They were all jolly-jolly and all-over blue,

With big jolly bellies, ajollysome crew.

Their faces were jolly,

Their eyes jolly too.

And they wouldn't think twice,

About jolly-well knocking seven bells of blimey out of you if you so much as looked at them in a funny way. Because for all their jollity, they were a right bunch of brutal, merciless, bullying...

And so on.

Which at least was how the rhymey frog would have put it. But the rhymey frog did not accompany these jolly laughing policemen into the apartment. Instead, they were joined by a short and portly jolly red-faced being, composed, it appeared, of perished rubber. He answered to the name of Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis. But only to his superiors.

Mostly he answered only when called 'sir'.

For all his jolly red-facedness, Chief Inspector Bellis was having a rough day. It is the nature of Chief Inspectors, no matter where they are to be found, nor indeed upon which day of the week they are found, to be having a rough day.

Chief Inspectors are always having a rough day.

It's a 'Chief Inspector thing'.

Chief Inspector Bellis was having a particularly rough day on this particular day. Earlier, he had been called into the presence of his superior, The Chief of All Police, the one being that Bellis called 'sir', and torn ofFa strip (a strip of arm on this occasion), upbraided (with the use of real braid) and berated (which involved a genuine bee, a wooden rat, but happily no ed).

The Chief of All Police wanted results. He wanted to know why Bellis had not yet tracked down the murderer of Humpty Dumpty. Although the Toy City press were selling the populace the story that Humpty had committed suicide, the police knew that it was Murder Most Foul, and questions were being asked in very high places as to why Bellis had not yet tracked down the murderer.

The Chief of All Police had handed Bellis a secret memo and Bellis had raised his perished eyebrows and dropped his perished jaw onto his perished chest. The memo contained most terrible news. And then the telephone had rung.

The Chief of All Police had handed the receiver to Bellis.

'There's a rhymey frog on the line,' he had said. 'Deal with it.'

And so here was Bellis, now having a really rough day, here to deal with it.

Bellis stood in the ruptured doorway puffing out his perished cheeks and making fists with his podgy, perished hands.

'Why?' he shouted. 'Why? Why? Why?'

'Ho ho ho and why what, sir?'

'Why, officer,' asked Bellis, 'did you break down the crubbin' door? I ordered you to wait until the rhymey frog went and got his spare set of keys.'

The laughing policeman made a troubled, though no less jolly-looking face. 'I... er... ha ha ha, was using my initiative, sir.'

Bellis scowled and shook his fists. 'Well, now we're in, I suppose. Go and arrest the malfeasant.'

'The what, sir?' the officer chuckled.

'The criminal, the intruder, the unlawful trespasser.'

'Which one of these do you want arrested first, sir?'

'Do you have a name?' asked Bellis, glaring upward daggers.

'Officer Chortle, sir. I'm a Special Constable. I've got my name printed on my back, see?'

The officer turned to display the name that made him special. Bellis kicked him hard in the backside. 'Go and arrest. It's what you do, isn't it? It's what you're for?'

'To uphold the law, using reasonable force when necessary, which, as you know, is always necessary, sir.' Officer Chortle saluted with his truncheon, bringing down a shower of crystal eggs from the chandelier.

'Then get to it. Bring me the offender. All of you, get to it!'

Police officers to the right and left of Bellis hastened to oblige.

'And don't break anything else.'

The police officers went about their business, leaving Bellis all alone in the vestibule, to listen to expensive things being broken by officers of the law.

Bellis recognised these sounds. These sounds weren't alien to his perished ears. He'd heard such sounds, and similar, many times before. The Chief Inspector sighed and shook his head and then delved into a perished pocket and brought out the secret memo. He read it once more and once more shook his head. This was bad, very bad. The day, already a rough day, looked like getting altogether rougher.

At length, and at breadth, the officers returned, downcast.

'Gone,' said Officer Chortle, with laughter in his voice. 'They've all gone, even the dressmaker.'

'Trespasser!' Bellis threw up his hands and made fists with them once more.

'You've dropped your piece of paper,' said Officer Chortle.

'Shut up!'

'Oh dear.' The rhymey frog peered in at the devastation. 'If you please, I've brought my keys.'

'Somewhat late,' said Bellis. 'The bird has flown.'

'Bird, too?' said Officer Chortle, a giggle escaping his lips.

'Shut up. Go downstairs and wait by the wagon. All of you. Now!'

The officers took their leave, laughing merrily as they did so and all but marching over the rhymey frog.

'Gone,' said Bellis. 'Escaped. Do you have any thoughts on this?'

The rhymey frog opened his big wide mouth and prepared to express his thoughts in an epic forty-verser.

'No,' said Bellis, raising once more the hands he had temporarily lowered. 'I do not wish to hear them. Speak to me only of the trespasser. And speak to me in prose, or I'll run you in and lock you up and have Officer Chortle do things to you that you'll never wish to recite. And he'll laugh all the time as he does them. Which always makes it that little more frightening, in my opinion. What do-you think?'

The knees of the rhymey frog began to knock together. 'Tricky,' he said. 'Tricky, dicky.'

'Careful,' cautioned Bellis.

'It was a man.' The rhymey frog took to rolling his eyes. 'And men all look the same to me.'

'A man was here?' Bellis raised his eyebrows high.

'Your face all cracks when you do that,' said the frog. 'Mr Anders could fix that for you. With a stick and a brush and a small pot of glue.'

'I have no wish to bother Mr Anders,' said Bellis. 'Tell me about the man who was here. Anything. Anything at all.'

'He had a bear with him,' said the frog. 'A rotten old bear with mismatched eyes. And a big fat belly about this size.' The frog mimed the dimension. The Chief Inspector glared anew.

'No more rhyming! And I don't want to hear about some stupid teddy bear. A major crime has been committed here. One of the city's most notable elder citizens has been murdered.'

'The papers say it was suicide,' said the frog.

'You heard the scream!' shouted the Chief Inspector. 'You reported the crime.'

'Oh yes,' said the rhymey frog. 'So I did. That was very public-spirited of me, wasn't it?'

Chief Inspector Bellis rocked upon his perished rubber heels. 'The trespasser was probably the murderer,' he said, 'because murderers always return to the scene of the crime.'

'Why?' asked the rhymey frog.

'Because it's a tradition, or an old charter, or something. Never mind why, they just do.'

The rhymey frog now began to tremble all over.

'Yes,' said Bellis. 'Exactly, he could have done for you too. I will have to ask you to accompany me to the station, where Officer Chortle will beat a statement out of you.'

'Oh no.' The rhymey frog was now all-a-quake.

'Then make it easy on yourself. Give me a detailed description of the man.'

'I don't know. I just don't know. All men look the same to me. I'm sorry.'

'All right,' said Bellis, 'never mind. Go off about your business.'

The rhymey frog looked all around and about. Til get a dustpan and a brush, some paper and a quill. I'll list all the broken things and then I can send you the bill.'