THE FOUL-MOUTHED GHOST
In Which a Ghost swears at the Living.

A blur shuffled unmoving across the black and white photograph, as Edmund Timsey examined the portrait through a monocle. The monocle enlarged his eye to enormous proportions, like a great ring of fractured silvery glass with a pool of shiny black oil in the middle. Small capillaries seemed to hold the white eyeball into place as he shifted through a pile of photographs, displaying various levels of blur. Finally he grunted, and the monocle fell suspended by its gold chain out of embarrassment.

"These pictures, I conclude, contain a blurry white object, which I surmise is your thumb, and that you took the photographs while spinning around in a circle, and with the camera pointed at the ceiling," Edmund concluded.

"Oh, I'm sorry sir, I'm afraid that is the wrong envelope, I do believe that's from my cousin's wedding," his customer, a man in a top hat topping three feet, informed him. He produced another envelope. There was the same blurry white thumb. Edmund admired such photography skill.

"I see your thumb again sir, and it appears these were also taken while spinning around in a circle, and also while the camera was pointed at the ceiling, so then, where is the ghost in this image?"

"It is in the lower left corner."

"That is your pinkie finger." Edmund was loosing patience.

"No, I mean, the other lower left corner."

". . . Other . . . lower . . ."

"Erm, that is, the right corner."

Edmund gave him an extraordinary look. "This is like a game of Where's Waldo." Finally he found the ghost. "Oh!"

"Well, whot do you think of that?!" The customer declared in triumph.

"I believe this needs a further look," Edmund declared.

It was agreed that Edmund Timsey, and his assistant, were to arrive at Cottage Crestmont that weekend, which was a dilapidated old white cottage by the seashore. It was winter and the grey sky was damp with sea and approaching rain, and cold, and windy. Unfortunately Edmund and his assistant, Richard Dupree, arrived during the worst of it. The customer answered the door rather ineffectually, which lead to the door blowing away. After a brisk romp the customer finally retrieved it, and attempted to reattach it, which he somehow managed to do on both sides, so that the door could not be opened.

"This is going to be mentally and emotionally torturous," Richard declared. Edmund nodded and took a puff from his pipe as they stood there and watched him.

"Well oy think I got the door fixed," the customer declared at last. The door was now arranged so that only one side was screwed into the wall; but now the keyhole was inside and the lock was out. The customer tried the knob. It would not budge.

"He locked it," Edmund sighed.

"Well anyways, perhaps I'd better introduce myself," the customer said. "I am Mr. Customer."

"Ah, well it's good to put a name to you at last," Richard commented.

"Anyhow, this cottage is the summer cottage of the Customers, and has been so for the past two months. Unfortunately these past two months have been winter, so we have yet to use it. Also, it is not to my wife's liking yet, so we contracted to have it rebuilt. I am the one rebuilding it. My wife sends me here rather often."

". . ." Richard said. Edmund had slightly more to say, and coughed.

"But about the ghost?" Edmund asked at last, taking out a small lined legal pad and a plumed pen.

"Well yes, I was here just last Thursday, to knock out the wall between two rooms so that it could be but one large room, when I knocked out the wrong wall, and thus there now is no wall on one side of the house, but at any rate what I mean to say is, or er, what I aim to get at is, I was attempting to move the wall that I had intended to knock out, so that I could replace the one I had removed unintentionally with this one, when I saw and heard an extraordinary sight. There before me was a transparent specter, a ghastly grey man hanging by the neck from a rope, and it swore at me."

"It swore at you?"

"Yes, it called me an imbecile, and informed me that my gate was unhinged and the horse had escaped, but when I went to check I found the gate to be hinged quite adequately, and also found that I did not have a horse. Upon coming back into the house, I was greeted by the specter again, who this time was shouting insulting comments, but was nowhere to be seen. He seemed rather irate, and told me to leave, or else he would take my shoes and beat me with them."

"This sounds like an interesting specter," Richard said, taking a sip of tea. He began to eat a scone.

"I do rather hope you can find a solution for me," Mr. Customer said.

In the drawing room Fred was hanging out. He was hanging in fact, from a rope in the ceiling, one end of which was tied to a hook, as Fred swayed back and forth slightly. His eyes were black around the rims quite thickly, his face a pasty white-grey. Black hair fringed his face, he was quite handsome when alive but now the visage of death was over his thin pale body. Fred sighed as he listened to the sounds of morons in the other room. He rolled his eyes. More idiots.

Fred could only take a physical form here, like this, so instead he merged with the vastness of nothing and became nothing more than electricity snapping in the air. He had some idea of what to do about these marauders. Indeed.

"Well as we can see from your accounts, the ghost only appears after five o' clock, so our party shall to the drawing room at that time. Richard, notify me when that time has come," Edmund requested.

"My watch is already set, sir."

"Excellent. Now let us have a game of hide-and-seek. Mr. Customer, you go hide, and Richard and I shall come and find you. Remember not to come out of your hiding place until we find you, or else you will have lost the game."

