The big over easy

separate room to Willie so he doesn’t wake me. Sorry, love, I’d like to be able to help, but I can’t.”

Jack nodded and started on another tack. “When did you last see him?”

“Last night at about seven-thirty. He asked me to iron his cravat.”

“Cravat?”

“Or cummerbund. It’s difficult to say with him.”

“How did he appear to you?”

“Fine. We chatted about this and that, and he borrowed some sugar. Insisted on paying for it. He was like that. I often ironed his shirts — on a wok to get the right shape, of course, and he always paid over the odds. He helped us out with a bit of cash sometimes and sent the kids on a school trip to Llandudno last summer. Very generous. He was a true gent.”

“Did you ever see him with anyone?”

“He kept himself to himself. Liked to dress well, quite a dandy, y’know. One for the ladies, I heard. Come to think of it, there was a woman recently. Tall girl, quite young — brunette.”

Jack thanked them and gave Willie his card in case he thought of anything else, then returned to the yard, where Mrs. Singh was still searching for clues as to what had happened.

“Where was his room?” asked Jack.

Mary pointed to the window overlooking the backyard.

They entered the house and climbed the creaking staircase. There was damp and mildew everywhere, and the skirting had come away from the wall. The door to Humpty’s room was ajar, and Jack carefully pushed it open. The room was sparsely furnished and in about as bad a state of repair as the rest of the house. Hung on the wall was a framed print of a Faberge egg next to a copy of Tenniel’s illustration of Humpty from Through the Looking Glass. There was a shabby carpet that looked as though it hadn’t been hoovered since the turn of the last century and a wardrobe against one wall next to a sink unit and a cooker. A large mahogany desk sat in the center of the room with a small pile of neatly stacked bricks behind it which Humpty had used as a seat. On the desk was a typewriter, some papers, a fax and two telephones. The previous week’s edition of What Share? was open at the rare-metals page, and an undrunk cup of coffee had formed a skin next to Humpty’s spectacles. There was a photo in a gilt frame of Humpty with his hand on the leg of a pretty brunette in the back of a horse-drawn carriage in Vienna. Jack knew because he’d been there once himself and recognized the Prater wheel in the background. They were both well dressed and looked as though they had just come from the opera.

“Any name?”

Mary checked the back of the picture. There was none.

Even from a cursory glance, it was obvious that not only had Humpty been working the stock market — he had been working it hard. Most of the paperwork was for a bewildering array of transactions, with nothing logged in any particular order. The previous Thursday’s Toad had been left open at the business news, and Jack noticed that two companies listed on the stock exchange had been underlined in red pencil. The first was Winsum & Loosum Pharmaceuticals, and the second was Spongg Footcare. Both public limited companies, both dealing in foot-care products. Winsum & Loosum, however, was blue chip; Spongg’s was almost bust. Mary had chanced across a file of press clippings that charted the downfall of Spongg’s over the past ten years, from the public flotation to the fall of the share price the previous month to under twenty pence. Jack opened another file. It was full of sales invoices confirming the purchase of shares in Spongg’s for differing amounts and at varying prices.

“Buying shares in Spongg’s?” murmured Jack. “Where did he get the money?”

Mary passed him a wad of bank statements. Personally, Humpty was nearly broke, but Dumpty Holdings Ltd. was good to the tune of ninety-eight thousand pounds.

“Comfortable,” commented Mary.

“Comfortable and working from a dump.”

Jack found Humpty’s will and opened it. It was dated 1963 and had this simple instruction: “All to wife.”

“What do you make of these?”

Mary handed Jack an envelope full of photos. They were of the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center in various states of construction, taken over the space of a year or more. But the last snap was the most interesting. It was of a young man smiling rather stupidly, sitting in the passenger seat of a car. The picture had been taken by the driver — presumably Humpty — and had a date etched in the bottom right-hand corner. It had been taken a little over a year ago.

“The Sacred Gonga,” said Mary, thinking about the dedication ceremony on Saturday. “Why is Humpty interested in that?”

“You won’t find anyone in Reading who isn’t,” replied Jack.

“There was quite an uproar when it was nearly sold to a collector in Las Vegas.”

They turned their attention to the wardrobe that held several Armani suits, all of them individually tailored to fit Humpty’s unique stature and held up on hangers shaped like hula hoops. Jack checked the pockets, but they were all empty. Under some dirty shirts they found a well-thumbed copy of World Egg Review and Parabolic and Ovoid Geometric Constructions.

“Typical bottom-drawer stuff,” said Jack, rummaging past a signed first edition of Horton Hatches the Egg to find a green canvas tool bag. He opened it to reveal the blue barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. Jack and Mary exchanged glances. This raised questions over and above a standard inquiry already.

“It might be nothing,” observed Mary, not keen for anything to extend the investigation a minute longer than necessary. “He might be looking after it for a friend.”

“A friend? How many sawed-off shotguns do you look after for friends?”

She shrugged.

“Exactly. Never mind about Briggs. Better get a Scene of Crime Officer out here to dust the gun and give the room the once-over. Ask for Shenstone; he’s a friendly. What else do you notice?”

“No bed?”

“Right. He didn’t live here. I’ll have a quick word with Mrs. Hubbard.”

Jack went downstairs, stopping on the way to straighten his tie in the peeling hall mirror.

4. Mrs. Hubbard, Dogs and Bones

The Austin Allegro was designed in the mid-seventies to be the successor to the hugely popular Austin 1100. Built around the proven “A” series engine, it turned out to be an ugly duckling at birth with the high transverse engine requiring a slab front that did nothing to enhance its looks. With a bizarre square steering wheel and numerous idiosyncratic features, including a better drag coefficient in reverse, porous alloy wheels on the “sport” model and a rear window that popped out if you jacked up the car too enthusiastically, the Allegro would — some say undeservedly — figurehead the British car-manufacturing industry’s darkest chapter.

The Rise and Fall of British Leyland, A. Morris

Jack knocked politely on the door. It opened a crack, and a pinched face glared suspiciously at him. He held up his ID card.

“Have you come about the room?” Mrs. Hubbard asked in a croaky voice that reminded Jack of anyone you care to mention doing a bad impersonation of a witch. “If you play the accordion, you can forget about it right now.”

“No, I’m Detective Inspector Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division. I wonder if I could have a word?”

She squinted at the ID, pretended she could read without her glasses and then grimaced. “What’s it about?” she asked.

“What’s it about?” repeated Jack. “Mr. Dumpty, of course!”

“Oh, well,” she replied offhandedly, “I suppose you’d better come in.”