The Big Over Easy

SPARROW SOUGHT IN ROBIN SLAYING

NCD officers are eager to interview an unidentified sparrow in connection with the murder of Cock Robin in Redhatch Copse last night. A witness who described himself as a Fly, told us, “I saw him die—with my little eye.” The alleged murder weapon, a bow, has not yet been recovered. “It’s early days,” said DS Spratt of the NCD when asked to comment on the case, “but we have a good description and will be wanting to interview all of Reading’s 356,000 sparrows.” Cock Robin will be buried on Thursday by Parson Rook; floral tributes to Chief Mourner Dove.

—Article in The Gadfly, February 22, 1980

“Beans?” said Jack’s mother. “BEANS?” she said again, her voice growing louder with rage. “For a Stubbs cow? Have you taken a wild leap away from your good senses? What do I want with these?”

She held the shiny beans in a trembling outstretched hand. They gently changed color in the warmth of her palm, but not even their singular elegance could dull her disappointment and anger.

Jack sighed. He had explained the whole story to her from beginning to end, but she had obviously failed to grasp the essential facts. He started again.

“It was a fake. I—”

She interrupted him. “It was not. I had it authenticated in the sixties. It was worth over a grand then!”

“You did?” asked Jack, suddenly feeling a bit stupid.

“Yes. Mr. Foozle must have gone soft in the head. You can go straight back into town tomorrow and sort him out. As for your beans, this is what I think of them!”

And she threw them out the window with a triumphant gesture. There was a pause as they stood and stared at each other, the only sound the steady tock of the grandfather clock in the hall and the gentle hum of the indefinable number of cats running incessantly around the furniture.

“Great,” said Jack as he turned to walk through the French windows.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to pick them up,” said Jack from the garden, “or Mr. Foozle will charge me a hundred quid for them.”

“Oh!” said his mother, and joined in the search.

“I think I threw them down near the potting shed,” she said, looking around in the light of the garden floodlamp. “Why do we have three bags of wool in there anyway?”

“It’s evidence, Mother, but there’s no room in the station—Did you see that?” Jack jumped up and pointed at the ground.

“What?”

“The beans. They were glowing and sort of burying themselves!”

“Not possible,” she said as she patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll look for them tomorrow. Come inside, it’s raining.”

But Jack wasn’t so easily put off, and he searched for another twenty minutes before giving up. He promised to do what he could to get the Stubbs back, kissed her and departed.

“Don’t worry,” said Madeleine as soon as he had returned home and told her about the Stubbs. “It might have been worse.”

“How?”

“It could have been raining.”

“It was raining. You know, when she threw the beans out the window, I got this really weird feeling. Like it felt kind of familiar.”

“Déjà vu?”

“Sort of—but more. A feeling of inevitability. Does that sound weird to you?”

“You’re probably a bit stressed over the Guild thing. Or the pig thing. Or the egg thing. Or the NCD-disbandment thing. Or the Chymes thing. Or an ongoing unspecified thing. Or an—”

“Okay, okay,” he said with a smile, “I get the picture.”

“Here,” she said as she handed him Stevie’s bowl, “you try and get him to eat it. Can you do supper?”

“Sure.”

She took off her apron and sat at the kitchen table for a rest. She was behind with several deadlines but was enjoying Stevie too much to want to start thinking about child care.

“How’s work?” she asked.

“Chymes tried to muscle in on the Humpty case, but it all seems to have blown over.”

“Be careful of Chymes, Jack,” warned Madeleine.

“I can handle him.”

He was doubtful about that last statement, but it made him feel better.

There was a knock at the front door, and Madeleine opened it to reveal Prometheus, who was dressed incongruously—given the poor weather—in a rumpled white linen suit and panama hat.

“Mrs. Spratt?” he said as he raised his hat. “My name is Prometheus.”

“Jack!” she yelled. “I think it’s for you.”

He came out of the kitchen in a flash.

“Ah! Prometheus. Welcome. This is my wife, Madeleine. Darling, this is the lodger I was telling you about. He said he’d lend a hand with babysitting if need be.”