“I figured you were a coffee person,” said a voice. Mary turned to find the young constable she had seen earlier at Grimm’s Road doing house-to-house. They had spoken, but only about work. She didn’t even know his name.

  “Thank you,” replied Mary, taking the coffee gratefully and waving a hand at the press cuttings. “What do you know about all this?”

  “Before I was even born,” replied Tibbit, “but according to Gretel, the Giorgio Porgia collar was more DI Spratt’s than Chymes’s. The Super got funny about it when things got dirty. No one gives a damn about the nurseries as long as they kill one another. Porgia made the mistake of taking out real people. The Guv’nor had all the evidence, but Chymes closed the case — and got the credit.”

  “No wonder Jack doesn’t like him.”

  “It goes back further than that. He doesn’t talk about it much.”

  Mary’s mobile started ringing. She dug it out of her pocket and looked at the Caller ID. Arnold again.

  “This is a guy named Arnold,” said Mary, handing the still-ringing phone to Tibbit. “Can you tell him I’m dead?”

  Tibbit frowned doubtfully but took the phone and pressed the answer button anyway.

  “Hello, Arnold?” he said. “PC Tibbit here. I’m afraid to tell you that DS Mary has been killed in an accident.” He winced as he said it, and there was a pause as he listened to what Arnold had to say. “Yes, it was very tragic and completely unexpected.” He listened again for a moment. “That’s no problem, I’ll tell her. Good day.”

  He pressed the end-call button and handed the mobile back.

  “He said he was very sorry to hear about your accident and he’ll call you later. I don’t think he believed me.”

  “No, it’s going to take more than my death to put him off, but thanks anyway. What’s your name?”

  “Constable Tibbit.”

  “Sergeant Mary Mary,” said Mary, shaking Tibbit’s hand, “pleased to meet you.”

  The young officer thought hard for a moment, then said, “Arrange a… symmetry.”

  Mary arched an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment but again thought hard and finally said in triumph, “Many… martyrs agree.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course!” replied the young constable brightly. “It’s an anagram. If you take ‘Sergeant Mary Mary’ and rearrange the letters you get ‘Arrange a symmetry’ or ‘Many martyrs agree.’ The trick is to have them make sense. I could have given you ‘My matey arrangers’ or ‘My artery managers,’ but they sort of sound like anagrams, don’t you think?”

  “If you say so.”

  She had thought that perhaps Tibbit might have been a life raft of normality that she could somehow cling to for sanity, but that hope was fast retreating. It was little wonder he had been allocated to the division.

  “It’s a palindrome,” continued the young constable.

  “Sorry?”

  “Tibbit. Easy to remember. Reads the same backwards as forwards. Tibbit.”

  Mary raised an eyebrow. “You mean, like ‘Rats live on no evil star’?”

  He nodded his head excitedly. “I prefer the more subtle ones, myself, ma’am, such as ‘A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.’”

  Mary sighed. “Sure you’re in the right job?”

  Tibbit appeared crestfallen at this, so Mary changed the subject.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Six months. I was posted down here for three months, but I think they’ve forgotten about me. I don’t mind,” he added quickly.

  “I like it.”

  “First name?”

  “Otto,” he replied, then added by way of explanation, “Palindrome as well. My sister’s name is Hannah. Father liked word games. He was fourteen times world Scrabble champion. When he died, we buried him at Queenzieburn to make use of the triple word score. He spent the greater part of his life campaigning to have respelt those words that look as though they are spelt wrongly but aren’t.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Oh, skiing, vacuum, freest, eczema, gnu, diarrhea, that sort of thing. He also thought that ‘abbreviation’ was too long for its meaning, that ‘monosyllabic’ should have one syllable, ‘dyslexic’ should be renamed ‘O’ and ‘unspeakable’ should be respelt ‘unsfzpxkable.’

  “How did he do?”

  “Apart from the latter, which has met with limited success, not very well.”

  Mary’s eyes narrowed. She feared she was having her leg pulled, but the young man seemed to be sincere.

  “Okay. Here’s the deal. You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Get me St. Cerebellum’s number and make Jack a cup of coffee.”

