Chapter 4: The Strange Ghostly Tale Of Slippery Jake The Regency Rake Chapter Four
Chapter Four:
The Detective 'Inspectors' Join Us.
At this point, Detective Chief Inspector John Higgins joined us, along with James and Justin his two trainee detectives.
This was the first trip of the trainees to the Bull. Both Lina and Magda 'clocked' (noticed) the young detectives immediately. Magda managed to get to their table first. All of this had not escaped the notice of Beryl either. Hot, buff, fit, handsome, and especially young male customers were a rarity in the Lounge Bar at this time.
Time for 'chair cleaning' Beryl thought. Lina was sent to polish up Slippery's chair. Magda was given a job behind the bar. This was only a temporary measure as those girls would be back flirting around our table soon enough.
Meanwhile, I thought this was good news. Lina draped all over the 'chair'. This would soon wake Slippery up. Sure enough, he slowly started to emerge. He had on the three-cornered hat, the high cravat, the rich red jacket, and high britches. He nonchalantly sat back in 'his' chair with his legs crossed. He had that mischievous, lascivious smirk. His image was slightly shimmering. It seemed 'very cold'. He appeared pretty agitated, shifting constantly around on the chair. Slippery was certainly aware of Lina. She jumped off the chair and scurried back to the bar. Both cats hissed and crouched flat under a radiator. Old Slippery was also taking a good look at Sid the barman and the Chief Inspector. There was almost something 'paternal' about his gaze. More on this later.
The Detective Chief Inspector and his two 'apprentices' looked across at the ghost with their mouths wide open. Where are they seeing this? Sandra and Kevin started recording. Old Slippery seemed to be aware of the recording. There was no specialized video recording equipment around in the Regency. Experimentation in cameras and photography only really started to get going properly in the Victorian period. But there he was, looking into the camera lens, from his chair, preening himself, setting up a 'ghostie selfie' it seemed.
This degree of 'self-awareness' was also both shocking and inexplicable. Ghosts were supposed to wear white sheets or screech devilishly, not pose for a camera shot?
Sandra and Kevin played back their recordings. Yes, there he was, Old Slippery sitting on his 'throne'. You can see here clearly looking at Lina, then across to the landlord and the Detective Chief Inspector. He finished this off with his 'preening shot' into the video camera's lens. The image was very slightly fuzzy. The 'thermal' element was picking up the very cold readings that Old Slippery was giving off. There were many cool blues and pastel colours in this recording. However, the definition was good overall.
Both Sandra and Kevin were very pleased with their recordings. The problem now was what to do with them? The Detective Chief Inspector explained that caution, for the time being, was the best policy.
"Don't be in a hurry to plaster these videos and images all over the web of the ghost. In my experience, if the press gets to know about this, and they will be around here pretty quickly. They will go 'ape', crazy"
"It may be very good for your trade Sid having hordes of thirsty reporters and hacks. TV, newspapers, and all the rest steaming around here but this is not recommended in my experience in the long term."
"I will have to give this some thought and get back to all of you on this. So young Kevin and Sandra sit on this for now. Your day in the spotlight will soon come, but again this has to be managed."
"Hear hear" Percy added. "You don't want all those reporter Johnnies crawling all over this fine Lounge Bar?"
"Exactly Major." The Detective Chief Inspector replied.
I then had a text from Isabella. This was in reply to one I sent earlier explaining what had just happened.
I explained that my good wife would be joining me soon.
"Ah to keep an eye on you, Sir….David?"
"No Sandra she is pretty curious as well. By the way, I have not been given a knighthood yet. My name is David, Sandra!"
Everybody laughed at this.
Old Slippery started to fade now. Maybe he wanted to slip back and have a bit of a rest in his dwellings down below?"
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