Like big 'ol silverback gorillas wearing pyjamas and brandishing the plumpest of plump of pillows, The Slumberer's henchmen set upon our heroes; a fight commenced. Within seconds the mattress factory's floor was engulfed in the thunderous kerfuffle of much thwacking – not to mention dust, fluff, foam, an explosion of violence and feathers! So one might better envision the scene: the chaos was akin to a great battle between chickens and head lice taking place upon a very dandruffy scalp, a proverbial snowstorm of tiny white feathers all gusting about inside David Lynch's quiff. This made the penguins from chapters past feel only the more homesick, and our heroes retch.

  But it goes without saying that our fearless duo were up for the fight; from the moment the pillow-wielding pyjama-wearing henchmen/gorillas descended, swinging their cushiony maces above their heads, Detective Pilchard had already taken up a pair of pillows himself. Fearlessly, he began hurling his pillows at anything in jim-jams; a non-too-agile henchman received one of said detective's said pillows square to said chops, sending him crashing to the floor in a ploom of said feathers; when a second henchman tried sneaking up behind our wide-angled Pilchard, the detective twirled around and smacked his two pillows slap-across the sides of the baddie's face, squashing it like an over-ripe blackberry between a pair of cotton buttocks. (Beautiful.)

  And Crumpet-Hands Man? As one might expect (kinda), he was equally as effective in his dishing-out of sweet justice, firing his crumpets in all directions as though a demented clay pigeon launcher taking vengeance upon its tweed-wearing captors. (What?) Indeed, as our hero and the detective fought back to back, pillows and crumpets all a'swinging, both were was quick to praise the other's competence.

  “You fight well for a man with eyes in the wrong place, detective,” winked Crumpet-Hands Man.

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  “Well now,” Detective Pilchard replied humorously, having just torn a flock's worth of plumage across a foe's jaw, “for one forged primarily made of yeast and raising agents you're not so bad yourself.”

  “Raising agents?!” Following a gluten-laced uppercut, another baddie slain, our hero corrected, “I'll have you know, good sir, that all my ingredients are one-hundred percent organic. Not a trace of genetic modification.”

  “What about pesticides?”

  “Pesticides!” Our hero screamed, retched, fainted, found the strength to recover and go-on scuffling, “Pesticides? Pesti-Perish the thought! My crumpets are both delicious, nutritious and kind on the environment! And they're ethically sourced, no less.”

  “No less?”

  “Less, no.”

  “Is that so?”

  “So that is!”

  “Is?”

  “So so! More or less...”

  Thankfully our heroes' battling was better than their banter...

  In a no time a measured only by its flatness (and time... What?) our heroes had successfully littered the factory floor with groaning, moaning, thoroughly defeated henchmen. (And feathers. Lots of feathers.) Yet in all the commotion – and the simple joy of beating a baddie senseless with an embroidered bed-sack – The Slumberer had managed to slip away; where that dastardly little villain had gotten to, or what evilness he planned on unleashing upon an unsuspecting city, neither Crumpet-Hands Man nor Detective Pilchard knew. One thing was for certain, however: they had to find out. And quick!

  “But first,” Crumpet-Hands Man said, crumpet-handing his partner a broom, “let us tidy away all these feathers and bodies.”

  “Righto,” the detective retched, and thus set about the sweeping.