She read it and gave a low whistle.

  “So she did kill him.”

  “Probably with this,” replied Jack, pointing at a small nickel-plated.32 automatic pistol he had discovered hidden under some papers. “Better get SOCO over here to take possession of the evidence. We’ll need to double-check the handwriting on the note and check the pistol for prints and residue. It kind of surprises me she has a gun, though.”

  “I don’t think so,” replied Mary, pointing to one of the many pictures on the wall. It depicted a smiling Laura celebrating a win at the British Small-Bore Rifle Championships. Humpty was in the group, holding a bottle of champagne — and Randolph Spongg was there, too. Pistols, it seemed, were not as alien to her as one might have supposed.

  “What did Mr. Aimsworth say?”

  “He saw her climb over the barrier, pause for a moment and then jump. By the time they had hit the emergency stop, it was already too late.”

  SOCO arrived within half an hour, but there wasn’t much to do. The note was taken away with three other examples of her handwriting, and one of the officers named Shenstone gently lifted the pistol from the bottom drawer. There were five cartridges missing from the clip, but nothing else that could be found. The team was gone in under forty minutes. It was different on the main biscuit-manufacturing level. It took eight firemen, Mrs. Singh and her two assistants the best part of six hours to find all of Mrs. Dumpty. Biscuit manufacture wouldn’t restart for another week.

  “It seems fairly clear-cut,” said Mary as they drove back to the office in the Allegro.

  “Keep talking.”

  “She kills him early yesterday morning, realizes after we visit her that she will be first in the frame, has a fit of remorse and then… kills herself.”

  “It seems a bit too perfect.”

  “How can it be too perfect?” said Mary, wondering whether Chymes would still want her on his team without the Humpty investigation to poach. “She wrote the note, didn’t she?”

  Jack shrugged. Mary was right. The case was as clear as it could be, and that was good, because that was what he was there for. But from a purely selfish viewpoint, he felt somehow cheated. Murder inquiries didn’t come around every week, and he had hoped this one would make up for the pig fiasco. It had welcomed him in with open arms, only to spit him out half chewed. The mystery — such as it was — had rapidly devolved to just another crime of passion, an act of desperation that destroyed two lives and ruined countless others. The investigation was over and with it, as likely as not, him and the NCD. He imagined that this was how Friedland felt when a plum mystery collapsed into a simple case of robbery in front of him. And feeling like Chymes made him feel even worse. Besides, he needed a case like this more than at any time before. To prove to Briggs and his blasted budgetary meeting, if not to himself.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Sir?”

  “Shit,” he reiterated slightly louder, “and bollocks.”

  He sighed, finally coming to terms with the fact that the inquiry was over.

  “There are always a few unanswered questions at the end of an investigation, Mary. But this one’s over, and I’d be clutching at straws to think otherwise. Now, I’d better get this sewn up all nice and neat, just as Briggs wants it.”

  To say that Ashley, Baker and Kandlestyk-Maeker were disappointed would be a severe understatement. This investigation was a holiday from their usual dull duties, and they grumbled and moaned as Jack told them the news.

  “We’re waiting for the results of handwriting analysis before we can officially close the case, so I want all notes spick and span by ten tomorrow.”

  “Sir — ” began Ashley, but Jack silenced him with a gesture.

  “Is this a pertinent question regarding the inquiry?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, then. Let’s just keep ourselves to ourselves for a bit and catch up on paperwork. Where’s Otto?”

  “Still trying to ID the man in those photographs we found in Humpty’s desk, I think.”

  “Better get him back.”

  Ashley and Gretel looked at each other and sat down quietly to do his bidding, as Mary slipped out the door.

  Jack flicked through the message slips stuck to his telephone. There was a request from Bo-peep, who had once again lost her sheep, and another message from the Allegro Owners’ Club asking whether he had checked the torque settings on the wheel bearings. There were several from his mother, the last one of which was marked “urgent.”

