“We’ll give you money,” said Eddie.

“How much money?” asked the count.

And now a period of negotiation began, of bargaining and bartering and wrangling. It was a protracted period and resting times were taken at intervals, whilst negotiators sat and smoked cigarettes, or paced up and down, or worked out calculations on small bits of paper.

It was coming on towards teatime before all was said and done.

“And that’s my final offer,” said Eddie.

“I’ll take it,” said the count. Palms were spat upon, or in Eddie’s case, a paw, then spitty palm and spitty paw were clapped together.

“Now just hold on,” said Jack. “I want to get this straight. Count Otto will hypnotically regress me –”

“Taking no responsibility for the potential damage to your mental health,” said the count.

“Yes, I understand that. But you will regress me in exchange for what, exactly?”

Eddie read out the list of the count’s demands.

“Bill’s car,” he read, and Jack groaned.

“And your trenchcoat.” Further groanings.

“And your hat and your watch.” Eddie paused. Jack groaned doubly.

“Fifty per cent of the reward money.”

“What reward money?” Jack asked.

“Oh, there will be reward money,” said Count Otto Black. “When all else fails.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Jack. “That means when Eddie and I fail.”

“You’re right,” said the count. “I want sixty per cent.”

Eddie sighed. “We agreed on fifty. And forty on the film rights.”

“Film rights?” said Jack.

“There’s a movie in this.” The count mimed camera crankings. “I would want to play myself, of course, although perhaps it might be better if I were to play the juvenile lead.”

Eddie shook his head and sighed once more.

“I’ll have my solicitor go into all the details of the subsidiary rights, marketing offshoots, merchandising deals and suchlike.”

“How long will that take?” asked Jack, whose patience had worn beyond thin.

“No time at all,” said Count Otto. “I keep him in that box over there.”

“He does,” came a muffled voice from that box.

“Fine,” said Jack. “Fine – take everything we’ve got. The car, my coat, my watch. Do you want my shoes, too?”

The count made so-so noddings with his head.

Jack threw up his hands and said, “Ludicrous.”

“I think the count has been very reasonable,” said Eddie.

“Yes, well, you would. He doesn’t want your hat, your coat and your watch.”

“I can’t wear a watch,” said Eddie. “Watches fall off my paws – I don’t have wrists.” And Eddie made a sorrowful face that almost had Jack sympathising.

“Oh no you don’t,” said Jack. “It’s not fair. It’s not.”

“It is most fair,” said Count Otto Black, “because I am taking nothing from you that you will want.”

“Oh, I think you are,” said Jack. “The car. The coat. The watch.”

“No.” Count Otto shook his head. “You will have no need of these things after I have put you through the period of hypnotic regression. All you will have need of is heavy sedation and the immediate use of a straitjacket.”

“Hm,” went Jack, as “Hm” usually served him adequately at such times.

“So let us begin.” Count Otto Black linked his fingers together and did that sickening knuckle-cracking thing that some folk take delight in doing to the distress of those who have to watch them doing it. “To work, to work. And let me ask you this.”

Jack tried to do the knuckle-cracking thing with his own fingers, but failed dismally. “Ouch,” said Jack. “It hurts.”

“I have to ask you,” said the count, wiggling his fingers and, unseen, his toes, “what is the last thing you remember before the big white light?”

“Leaving Tinto’s Bar,” said Jack.

“Although we know that we did more,” said Eddie. “Went through a briar patch and along a yellow-brick road.”

Count Otto Black made a thoughtful face, but as most of it was lost beneath his beard, the degree of its thoughtfulness was lost upon Jack and Eddie.

“We will take Tinto’s Bar as a starting point,” said he. “Why did you leave Tinto’s Bar?”

“Because Tinto had given a note from a spaceman to what he thought was Eddie, but wasn’t,” said Jack.

“And what did that note say?”

“It said that the location of a landed spaceship was Toy Town,” said Jack, “so we went to Toy Town in the car.”

“Hold on,” said Eddie. “I don’t remember any of that. How come you didn’t mention that you remembered that earlier?”

“He couldn’t,” said Count Otto Black.

“Why not?” asked Eddie.

“Because he didn’t remember it.”

“So how come he remembers it now?”

“Because I just hypnotised him.”

“What?” said Eddie. “I never saw you do that.”

“You did,” said Count Otto, “but I hypnotised you so you won’t remember how I did it.”

“You didn’t,” said Eddie.

“Crow like a rooster,” said Count Otto Black. “You are a rooster.”

“Cock-a-doodle-do!” went Eddie.

“And rest,” said the count. And Eddie rested.

“So you left Tinto’s Bar and travelled to Toy Town,” said the count to Jack. “What happened next?”

“We went to Bill Winkie’s house,” said Jack. “Eddie still had the key and we let ourselves in. And Eddie showed me all these weapons hidden beneath the floor. And then we heard someone coming and we hid beneath the trap door.”

“Tell me what you heard then,” said the count.

And Jack spoke of the conversation that he and Eddie had overheard, regarding things in jars and suchlike. And he told the count that the voices they had heard had been their own voices. And then how they’d climbed out of the hideaway and how there had then been a very bright light.

“And what happened next?” asked Count Otto Black.

Jack sat in his chair and stared into space. His eyes grew wide and his hands gripped the arms of his chair. His knuckles whitened, as did his face. Eddie looked on and Eddie looked on with a sense of growing fear.

“The light,” went Jack. “The terrible light.”

“Go on,” said the count. “The light can’t hurt you now.”

“Oh,” went Jack. “They’re coming for us. Out of the light, they’re coming.”

“Gently now,” said Count Otto Black. “You’re quite safe here, they can’t hurt you here. Who is coming out of the light?”

“Not who,” said Jack, and cold sweat formed upon his brow and trickled down his cheeks. “It’s what, not who. They are not men.”

“Are they toys?” asked the count.

“Not toys. Oh, now, they’re taking us. Up into the light. They have us. In that place, that bright place. They’re putting things up our – Ouch! Stop! Ouch!”

“We’ll take a little break there, I think,” said the count.

“No, we can’t,” said Eddie. “Painful as this is, we have to finish.”

“It’s too painful for me,” said the count.

“Too painful for you?”

“Indeed,” said Count Otto. “I need to take a wee-wee. I should have taken one earlier. I can’t hold on any longer.”

Count Otto Black went off to the toilet. Presently, he returned.

“All better now,” he said. “I took a poo as well, just to be on the safe side.”

“Too much information,” said Eddie. “And you’ve quite spoiled the mood.”

“Well, it’s neither here nor there,” said the count, settling himself down into his chair and wiggling his fingers at Jack. “He’ll be nothing more than a vegetable when all this is done.”

“No, I won’t,” said Jack. “I’ll be fine.”

“See how brave he is?” said Eddie. “He’s as noble as.”

“Please yourselves,” said Count Otto. “Pray continue, Jack. Tell us all about the rectal probings.”

Over in the big top, high-wire walkers paused in their practisings, struck by the screams from Count Otto’s caravan. Pigeons fled their airy perches. Dogs howled in the distance.

“Much too much information,” said Eddie, rubbing at his own bum and feeling rather queasy.