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the matter of Sir Gawain. He has ventured unaccompanied into the metropolis.”
    â€œGod’s teeth!” A fist struck leather upholstery.
    â€œI am inclined to agree, Sir Lancelot,” I replied.
    Â 
VI
    I confess I was unprepared for the panorama presenting itself as we entered the heart of Cardiff. The streets teemed with revellers in advanced states of inebriation. Females, dressed in the flimsiest of attire, staggered past lurid neon signs, or lurched on unsuitable shoes into the path of the taxis they were attempting to hail. Their male counterparts, though more sturdily shod, yielded nothing to the women when it came to intoxication. When not swaggering and preening for the attention of potential mates, they rutted with rivals in periodic bouts of violence. So territorial were these clashes that I half expected them to start marking their turf. Sure enough, I had scarcely formed the thought when one of them unzipped his flies and did exactly that. The ill tidings of the dashboard clock returned me to my senses.
    â€œWhat manner of feast day is this?” I said, when we had located suitable parking down a side street.
    â€œSaturday night. Perhaps you should stay with the car, Lucas. The capital on a weekend is no place for a butler.”
    â€œThank you for your concern, Sir Lancelot. But I think it would be better, given our tight schedule, that I accompany you in the retrieval of Sir Gawain.”
    â€œStay close to me, then. And watch your step. There are pitfalls aplenty for the unwary traveller.”
    As indeed there were, even during our short journey to Jennifer’s Nightclub, a favourite haunt of our companion according to Sir Lancelot. A man stumbled towards me, a bottle of lager slipping from each hand; these I caught before they could shatter on the pavement, placing the empty one in a litter bin and the full one in my trouser pocket. I pulled back a girl who was teetering on the edge of the kerb, so that she might find herself inside the bus she was waiting for, rather than spread across the front of it. The tramp intent on following her aboard found his hand clasping not the bag he had been grabbing for, but the full bottle of lager from my pocket, and was still thanking his lucky stars when the doors closed and the bus drove the girl safely away.
    All the while, Sir Lancelot forged ahead with the kind of stride that informed anyone blocking his path of the folly of their ways. Including the stocky guardsmen stationed at the nightclub doorway, who simply nodded him through as if he owned the place. For all I knew of his numerous business interests, he probably did. Upon entering, a monstrous sound assailed my ears, as of the rumbling and growling of a cornered animal. This dreadful racket was interspersed with a female wailing, like a lady confronted by the desperate creature, screaming for her very life. But apparently I was the only one disturbed by the din, for the occupants of Jennifer’s moved happily to its rhythm. At the centre of a sea of bodies I espied Sir Gawain, nimble of foot and brimful of ale, oblivious to Sir Lancelot wading steadily towards him. I hesitated at the edge of the dancing area, partly because I was still taking it all in, and partly because the young man entering the club behind me, assuming me for some kind of attendant, had just handed me his coat. I placed it around the shoulders of a scantily clad girl who was on her way out, and followed in Sir Lancelot’s wake.
    Sir Gawain was dancing at the centre of a group of women fitted out in a variety of costumes, including several in a style favoured by the French serving classes during the last century. Their approval of Sir Gawain’s dancing was in inverse proportion to the disapproval of a gang of men surveying the scene from a table to our right with skirmish-hungry stares. Upon seeing Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain merely rolled his eyes and continued to dance. “What do you want, Lancey?