In my haste to get Hanes out, I had given him my coat without recovering any of my possessions. He had my revolver and my brass knuckles. My case notes and even my money. It left me alone in the building, with just my wits and guile to distract whoever was in the building, if that was possible.

First things first though. I had to find out just who or what I was dealing with.

I heard the front door to the house open and the sound of more shouting break out. It appeared to be an argument, just as Hanes had told me about. A disagreement, then, between those involved in the kidnapping of Hanes. Between the Worm and the elf. Now there was a contest you didn't know who to back in. If I got lucky, the dispute could play out to my advantage. If not, well, I couldn't be in any worse trouble than I already was. Famous last words and all.

I grabbed the rope I had made from the sheet and blanket out from underneath the bed. After a quick check at the door, I opened it and slipped out, the rope over my shoulder. The disagreement had ended, replaced by a low murmur of voices, too low to make out what they were saying. I had hoped it would continue on a bit longer, to enable me to get in place. You worked with what you got though.

As I crept along the corridor, a loud thud sounded from down below, as if something heavy had fallen to the ground. The voices for a moment stopped, only to start up again after a short while.

I came to the door of the room Hanes had been imprisoned in. I unlocked the door and opened it up. Before heading in, I turned the key so that the lock was engaged. Stepping inside, I pulled the door shut behind me. It made a little more noise than I would have liked but it did have the desired effect, of locking me into the room.

On reflection, not the smartest of moves.

I untangled the sheet and blankets as fast as I could before lying down on the bed and pulling them up over myself.

Only just in time.

The sound of heavy footsteps came from the stairs. They creaked under the weight of whoever was climbing it. Reaching the top, they made their way along the corridor, coming to a stop outside the door of the room I was in.

"Fort I heard somefing," came a deep voice. An ogre's voice. The door rattled as they checked the lock. "Still locked."

"Check it anyway." The second voice that spoke had a sneering, condescending arrogant superiority to it that almost had you bowing and scraping and tugging at your forelock to. Almost. It was the voice of an elf, one of Them Above. Me, it made my teeth grind and my fists itch. Not that I could act upon it. Best show some form of servility and hope that they ignored you and continued on their way, not unless you wanted more trouble than you could handle.

The lock clicked and then the door swung open. I tucked up further beneath the covers of the blanket, making sure that they couldn't see anything beyond a bulky shape beneath it. It would conceal that I had a different body size and hair colour from Hanes. I hoped.

The floorboards creaked as someone big and heavy entered the room. "See," the ogre's voice rumbled. "All dere."

I coughed, a weak cough in the style that Hanes had done.

"Very well," the elf replied. He sounded bored. Always a good sign.

The ogre lumbered back out of the room and shut the door behind him. Together the pair headed off again, back along the corridor.

The subterfuge had worked. I would wait a while longer, to give Hanes time to get away properly. Then it was just a matter of figuring out how to get out myself. Not an easy task considering I was locked in a room in a house with an ogre and elf present.

Except they hadn't locked the door when they had left. I had not heard the turn of the key or click of the lock. It seemed a most unusual oversight on their behalf, but not one I was willing to question. Chalk one up to the dim-wittedness of the ogres. It gave me a way out of the mess I had got myself into.

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Leaving the bed, I crept back over to the door. There I stopped and listened. The sound of the elf and the ogre could still be made out. They remained on the upper floor of the building, their progress easy to follow by the creak of the floor beneath the ogre's tread. They weren't in the corridor anymore, instead having moved into another room.

Taking the risk, I tested the door. It opened, as I had hoped, and I headed out. Sneaking down the corridor as silent as I could, I made out the light of a torch ahead of me, shining out through an open door. As long as they stayed in there, I was safe.

Reaching the top of the stairs, I took a look down. It was dark below, almost black, the shuttered up windows and lack of interior lighting all contributing to the fact. I thought that I could make out a shadow down there, on the floor, near to the front door, but I couldn't be sure.

The flashlight behind me began to move again, and by the sounds of it the pair were making to leave the room they were in. I made my way down the stairs, as quick as I could manage while trying to remain silent at the same time. As I reached the bottom of it, in my haste, and with my eyes not yet accustomed to the dark, I tripped over an object and tumbled forward.

I went down onto my knees, landing in something wet and warm and sticky. Then I was down onto my hands, which also touched the moist substance. A rich, coppery scent reached my nose. The smell of blood. Not good. Not good at all. That much blood could have only come from one thing.

I scrambled forward to the shadowy shape on the ground, one that now I was a bit closer I could make out was a body. I hadn't heard anyone come into the house after Hanes had left, of that I was certain, so it couldn't have been him. I had to check though, just to make sure.

My hands ran over the body. There was still warmth to it, which meant it was only recently that it had happened. That loud thud I had heard earlier, no doubt. As I searched, my hands touched an object lodged in the back of the body. The hilt of a knife. It had been buried in deep. Whoever the victim had been, they were attacked from behind, and with some force too, given how deep the knife was lodged in. No doubt the ogre had been the one responsible. Elves lacked the strength to drive it in that hard, not given their scrawny frames.

The body that I inspected belong to a slight person, and lacked the height to be Hanes. Male as well, meaning that given its size it was either a young man, little more than a boy. Or an elf. Neither of those were happy thoughts. I reached up to the head and checked the ears. An elf.

An ogre would not have taken out an elf, not with another elf around, not without being given orders to do so. Which meant that the still living elf had wanted this one dead, for whatever reasons he had. No doubt it all related to the intrigues and schemes of Them Above. And I had found myself caught up right in the middle of it.

A dead elf was big trouble. The worst. I had to get out of there, and fast, before I found myself in anymore trouble.

If only it had been that easy.

No sooner than I had reached my feet than a sudden burst of light half blinded me. The illuminance globes in the building came on, flooding the entry with light. At the top of the stairs stood the ogre. Slightly behind him the stood the elf, playing with a smoking pipe. It was a rather odd affection for an elf to have given that they considered it a filthy habit, a vice of the common rabble beneath them. Their habits ran to the far more exotic. It was a strange thing to note on, given the predicament I found myself in, but the mind can do that at times when it is under great stress, to focus on the mundane and inconsequential, such as the pipe and the body laying at the bottom of the stairs that I had tripped over in the dark, and not what really mattered. Perhaps it is some form of defence mechanism, shutting out what you don't want to think about.

Such as how much trouble I was in right them. It wasn't a good look, kneeling over the body of a recently slain elf, his blood on my hands. As trouble went, it didn't get much worse.

My first almost panicked thought was for flight, to open the door and make a run for it, hoping to get away, and not be followed or recognised.

That notion was swiftly and hideously disavowed as the front door burst open and a pair of the constabulary burst in, revolvers at the ready, looking far fresher and polished in their dark blue uniforms and peaked flat caps than I was used to seeing from their kind. Their faces were hard and meant business as they took aim at me. If not for the uniforms, it would have been hard to tell them apart from common street thugs. At times there was no difference. Really, they do act as just another gang for the most part, just one that has the backing of the authorities.

Their arrival meant that I had nowhere to run. The exits were covered. Plus they had guns pointed at me. I didn't fancy my chances at outrunning bullets.

"Well, well, what have we here," the elf at the top of the stairs said. He started to thumb tobacco into the pipe as he did. "A murder most foul and the killer caught at the scene. Take him away."

There wasn't much point in arguing about it. They wouldn't have listened, not with an elf around giving orders. As the constabulary hauled me to my feet and slapped cuffs around my wrists, the elf actually smirked at me. His had been the murder and I had been the perfect fall guy for him to blame it on.

As days went, it was as bad as they get.