The Big Over Easy

“He supported Spongg’s and hated Winsum and Loosum, but murder wasn’t in his game plan. As soon as you started to investigate, he made a few assumptions and wanted to blow the whistle. Very regrettable. He was a brilliant research chiropodist.”

“And you, Spongg? Everything good that Spongg’s stood for. Why risk all that?”

Spongg’s eyes flashed angrily as he thumped his fist on the table.

“Don’t you understand? I did this to protect all that was great about Spongg’s. My factory, my workers, Castle Spongg, the Foot Museum, the two hundred charities I give money to every year. Winsum and Loosum would have taken all that and sold everything piece by piece. They had plans to turn this house into a theme park. A theme park! I did all this to stop the encroachment of damaging and selfish twenty-first-century business practices. Tell me honestly, Jack, which company did you prefer?”

“Yours.”

“Said without hesitation,” said Randolph triumphantly. “So you agree.”

“Not if murder is involved.”

Randolph threw his hands up in the air. “Murder?” he said in exasperation. “If I have to murder a few people, then that’s the price we have to pay. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, Mr. Spratt. You work in criminal law; you know the full meaning of that. To run the criminal-justice system, innocent people must, however regrettably, be occasionally sent to prison. It’s unfair, but it’s for the good of the many. To be efficient, the system can’t be fair; to be fair, it can’t be efficient. Business is the same. To make profits and benefit the community, then some people, however regrettably, will have to die. My Spongg charity homes look after thousands of retired people and offer better lives than they might enjoy under the government. How many lives do you think I’ve saved? Ten? One hundred? One thousand? When Spongg folds and the people I look after are cast out, a lot more people will die. You should look at the big picture.”

He swept his arms around, indicating the house, the grounds, everything. “All this, Mr. Spratt. How could I afford to let it go?” Spongg stared at him with a manic expression.

“That doesn’t explain how you’d get hold of Dumpty’s shares.”

As if on cue, the door opened behind Spongg. Lola Vavoom entered dressed in a sixties style catsuit. Jack looked around him, but he was still alone in the room; Randolph and Lola existed only in the reflection.

“Hello, Inspector dahling,” she cooed, threading an arm round Spongg’s waist. “I never liked the idea of a comeback, but for you I’d be willing to make an exception.”

She laughed as Jack looked at her in disbelief.

“You two…?”

“Yes, Inspector,” replied Lola. “Humpty and I were married; it wasn’t hard to persuade him—he adored me. I was to own thirty-eight percent of Spongg’s following my husband’s untimely death in the Zephyr, everyone catches verrucas with help from the Sacred Gonga, and before you can say Hallux valgus, Spongg’s is back on top!”

“Just through verrucas?”

“At first,” said Spongg. “Dr. Carbuncle was working on a corn serum to contaminate Britain’s water supply. Athlete’s-foot spore was to be introduced into the initial stages of sock manufacture. In under a year, Mr. Spratt, I could have bought out those sniveling dogs at Winsum and Loosum. Sold their company piecemeal as they were going to do to us and then fired all the executives after promising to take them on at increased salary—and then Lola and I could be married again!”

“Again?”

“Indeed,” Lola replied slowly, “it will be for the fifth time. Randolph was my third, seventh, tenth, fifteenth and soon my eighteenth husband. It’s an on-off sort of romance.”

They kissed aggressively on the lips.

“What about Willie Winkie? He saw you at Grimm’s Road?”

“I think we’ve talked enough,” said Randolph. “So it’s time for you and me to bid each other good-bye.”

“Why don’t we just call it au revoir?”

Randolph thought for a moment.

“No, let’s call it good-bye. My grandfather built a pneumatic railway that leads off beyond the perimeter of the grounds. There I have a Hornet Moth aircraft that will take Lola and myself to Europe. I have friends in Switzerland, and we will be in Geneva in time to hear of my own—and yours, of course—demise on the ten o’clock news. You, the house, that officer upstairs and unfortunately the Ffinkworths will be consumed by the detonation of this device.”