Neville faced his customer with a cold good eye. “Come to kick me in the cobblers again, Pooley?” he asked. “You are here on sufferance you know, as a guest of Omally and the Professor.”

Jim nodded humbly. “What can I say?”

“Very little,” said Neville. “Can you smell creosote?”

Pooley’s moustachios shot towards the floor like a dowser’s rod. “Where?” he asked in a tremulous voice.

“Somewhere close,” said Neville. “Take my word, it bodes no good.”

“Be assured of that.” Pooley loaded the tray and cast a handful of coins on the counter.

“Keep the change,” he called, retreating fearfully to his table.

“We’re up next,” said Omally, upon the shaky Jim’s return. “Will you wager a pound or two upon the home team?”

“Neville smells creosote,” said Jim.

“Take it easy.” Professor Slocombe patted the distraught Pooley’s arm. “I have no doubt that they must suspect something. Be assured that they are being watched.”

The Captain Laser Alien Attack machine rattled out another series of electronic explosions.

Norman stepped on to the mat amidst tumultuous applause. He licked the tips of his darts and nodded towards the adjudicator.

“Swan to throw,” said that man.

Norman’s mastery of the game, his style and finesse, were legend in Brentford. Certain supporters who had moved away from the area travelled miles to witness his yearly display of skill. One pink-eyed man, who kept forever to the shadows, had actually travelled from as far afield as Penge.

“One hundred and eighty,” shouted the adjudicator, although his words were lost in the Wembley roar of the crowd.

“It is poetry,” said Omally.

“Perfect mastery,” said Pooley.

“I think it has something to do with the darts,” said Professor Slocombe, “and possibly the board, which I understand he donated to the Swan.”

“You are not implying some sort of electronic duplicity upon the part of our captain, are you?” Omally asked.

“Would I dare? But you will notice that each time he throws, the Guinness clock stops. This might be nothing more than coincidence.”

“The whole world holds its breath when Norman throws,” said Omally, further shortening the already impossibly foreshortened odds upon the home team. “Whose round is it?”

“I will go on to sherry now, if you please,” said the Professor. “I have no wish to use the Swan’s convenience tonight.”

“Quite so,” said John. “We would all do well to stay in the crowd. Shorts all round then.” Rising from the table, he took up his book, and departed into the crowd.

Old Pete approached Professor Slocombe and greeted the scholar with much hand-wringing. “My dog Chips tells me that we have a bogey in our midst,” said he.

“And a distinguished one of the literary persuasion,” the elder ancient replied. “Tell your dog that he has nothing to fear, he is on our side.”

Old Pete nodded and turned the conversation towards the sad decline in the nation’s morals and Professor Slocombe’s opinion of the post office computer.

Omally found the boy Nick at the bar, ordering a half of light and lime. “Have this one on me,” he said, handing the boy two florins. “You are doing a grand job.”

Raffles Rathbone raised a manicured eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you now approve?” he asked.

“Each to his own. I have never been one to deny the pleasures of the flesh. Here, have a couple of games on me and don’t miss now, will you?” He dropped several more coins into the boy’s outstretched palm.

“I never miss,” Nick replied. “I have the game mastered.”

“Good boy. Two gold watches and a small sweet sherry please, Neville.”

The part-time barman glared at Omally. “You are paying for these,” he snarled. “I still have my suspicions.”

“You can owe me later,” Omally replied, delving into his pockets. “I am a man of my word.”

“And I mine, eighteen and six please.”

“Do you know something I don’t?” Nick asked the Irishman.

“A good many things. Did you have anything specific in mind?”

“About the machine?”

“Nothing. Is something troubling you?”

Nick shook his limey head and turned his prodigious nose once more towards the unoccupied machine. “I must be going now,” he said, “the Captain awaits.”

“Buffoon,” said Omally beneath his breath. By the time he returned to the table, the Swan’s team had disposed of their adversaries in no uncertain fashion.

“I am sure that I am up by at least two bob on that game,” said Pooley.

“Two and fourpence,” said Professor Slocombe. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

The final eliminating match lay between the Four Horsemen and the Albany Arms, whose team of old stalwarts, each a veteran of Gallipoli, had been faring remarkably well against spirited opposition.

“Albany Arms to throw,” boomed himself.

“Leave me out of this one,” said Pooley. “Unless God chooses to intervene upon this occasion and despatch Young Jack into the bottomless pit, I feel it to be a foregone conclusion.”

“I will admit that you would have a wager at least one hundred pounds to win yourself another two and four-pence.”

“Don’t you feel that one thousand to one against the Albany is a little cruel?”

“But nevertheless tempting to the outside better.”

“Taking money from children,” said Professor Slocombe. “How can you live with yourself, John?”

Omally grinned beneath his beard. “Please do not deny me my livelihood,” said he.

From their first dart onwards, the Albany began to experience inexplicable difficulties with their game. Several of the normally robust geriatrics became suddenly subject to unexpected bouts of incontinence at their moments of throwing. Others mislaid their darts or spilled their beer, one even locked himself in the gents’ and refused to come out until the great grinning black goat was removed from in front of the dartboard.

It was remarkable the effect that Young Jack could have upon his team’s opponents. The crowd, however, was not impressed. Being responsive only to the finer points of the game and ever alert to such blatant skulduggery, they viewed this degrading spectacle with outrage and turned their backs upon the board.

Young Jack could not have cared less. The Four Horsemen needed but a double thirteen to take the match and the Albany had yet to get away. The present-day Faust smirked over towards the Professor and made an obscene gesture.

Professor Slocombe shook his head and made clicking noises with his tongue. “Most unsporting,” said he. “I shall see to it that none of this occurs in the final.”

Without waiting to watch the inevitable outcome of the game, he rose from his chair and took himself off to where the Swan’s team stood in a noisy scrum, ignoring the play.

“He has gone to bless the darts, I suspect,” said Omally. “In his yearly battle of wits with Young Jack, the Professor leaves nothing to chance.”

“Do you believe it possible?” Pooley asked wistfully. “That somewhere in this green and pleasant land of ours, this sceptred isle, this jewel set in a silver sea and whatever, that there might somewhere be a little darts team, based possibly in some obscure half-timbered country pub out in the sticks, which actually plays the game for the love of it alone, and without having recourse to some underhand jiggery-pokery?”

“Are you mad?” enquired Omally. “Or merely drunk?”

Jim shook his head. “I just wondered how such a game might look. If played by skill alone, I mean.”

“Jolly dull, I should think. Here, take this one-pound note, which you can owe to me, and get in another round.”

Jim watched a moment as Young Jack’s hellish black dart cleaved the air, leaving a yellow vapour trail, and thrust its oily nose into the double thirteen. “I should still like to see it,” he said. “Just the once.”

“Naïve boy,” sighed Omally, running his pencil down endless columns of figures, and wondering by how many thousands of pounds he was up this particular evening.