Craven Gets Flashed XVII

“Kenny, are you coming to bed?”

“Whilst the hounds chomp at our very feet! I should say not. The streets are crawling with vermin, and one must take a heroic stance! I dare say, is that a member of the Blattodea tribe crawling up the sash of my smoking jacket?”

“It’s a cockroach, Kenny. Let Sherlock go and come to bed. We have to open shop in a couple of hours. You’ve got a lot of dry cleaning to catch up on.”

“My dear, Viv,” said Kenny, “Letting go is not how one rises to the rank of world’s greatest consulting detective! Where’s my pistol? That creature will rue the day he ever thought to cross paths with me!”

“The pistol’s under lock and key, dear. The landlord said we’ve met our quota of holes in the wall. One more and it’s the flop house for me and the jailhouse for you. Sergeant Dowd will only put up with so much. And the fly swatter’s in the front room where you left it.”

“Ah, yes. Last summer's insufferable Musca domestica infestation!”

“It was a fly, Kenny. Why don’t you go to the front room and open a window. Let the fresh air clear your head. The last thing I need crawling up in bed with me tonight is Sherlock Holmes with a spy glass. I was google-eyed enough tonight by that octopus of a pizza guy. I need sleep. Now go!”

“Oh, you may know him as Ramone, the Pizza Baron of Bleecker Street, my dear, but I’d know that diabolical fiend no matter his deceit as a master of the culinary art of Neapolitan pizza! ‘Tis Moriarity!”

“And don’t forget to take out the garbage before coming to bed. Those kipper tins you trashed are stinking up the kitchen.”

“Very well, if it pleases the lady of the house. Till the morn then, my darling. Pleasant dreams. Good night, Irene, goodnight.”

If I had known THE woman of my life would be such an insufferable bore, I’d have stayed a bachelor. What I need is a Watson. Oh, to be separated by an ocean at a time like this! To the window I go. This is most assuredly a three-pipe problem!

“And if you’re going to smoke at the window please lay some newspapers at your feet. You always make such a mess.”

Very well then. A four-pipe night it shall be.

***

“Thanks for dropping me off, Sergeant Dowd,” said Jenny. “I’m afraid my whole night was a bust. I should’ve stayed with Craven and cried a river or two in our beers. I don’t know what we were thinking.”

"Relax, kid. You’re only nineteen. If you’re determined enough, stuff has a way of working in your favor. Only, please, no more phony pictures and stories. Go after the real deal. And, stay away from Kenny and his herringbone trousers. He’s a great dry cleaner, but one of these days he’s gonna toss his deerstalker hat into the wrong ring and get himself tossed over a real waterfall. He’s even a worse detective than Craven. And speaking of Kenny, isn’t that him smoking a pipe at the window above his shop?”

Kenny sat in silence. His stoic profile jutting out his front room window as he watched the billowing smoke mingle with the falling snow.

“Oh, how cute is that?” said Jenny. “He looks just like Basil Rathbone in the Hound of the Baskervilles.”

“That said, I’ll leave you to gawk in peace before I gag. Me? I gotta get the wagon and pick up Dwayne and the pony. Goodnight, Jenny.”

“Night, sarge. See you around.”

What ho! If it isn’t that spitfire of a budding photographer Jenny Wilkins! I need ponder the situation no longer. I have found my Watson! Moriarty here we come!

“Jenny Wikins!” said Kenny. “Do you fancy an adventure this evening? And can you spot me a token for yonder iron horse? Respond with a yea to both, and be my official photo journalist!”

“Are you still wearing the herringbones?”

“Head to toe, dear lady.”

“Then let the adventure begin!”

Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Basil%20Rathbone&title=...