A Literary Adventure

"Poppet, have you seen my polishing rag?" Samuels' question preceded him into the cook's room, though only barely. As he entered, Samuels was startled to see Mrs. Mathews leap up from her desk and hastily stuff a typewriter into her bosom, summarily smearing still-wet ink over the majority of her chest in the process. "What are you doing?" he inquired, his reason for entering quite eclipsed by his curiosity at her strange behavior.

"Nothing!" She jumped on the word like a startled rodent, while leaning against the fireplace in a conspicuously casual manner. "I haven't seen your polishing rag and I definitely didn't accidentally incinerate it while making the salad dressing for last night's dinner." 

"There wasn't a salad with dinner last night" rebutted Samuels, momentarily sidetracked.

"Exactly, Dominic. Quite right. So if that was all you wanted..." She crossed the room to him, and resumed her casual lean against his chest, subtly trying to push him out of the room.  

"Why did you shove your typewriter into your bosom when I came in? I didn't even know you wrote."

"What? What typewriter?" Mrs. Matthews' voice shot up an octave.

Quick as a flash Samuels wrapped one arm around the cook's torso, securing her against him, while the other arm plunged unceremoniously into her cleavage and began rooting around. When he'd first hired her, Samuels had regarded the nearly infinite storage capacity of Mrs. Matthews' bosom with something akin to horrified wonderment, and  he had thus refused to go anywhere near it. In the ensuing months, however, the butler had become thoroughly inured to it.  "You've redecorated in there," he observed casually. "I like the new wallpaper."

"Thank you. I find that purple really brings out the shine in the mahogany furniture," replied Mrs. Matthews cheerfully, though she continued to squirm and thrash against him in a bid for freedom. Unfortunately her violent movements did Samuels more help than harm, as they pushed his arm deeper into the mysterious space and, quite by accident, maneuvered his hand onto the hurriedly stashed typewriter.  With a triumphant exclamation the butler lifted it out and spun away from its owner, quickly scanning the half-smeared words.

It took several minutes for him to turn back to his friend and confront her about what she'd written. At first, Samuels assumed that the smeared ink had blurred the words into meaninglessness. Then he assumed that he must be projecting his own repressed desires onto the cook's innocuous writing. Finally he realized that it was neither of these things, and that she had indeed written the story he had read.

He turned to her. "Jack the Bodice Ripper, London's Premier Playboy Murderer?" He made the very words a question, and had so many more behind them.

Mrs Matthews had the decency to turn bright red, and she stammered out her response. "Well, yes, I suppose you could read it like that. I like to think that there are other interpretations as well..." She trailed off under the look Samuels was giving her.

"What on earth possessed you to write this kind of story?" he demanded, equal parts entertained and scandalized.

"Oh, you know, it's just one of those things Dominic. It started as a joke, but then the Lady found one of the stories while she was going through my things (looking for assassins) and she loved it. She bullied m'lord Blackbourne into setting up the printing press in the basement, and now I'm on the twelfth book of the series.  We have sold almost a million copies on the literary black market in London Town," she concluded with not a little pride.

"I was wondering what the printing press was doing in the basement," murmured Samuels. "Wait, you mean there are eleven more of these stories?"

"Yes. I have the whole collection, leather bound. It's actually quite a classy presentation, though heaven knows the stories aren't!" She cackled wickedly. "Would you like to borrow them, Dominic?"

Samuels considered nursing his offended sensibilities, but chose instead to laugh in the face of his cook's eccentricities and, once started, found he could not stop. He giggled and chuckled for quite a long time before finally calming down long enough to ask, "My dear Mrs Matthews, will you ever cease to surprise me?"

"I certainly hope not!" came the cheeky reply. "I would hate to think I'm losing my touch,"