‘Then you were misinformed,’ said Mr Hugo Rune. ‘And now I must request that you produce a tarot card from what remains of the pack.’

I dug into my jacket pocket and removed a single card. ‘THE FOOL,’ I said. And Hugo Rune nodded and then began to pack.

I watched Mr Rune as he packed numerous items into a heavy pigskin valise.

‘These would be instruments of exorcism, I suppose?’ I said, as I did this watching.

‘The full dog and pony show, Rizla. It is always best to go at such a venture with all of the trappings. It lends a professional look. Sets the tone. Creates a certain atmosphere and things of that nature, generally.’

‘Shameful,’ I said. ‘And what is that for? I just saw you pop a toy ray gun into that valise.’

‘The Zo Zo gun,’ said Hugo Rune, drawing same from the pigskin valise and twirling it on his finger. ‘Ideal for focusing a blast of psychic energy against a wayward creature of the dark side.’

‘Are you being paid for performing this exorcism?’ I enquired.

‘The satisfaction of a job well done can be its own reward,’ said the Magus. And without laughing. I was impressed.

‘I am not impressed,’ I said to him. ‘I am getting the distinct feeling that you and Fangio are in this together. You are both up to something.’

Hugo Rune slipped a ball of string, a bicycle pump, a copy of Old Moore ’s Almanac and a pair of gardening gloves into the pigskin valise. ‘So you will have no wish to accompany me and act as my assistant,’ he said.

‘Now I never said that,’ I said.

‘Then fetch me a small watering can from the garage.’

‘We have a garage?’ I said.

‘And my robes, Rizla. From the wardrobe in my bedroom. The red papal number, I think. With the matching mitre.’

It was quite a struggle that day to get to Fangio’s.

For while Hugo Rune made great strides ahead, swinging his stout stick and whistling, I laboured under the weight of a pigskin valise and it was quite a struggle.

The bar was crowded when we arrived and there was a certain carnival atmosphere. Garlic bunches were draped all around and about and Union Jack bunting adorned the bar counter. The air was a healthy blue with the smoke of Wild Woodbine. And the distinctive, if historically incorrect, tones of a steel pan flowed from a far corner, where a lady in a straw hat, from an as yet unbuilt town called Milton Keynes, played The Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’. I decided to turn a blind eye to that lot, simply drink beer and join in what fun there was to be had. I started first with the beer.

Amongst today’s guest ales I found Saucy McFoodlefist. Which Old Pete informed me was also the name of a wraith that drifted at midnight across the allotments, wringing its transparent hands and calling out for sprouts.

I raised my eyebrows and shook my head and wondered where all this was leading.

‘Ah, Mr Rune,’ cried Fangio, sighting Himself towering amongst the revellers. ‘Thank Saint Amand you’re here. Would you care for a pint of something? Before you free this establishment from the curse that has befallen it and dispatch the unclean denizens of the world beyond to where they should rightfully be.’

Hugo Rune ordered a pint of Franklin Gothic for himself and a McFoodlefist shandy for me.

‘You will want to keep a clear head for the exorcism,’ he told me.

I ground my teeth, accepted my shandy and followed Hugo Rune.

‘And bring the valise,’ he said.

So I returned to the bar counter and, grumbling in a manner that was perhaps unprofessional for an exorcist’s assistant, dragged the heavy bag of nonsense across the bar room floor.

We settled into our specially reserved chairs at our specially reserved table.

‘There is not really a ghost here, is there?’ I asked, as I supped my shandy and hated it.

‘Did you know that the dead outnumber the living by eighteen to one?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But then I do not particularly care.’

‘I feel a presence,’ said the Magus and fluttered his fingers about.

‘Perhaps it is the shade of P. T. Barnum,’ I suggested. ‘The King of Humbugs drawn to a kindred spirit, as it were.’

‘Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘do try to get into the spirit of the thing. As it were. If you are not prepared mentally you will find that when a manifestation occurs, you will have egg on your face.’

‘But not my egg,’ I said. ‘You stole my egg at breakfast.’

‘Drink your shandy and say some prayers, or sing a hymn, or something.’

‘Oh come on,’ I said. ‘This is absurd. You cannot expect me to take it seriously. It is all nonsense. And I will tell you why it is all nonsense, if you would care to listen.’

‘I am all ears,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Pray do enlighten me.’

‘This is an alehouse,’ I said. ‘And also it is an inn, correct?’

‘Fangio takes in the occasional traveller,’ Hugo Rune agreed.

‘Poor choice of phrase, but probably apt. So what I am saying is this. A haunted inn is a tourist attraction. People will come and stay at a haunted inn, in the hope of having a supernatural experience. I hate to use the expression “bite the hand that feeds you” – well, actually I do not, as it is wholly appropriate – but no barlord of a haunted inn would ever bite the hand that fed him by having his haunted inn exorcised.’

‘Sound thinking, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune.

‘And… and…’ I said, because I had now thought of something else. ‘Ghosts do not just pop up out of nowhere and start haunting places. Ghosts are established, they have a history. There was not even the tiniest hint last week that this bar had ever been haunted. I rest my case and I detest this shandy. Order a beer for me, please.’

And frankly I did not feel that there was anything else that needed saying. But that this entire fiasco would be better brought at once to a speedy end. With a confession from Fangio that he and Mr Rune were simply playing a harmless prank and no more should be thought, or said, about the matter.

‘And that is what you think?’ said Hugo Rune.

To which I nodded. Because it was what I thought. Although I had not actually said the last bit out loud.

‘Then how do you account for that?’

And I looked.

And I saw.

And I could not.

‘Eeek!’ I shouted. ‘It is a ghost!’ Which was not too professional.

But then I shouted, ‘Hold on a minute. That is not a ghost but a clown!’

For a clown stood there, as large as life, larger regarding the footwear.

He was your standard-issue clown as it happened. Slightly below average height. Burly and redolent of somewhere in central Europe.

He wore the red nose and ginger wig that separate clown from accountant. The humorous trousers, whose humour is lost upon anyone over ten years of age. The garishly checked jacket with comedy squirting flower. Unique facial painting work of the type that has to be painted upon an egg and registered with Clown Central Office. Somewhere in Funland.

‘Clown,’ I said. ‘Not ghost.’

‘Ghostly clown,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘See how his big shoes scarcely reach the floor.’

And sadly this was true. The big shoes were just scraping the floor. The clown grinned wickedly.

I became aware that the patrons of The Purple Princess did not appear to be cognisant of the ghost clown’s presence. They were carrying on as ever they had, with the clown right there in their midst.

I shrank back behind my shandy. ‘Can no one see him but us?’ I asked Hugo Rune.

‘This would appear to be the case. And what do you say to that?’

Old Pete, whose bladder was not what it had once been, having once been punctured through by a Jezail bullet in the Afghan Campaign of eighteen ninety-four, was plodding off to the Gents. And Mr Rune and I watched as he plodded right through the clown.