[back to me, your Girl in Grey]
While Scruff and Emily were having their adventures, I was freezing on top of a houseboat in Docklands. I was starting to wish that my costume had some sort of internal heating system when I felt someone board the barge. It was just a slight motion, but more than enough for me to detect. At once I prepared for action. Looking up I saw a dark figure on the deck. It wore an all-enveloping black cloak and a black trilby hat. That was more than enough for me to think it suspicious, but the fact that whoever it was carried a revolver confirmed my suspicions at once. Law-abiding citizens don't go around dressed up like that and carrying guns.
I carefully drew my faithful bullwhip from my belt and palmed a small flash-grenade. Thrown, it would startle the man and give me an opportunity to disarm him. That I had to do before I could fight - I can't dodge bullets very well.
I waited and watched as he moved over the deck. I had to seize my opportunity as it presented itself.
As he approached my hiding-[place I primed the grenade and threw it, shielding my eyes.The grenade went off, and I heard my opponent cry out in shock and pain. I acted at once. The bullwhip tore the revolver from his hand, and a kick sent him reeling back. I kicked the pistol over the side and into the water of the dock.
The cloaked man drew a knife from the folds of his outfit.
"Why are you protecting that evil man?" he asked.
"I have a distinct dislike to people going around murdering for little or no reason," I replied. "Who are you?"
"I am the Adventurer. That man in the barge would destroy me, pervert me. I cannot allow that to happen, so he must DIE!"
"I'm the Girl in Grey, and I say Galliard stays alive. You've got a problem with him. Well, I don't like him much either, but I can't let you murder him!"
Who was it, I wondered, Barton or Walker? The way the man spoke sounded as if he might be Walker, but I knew Walker limped, and this man did not. I so hoped it wasn't Barton.
"Get out of my way, girl!"
"I can't. Look, I can help. I can convince Galliard to give up the film."
"That's no good! Galliard has to die! They all have to die!"
He lunged forward. I cracked my whip and he fell back, crying out in pain.
"No, this isn't the way!" I declared. "Don't destroy yourself!"
I cracked my whip in front of him. Eyes filled with hate blazed out of the folds of the cloak.
"Get out of my way, or you die!"
Again he lunged. Again my whip drove him back. Bellowing with rage, he looked up at me from where he crouched on the deck.
I countered his next attack with a Judo move and laid him flat on his back. His hat came off and his knife went spinning away across the deck.
"Give it up," I warned. The cloaked figure shook his head.
"Never," he gasped.
Another crack of the whip tore open his mask, and I gasped in surprise.
I saw thick dark hair. And the face of a man I'd never seen before.
"'The Adventurer'," I smiled. "Care to tell me why this stunt?"
"Stop!"
I felt the muzzle of a pistol bore into my spine and sighed.
He'd had back-up!
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