Everyone was doing it. Every man on almost every street. And every woman too and every child. So what if the end of civilization was coming? Everyone seemed to agree that they could handle that — if not with a smile upon the face, then at least with a finger up the nose.

And so they wandered about like sleepwalkers. In and out of the tobacconist’s. Norman said that trade had never been so good —Although he wasn’t selling much in the way of sweeties.

Doveston’s Snuff, eh? Who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought that there could have been anything dubious about Doveston’s Snuff? That it might, perhaps, contain something more than just ground tobacco and flavourings? That it might, perhaps, contain some, how shall Iput this ... DRUGS?

And if someone had thought it, would that someone have been able to work out the reason why? Would that someone have been able to uncover the fact that here was a conspiracy on a global scale? That this was in fact the work of the Secret Govermnent of the World, covering its smelly bottom against the forthcoming downfall of civilization?

I very much doubt it.

I didn’t figure it out.

Which was a shame, really. Because if I had figured it out, I would have been able to have done something about it. Because, after all, like that silly bugger with the razor blades, I did own the company. I could have taken the snuff off the shop shelves. I might even have been able to expose the conspiracy. Bring down the Secret Government of the World. Save mankind from the horrors to come.

But I didn’t figure it out, so there you go.

I was far too busy to figure anything out. I was trying to hunt down a murderer and I was trying to organize a party: THE GREAT MILLENNIAL BALL.

The Doveston’s solicitor had issued me with an enormous portfolio, containing all the details of the ball. Everything had to be done exactly as the Doveston had planned it. If not, and the solicitor rubbed his hands together as he told me, I would lose everything.

Everything.

I did not intend to lose everything and so I followed the instructions to the very letter. Norman was a tower of strength throughout this period. He’d had a big hand in the original planning of the ball and he arranged to have his uncle run his shop while he assisted me at Castle Doveston.

There were times, however, when he and I almost fell out.

‘The dwarves are here,’ he said one Friday evening, breezing into my office and plonking his bum on my desk.

‘What dwarves?’

‘The ones who’ve been hired for the ball. Fourteen of them have turned up for the audition, but we only need seven.’

‘No-one ever needs more than seven dwarves,’ I said, taking a green cigar from the humidor and running it under my nose. ‘But what are these seven dwarves going to do?’

‘They’re going to have all their hair shaved off Then, at the ball, they have to move around amongst the guests with lines of cocaine on their heads.’

The green cigar went up my left nostril. ‘What?’ I went. ‘What? What? What?’

‘You really should read all the small print.’

‘It’s gross,’ I said. ‘That’s what it is.’

Norman helped himself to a cigar. ‘If you think that’s gross,’ he said ‘wait ‘til you meet the human ashtrays.’

I auditioned the dwarves. It was a painful experience. Even though they were all prepared to submit to the humiliation of having their heads shaved, it didn’t make me feel any better about it. In the end,

I let their sex decide the matter for me.

There were seven men and seven women.

In the spirit of the Nineties, PC and positive discrimination, I dismissed all the men and chose the women.

An interior decorator called Lawrence had been engaged to spruce up the great hall for the party. Lawrence was famous. He starred in a very popular BBC television series, where neighbours were invited to redecorate each other’s rooms in a manner calculated to create the maximum amount of annoyance and distress.

I loved the show and I really liked Lawrence. He was all long hair and leather trousers and he would strut about in cowboy boots, getting bad-tempered and shouting that this wasn’t right and that had to be moved and that thing over there must be torn down and thrown away.

Lawrence didn’t take to the Doveston’s fine art collection. He hated it. He said that the Canalettos were far too old-fashioned and so he drew in some speedboats with a felt-tipped pen. I don’t know much about art, but I know I liked his speedboats.

I didn’t like it, though, when he told me that the two pillars supporting the minstrels’ gallery would have to be demolished.

‘We can’t do that,’ I told him. ‘The minstrels’ gallery will collapse.’

Lawrence stamped his cowboy boots and grew quite red in the face. ‘They ruin the lines,’ he shouted. ‘I want to hang cascades of plastic fruit over the gallery. Either those pillars go, or I will.’

I knew that I couldn’t lose Lawrence, but I knew the pillars had to stay. Luckily Norman stepped in and saved the situation. He suggested to Lawrence that he give the pillars a coat of invisible paint.

Norman’s invisible paint really impressed the volatile Lawrence and he soon had the shopkeeper trailing after him, painting over Rembrandts and Caravaggios and suits of armour that couldn’t be moved. And making doorways look wider and steps look lower and generally improving the look of the place.

I have no idea where the Doveston found the chef.

He was famous too, apparently, but I’d never heard of him. The chef was short and stout and swarthy and sweaty and swore a great deal of the time. Like all chefs, he was barking mad and he hated everybody. He hated Lawrence and he hated me. I introduced him to Norman. He hated Norman too.

‘And this is my chauffeur, Rapscallion.’

‘I hate him,’ said the chef.

The chef, however, loved cooking. And he loved-loved-loved to cook for the rich and famous. And when I told him that he would be doing so for nearly four hundred of the buggers, he kissed me on the mouth and promised that he would prepare dishes of such an exquisite nature as to rival and surpass any that had ever been prepared in the whole of mankind’s history.

And then he turned around and walked straight into an invisible pillar.

‘I hate this fucking house,’ said he.

Lazlo Woodbine kept in touch by telephone. He said that he and his associate, someone or something called Barry, were on the brink of solving the case and felt confident that they would be able to reveal the murderer’s identity on the night of the Great Millennial Ball. I really liked the sound of that.

It was just like an Agatha Christie.

Mary Clarissa Christie (1890-1976), English author of numerous detective novels. Too many featuring Hercule Poirot. And if you haven’t seen The Mousetrap, don’t bother, the detective did it.

And so the final weeks of the century ticked and tocked away. Lawrence had promised me that he’d have everything done in just two days. Which was all he ever took on the telly. But apparently these were special BBC days, each of which can last up to a month.

Norman marched about the place, taking care of business. He now wore upon his head a strange contraption built from Meccano. This, he told me, exercised his hair.

Norman had become convinced that the reason your hair falls out is because it’s unhealthy. So in order to keep it fit, you should give it plenty of exercise. He had invented a system that he called Hairobics. This consisted of a small gymnasium mounted on the head.

I did not expect Hairobics to rival the yo-yo’s success.