‘Fetch! The oddest man in London! I’ve been working in the book trade these past few years and my editors are always in search of novelty. Table tapping, fish dropping from the skies, fairies in suburban gardens, that sort of thing. All rot, of course, but it keeps the wolf from the door. Or the Westminster bailiff at any rate. Well, within these rather queer circles I started to hear talk of a Dr Fetch – “Oh, Dr Fetch is your man … ” “Ask old Fetch, he’ll know … ” That sort of thing. At last, after protracted negotiations between myself and a whey-faced girl who seems to be his sort of amanuensis, I secured an interview.’

‘But who is this wonder?’ I enquired.

‘He lives in a tottering old pile in Rotherhithe. Crammed from cellar to eaves with all the most extraordinary junk you could conceive. He’s a valetudinarian. Lives with the shutters permanently down and scarcely moves from his chair. But I have a feeling that he might be just the chap you’re looking for!’

Armed with an introduction, after several frustrating weeks I found myself in a cab to Rotherhithe and an appointment at the house of Dr Fetch. The building itself looked to be Tudor, a great lowering pile of beam and wattle that loitered rather than stood by the river, a semi-permanent mist creeping around its timbers like a miasma.

I knocked at the ebony-black door, and the whey-faced girl gave me ingress. The place was black as night and, almost at once I tripped over something unmentionable.

‘Mind yerself,’ said the girl, mournfully. ‘The master is havin’ his luncheon, if you’d care to join him.’

I was ushered through into a large room, crammed with strange ephemera. In the meagre, pearly light that crept through the cracks in the shutters I could see everything from stuffed crocodiles to fossils and great piles of books of obvious antiquity.

Dr Fetch sat at the head of a large table, wreathed in shadow, and I was seated opposite him. A bowl of soup was plonked in front of me and, a little nervously I must admit, I began to eat.

All was silent save for a slurping sound from my neighbour and a curious mechanical whirring for which I could not account.

At length, my host spoke – a voice as dry and desiccated as fallen leaves.

‘How do you find it, sir?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The soup, sir.’

‘Oh! Charming,’ I lied. ‘Charming.’

‘I prefer it thin,’ said Dr Fetch. ‘I hope that doesn’t give offence.’

‘Not a bit.’

He slurped on. ‘I find anything that requires excessive mastication most irksome. The consumption of food is such a dreary ritual. One wishes one didn’t have to bother. Don’t you agree?’

‘I’m not sure, sir. We are all creatures of appetite, are we not?’