asked.
'The couple are indeed married. They were married in Saint Petersburg in nineteen ten.'
'Saint Petersburg?' I said. 'Nineteen ten?' I said. 'What are you saying?' I said. 'That Mister Orion really is Rasputin?' I said.
'No,' said Mr Rune. 'Mister Orion is in fact none other than my arch enemy, The Most Evil Man Who Ever Lived. Mister Orion is Count Otto Black.' 'Then him shooting at us was no accident.'
'He is a crack shot – he trained with the Eton Rifles. (Eton Rifles)*. Had he wished to shoot us dead, then he would have done so.' 'But if he is your arch enemy-'
'He was testing me out. He is unaware that I am aware of his true identity. It was a pleasure to take his money – a share of which I passed on to you at the time.' 'An insubstantial amount,' I said. 'But I still do not * As in The Jam classic, obviously. understand about all these spaniels being inside one another.'
'All will be explained in good time. Oh, and by the way, Rizla, the name "Orion" was something of a giveaway. It's a stellar constellation that includes Sirius, the Dog Star. But anyhow, that isn't the piece in the Argus that I wanted you to read. Read what is written beneath the Hangleton article.'
I took up the newspaper once more and studied the front page. 'There is nothing else,' I said, 'apart from an advertisement.' 'Read the advertisement aloud.' And so I did. THE CENTAUR OF THE UNIVERSE A talk upon the Elliptical Navigations of the Aethyrs of Avatism by World-Famous Paranormal Questor and Psychic Youth