  Blast! he said to himself. He had forgotten to do anything about the bean refund. He picked up the phone and rang the Paint Box and was informed by a very helpful assistant that Mr. Foozle had departed unexpectedly and at very short notice to London, where he was to attend a Stubbs auction; he wouldn’t be back until Friday. She knew nothing about the beans and had no idea why Foozle would be going to a Stubbs auction, at short notice or otherwise. Jack put the receiver down and stared at his computer terminal blankly. Something about the whole Humpty affair felt wrong, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Sadly, “hunches” and “feelings” didn’t really sit well with Briggs — unless you were Guild, in which case you could base a thousand-man-hour investigation on one.

  “1000 010011 1010010 10010,” said Ashley in hushed tones on Gretel’s phone in the next room. “10010 11010 00100111 1011.”

  “Are you talking to your mother on the office phone?” bellowed Jack.

  “Sorry,” said a sheepish voice, and all was quiet. Jack stared at his “four-and-twenty blackbirds” screensaver in a desultory manner until he left to go to the Jellyman security briefing.

  While Jack was attending the briefing along with all the other officers of inspector rank and above, Mary was sitting in the Platters Coffeehouse, feeling a bit nervous — and annoyed. From the way things looked, her chances of working with Chymes had been seriously scuppered, and she might have risked her reputation for being trustworthy for nothing if Chymes decided to drop her. If it got out that she had acted behind the back of her senior officer, she’d probably have to transfer to the sheep-theft unit in Lerwick or something. Chymes must have been wrong about the Humpty case, but it didn’t matter. She had fulfilled her part of the bargain — she hoped he would fulfill his. She took a sip of coffee and flicked through her notes. She had even photocopied Mrs. Dumpty’s confession.

  “Mary?” said Flotsam, who was approaching with a coffee of his own. “You don’t mind me calling you Mary? You can call me Eddie if you want.”

  She smiled and invited him to join her.

  “How’s it going?” asked Flotsam.

  “Haven’t you heard? The ex-wife killed him. Motive, opportunity and, best of all, a note.”

  Flotsam didn’t seem overly concerned. “Knowing the Guv’nor, tricky — but not insurmountable. He’s resurrected more dropped investigations than I’ve had hot dinners. All that ‘cold case’ stuff is really popular these days. Just the sort of thing for the Amazing Crime Summer Special — now, what have you got for us?”

  “This is a copy of the confession note, and these are copies of her handwriting. I’ve made a few notes and will talk you through it, if you want.”

  “Well done,” he enthused. “The Guv’nor will be pleased — you’re definitely backing the right horse here.”

  So for the next half hour she talked about the investigation and all the pertinent points that she felt had been raised. All the while Flotsam nodded and took voluminous notes and mentioned every now and then how the Guv’nor would like that or the Guv’nor would do something with this, and when she had told him everything she knew, he thanked her, told her they would be in touch and left, leaving his coffee undrunk.

  She waited a few minutes to gather her thoughts, then walked back to the NCD offices just as Jack was returning from the Jellyman briefing.

  “Ah, Mary. I’ve told Briggs it’s a murder/suicide, and I’ll be seeing him tomorrow at ten to wrap up the Humpty case. I’ll need everyone together tomorrow morning for a heads-up on this Sacred Gonga protection-duty operation, so better make it sometime after that. Yes?”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Good. I’m going home.”

  And he left her alone to her thoughts in the tiny offices. Annoyingly for her, they weren’t good thoughts. She was about to start a career with Chymes, something she had always wanted — but it somehow just didn’t seem right. The price tag had been high — and might become even higher.

  22. Titans and Beanstalks

  BUTLER DID DO IT SHOCK

  In a shocking result that has put the world of professional detecting into a flat spin, the butler of the deceased Lord Pilchard was discovered to have actually committed the murder. “You could have knocked me down with a feather,” said the Guild-ranked Inspector Dogleash. “I’ve been investigating for thirty years, and I’ve never heard of such a thing.” The overfamiliar premise of “the butler did it” has ensured that any butler on the scene could be instantly eliminated from inquiries. No longer. Miss Maple, who deduced the butler’s guilt, was unrepentant. “Goodness me, what a fuss I seem to have caused!” she commented, before returning to her knitting.

