‘Lucky and the Case of the Left Hand Club’ By Harry Riley

“Ah…I am speaking to Lucky Mr. Osborne?”

“Well er…”

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded decidedly foreign, I get all kinds of weirdo’s ringing me up at odd hours of the day and night, so I tend to be a bit cagey.

“Yes, that’s me, who’s asking?”

“Ah…and you have the detective black cat?”

I could see it was going to be one of those conversations. “Look we’ll get on a lot better if you just tell me who you are and who sent you?” I was getting annoyed: four-o-clock in the morning is always a bad time for me especially when I’ve been up most of the night on surveillance.

“Ah…The Policeman Chief Andy said a good man you are.”

Now it was crystal clear, my old friend on the force had put this foreign time-waster on to me. Thanks a bunch Andy, I’ll do you a favour sometime.

“Look, if you’ll just give me your number, I’ll grab a cup of tea and ring you back. I’m sorry to be so rude but I’ve been out all night and had just dropped off when you called. Oh and by the way my name is Osborne Lucky, known to my friends as Born Lucky of the Black Cat Detective Agency.”

The caller heard me out with several more Ah’s but politely refused to give his name and said he would visit me in person later in the day.

I put the strange call out of my mind, deciding to give Andy Walker a good ear-bashing over our next pint at the pub. Needless to say the foreigner never came.

Two weeks later three big men in dark suits knocked at my office door and made it abundantly clear they were not Jehovah Witnesses and that I was accompany them on a journey-sort of immediately. They were not impressed when I insisted on leaving a saucer of milk for my cat Blackie.

During the drive I was none the wiser as they spoke not a word and an hour later we pulled into a private country estate in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by eight-