  8. The Armony

  The Forensic Department in Reading was an independent lab and covered all aspects of forensic technology as well as being an R&D lab for Friedland Chymes’s sometimes eccentric forensic techniques. The department serviced not only the Oxford & Berkshire Constabulary but also the Wiltshire and Hampshire forces, too. Chymes had insisted long ago that they should be close enough for personal visits, which always made for more dramatic stories than sending material off and receiving technical reports in return. It pissed off Inspector Moose in Oxford no end, but that might have been the reason Chymes did it.

  Excerpt from Chymes — Friend or Foe?

  The armory and ballistics division was run by George Skinner. He was a large man with a bad stoop, graying hair and a permanent hangdog expression. He wore pebble specs and a shabby herring-bone suit that seemed as though he had inherited it from his father. Looks can be deceptive and were definitely so in Skinner’s case. Not only was he an inspired ballistics and weapons expert, able to comment expertly and concisely on everything from a derringer to a bazooka, he was also highly watchable in the documentaries that often followed one of Chymes’s investigations. But despite his somewhat sober appearance, he was also a lively fixture of Reading’s nightlife. He could outdrink almost anyone, and if there was a report of someone dancing naked on the tables down at the Blue Parrot, you could bet safe money it was Skinner.

  Jack knocked on the open door. “Hello, George.”

  “Come in, Jack,” said Skinner without turning around.

  Jack walked over and watched him for a moment. Like Mrs. Singh, Skinner was one of the few officers who didn’t treat the NCD with the derision that seemed to hallmark Jack’s association with the rest of the station. Friedland swore by Skinner, and Friedland expected the best — it galled him something rotten that Skinner was so chummy with Jack. Jack waited patiently while Skinner finished what he was doing, and then he produced the sawed-off shotgun.

  “What do you make of this?” he asked.

  “Ah!” said Skinner thoughtfully, signing the evidence label before removing the gun and carefully checking to make sure it was empty. “I make this a Marchetti twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Illegal, as all pumps are, and shortened like this, it’s a nasty piece of work.”

  Skinner replaced his glasses, making his eyes appear twice as big as they were. He peered at Jack for a moment and then pulled a file off a shelf. He looked up the make against reported stolen or missing guns.

  “Oh,” he said in a tone that made Jack nervous.

  “What?”

  He looked at the frame number again.

  “Bingo. Jack, meet the weapon that was stolen from Mr. Christian. It could be the murder weapon in the Andersen’s Wood murders. That was one of Friedland’s, wasn’t it?”

  “One of the many,” replied Jack with a sigh.

  The wood murders had all the characteristics of the sort of drama that Chymes liked to unravel. Mr. Christian had been murdered along with his wife eighteen months earlier in Andersen’s Wood, a large forest to the west of Reading. The only possible motive was connected to the substantial amount of cash that had been found at their humble dwelling on the edge of the forest. Mr. Christian was a poor woodcutter, yet close to seven thousand pounds was found in their house, and no clue as to how they came by it. Friedland, in a typical display of bravado, had uncovered a sinuous trail of money laundering that led from East Malvonia and involved several hitherto unheard-of and only marginally plausible secret societies and ended up implicating the Vatican. During a daring raid on an address in Cleethorpes, the two prime suspects were killed and a large quantity of arms and cash recovered. The investigation was so complex that it had to be published as an annotated two-parter in Amazing Crime Stories. The only survivor of the raid confessed a few weeks later and was currently doing time in Reading Gaol.

  “This gun was used to kill the Christians?”

  “No, this gun belonged to the woodcutter. I can tell you if it was the one used to kill them by comparing the two spent cartridges they found at the scene. Who had it?”

  “Humpty Dumpty.”

  “As in ‘sat on a wall’?”

  “No, as in ‘had a great fall.’ He was found dead this morning.”

  “Ah,” replied Skinner knowingly. “I thought murdered woodcutters were NCD jurisdiction?”

  “Friedland insisted they were real woodcutters, and Briggs agreed with him. As it turned out, he was right. Thanks, Skinner, you’ve been a lot of help.”

  Jack walked back into the station, stepped into the lift and pressed the button to go down to the basement. The lift, however, was already programmed to go up, so he went on an excursion to the seventh floor. The shotgun puzzled him. Humpty was undeniably shady, but he’d never been violent.