  From Amazing Crime editorial, August 22, 1984

  As Jack stepped into the house, he noticed that even though it was nearly the children’s bedtime, things were unusually quiet.

  “Hello…?”

  Amazingly, the telly was off. The children usually watched it in shifts, and since it was the only one, fights were not uncommon.

  Madeleine was in the kitchen. He kissed her and slumped in his big chair at the head of the table.

  “The Dumpty case just folded.”

  “Solved?”

  “Through no skill on my behalf. His ex-wife killed him. She just topped herself over at the Yummy-Time factory. I’d avoid chocolate digestives for a while if I were you.”

  Jack unclipped his tie and removed one of Stevie’s toys from the small of his back.

  “What does that mean for the NCD?”

  Jack shrugged. “Disbanded, I should imagine. I’ll be entitled to a full pension in four years. I’ll only be forty-eight. Perhaps it’s time to think about a new career.”

  “What would you do?”

  “Lots of things.”

  “Name one.”

  Jack thought about this for a while but couldn’t really come up with anything. Police work was his life. There was nothing he’d rather do. This was too depressing. He decided to change the subject.

  “How are things with you?”

  “Good. Prometheus said he’d never seen a photographer at work, so he came and helped me do a portrait of Lady Elena Bumpkin-Tumpkinson. He was telling us all about his life before his banishment to the Caucasus. The kids love him; why he can’t get British citizenship, I have no idea. The Home Office must be bonkers.”

  “Not bonkers — just scared. It’s not a good idea to get on the wrong side of Zeus, what with all those thunderbolt things he likes to chuck around. Where is Prometheus at the moment?”

  “Have a look for yourself.”

  She pointed to the connecting door to the living room. Jack opened it a crack and looked in. Prometheus was standing in front of the TV, supplanting and outranking it for the evening. He was miming all the actions as he told the children a story, and Megan, Jerome and Stevie were sitting in an attentive semicircle in front of him. Ben sat on a chair close by and pretended to read a copy of Scientific American but was actually as enthralled as they were. No one moved or uttered a sound.

  “ — when Zeus, Poseidon and Hades had deposed Cronus, their father, they drew lots out of Poseidon’s helmet, the helmet of darkness, you remember, that had been given to him by Cyclops. Anyway, they drew lots to decide who would gain the lordship of the sky, the sea and the dark underworld.”

  “What about the earth?” asked Jerome.

  “That, young man, they decreed they would leave common to all. Hades won the underworld, Poseidon the sea and Zeus the sky. Poseidon set about building his underwater palace in the sea off Euboea, constructing magnificent stables to keep his chariot horses in, horses that were brilliant white and had brazen hooves and golden manes. When they pulled Poseidon in his golden chariot, storms would cease and sea monsters appear and play about them like young dolphins….”

  Jack shut the door silently.

  “Did you speak to your mother?” asked Madeleine. “She’s called about eight times.”

  “I’ll ring her later,” said Jack. “She’s probably mislaid one of her cats or — ”

  Jack was interrupted by a loud groan of disappointment as Prometheus called a halt to his story. There was a pause, and then the kids trotted in to have a glass of warm milk before bed.

  “Is Prometheus going to stay for good, Jack?” asked Jerome, the milk giving him a temporary white mustache.

  “He can leave when he wants. He’s our lodger.”

  “You mean a prostitute like Kitty Fisher?”

  “No, not like that at all,” said Jack quickly.

  After milk, Jack and Madeleine herded them upstairs. They put them all to bed and kissed them one by one. Megan had to be kissed twice, “just in case” and they switched out the lights.

  They crept back downstairs, and Jack wandered through to the kitchen, where he found Ben, who was dressed up for a night on the town.

  “Where are you off to?”

  “Clubbing,” replied Ben as he carefully combed his hair in front of the mirror.

  “Those poor seals. The leisure center really does cater for just about any minority sporting interests these days, doesn’t it?”

