In yesterday’s London Times the following ominous message appeared. ** It has come to our attention that numerous citizens of London have observed a large animal resembling a wolf-like hound. Scotland Yard is not officially charged with finding the animal or creature, but we are investigating the links between these sightings and two recent murders. It is suspected that the animal is not in fact a canine but instead of a large cat type. This based on reports of a long tail, longer than any dog would possess. If you have any information that can shed light on the nature of the animal we ask that you report this immediately to one of your local police constables. ** Strangely enough, it was printed on one of the last pages, as if whoever sent this out for publication wasn’t sure about how it would reflect on the Yard. You can not really keep something like this quiet, especially not in a city where even the smallest news snippets fly through the air from street to street. Not that you needed to rely on gossip, the paperboys figured out what was really important within minutes and started shouting: “Murderous monster loose on the streets. Read all about it!”, or “Who will be next? Dangerous animal on the prowl! Get your news here!” When you tell the public that there might be a small chance that perhaps some people have seen something, then you can bet that hundreds more will definitely see something the next day. And indeed, Scotland Yard was flooded with scores of people crowding police headquarters with their alleged sightings of the horrible beast. We had our own little brush with the monster here in Fleet Street. Or I should say with a possible victim. Sheila Banebridge, a local barmaid was found with large lacerations in her neck a couple of days ago. People get murdered in London a lot and we don’t usually notice. Although we all knew Sheila and she didn’t deserve this, nobody does.
A bit of a rotund lass she was, always up for a dirty joke or a well place double entendre. She would slap you on the back and return the joke twofold in your direction. All in all she wasn’t the fragile kind and that added to the mystery. Whatever had happened to her was done with such overwhelming force that the medical examiner couldn’t provide a clue as to who or what the attacker was. Sheila could defend herself, in fact that was one of the reasons she was hired at the pub, because she wasn’t shy of maneuvering a difficult customer out the door. And out they went no problem there. What attacked her that night? Inspector Davies wouldn’t comment he wasn’t to sure about the case himself. Not that he knew much, he wasn’t assigned to investigate. All that he was willing to divulge was that someone or something had done such damage in one powerful move that she died instantly. Her trachea was almost completely removed with that blow, or stroke, or whatever it was. We’re all on edge and the news about the hound did not help. The air is tense people can not think of much else. It is dark but no one is sleeping well tonight.
