Barry On Up The Khyber

Dear hearts!!!

You find your Baronial correspondent snug in his private hospital bed at a very exclusive non-peon Swiss medical centre. I am patched up and recovering following that foul attempted assassination business. It seems however, that my memory is fuzzy and I'm dashed if I can remember anything about the incident...

That said, the London Metropolitan constabulary are very keen to bring my assailant to rightful justice, and a lovely young detetective called Malcolm has been probing me for clues all morning!

I say, Malcolm! Perhaps you should dust for clues around my posterior again!

STEPHENS!!!!!!!!

Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!! Stephens!!!!

Sarll Club

Great sinews of Loki!!!

Dear readers, I am enraged, enraptured, dizzied and flummoxed!!!

I simply know not which way to turn!!! I fear it would have taken Apollo himself to forsee the outcome of this tupenny play which has consumed me since I regenerated my accursed Prometheus Project.

Let me take - if I may - a moment to announce the denouement!

What follows is a transcription of these last few breathless minutes...

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....having drifted back to this mortal coil, I suffered an alarming relapse! I kept crying 'Stephens!! Stephens!!' like some man possessed... I was in deep waking slumber, frozen in aspic, grasping at memories harsh...

...I came to with a jolt! A host of grubby figures of peon countenance stared back at me with the clammy fish eyes of the damned... in the centre, clasped in irons was my faithful decruster Stephens!! Gathering my nimble wits, I took in the scene: around my hospital bed a kangaroo court had been put in place, with Stephens in the dock!

"WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS???" I hollered at the assembled drool flecked vulgars,

"AM I TO BELIEVE THAT YOU THINK STEPHENS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SHOOTING ME???"

The chunderous unfit shrimps all hung their heads as one, coughed and mumbled something about "Sorry Barry, we heard you call his name out and we put two and two together, and, well, he did abscond to Falmouth, and, and..."

"ENOUGH!!!" I boomed as Galactus might before eating a planet, "STEPHENS IS NOT THE CULPRIT!!!!"

The fly specks gasped in unison.

It was at this point that I noticed a familiar form skulking at the back, observing proceedings yet somehow remaining cool and distant from them...

His clothes: why, the fellow favours velvet smoking jackets and neat pressed trousers!

His hair: why, not unlike Bryan Ferry after an arguement with an errant strimmer!!

His comic books: why, fresh copies of the latest Alan Moore triumphs were to be seen emerging from his jacket pocket!

His face: why, if I'm not mistaken, this fellow was my exact double!!!

Faltering, beset by plagues, I pointed toward him and alerted the slack jawed minuscules as to his presence....

"Why, there's the dandy who shot me!!!

His name is ALEX SARLL!!!!!"