"Alright," Mr. Customer said. "Er, turn your backs, will you?"

"Certainly, certainly." Mr. Customer left.

"Ah good, now let us discuss this matter in private," Edmund requested of Richard. "What do you think of this supposed ghost?"

"I think I spotted a fancy liquor cabinet behind him in that photograph. Shall we to the drawing room?"

"Well said my good chap."

The liquor cabinet was a tall white cabinet with ivory doorknobs, leaning against the drawing room wall opposite the wall which had been accidently amputated. A large muslin tarpaulin hung by brass fish-eye hooks where the hole was, and continued to take on the appearance of a horrible specter when the wind blew it. Edmund and Richard, however, were intently fixed upon the liquor cabinet, or rather, the contents thereof. Edmund had especial interest in a large bottle of tequila, which he began to utilized productively. Twenty minutes later the party of two had commenced in reorganizing the liquor cabinet, by very kindly doing away with the bottles exceeding ten years in date, on the grounds that they were probably spoiled and might make one ill. The two were even so noble in this pursuit as to down the bottles themselves, risking their own stomachs to vomiting and their own heads to silliness, so grave was their attempt at tidying up that liquor cabinet.

As the clock chimed five a body fell from the ceiling fan above, and was stopped by a noose tied about its neck. The specter crossed its arms and looked at the two investigators sternly.

"You've been drinking my alcohol, haven't you," the ghost demanded.

"It's not like you don't make it easy for us to get it!" Richard retorted.

"If you really want us to not drink your alcohol, I suggest you lock the cabinet."

"Fuck you!" Fred insisted passionately.

"Well now that's just not nice," Edmund commented. "I mean it's not like we knew."

"And it's not like he's going to do anything about it," Richard continued.

". . . I . . . I am so going to do something about it," Fred replied unsurely.

"I bet you can't even get down from that silly contraption you've decided to rig yourself to, can you?"

"Come on! Come get me!" Richard required.

"Very well . . . I shall!" Fred insisted angrily. He continued to hang from the ceiling fan. Presently Fred began to swing a bit. "Umph," he grunted. He began to swing at them a little more. Richard and Edmund continued to watch.

"Is that all you got?!" Richard demanded.

"I am trying to swing at you so as to knock you over!" the ghost implored. "I mean . . . Fuck you!" the ghost declared, and began to swing at them even more grandly. Soon the ghost was twirling most enthusiastically.

"My how this does remind me of tetherball," Richard commented.

"I say! It rather does, Richard! Such a nostalgia has come upon me, what say you we have a go at him?"

"I think that's a rather grand idea," Richard concluded.

"Don't you dare, you jolly rotters! Ow! I say! Stop it!" Fred implored as Richard took a shot at him.

"No no, that's not the way to go about it," Edmund said. "We ought to pretend that he's a pinata, one of those paper mache things they have in Mexico, which they tie up with a rope and fill with candy." Edmund hit him in the head with a wooden plank.

"Ow! You stupid prig! You'll be wearing your ass for a hat when I'm done with you! You living are all such fuckers, why, I, I ought to--" But Fred never finished his sentence. Abruptly, he vanished from the room, just as the clock chimed six o' clock.

Later that night Edmund fell asleep with a headache, and went to bed in one of the bedrooms which had a roof. Richard stayed up playing cards with Mr. Customer, whom he soon found to be terrible at cards, and thus suggested they play for money. Just where Mr. Customer got the money from is to be wondered at, because he had given all of his spending money for that month to the two investigators to deal with this matter. It could also be wondered at where Richard got the money, seeing as he was a rather poor man, apprenticed to a mostly unsuccessful investigator, and was yet to be paid by Edmund for this latest endeavor.

The next morning, Edmund did not get up, and when Richard and Mr. Customer went to awaken him, they both expressed great surprise when it was discovered that he was dead.

"Dear Mr. Customer! It seems my friend has passed away!" Richard lamented.

"Oh my, and he was such a sporting young chap," Mr. Customer said.

"Why, I bet it was that awful ghost that had something to do with this! Most likely he caused him to be poisoned, by slipping something nasty into one of his bottles of alcohol! But then again, we were sharing all of the bottles."

"I did recall him taking one with him upstairs," Mr. Customer said.

"I suspect he aimed to take it with as a souvenir. Edmund does rather like to take souvenirs from all of the houses we investigate, sometimes before our investigation even begins. Sometimes that is the issue we are investigating. In those situations the item turns up eventually. Nonetheless I suppose we ought to look for it." The bottle was located, and discovered to be full to the brim.

"I suppose he didn't drink any of it," Mr. Customer commented. "It's rather full."

"It does indeed," Richard said. "Someone here is a murderer. The only problem is, there are only three of us, and one of us is already dead." The room fell into an uneasy silence, and the scene faded away to black.