540. Chapter 540

After Valkyrie

Episode 6.01

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: It's not over until the fat lady sings, and she's singing, "UCSBdad does not own Castle". Rating: K Time: See above.

Author's note: This is a continuation of Chapters 84, 187, 327 and 471.

Lord Richard Castle sat at the breakfast table of his spacious London townhouse, located on Sloane Square. He glanced over to his lovely American born wife, Lady Katherine Beckett-Castle and to his lovely daughter, Lady Alexis Castle. He noticed that they appeared to be very so slightly sleep deprived, although as they had proved on so many adventures across Queen Victoria's Empire and to the Back of Beyond, they had iron constitutions. "Dear me! Did you have trouble sleeping last night, my dears?" He asked solicitously.

"Just a bit, dear Richard." Lady Katherine replied with a smile that gladdened her husband's heart. "Someone was playing the overture to Gioachino Rossini's William Tell in the square last night. I did find it disturbing, especially since one of the violins in the orchestra was mistuned by a sixteenth of a note."

Lord Castle nodded, never ceasing to be amazed by the skills the love of his life had at her beck and call. "Perhaps it will interest you both to see my latest invention?"

Both Lady Katherine and Lady Alexis smiled indulgently. Although Lord Castle was renowned as a great inventor, explorer and adventurer, most of his inventions and explorations were due to the brilliance of his daughter, and now also due to his wife, whose brilliant mind matched Lady Alexis' own. "Please show us, dear."

"Yes, please do, Father dear."

Lord Castle pulled a large glass screen from underneath the breakfast table. "Here you see my latest invention. It's a device for reading the minds of our dumb animal friends. It can even see their dreams. I shall demonstrate by showing you what Cosmo is dreaming of." Lord Castle pointed the device at his faithful hound, Cosmo, a purebred Tibetan Mastiff whom Lord Castle had rescued from a Yeti while searching for Shangri-La. Lord Castle pointed his invention at the sleeping Cosmo and a picture began to appear on the glass screen. "Aha! Cosmo is dreaming of something long and white. I see! He's dreaming of a woman's leg. Egads, Alexis. From the coloring and contour, it appears to be your leg." A frown crossed Lord Richard's face. "What the deuce can he be dreaming of?" The picture changed slightly." Hmm! That's Cosmo approaching the leg, now he's wrapped his front paws about the thigh and he's rubbing himself…Oh my god!" Lord Castle immediately turned the device off.

"Cosmo! For shame. Thinking such impure thoughts. I shall have to discipline you."

"Do not do so, Father." Spoke Lady Alexis. "For Cosmo is but a mindless brute who knows no better."

Speaking of mindless brutes, Demming came into the breakfast room. Demming had once been Lord Castle's gentleman's gentleman, but it was discovered that removing the top from a tin of bootblack was too intellectually challenging for him. He had been demoted to work as a paper weight on Lord Castle's desk and then to a doorstop. He had finally found useful employment as ballast on Lord Castle's dirigible when the Castle family had discovered the source of the Nile. Since then, due to the hard work of Lady Alexis, Demming was now positioned at the front door so that the gentry could wipe the mud from their boots on him. Everyone said that Demming was really adequate at that job.

While Demming stood there dumbly, Constable Kevin Ryan came in, doffed his helmet and tugged at his forelock. "Beggin' yer pardon, yer Lordship, but I thought you should know. "Doc" Davidson and 'is gang has escaped from Wormwood Scrubbs prison. Manufactured a flying machine out of the prison governor's underwear and 'ot air from the prison chaplain. Sailed right over the wall, they did."

"Gadzooks!" Cried Lord Castle. "The Ethelred the Unready of Crime? Escaped?"

Alas, Doc Davidson had aspired to be the Napoleon of Crime, but with each defeat at the hands of Lord Castle he had descended down the monarchical lists to be the Napoleon III of crime, then the George III of crime, and then Charles II of crime, although unlike Charles, Doc Davidson still had his head. He had finally been called the Ethelred the Unready of Crime and there were already calls among the criminal fraternity to demote him further to the Romulus Augustus of crime, after the last, and most incompetent emperor of the Roman Empire. Needless to say, Davidson hated Lord Castle and his whole family with a passion.

"I must arm myself!" Lord Castle cried. "I know just the thing! One of my more brilliant inventions. To wit, a coal fired, steam powered, electric elephant gun." Lord Castle went to the sideboard and opened a secret compartment and withdrew a large firearm with an attached capacitor.

Constable Ryan stared at the weapon, the London Metropolitan Police being famously unarmed, but for a stout truncheon. "Do ye shoot many coal fired, steam powered electric elephants, Yer Lordship?" Asked the hardy Irishman.

"Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas." Lord Castle replied. "How he ever got them on, I'll never know."

While the family was contemplating the mysteries of life in London, there was a persistent knocking at the door. With Demming being distracted by a shiny object, the door was answered by the cook, Jenny Ryan, loving wife to Constable Ryan.

To their surprise, it was Lady Katherine's half-sister, Mycroft McCord, a woman with a mind as brilliant as Lady Katherine's, who had risen to be the eminence gris , a veritable power behind the throne of Great Britain.

Lady Katherine rose. "What is it, my dear sister?" For although sharing only a mother, the two had always considered themselves as sisters, much as Lady Alexis considered Lady Katherine to be her mother, and not the woman who had given her life, and of whom we say the less of, the better.

"I have dreadful news. The Bruce-Partington Plans have been stolen from a safe in the War Office."

Lord Castle was staggered. "Not the Bruce-Partington Plans! This is catastrophic! Disastrous. The fate of the Empire depends on the Plans. England expects that every man will do his duty!" Lord Castle, who had, after all served in the Guard's Camel Brigade in the Soudan, crashed to attention.

"Do you have any idea what the Bruce-Partington Plans are, dearest?" Lady Katherine asked.

"Not the slightest, I'm afraid." He admitted, a bit sheepishly.

"I regret that I cannot tell even you, Lord and Lady Castle, what the plans are, nor you Lady Alexis, but I fear that they have already fallen into the worst possible hands."

Meanwhile, in one of the foulest slums in all of London, Doc Davidson was laughing maniacally as he plotted his revenge on Lord Castle and anticipated the joy he would feel when he had finally broken the imperious Lady Katherine Beckett-Castle and made that flower of Anglo-American womanhood his and his alone.

Gathered around him were his faithful, up to a point, minions. There was "Sore" Will, a Yankee whose mangling of the Queen's English mystified the most hardened of criminals and grammar Nazis. "Vague" Eric was the personification of evil and Welsh, although he could be somewhat unfocused. Also present was Colin, a renegade copper whose nom de crime cannot be written for fear of offending our gentle readers. Last and certainly least was Doc's paramour, Virginia Gina, who was referred to with some reason as Va. Gina.

"At last I have them! The Bruce-Partington Plans are mine." He held up a sheaf of papers. "With these I have already begun the downfall of my arch enemy, Lord Richard Castle. Little does he know that the secret weapon in these plans are already spreading out across London and will doom that insufferable Lord! I shall have my revenge." He then led his myrmidons in a rousing chorus from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta: When a Felon's not Engaged in His Employment.

"Oh, Lord Castle's lot shall not be a happy one!" Cried Doc.

TO BE CONTINUED