The Big Over Easy

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.