The Big Over Easy

It seemed to be a dining room of some sort. The ceiling was elaborately decorated with plaster figures of cherubs at a feast, and the walls were covered with a deep red patterned silk. The room was dominated by a large oak table around which sat twelve matching chairs. On one wall, the wall above the door behind him, there was a painting depicting the Relief of Mafeking. On the other side was a large mirror that perfectly reflected the room, painting, table and everything else. Jack was moving slowly across the room when he noticed something that made his heart turn cold. The mirror reflected the room perfectly—but for one thing. Jack had no reflection. As he stood staring into the mirror and trying to make some kind of logical sense of it, he saw the door open behind him in the reflection. He turned to see Ffinkworth walking in with some silver candelabras that had just been polished. Jack turned back to the mirror. Ffinkworth was clearly reflected holding the candelabras, yet Jack was not. He felt a cold hand grasp his heart, and his throat went dry.

“Can I be of any assistance, sir?”

“My reflection, Ffinkworth—where is it?” he gasped, fear tightening his chest.

“I believe, sir, that it may be found in the mirror.”

Ffinkworth stood next to Jack and lifted his arm. His reflection did the same—but was alone in that huge mirror image of the room.

“Can you not see yourself, sir?” asked Ffinkworth with annoying calm.

“No, damn it,” replied Jack, his temper rising. “What’s going on?”

“I regret, sir, that I have no idea. To my mind the mirror seems to be functioning perfectly.”

Jack took a step closer, his voice dropping to a low snarl. “Listen—”

“I have been instructed to ask for your mobile telephone, sir.”

“What?”

“By his lordship. He has asked me to inform you that he will answer all your questions—and also release Constable Baker—if you will relinquish said instrument.”

Ffinkworth stared passively ahead, and Jack reluctantly handed him Mary’s phone.

“Thank you, Ffinkworth. That will be all.”

Randolph Spongg’s voice was unmistakable, and Jack could see him in the mirror. Spongg was behind him, leaning on the door-frame below the painting of the Relief of Mafeking. Jack turned to where he thought Spongg would be, but Randolph was not in the room with him. Spongg, like Jack, was only on one side of the reflection—the other side. Jack turned back to the mirror as Randolph laughed at his frustration and walked to where Jack’s reflection should have been, giving Jack the unnerving experience of gazing into a reflection that wasn’t his own.

“Hello, Jack,” Spongg said brightly. “Things aren’t going too well for me, are they?”

“What’s going on?”

Spongg laughed. “Things are rarely what they seem at Castle Spongg.” He looked around admiringly. “Caligari was a genius, you know.”

“Where’s Baker?”

“He’s fine. Not in any real danger.”

“Randolph Spongg, you are under arrest for the murder of Humpty Dumpty, William Winkie and Dr. Carbuncle. You do not have to say anything. But it may—”

Spongg laughed again. “You are tenacious, aren’t you, Jack? I had a terrier like you once. A Jack, too, a Jack Russell. It used to grab hold of something and wouldn’t let go. I admire that. You and I could have been good friends.” He picked an apple out of his pocket and bit into it.

Jack said, “The CCDC have declared both the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center and Andersen’s Farm category-A biohazard hot zones. Even without murder charges, you’re still looking at life imprisonment for the intentional spreading of a communicable disease. Why not make it easy for yourself?”

Spongg smiled. “I can hardly give myself up, Inspector. I don’t think prison would be terribly pleasant for me. I wouldn’t be allowed to take Ffinkworth, and the idea of twenty-five years in the clink without the benefit of pâté or grouse or champagne or any of the hundred and one luxuries that make our dreadful lives bearable seems positively depressing. Prison is for small people, Jack. I have no intention of going.”

“Why did you do it, Spongg?”

“Well,” began Randolph with a curious smile on his lips, “it all began when Tom Thomm appropriated the goose. He brought the goose to Humpty—Thomm worshipped him—and Humpty devised the scam with Dr. Carbuncle and myself. Without the cash to buy the shares, it would never have worked, but the potential profits were so large that Humpty just couldn’t resist it. He was never happy about the murders in Andersen’s Wood, but he was desperate to rebuild St. Cerebellum’s. No surprise: The old place had kept him sane for almost forty years. I don’t suppose any of us realize what it’s like to be a very large egg. Frightful, I imagine.”

He thought about this for a moment, smiled and continued. “Humpty got cold feet when he found out how potent Hercules had become. He was essentially a good man, and his heart wasn’t in it. I’d been planning to get rid of him for over a month.”

“And Dr. Carbuncle?”