  The lift stopped at the sixth floor, where Jack’s least favorite person at Reading Central walked in: Friedland Chymes. They had once been partners together at the NCD until Friedland thought it was beneath him and jumped into the fast lane of the Guild of Detectives on the back of two cases that were more to do with Spratt. It had been Jack and Wilmot Snaarb who caught the Gingerbreadman that night, not Friedland, as he liked to claim. So it was no surprise that they didn’t even look at each other. Friedland pressed the first-floor button and then stared at the indicator lights above the door. After a twenty-year enmity, the best either of them could manage was a single-word greeting.

  “Jack.”

  “Friedland.”

  But, Friedland being Friedland, he couldn’t resist a small dig.

  “I knew the pigs would walk, old sport,” he said loftily. “I didn’t think the premeditation argument solid enough.”

  “It was solid,” retorted Jack. “The defense had the jury loaded with other pigs. I wanted a wolf in the box, but you know how busy they are.”

  “You can’t play the speciesist card every time you lose a case, Jack.”

  They were silent for a moment as the lift passed the fourth floor.

  “I understand you’ve applied to join the Guild,” remarked Chymes with a small and patronizing chuckle.

  “Any officer can apply, Friedland.”

  “No need to get defensive, old boy.”

  “I’m not getting defensive.”

  “What will be your figurehead case? Finding sheep for Bo-peep? A failed conviction of three pigs?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “Of course you will. I hear Humpty took a nosedive. Suicide?”

  “It’s early days,” replied Jack quickly, not wanting to relinquish any details, no matter how trivial.

  “Humpty… wall… suicide… murder,” muttered Chymes thoughtfully. “Sounds like it could be a corker. Want me to take over?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll swap it for a strangling over in Arborfield.”

  “I said no, Friedland.”

  “Okay, the strangling in Arborfield plus a botulism poisoning by a vicar — with potential sexual intrigue thrown in. Proper stuff, Jack. None of your dozy nurseries.”

  “The answer’s still no. You couldn’t wait to get out of the NCD. Where were the offers of help when Mr. Punch was beating his wife? What about Bluebeard? I could have done with some assistance then.”

  “Listen,” said Chymes as the friendly horse-trading banter vanished abruptly, “let’s cut the crap. I want this investigation — and I will have it.”

  “Which part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

  “Is that your final word?”

  “You don’t want to hear my final word.”

  “Well,” said Chymes with a condescending smile, “I hope you won’t regret your decision.”

  The lift stopped at the first floor. Friedland walked out, turned to Jack and said, “Just a spot of advice from an old soldier — don’t build the case up. Word in the station says they should have left some room in Mr. Wolff’s coffin for the NCD.”

  He started to walk away, but Jack wasn’t done.

  “I found the woodcutter’s shotgun,” he said in a low voice. “I want to check to see if it was the murder weapon in the woodcutter case.”

  Friedland halted abruptly, pressed the “door-hold” button and stared at Jack.

  “I don’t think that’s very likely. Haven’t you read the write-up in Amazing Crime? It was the Kiev mafia trying to muscle in on the Reading drug trade via Cleethorpes with the help of several all-powerful and unfeasibly ancient secret societies. It’s a done deal, Jack — Max Zotkin is doing time as we speak.”

  Jack was unfazed. “Even so, I’d like to check. Do you have the cartridges from the murder scene? Skinner can check them against the gun we found.”

  Chymes stared at him for a moment, then appeared to soften. “I’ll have them sent down. Good-bye, Jack.”

  The doors slid shut. Jack closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, he remembered why he had never really wanted to be in the Guild.

  9. Back at the office

  van Dumpty, Humperdinck (Humpty) Jehoshaphat Aloysius Stuyvesant. Businessman, philanthropist, large egg. Born/laid 6th June 1939, Oxford, England. Edu: Llanabba Castle. Uni: Christ Church. Career: Lecturer at Balliol, 1959–1964. Chief Financial Controller, Porgia Holdings, Inc., 1965–1969. Head of Reading Prison’s laundry department, 1969–1974. Ogapôga Development Council, 1974–1978. Professor of Children’s Literature, Reading University, 1980–1981. CEO Dumpty Holdings Ltd., 1983–present. CEO World Zinc, PLC, 1985–1991. CEO Splotvian Mineral and Mining Corporation, 1989–1990. Married 1: Lucinda Muffet-Dumpty 1962–1970 (Died). Married 2: Laura Garibaldi, 1984–2002 (Divorced). No children. Hobbies: reading, oology.

