Upon opening the wax sealed envelope, there emerged a sound, a tinny recording of a familiar nursery song:

"All around the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought it was all in fun
The Monk, 'e thought it was All En Fun
The MONK, 'E THOUGHT it was ALL EN FUN
POP! Goes the weasel."

For a moment, Mr. O, Mr. X and myself stared dumbfounded, confused. It was Mr. X who finally broke the silence.

"Wot, that it?" he sniped. With his exquisitely manicured fingertips, he held a corner of the envelope, and shook it gingerly, as though expecting a spider to fall out. Nothing emerged. He glanced sidelong at Mr. O, then laughed a shivering kind of laugh. "An' here I was, expectin' the whole lot o' us to die in a cloud o'- wot was it called? Sarah gas?"

I cleared my throat nervously. "Sarin," I corrected, and then winced. What was I doing? Conversing with my would-be abductors?

"Eggs-actly," snipped Mr. X, punctuating his concurrence with a point of his thin and precise index finger. "Sarin. But instead of all o' us kickin' and sickin'-" and here, he grinned with his polished pearl knife-y teeth, "it'll just be you."