A meeting at The Grand Cigar Divan on The Strand

My rendezvous was to be in The Grand Cigar Divan on The Strand, where I was greeted by a towering doorman who with a single enormous hand smeared the venerable juices of the establishment across my face. He, I immediately recognised from a recent brannigan on the North End Road. He seemed not to betray any observable fear, despite the fact that I had witnessed the cur during a terrible bout of cynanthropy. I made a mental note to issue him with some black-mail as the deviant walked me to my table.

Taking my seat I surveyed the immeasurably cavernous dining room before me. The Grand Cigar Divan is decaying to the point where large areas have been fenced off due to sections of the wall having collapsed, allowing the stenchwater of The Thames to come lapping through the rubble. In the distance, an ageing gentleman waited patiently for his companion to take his turn at chess, not realising that the latter was a cadaver. Finally the former collapsed face down upon the board, at which a group of shrieking mandrills at a nearby table took their moment and tore the two limb from limb with their magnificent jaws.

It was as I observed this incident with a surge of scientific intrigue upon me, that my vision was suddenly obscured by a gentleman. Adjusting my focus, a man in a grey suit stood between myself and the mandrills. He walked slowly forward, past a serving boy carving a roast antelope, and stood some feet before me.

"Centipede reproduction does not involve copulation," he began sonorously. "Males deposit a spermatophore for the female to take up. In one clade, this spermatophore is deposited in a web, and the male undertakes a courtship dance to encourage the female to engulf his sperm. In other cases, the males just leave them for the females to find. In temperate areas egg laying occurs in spring and summer, but in subtropical and tropical areas there appears to be little seasonality to centipede breeding. It is also notable that there are a few known species of parthenogenetic centipedes..."

His grim, droning voice had a soporific effect upon my mind, which began to wander then fell into the lightest of slumbers. My mind became focused on the image of a decaying body lying at the bottom of a lift shaft. As I focused closer on this dream-image I noticed that the bloated carcass was dressed in the tousled garments of Friar Tuck.

TO BE CONTINUED...