Free Smuggler's Moon by Bruce Alexander

sir?”
    ‘“Twas but a passing thought which tickled my fancy.” And having gone only so far, he began snickering again. ”It came to me that yours may be the only house in the realm that is haunted by a farting ghost.” Then, having said it, he was once again beset by a laughing fit of a length and intensity quite like the last.
    Thereafter the table remained rather quiet for quite some time.
    For one unused to drinking wine of any kind, Clarissa did rather well drinking wines of every kind. In her own way, she kept up until the dessert course. It was not the piece of
gateau
, dripping with sweet sauce, that did her in. No, it was the accompanying sweet white wine from faraway Hungary which did finally seal her fate. She sipped it once in a manner most ladylike, then took nearly half a glass in a gulp. She replaced the glass upon the table, rested her chin upon her chest, and began snoring quite loudly.
    It continued thus for less than a minute. Sir John did then become uncomfortably aware of the persistent drone.
    “My ears tell me,” said he, ”that Clarissa has been summoned off to sleep. The poor child must be terribly weary. Perhaps we had best cut the evening a bit short and take her up to bed.”
    “Oh, do stay a bit longer, Sir John,” urged the host. ”We’ve matters to discuss, those which brought you here, matters that we have not even touched upon.”
    Sir John sighed. ”Indeed, sir, you’re right.” He hesitated but a moment, then turned to me. ”Jeremy, will you take Clarissa upstairs to her room?”
    “Certainly I will, Sir John.”
    “Can you find her room? As I recall, it is directly across from ours.”
    I assured him I had the location of both firmly in mind and would bring her safely to her own.
    “I could wake one of the staff,” Sir Simon offered. (One by one they had disappeared.)
    “No, Jeremy is quite capable.”
    By the time the discussion of my ability to deal with the situation had gone thus far, I had already persuaded Clarissa out of her chair, taken her firmly by the arm, and was marching her out of the grand dining room.
    “I’ll be back shortly,” I called out quietly to them.
    Yet I must have called loudly enough to bring her further awake, for she pulled herself up a bit and began to walk a bit more firmly.
    “Where are we going?” she asked.
    “Why, upstairs to your room, to put you to bed.”
    “Mmmm. That should be interesting.” She had been making far too many such remarks of late to suit me—not quite lewd but of a sort which might be understood in a number of different ways. It had been so with her ever since that evening when we two had been trapped briefly in the darkened cellar of Number 4 Bow Street. I made no response to her sally but started her up the great stairway.
    “Did I disgrace myself?”
    “No,” said I, ”nothing of the kind.”
    “That’s gratifying.”
    We continued to climb the stairs until, quite near the top, she spoke up again.
    “What if the ghost should suddenly appear at my door?”
    “Ghost indeed,” said I with a sniff. ”If he should be so unwise as to hang about your door, I should simply tell him to be gone. I should say to him, ‘Here you, get back to your grave, if you know what’s good for you. And none of your smelly farts.’”
    At that she giggled, and she continued giggling all the way to her room. I opened the door and glanced inside: a candle was burning on the bedside table, and her bed had been turned back.
    “Would you truly address the ghost so rudely?”
    “I would! You must be firm with his kind.”
    “Then you are my hero and my champion, and I shall reward you by permitting you to kiss me good night.”
    “Ah well,” said I, not wishing to kiss her but also not wishing to offend her, ”perhaps another time.”
    “No,” said she insistently,
”now.
I’m prepared to wait right here until you do—all night, if need be.”
    Well, why not? It would be the quickest way to be gone, would it