The Big Over Easy

“But since anagram-related clues are now inadmissible as evidence, we sent the pork pie off for DNA analysis and managed to pinpoint the pie shop where it was purchased. Guessing that Miss Mangersen might have an affinity for the pies, we staked out the shop in question, and yesterday evening Miss Mangersen was taken into custody, whereupon she confessed to me in a tearful scene that served as a dramatic closure to the case. My loyal, and annoyingly chirpy, cockney assistant and biographer DS Flotsam will of course be writing a full report for Amazing Crime Stories in due course, after the formality of a trial. Ladies and gentlemen: The case… is closed!”

The assembled journalists rose as one and burst into spontaneous applause. Chymes dismissed the adulation with a modest wave of the hand and excused himself, muttering something about needing to open a hospital for orphaned sick children.

“He’s amazing!” breathed Mary, somehow convincing herself—as had all the other women present—that Chymes had winked at her across the crowded room.

“I agree,” replied Briggs, standing aside as the newsmen filed out, eager to get the stories into the late editions. “Don’t you love that ‘the case is closed!’ stuff? I wish I had a catchphrase. He’s an asset not only to us here at Reading but also to the nation—there aren’t many countries that haven’t requested his thoughts on some intractable and ludicrously complex inquiry.”

“He’s remarkable,” agreed Mary.

“Indeed,” went on Briggs, seemingly swept up in a paroxysm of hagiographic hero worship. “He’s also a hilarious raconteur, has a golf handicap of two, was twice world aerobatic champion and plays the clarinet as well as Artie Shaw. Speaks eight languages, too, and is often consulted by the Jellyman himself on important matters of state.”

“I’m going to enjoy working with him, I can see,” replied Mary happily. “When do I start?”

“Chymes?” echoed Briggs with a faint yet unmistakably patronizing laugh. “Goodness gracious, no! You’re not working with Chymes!”

“Who then?” asked Mary, attempting to hide her disappointment, and failing.

“Him.”

Mary followed Briggs’s outstretched finger to an untidy figure who had taken his turn at the lectern. He was in his mid-forties, had graying hair and one eye marginally higher than the other, giving him the lopsided look of someone deep in thought. If he was deep in thought, considered Mary, it was clearly about something more important than his personal appearance. His suit could have done with a good pressing, his hair styled any way but the way he had it. He might have shaved a little less hurriedly and made more of an attempt to exude some—any—confidence. He fumbled with his papers as he stared resignedly after the rapidly vanishing press corps.

“I see,” said Mary, sounding a great deal colder than she had intended. “And who’s he?”

Briggs patted her arm in a fatherly manner. He could sense her disappointment, but it wasn’t up to him. Chymes picked his own people.

“That’s DI Jack Spratt, of the Nursery Crime Division. The NCD. You’ll be on his team. Or at least you and a few others will be the team. It’s one of our smallest departments.” He thought for a moment and then added, “Actually, it is our smallest department—if you don’t count the night shift in the canteen.”

“And his Amazing Crime Stories rating? What about that?”

“He’s not rated,” replied Briggs, trying to make it sound all matter-of-fact and not the embarrassment that it was. “In fact, I don’t think he’s even in the Guild.”

Mary stared at the shabby figure and felt her heart fall. All of a sudden DI Flowwe didn’t seem quite so bad after all.

Jack Spratt looked around the room. Most of the newsmen had by now left, and aside from Briggs and a woman Spratt didn’t recognize at the door, there were only two journalists still in the room. The first was a large man named Archibald Fatquack, who was the editor of the Reading weekly gossip sheet The Gadfly. The second was a junior newshound from the Reading Daily Eyestrain, who appeared to be asleep, drunk, dead or a mixture of all three.

“Thank you all for attending this press conference,” announced Jack in a somber tone to the as-good-as-empty room. “I’ll try not to keep you any longer than is necessary. This afternoon the Reading Central Criminal Court found the three pigs not guilty of all charges relating to the first-degree murder of Mr. Wolff.”