“Alarum! Alarum, I say!”

The woman was in some distress.

“Confound it all, young miss, can you not see that my head has been undone by liberal dosage of Colonel Bumptious’ Own Brandied Waters? Take a seat and Constable Mutton shall be with you shortly.”

She did not take a seat. Instead the brazen young thing skipped across the police station floor and fell into my lap.

“O! ’Tis your aid I seek, for are you not Sir Percival Junction-Squire, the Finest Detective in This Great Land?”

“I cannot deny it for it is a certainty.”

I gazed upon her heaving bosom as she wept.

“For shame!” She wailed.

“What has occurred?” Chivalry and pride mingled within my broad chest producing heady vapours which sobered me entirely. “How may I be of assistance?”

“I have been plundered, Sir, as I slept.”

“This can only be the work of The Dapper Hand.”

“The very same!”

I stood abruptly, spilling the poor used thing to the floor as I did so. The Dapper Hand would pay for this indiscretion. Perhaps with his very existence.