‘That is oh so wrong,’ I said to Mr Rune. ‘There is something somehow altogether indecent about walking through a clown.’

The clown now waved at me, pulled out an item which proved to be a balloon, inflated this and tied the end and then proceeded to do one of those terrible things that clowns do. Create a balloon animal.

‘There should be a law against clowns,’ I said, shrinking low now in my chair. ‘Especially ghostly ones. Please deal with it, Mr Rune.’

‘Ah,’ said the Magus. ‘You have changed your tune.’

‘Yes, well, call me a doubting Thomas but I can see him there in all his circus horror and I would like to be rid of him. Shall I fish out the Zo Zo gun so you can blast him in his silly red nose with it?’

‘Let us not run before we can walk, Rizla. Nor skip before we have learned to perambulate upon a unicycle. The darling buds of May won’t yodel up the canyon, if God is in His Heaven and there isn’t an R in the month.’

‘Not one of your best,’ I told the Perfect Master. ‘But I really would like you to get rid of that clown now. I do not fancy having to squeeze through him myself to get to the Gents. And the way things are going for me, I will need the Gents sooner rather than later.’

‘Okey-dokey then.’ Hugo Rune rose from his specially reserved chair and drew himself to his full impressive height. ‘Robes, Rizla,’ he said. And I hastened to oblige.

I fished Mr Rune’s papal robes and matching mitre from the pigskin valise and helped with his togging-up. This togging-up now drew the attention of a punter or two. Who passed on this attention to others through the medium of elbow-rib-nudgings and into-ear-whisperings.

All these finally reached the landlord, who cried out for order. ‘Are you about to perform the exorcism, Mr Rune?’ called Fangio.

‘I am,’ said the guru’s guru.

‘Then get your drinks in quick, gentlemen, if you please.’

And there was a rush at the bar.

Hugo Rune fussed at his trappings. Adjusting a glittering amulet of the Doctor Strange persuasion at his throat. And, whilst I held up a hand mirror for him, slanting his mitre to the ever-popular ‘rakish angle’.

The clown, for all this while, perused Himself and wore an unreadable expression beneath his painted smile. I observed that the balloon animal he had fashioned was not so much a balloon animal, but rather something crudely obscene. And this he waggled at me.

Mr Rune began to pull seemingly random items from the pigskin valise. A plastic plate, a bamboo cane. A set of Indian clubs. The patrons, now served to their satisfaction, had formed themselves into a half-circle behind the ethereal clown. And although it still appeared that only Mr Rune and I could actually see this apparition, the patrons made encouraging faces and toasted Mr Rune.

‘What exactly is going to happen?’ I whispered over my shandy.

‘Queer things, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘And I will require your assistance. So do you need to go to the toilet before we get started?’

‘Actually I do.’

‘Then do so.’

‘Not if I have to squeeze through the clown.’

‘Oh me, oh my.’ And Hugo Rune called out to the clown. ‘Friend Gusset,’ he called, for that was the name as mentioned in the newspaper. ‘Friend Gusset, kindly step aside and allow my servant to visit the gentlemen’s excuse me.’

The clown held up his obscene balloon thing as one might hold an umbrella. And then he rose into the air and hovered near the ceiling.

‘I am now getting very scared,’ I said. ‘And I truly, madly, deeply need the toilet.’

And with that made clear, I scurried away, slamming the door behind me. And I took myself into the nearest cubicle, slamming that door also.

And locking it.

I would have taken great steadying breaths, but that is not wise in a toilet. Instead I just got on with my business. Which was pressing now. And if I had not actually been doing my business when what happened next happened, I would certainly have done my business when it did. So to speak.

‘Rizla,’ came a voice from somewhere. Somewhere near at hand.

‘Oh,’ I went. And, ‘Oooh.’ And, ‘Who?’ And I got all in a lather.

‘It is me, my boy. You know me as The Hermit.’

‘The Hermit?’ I said. Finishing my business and buttoning myself back into respectability. ‘The vision I had on the tram, when Mr Rune and I were engaged upon our first case? That Hermit?’

‘How many hermits a day do you generally meet on average?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I am somewhat upset. There is a clown ghost out there and although I have been involved in some pretty terrifying adventures with Mr Rune, I am still most afeared of ghosts.’

‘And not without good cause, Rizla. The one out there is a bad’n.

More demon than ghost. A foul and foetid fiend. And I, Diogenes, know fiends.’

‘Are you really my guardian angel?’ I asked.

‘You might say I’m a friend indeed. As you are in need.’

‘So are you here to help me?’

‘That is what I do. Although up until now I haven’t really had cause to. You seem to be getting on fine without my help.’

‘If you have any help to offer now I will gladly take it,’ I said.

‘Then put your ear against the door of your cubicle and let me whisper to you.’

And so I did and he whispered to me and I was thankful for that.

I never heard him leave the Gents. I left the cubicle, washed and dried my hands and returned to the saloon bar, where the horrible clown still hovered up near the ceiling and Mr Rune greeted my reappearance with words to the effect that I had taken far too long and that he dreaded to think what I had been getting up to in there.

Which I did not think was funny.

But then he addressed the assembled throng, so what I thought was neither here, nor there.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Hugo Rune addressed this throng. ‘We are gathered today to drive from our midst an evil presence.’ And he looked up at the hovering clown and the hovering clown dropped floorwards. ‘Can any but myself and my highly trained second in command see this vision of nastiness?’

‘Second in command’ and ‘highly trained’ – I almost buffed my fingernails, while all about the bar there were shakings of heads.

‘I haven’t actually seen him,’ called Fangio, ‘but he’s been playing havoc with my crisps and cellar stock. And I can’t have that. He’s not what I ordered, I want him removed.’

Hugo Rune did clearings of his throat. ‘Not what you ordered?’ he queried. ‘Speak to me of this.’

‘Ah,’ went Fangio. ‘Well, it’s a private matter really. Walls have ears and all that. And there is a war on.’

The clown began to do a foolish dance. And Hugo Rune rose slightly on his toes. ‘Spit it out now, Fangio,’ he demanded. ‘The more information I have at this time, the more effective will be my dispelling of this entity.’

The entity in question seemed to be squaring up. But just for what I had no way of knowing.

‘I bought him,’ said Fangio.

The crowd went, ‘Oooooooh.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said the barlord, ‘but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Haunted inns draw in punters. And you lot-’ he gestured around and about at his patrons ‘-tend to be somewhat fickle. You all slunk off to The Four Horsemen not so long ago, when the new guv’nor undercut me with his beer prices.’

Which was true, but the patrons shrugged it off.

‘And then this travelling mendicant turned up last week. An evil-looking beggar he was. And I told him how trade was coming and going and how it was ever the lot of the poor barlord that he should go without while others prospered.’

The patrons now did mumblings at this. And some of these mumblings concerned finding a beam to throw a hangman’s rope over.

‘Give me a break,’ cried Fangio. ‘I’m only trying to make a living here.’

‘Continue with your tale,’ said Hugo Rune.

The clown now took a step in his direction.