I had one of my vivid, detailed dreams last night, the type that I can remember later, the type that leads me to review what I ate before bed and check to see if I am current on my meds.

It was a mystery dream, in which I was a detective-without-portfolio investigating a murder for a client.  The client was patterned rather closely after Hillary Swank's character in The Black Dahlia.  The victim was her dog, a pedigreed but unattractive animal named Princess Margaret Hapsburg-Bitch.  The supporting players including the client's sister, who resembled Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, the sister's upstairs maid, and the sister's driver/valet/enforcer.  Eventually I concluded that the murder was the driver/valet/enforcer, who murdered the dog out of a fit of pique stemming from issues about his mother, who may or may not also have been named Princess Margaret.  Gloria Swanson and the upstairs maid helped cover it up by moving the body and removing incriminating kibble.

So the dream reached the all-parties-gathered-in-the-drawing-room stage, and I was sitting at a table contemplating how I would ask a series of questions to reveal the killer.  The driver/valet/enforcer carried a revolver in his seersucker suit, so I had drawn my gun and was holding it under the table along my leg.  It occurred to me that the gun was curiously cold.  Extremely cold.

That's when I realized I wasn't wearing pants.

My pantslessness was an ineluctable impediment to the plot.  Persons without pants have no role to play in Edwardian or inter-war drawing room mysteries.  A person without pants would not be admitted, even through the servant's entrance.  At most, such a person might be referred to extremely obliquely as part of an incident involving regrettable unpleasantness.

So what could I do?  I shot them.  I shot them all.  Including the client.

The dream became fuzzy then, but I seem to recall there was quite a lot of paperwork.

Last 5 posts by Ken

• Anatomy Of A Scam Investigation, Chapter Ten - February 5th, 2012
• Marc Stephens Threatens Me Some More - February 3rd, 2012
• Now I Belong To The Ages - January 31st, 2012
• The Road to Popehat: The Oracle At Popehat Edition - January 27th, 2012
• Step Right Up For The Thursday Censorious Asshat Roundup - January 26th, 2012