Gordon Chancery Farquhar Cavendish Thorne IV, Esq. was not the sort of man one kept waiting. Lord Simon knew this, just as he knew that Thorne was likely to sew him up into a burlap sack and dump him into the Thames for this insult. But Lord Simon didn't quicken his pace. He strolled through the late afternoon sun, tipping his hat to passers-by, remarking on the pleasantness of the weather with the doorman, even going so far as to take the lift rather than hustling up the stairs, though it would add several minutes to his travel time.
Lord Simon had just discovered Gordon Chancery Farquhar Cavendish Thorne IV, Esq.'s secret, and he reveled in it. The man was a boor, an upstart of the lowest water, and Lord Simon, with his centuries of landed breeding and the power that only old money could bring, couldn't stand commoners who rose above their appointed station in life. Thorne was one of those, and now Lord Simon had him in the palm of his hand.
Lord Simon was thinking these thoughts, relishing each and every anticipated moment, when his choice to take the lift rather than the stairs, product both of carefree stubbornness and sloth, came crashing down on him like the roof of a device used to transport passengers between the floors of a building without recourse to stairs when said conveyance has dropped from a great height. Ironically, the roof of the lift did the same thing moments later as the cable snapped and sent the car plummeting to the bottom of the shaft.
That's where I come in. The name's Jack Dawson, and I'm the Chancellor of Detection for Her Majesty the Queen. Whenever a toff snuffs it under mysterious circumstances, Her Nibs calls me. When it's too delicate for the bobbies, I'm first on the scene. When Scotland Yard's blood isn't blue enough, I get a jingle.
Unfortunately in this case it turned out to lack of safety inspections and a poor maintenance record. And to top it off, Lord Simon hadn't departed this mortal coil alone. I had to tell the wife of the poor lift operator that he wasn't ever coming home again. Two young kids. It really got to me.
I took a few days off to wash the taste of splattered gentility out of my mouth with a lot of cheap gin. I wound up down the docks at a joint which could only be charitably described as a pub. And it was there that I met Baron Tristan von Deckler, inventor of the transmemrograph, a steam-powered device which allows one to transfer the conscious thoughts of a corpse to paper. Which I promptly used on Lord Simon to complete my report to HRH. She likes dotted eyes and crossed tees. And I then used Thorne's secret to help HRH settle some business with him, though I'm not at liberty to say exactly how.
Anyway, an experience like that makes a man realize that life is fleeting and death is no reprieve from the ills of the world, so the Baron and I destroyed the device, realizing that it was tampering in places man dare not tread. And then we fell in love and got married and adopted two Lithuanian orphans, and we're all doing just smashingly. You really should stop by if you're in the neighborhood. We'd love to see you.
Merry Christmas from the Dawson-Decklers!
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