The big over easy

said she’d be up at Mum’s and I should meet her there. Hello, what’s this?”

Ahead of them two police cars blocked the street, and two officers in vests held automatic weapons.

“Yes, sir?” inquired one of the policemen in a businesslike tone when Jack got out and walked towards them.

“Detective Inspector Spratt, NCD.”

He held up his ID card, and the officer stood to attention respectfully.

“Thank you, sir. And may I say on a personal note how impressed I was by the way you cracked the Humpty case. Once had a verruca myself. Nasty little blighters. Do you always wear blue overalls, sir?”

“It was a decontamination sort of thing. What’s going on?”

The officer leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Jellyman on a personal social call, sir. Private viewing of the beanstalk and an audience with the owner.”

This was surprising and also a great honor — owing to his tight schedule, the Jellyman rarely did “drop-ins” these days.

“She’s my mother, and my family is up there. Can I go in?”

“One moment,” said the officer, and he relayed the request through his walkie-talkie.

“Good evening,” said Jack to the second officer. “Tell me, how long has that white van been there?”

The officer looked at where it was parked less than fifty yards away.

“Don’t know, sir. Why?”

“No reason.”

Mary switched off the BMW’s engine, and the city was suddenly still and quiet. Not a dog barked, not a car horn sounded. Everyone was indoors. Jack looked at his watch. Five past ten. People would be settling down to catch the edited highlights of the visit on the news. He looked about. At the various parts of the street, other armed police stood on duty, and outside his mother’s garden gate was a white Daimler limousine. Mary joined Jack and handed her own ID to the officer. He looked at Jack for his approval, and he nodded.

They waited for a couple of minutes until the walkie-talkie crackled into life.

“Tell them to come on over.”

The officer escorted them towards the garden gate, where Friedland Chymes was waiting to meet them. Since he was heading up Jellyman security, it was understandable. Unwelcome, but understandable. He was stony-faced but remained professional.

“Good result, Jack,” he managed to growl, the feeling that he should have been the one to figure it out all too obvious. “Sergeant, you’ll have to wait here. Family only. Baines will take you to the front door.”

Jack was handed over to a man wearing an earpiece and a bulge where a gun would be in a shoulder holster. The man asked to see his card.

“Why has your ID card shrunk?”

“Thirty minutes in an autoclave.”

“I see,” he replied, as though that sort of thing happened every day. “Thank you, Inspector. Follow me.”

Jack accompanied him up the path as the officer named Baines with the gun and the earpiece reeled off instructions parrot fashion.

“Only speak when you are spoken to. Do not attempt to shake hands. Bow your head when you are presented. Do not interrupt when he is talking. Do not touch him. Do not sneeze in his presence. Do not discuss politics, and always refer to him as ‘Your Eminence.’”

He rapped on the front door, and it opened a crack to reveal another officer with a large mustache who looked at Jack and then ushered him in. As soon as he stepped into the front hall, Jack noticed that the grandfather clock had stopped. He glanced across and was puzzled to see that the pendulum had halted midswing. Stranger still, his mother’s hyperactive cats were all sitting quietly in a row by the door, like skittles. He didn’t have time to think about it any further, as he was ushered into the familiar surroundings of his mother’s front room.

His whole family was there. Madeleine was standing at the back holding Stevie, and the rest of the children were either sitting or standing next to their grandmother. Incredibly, Pandora was wearing a dress, and more incredibly, Ben had combed his hair. Megan was standing in front of them all, facing the large leather armchair that used to be Jack’s father’s. Sitting in that chair, suffused by a soft glow that seemed to emanate not from his white suit but through it, was the Jellyman.

The Jellyman’s physical presence was something that could only be felt, never described. He exuded strong feelings of hope, and his calming personality seemed to envelop all who met him. They said of the Jellyman that a smile from him could brighten the darkest moment and a word could still the most passionate rage. Jack, like many, had remained skeptical about the great man’s powers, but in those few seconds he knew that everything they said was true.

The Jellyman was leaning forward in the chair, his fingertips pressed against his chin, and even though he whispered to Megan and the words were indistinct, they seemed to fill the room like chamber music in a hall of mirrors. Megan was nodding eagerly as he spoke to her, and when he finished, he laid his hand on her head and smiled. Megan nearly melted, and Madeleine wiped a tear from her cheek.

The Jellyman’s aide rapped a staff on the floor and said, in a loud, clear, voice, “Your Eminence, may I present Detective Inspector Jack Spratt!”

Jack took a step forwards and tried to remember all he had been told on the short walk up the garden path. He’d forgotten everything except the bit about sneezing, but it didn’t matter. The Jellyman swung round in his seat and stared at Jack with his piercing blue eyes.

“Mr. Spratt,” he said with an enigmatic smile, “you have a most charming family.”

“Th-thank you, Your Eminence.”

He stood up and approached Jack. He was a large man, but perhaps this impression was due to his overwhelming personality rather than his stature. He spoke plainly and without ambiguity. You could never remember the precise words he spoke, but the meaning of them stayed with you forever.

“I want to thank you on behalf of the nation for saving us from a plague of verrucas.”

“My duty, sir.”

“Even so, you have our thanks. I knew Humpty well, you know — we were at Oxford together. I heard he had slipped into the darker side of existence, but he was a good egg at heart. Was it Randolph Spongg who murdered him?”

“No, Your Eminence, we suspect a mad doctor named Quatt.”

The Jellyman shook his head sadly. “A perverter of the natural order,” he said disdainfully. “I had her banned from research, but I see I should have taken more extreme measures. Why did she murder him?”

“She didn’t — but death was inevitable once she had decided to use Humpty as a living incubation device. As soon as Humpty Dumpty hatched, it was murder.”

“How fascinating! What came out?”

“A chicken. Quatt must have been — ”

Jack stopped as nasty thoughts coalesced in his mind. Why had he supposed it was a chicken? Images of Winkie’s tattered body hove into view. A slash so violent it had split his sternum. Winkie must have heard the shot, come out and seen — not the hit man who was already gone, but Dr. Quatt, who had been waiting for several days with her white St. Cerebellum’s van. Winkie returned home, read the newspapers, assumed Quatt had killed Humpty and then — poor fool — tried to blackmail her. She had turned up to pay him off with whatever came out of Humpty’s shell — something so terrifying that, urine-soaked with fear, Winkie couldn’t even defend himself. A haddock with a kitten’s head was child’s play: Dr. Quatt had created something unspeakably nasty and then grown it in Humpty’s denucleated yolk. And for what? To use against the one man who had ruined her!

“Inspector?” asked the Jellyman. “Something perturbs you.”

“You’re in danger. We’re all in danger. Madeleine, Mum, get the children into the cellar right now and lock the door. You with the mustache, get the officers outside to check the white van parked down the street — and get the Jellyman to safety!”

He used the sort of voice where no one argued, and as Madeleine swiftly guided the family downstairs to cries of “yes, but why?” the guard with the mustache spoke into his radio. The front door