The Big Over Easy

She waved a rubber-gloved hand at Humpty’s remains. “That’s a lot of shell. I never saw him alive—how big was he?”

Jack thought for a moment. “About four-foot-six high—three foot wide.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. He would have been quite heavy, and it’s a fall of over twelve feet. I’ll know a bit more when I get him back to the lab, but I can’t see anything that would preclude a verdict of either accidental death or suicide.”

“Any idea on the time of death?”

“Difficult to say. The rainstorm last night pretty much washed everything away. There are scraps of inner and outer membrane—and this.” She held up a gelatinous object.

“A jellyfish? This far inland?”

“I’m no expert when it comes to eggs,” confessed Mrs. Singh,

“but I’ll try to identify it.”

“What about time of death?”

She dropped the section of Humpty’s innards into a plastic Ziploc bag with a plop and thought for a moment. “Well, the remaining viscera are still moist and pliable, so sometime within the last twenty-four hours. Mind you, the birds would have had most of it if he’d fallen off the wall yesterday, so if you want me to make a guess, sometime between 1800 hours yesterday evening and 0300 this morning. Any later than that and the rain wouldn’t have had time to wash away all that albumen.”

Mary jotted it down in her notebook. Jack was sure there must be relatives, and they would almost certainly ask him one important question.

“Was it quick?”

Mrs. Singh surveyed the wreckage. “I think so. When he hit the ground his lights, quite simply, went out.”

Jack thanked her as she spoke a few words in Hindi to her assistant, who very gently—as befits the deceased—began to lift the larger pieces of shell into a PVC body bag.

Jack carefully climbed up the ladder and looked at the top of the wall. It was barely a foot wide, and he could see an oval dip that had been worn by Humpty’s prolonged use. He climbed back down again, and both he and Mary went into the yard next door to look at the wall from the other side.

“What are you looking for?” asked Mary.

“Anything that might have been used to push him off.”

“Pushed? You suspect foul play?”

“I just like to keep an open mind, Mary, despite what Briggs said.”

But if Jack expected to find anything incriminating, he was to be disappointed. The yard was deserted, and a precarious heap of rubbish and full garbage bags was stacked against the wall underneath where Humpty had sat. An assailant would have had to clamber over the heap but the rubbish was undisturbed. Jack was just looking in the outhouse for a rake or something when he noticed a small boy staring at him from the kitchen window. Jack waved cheerfully, but the little boy just stuck his middle finger up. He was grasped by the ear and pulled away, only to be replaced by a very small man in a nightgown and nightcap. He looked a bit bleary-eyed and fumbled with the latch before opening the kitchen window. Jack showed him his ID card.

“Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, Nursery Crime. You are…?”

The small man rubbed his eyes and squinted at the card.

“Winkie,” he replied, blinking with tiredness. “William Winkie.”

“Mr. Winkie, there was an accident last night. Mr. Dumpty fell off the wall.”

“I heard.”

“Him falling off?”

“No, the news I mean. He was a nice fella. He used to play ball and that with the kids in the alleyway. My kids are well choked by his death.”

One of the “well-choked” kids continued to pull faces at Jack through the window. Mr. Winkie gave him a clip round the ear, and he ran off bawling.

“Did you hear anything out of the ordinary last night?”

Willie Winkie yawned. “Pardon me. I got in from my shift at Winsum’s at about two and went straight to sleep. I have a sleeping disorder, so I’m on medication.”

“Anyone else in the house?”

Willie turned and shouted. “Pet! Did you hear anything strange last night? It’s about Mr. Dumpty.”

A large, florid woman came to the window. She wore a purple nylon dress and had her hair done up in rollers. A small unlit rolled cigarette was stuck to her lower lip and bobbled as she spoke.

“There was a truck reversing sometime in the small hours—but that’s not unusual around here. I sleep in a separate room to Willie so he doesn’t wake me. Sorry, love, I’d like to be able to help, but I can’t.”

Jack nodded and started on another tack. “When did you last see him?”

“Last night at about seven-thirty. He asked me to iron his cravat.”

“Cravat?”

“Or cummerbund. It’s difficult to say with him.”

“How did he appear to you?”

“Fine. We chatted about this and that, and he borrowed some sugar. Insisted on paying for it. He was like that. I often ironed his shirts—on a wok to get the right shape, of course, and he always paid over the odds. He helped us out with a bit of cash sometimes and sent the kids on a school trip to Llandudno last summer. Very generous. He was a true gent.”

“Did you ever see him with anyone?”