The Big Over Easy

She lifted her head and stared at Jack and Mary in turn. Her mascara had run badly, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Do you think he suffered?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“We don’t think so,” replied Mary without any emotion.

Jack placed the picture of her with Humpty on the table. It was in a plastic bag. She paused and then picked it up.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was on Mr. Dumpty’s desk.”

A smile crossed her face momentarily as she realized that he must have liked her enough to have her photo up in his office. She touched Humpty’s features on the print with a fingertip and spoke again, yet this time her voice had found a new confidence.

“Vienna, June last year,” she sighed wistfully. “Hump was on a business trip selling a thousand tons of Wozbekistanian industrial-strength instant soup powder. He asked me if I wanted to come along.”

She cocked her head to one side as she filled herself with fond memories of the trip.

“On the night this photo was taken, we went to see Madame Butterfly. In the first act, the tenor singing Lieutenant Pinkerton’s part was taken ill and the understudy was drunk. The management came out and apologized profusely and explained that they were unable to continue the performance. To my surprise Hump stood up and sang, without music, the first six lines of Pinkerton’s part. He was ushered onto the stage, and ten minutes later the performance continued with Hump as the Lieutenant. I was placed in the royal box with the compliments of the management, and Hump received eight curtain calls. It was a night that I shall never forget.” She smiled and shook her head sadly. “Does my story surprise you?”

“Mr. Dumpty ceased to surprise me long ago, Miss Brooks,” replied Jack. “Why did you leave town?”

The smile dried on her lips, and she looked down at the photo again.

“I loved him, Inspector, more than any woman ever loved an egg.” She paused for a moment. “I should never have become emotionally attached to him, but it was hard not to. Did you ever meet him, Inspector?”

“Only once, a long time ago.”

“He was a remarkable man,” she said slowly, “quite remarkable. His crimes never benefited himself.”

“Did he tell you of his plans?”

“No. He had several schemes in place, but I never knew what they were. On the night of the charity benefit, he told me he had remarried. He asked me if I wanted to carry on our relationship, and I am afraid to say that I was less than polite. We argued. How dare he marry another when we had been together for almost three months!”

“Is that why you killed him, Miss Brooks?”

She collapsed into a choking fit of sobs. Seymour moved farther away, and Jack and Mary exchanged looks. Mary tried to comfort her.

“It’s okay, Miss Brooks, take your time.”

They waited for a couple of minutes for her to compose herself, then sent out for a cup of tea, which arrived speedily.

“I couldn’t live without him, and I couldn’t bear the thought of another woman in his arms, caressing his smooth white shell—” She closed her eyes and began to cry.

“Let’s just go over the details together,” said Jack. “Where did you get the gun?”

“Gun?” she echoed with a puzzled expression.

“Yes, where did you get it?”

She looked at Seymour, who raised his eyebrows and said almost mechanically, “You don’t have to answer any questions, Miss Brooks.”

“I didn’t use a gun.”

“No?” asked Jack, beginning to have a nasty feeling. “Then what did you use?”

“Three tablets of Dizuppradol. I’m a veterinarian’s assistant.”

“His coffee?” asked Mary.

Miss Brooks nodded her head sadly.

“Damn!” said Jack as they walked along the corridor back to the NCD office.

“Is that attempted murder?” asked Mary, unsure of whether a crime had been committed. “I mean, he didn’t even touch his coffee.”

“Technically it is, but I can’t see the prosecutors bothering, if past NCD experience is anything to go by.”

Miss Brooks had perked up when they told her she hadn’t killed Humpty after all, although surprisingly she knew as little about him as anyone else. When he stayed over, it was always at her flat, which had already been searched and revealed precisely nothing.

It was an anticlimactic ending to what Jack had hoped would be a good line of inquiry. But there was one point that Bessie had told them that was of interest: Humpty had remarried. There hadn’t been time for the records to get into the system at the national registry, so Ashley and Gretel were ringing around locally to try to find out whom he had married, and where.

“Reject one mystery woman from the inquiry and another pops up in her place,” announced Jack. “Humpty has quite a following. How many of his ex-lovers have come forward to offer us their help?”

“One hundred and ninety-two,” replied Baker. “It’s going to take us weeks to sift through them all!”

“We don’t have weeks.”

Shenstone put his head around the door. “Hello, Jack!” he said cheerfully. “Want to hear the results of the vacuumings I took from the carpet at Grimm’s Road?”

“Sure.”

“In a word, it’s shit.”