The Big Over Easy

She ushered them into the large and opulent drawing room, flopped onto a sofa and put her feet up on an expensive coffee table. A terrier made itself comfortable on her lap and the other dogs jumped onto the various sofas.

“Please,” she said, “take a seat. Don’t be afraid to push Max off; he’s a brute—Down, Spike! Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“Just routine stuff, Mrs. Grundy,” said Jack. “We need you to confirm the whereabouts of your husband on the night of the Spongg Charity Benefit.”

“Is he a suspect?” she asked as she blinked her large eyes.

“We need to eliminate your husband from our inquiries, Mrs. Grundy.”

“Please,” she said as she removed her riding hat and a hair clasp to allow acres of luxuriant auburn hair to tumble into her lap, and the sofa, and the coffee table, and the floor, “call me Rapunzel.”

Jack and Mary exchanged glances as her long red tresses lapped at their feet like the incoming tide. They had the same thought: the twenty-eight-foot human hair found at Grimm’s Road.

“Very well, Rapunzel. You were with your husband that night?”

“Of course. I escorted him to the Spongg Charity Benefit as I do all social events. I stayed at his side the whole evening—as Solomon likes me to do.”

“Then you were with him when Humpty made the offer to sell his stake in Spongg’s?”

“I was. I think Mr. Dumpty was very drunk; in any event, the ten million he offered was quite correctly refused by Solly. It isn’t good form to talk business while drunk at a charity do.”

“And you were with Solomon until the morning?”

“Yes, here at the house.”

Jack thought for a moment. He wasn’t going to beat around the bush, and he knew it wasn’t likely he’d be able to talk to her again.

“When did you visit Humpty’s offices at Grimm’s Road?”

She looked stunned for a moment and then glanced around to see whether any of the servants were within earshot. They weren’t, but she lowered her voice anyway.

“Solomon can never know!”

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” said Jack. “I just want to find who murdered Humpty.”

“So do I!” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. “If I even suspected that Solly had him killed, I would be out of that door like a shot. No one knows Solomon as I do. He’s not as bad as everyone makes out. He might buy venerable old companies and strip their assets, causing numerous layoffs and the odd corporate suicide or two, but that’s business. Inside, he’s a big teddy bear.”

“If he does know about you and Humpty,” said Jack, “it gives him a very strong motive.”

“Rapunzel!” bellowed a voice from the hall. “Rapunzel, my dove!”

Jack and Mary froze. There was no mistaking the gruff voice of Solomon Grundy, even tempered by domesticity, and they both felt as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“In here, my love,” called Rapunzel, staring unhappily at Jack and Mary. “I’ve just let my hair down in the drawing room.”

Solomon was smiling as he walked in, but the smile soon dropped from his face when he saw Jack and Mary.

“What the blazes are they doing here?”

“Eliminating you from their inquiries, honey-bunny.”

Jack and Mary stood up as Grundy marched across to them. He discarded his briefcase on the floor and stopped only inches from Jack’s face.

“I could have you both killed, buried, and they’d never find the bodies,” he growled menacingly, “but I won’t, because that’s not what I do.” He took a step back and rested a hand on Rapunzel’s shoulder; she held it tightly.

“How dare you come into my house? You’re an interfering meddling pain in the arse, Inspector.”

“It’s what I do, sir.”

“And very well, by the look of it.”

Grundy paused and thought for a moment. Then looked at Rapunzel.

“I know of my wife’s infidelities, Inspector.”

Rapunzel gave a small cry and put a hand to her mouth. He sat down next to her. His anger had left him, and the big man spoke now in gentler tones—almost compassionately.

“I am an old man with a young wife,” he said slowly, “and I know that younger women have needs. I knew all about her visits to Grimm’s Road, but I chose to do nothing. It’s better that way. I am sixty-nine and am not healthy—I have perhaps five years of life left in me. I want to spend it with a beautiful wife whom I would give anything to keep—even if it means turning a blind eye and being a cuckolded husband.”

“Oh, Solly!” said Rapunzel, pressing her cheek to his large hand and sobbing bitterly. “I’m so sorry!” Despite everything, she had a genuine affection for the man.

“If you want to know whether I had Humpty killed, the answer is a categorical no. I am a businessman. I cannot afford the luxury of violent revenge. I would have been happy to ruin him financially, but murder? I wouldn’t get my capital back, and I would inevitably end up in prison. I’m a logical man; I never invest money or time that I can’t afford to lose, and I certainly can’t afford to lose any years off my life. I found out long ago that you can make a fortune in this world far more efficiently by using the law to your advantage than by breaking it.”