“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.
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.”