  Ben gave Jack a withering look. “The comedy never ends,” he said sarcastically. “You can be such a dweeb, y’know, Dad.”

  “Is it the harpist?” asked Jack. “I thought you’d lost her to the orchestra’s tuba.”

  “Not lost, but temporarily mislaid,” said Ben after a moment’s reflection. A car horn sounded, and he ran out.

  At that moment the back door opened and Ripvan blew in with a blast of cold air like some sort of furry tumbleweed. Following him was Pandora, who was well bundled up in a large down jacket. She had been at a talk given by a particle-physics professor from CERN, and the questions had gone on a lot longer than she had anticipated.

  “Hi, Madeleine. Hi, Dad.”

  “Is he still here?” she asked quietly as she peeled off layer upon layer of outer clothing.

  “Who?” replied Jack.

  “Who? Come off it, Dad. Prometheus, of course.”

  “He’s about somewhere. Why?”

  She looked at him demurely. “Oh, nothing. See you later.”

  She ran off upstairs after throwing her down jacket into the cloakroom. As she rounded the newel post, she and Prometheus met face-to-face.

  “Good evening,” he said with a disarming smile.

  “Hello,” she said uneasily, “I’m — ”

  “Pandora. Yes, I know.”

  It seemed as though he had to force the name out.

  “I once knew someone of that name,” he continued sadly, “a long, long time ago.”

  Pandora stared at him, mumbled something incomprehensible that one might have expected to hear from Stevie and disappeared upstairs.

  Jack and Madeleine had been watching. Madeleine giggled, but Jack was more serious.

  “Did you see that?” he asked.

  “She’s not a child any longer. If she lived elsewhere, you wouldn’t treat her like an eight-year-old.”

  “I do not treat her like an eight-year-old.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  The phone rang, and Jack answered it. It was his mother.

  “Jack?”

  She had her angry voice on. Apology time. “Mother, I’m really sorry about the Stubbs — ”

  “I know that,” she said, interrupting him. “That was yesterday’s crisis.”

  “And today’s?”

  “It’s the beans I threw out the window.”

  “What about them?”

  “They’ve started to grow!”

  She had sounded distressed about the rapid growth of the beanstalk, and as Jack rang the doorbell twenty minutes later, he was expecting to find her in a state of acute anxiety. Strangely, she was precisely the opposite.

  “Hello, darling!” she warbled unsteadily. “Come on in!”

  She ushered him in, but by the time he had taken off his overcoat and hat, she had vanished.

  “Mother?” he called, walking past the gently ticking grand-father clock to the living room, which was full of his mother’s ancient friends, most of whom he knew and all of whom had asked him surreptitiously to get them off speeding fines.

  “New hip, Mrs. Dunwoody?” said Jack politely as he followed his mother towards the French windows, where he was waylaid by Mrs. Snodgrass. “Is that so?” replied Jack sympathetically. “You should eat more roughage.” He hadn’t got much further when Major Piggott-Smythe stopped him with the end of his pipe pressed on Jack’s lapel.

  “Don’t think much of these alien-visitor johnnies,” he said, his red nose almost a hazard to shipping. “Who invited them here anyway?”

  “We did,” replied Jack, “by transmitting all those seventies sitcoms. I think they wanted to find out why we never did a third series of Fawlty Towers. Excuse me.”

  He found his mother standing on the lawn staring at the beanstalk. It was a cold, clear night, and the moon had come up, which somehow made the plant seem all the more remarkable. Just next to the potting shed, five separate dark green stalks had grown from the earth and fused into what appeared to be a large and complex plait that reached almost twelve feet into the air. Already leaves had started to unfurl on smaller stalks that radiated from the main trunk, and small pods had appeared with tiny vestigial beans inside.

  “Isn’t it just the most beautiful thing ever?” asked his mother, her breath visible in the crisp air.

  Jack took an eager step forward and then stopped himself. For a fleeting moment he’d felt a strange impulse to climb it. He shook himself free of the urge and said, “Stupendous! All this growth in one day?”