  Mr. Dumpty’s entry in the 2002 edition of Who’s What?

  Mary looked up as Jack entered the room, but Tibbit actually stood, which seemed to her pointlessly correct protocol.

  “Any luck with the shotgun?”

  “You could say that. Remember the Andersen’s Wood murder?”

  “Of course,” replied Mary. “It was titled ‘From Russia with Gloves’ and appeared in Amazing Crime, issue 12, volume 101, reprinted in Friedland Chymes Casebook XVII. It was an extraordinarily complex case. He — ”

  She stopped as she saw Jack glaring at her.

  “I suppose you know the page number, too?” he asked.

  “Sorry, wasn’t thinking. Seriously, I thought Chymes had found the weapon that killed the woodcutters. After all, it was the discovery of the engraved Holland and Holland that led him on an unnecessarily complex jaunt around Europe before he solved it.”

  “It was never proved it was the weapon. He’s sending the cartridges down so we can check.”

  “But if Humpty’s shotgun was the murder weapon used to kill the woodcutters…”

  “Yes,” replied Jack, “Chymes would be wrong. Unthinkable, isn’t it?”

  Mary thought about agreeing with him wholeheartedly but said instead, “A few things for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Mrs. Singh rang with some figures. They can’t be certain, as so much of Humpty’s albumen was washed away by the rain, but indications show he was twenty-six times the legal limit for driving. Even so, she reckons he would still have been conscious — it’s something to do with his coefficient of volume.”

  “That’s one seriously pickled egg,” murmured Jack. “What else?”

  “I’ve been collating the highlights from police databanks along with some background details Baker gleaned from a contact at the the Reading Mercury.”

  “Go on.”

  She looked at her foolscap notepad, cleared her throat and began: “Humperdinck Jehoshaphat Aloysius Stuyvesant van Dumpty was born on the sixth June, 1939,” she read. “His father was Gaylord Llewelyn Stuyvesant van Dumpty, a minor baronet and lecturer in classical Greek at Oxford. There seems to be some doubt over his mother. Schooled at Llanabba Castle, then Christ Church College reading mathematics and children’s literature. He played rugby for Oxford and just missed being chosen to play for England owing to a knee injury.”

  “He’d make a pretty unstoppable player,” said Jack, thinking it would be like trying to tackle a cannonball.

  “As long as he didn’t have to run, on those short legs,” added Mary. “Anyway, he married Lucinda Muffet in 1962, and we don’t hear anything about him until he is asked to leave a lecture post at Balliol in 1964 after being charged with a crooked property deal. Released through lack of evidence, he was not so lucky in 1969, when he was jailed for five years on a charge of money laundering for the Porgia family crime syndicate. He was questioned closely by the Serious Crime Squad about his connections but didn’t talk and, when he was released three years later, was given an apartment, reputedly a gift from Giorgio Porgia himself. His first wife died in a car accident while he was in prison, in 1970. He spent the next few years living and working in Ogapôga and was heard of next in 1978, when he requested asylum at the British consulate in Pôga City. The Ogapôgian government had charged him with smuggling gems, and, following some swift diplomatic dealing, he was deported. He returned to England in 1979 and in 1980 moved to Reading to lecture at the university. Questioned by NCD officers over spinning-wheel profiteering in 1981, then fired from the university in the same year over allegations of embezzlements. In 1984 he married Laura Garibaldi. In 1989 he shifted his interests to world development and raised forty million pounds on a limited-share issue to buy a monopoly on mineral rights in the Splotvian Republic. Six months later a coup there lost him everything when the incoming administration nationalized the land. Investigations followed complaints by the shareholders, but again he was never charged. Made a fortune in zinc between 1985 and 1991, then lost it all in 1993 when he tried to corner the market in talcum powder on the Hong Kong commodities exchange. Questioned about insider trading on the Tokyo stock exchange in 1999 but again, never charged.”