My friend, Sherlock Primolmes, possesses reserves of mental energy beyond the mass of humanity.  I have seen him doubled over the couch, totally consumed in concentration, for hours, before he calculates the remaining shoe covers the other foot.  And he is rarely amiss in such flashes of genius!  Afterwards the thing seems simple enough when he explains the invisible chain he followed, four or five times.

Those who have followed his many successes, as I have related elsewhere in the Adventure of the False Mutton and the Case of the Spanish Pox, may be suprised to know that even the great Primolmes can come up gooseeggs.  I have waited to tell the tale until Primolmes agreed to its release, but I'm bored.  Here then, is the Affair at Amedee.

It began in our rooms at 221B Boule des Stroumpfs.  We had both arisen early, at 2pm, and were pretending a box of fig newtons was breakfast.  A congratulatory telegram arrived:

WTG ASS
Baas Al

"Primolmes!"  I cried.  "You have been thanked by the Palace!"

"Fa!" snorted Primolmes.  "I am an artist, not a performer. Besides I'm Dutch and we got real royals."  He rolled to a more upright position.  "I sometimes believe, Amokson, that commercial interests have soured my art.  I ought to have been content to be a great drunkard, instead of a great consulting drunkard."

"Primolmes, you are silly" I cried.  "Besides how else would you pay what you pretend is a share of the rent?"

"True enough" he belched.   "yet my soul cries for a true test of my abilities.  Instead I have email after email from fat Americans inquiring where to get drunk in Leuven.  Instead of getting wasted I am being wasted! Or whatever"

"Everybody oughta know Amedee without asking" I cried.  "Yet you got bills to pay, bitch."  Another telegram arrived at the door:

PRIMOLMES
PUB
ELTARARITY

"A clew!" yelled Primolmes.  "Let us Google the matter....yes...corn is down...American blondes have fake boobs...ah! "Eltararity" can only refer to my nemesis Professor Eltararity, and the "Pub" in this message must refer to a small cozy braukellar called "Amedee".

"We were just talking about it" I cried, "and you known Eltararity half your life, and we met him there every week!"

"My pants, Amokson!" said Primolmes. "we shall away to Amedee and confront the sinister Eltararity!"

So we embarked upon the twenty buses needed to convey us across town.  Primolmes, confronted with a challenge, was in the best of spirits, and so amused our road companions with his witty ejaculations that they threw us off a mile from our stop.

"Such is life" mused Primolmes.  "And yet, what Architect can plan the house of the Universe?"

"Primolmes I begin to dimly grasp wtf you are talking about" I cried.  "STFU about God until you get a few beers in you. Or better, until I got a few in me."

Eltararity, that prince of crime, who sits atop a pinnacle of sin in the midst of a city full of cathedrals, a true asshole, was holding down our usual table.  "So, Primolmes, we meet again!"

"No shit Sherlock!" said Primolmes. "Er...we come to confront your sinister plot and expose your foul career!"

"Indeed, Primolmes, this was a trap of mine...but I wanted you to try a new beer, that weighs nothing on the bladder"

"Fa!" snorted Primolmes.  "No beer weighs on my bladder!"

"Primolmes!" I cried " that is because you Dutch pee freely 24/7! You're supposed to hold it in til you're pointing towards a toilet"

"Whatever" sneered Eltararity "Drink up!"

Whatever anybody says about Primolmes, and you can say a lot, he can drink!  I joined him and kept pace, and soon all five Eltararities were bobbing and weaving erratically  "Give up, Eltararity" shouted Primolmes fifteen times "your a loser boozer!"

"Indeed' sneered Eltararity "and now the trap--face my diabolical Hound!"  And with that a giant and ferocious black beast with the form of a terrific hound sprang  upon my friend and bore him down to the floor.

"Primolmes" I cried. "Beware the hound!"

"Get him off me!" gasped Primolmes. "He's humping my leg!"

"Woof!" giggled the hound.

"Primolmes!" I cried. "It's TU in a doggy suit!"

"Gah" gagged Primolmes. "You dirty dog you did the deed on my pants leg!"

"Woof" agreed TU.

"Curses" cursed Eltararity. "You really screwed the pooch this time..and the beer is like a barbell on my loins, I gotta pee a river."

"Primolmes" I cried. "We routed Eltararity and TU in one night!"

"I fear so" said Primo. "But that leaves us paying the bill."  He reached for the cocaine bottle. "I think if we get so drunk they gotta carry us out, they'll have to bill us by mail, they're not onto the American trick of getting plastic up front for a deposit."

"Primolmes" I cried. "You did it again!  But what of Eltararity and his shaggy dogsbody TU?"

And so the Affair at Amedee might remain.  Yet I am informed by my newspaper that two dorks touring the Henieken brewery fell into a vat, and despite the frantic efforts of the brewing monks, they continued to fall into the vast gurgling torrent of suds, until they disappeared for all time with a joyous woot.  And that may be the only clew to resolve the Affair at Amedee.