‘Jack Spratt,

'Little Tommy Tucker,

'Little Jack Horner,

'Little Miss Muffett,

'Georgie Porgie,

'Old Mother Hubbard.'

'Humpty Dumpty, Little Boy Blue, Jack Spratt,' said Eddie, beating the palm of his right paw with as near to a fist as he could make from the left. 'They're in the correct order. But hold on. There're only eight names. I'm sure I gave you nine. I wasn't really paying attention to which ones they were at the time, I was just trying to keep up with the curator. But I do remember how many there were. There were nine. You've left one out.'

'No I haven't,' said Jack.

'You have, Jack. I remember there were nine. Show me the list.'

'There're just eight.' Jack made to tear up the list, but Eddie knocked it from his hand and fumbled it up from the floor.

And then Eddie perused this list and then Eddie really groaned.

'I'm sorry,' said Jack.

Eddie shook his head, slowly and sadly. 'I should have known,' he said. 'I should have realised.'

'Perhaps it's not the same one,' said Jack.

'It's the same one,' said Eddie. 'There was only ever one Wee Willy Winkie. Even though he preferred to be known as Bill.'

They repaired to Tinto's Bar to take a late and liquid breakfast.

Eddie was a sad and sombre bear.

'I'm so sorry,' said Jack. 'It only really clicked when you called out his name for me to write down. Who Bill Winkie really was. But what I don't understand is, why did he become a detective? He should have been lording it up on his nursery rhyme royalties.'

'He was tricked out of his royalties by Wheatley Porter-man. Signed a really bad contract. Porterman had made so much money from Humpty, he thought he'd take all from the next client. Wee Willy went public on the way he'd been tricked; no one ever got tricked again. But he was broke, but he was a natural detective, you know, all that "tapping at the windows and crying through the locks" stuff in the nursery rhyme. And checking up on whether the children were in their beds by eight o'clock. Natural detective. And now he's... you know.'

'We don't know he's you know. He's missing, that's all.'

'He's dead,' said Eddie, dismally. 'He's as dead as. This killer delights in fitting ends for his victims. Boiling the big egg man, giving the ex-shepherd the bitter end of his crook, Tommy Tucker going out on a high note, like you said. And the fellow who does all the searching goes missing. Simple as that.'

'I'm so sorry.’ Jack ordered further drinks that he had no means of paying for. 'Put them on my tab,' he told Tinto. The clockwork barlord, who had been listening in to the conversation, did so without complaint.

'This time it's really really personal,' said Eddie.

'We know who's going to be next,' said Jack. 'Like you said, that puts us ahead of the game.'

'Oh dear,' said Eddie. 'We'd better hurry. Tinto, call me a cab.'

'All right,' said Tinto, 'you're a cab.'

Jack began to laugh.

'That's not funny,' said Eddie. 'That's such an old joke.'

'But I'm young; I've never heard it before.'

Til call a cab for you,' said Tinto, whirring away to do so.

'I thought you couldn't afford a cab?' Jack took to finishing his beers.

'We'll worry about that when we get to Little Jack Horner's.'

Eddie finished his beer, and then two of Jack's before Jack could get to them.

The cab was a fine-looking automobile. It was a Mark 9 Black Cab Kerb Crawler, with lithographed pressed steel body panels, chrome-trimmed running boards and brass radiator grille.

It came complete with comfy passenger seats in plush fur fabric and a clockwork cabbie called Colin.

'Very plush,' said Jack, comfying himself upon a comfy passenger seat.

'Where to, guvnor?' asked Colin the clockwork cabbie, his tin-plate jaw going dick click click.

'Little Jack Horner's,' said Jack.

'He's popular today,' said the cabbie.

'Why do you say that?' Eddie asked.

'Because I've just come from his place; dropped a customer there.'

Jack and Eddie exchanged glances. 'What did this customer look like?' Jack asked.

'She was a strange one,' said the cabbie. 'Didn't speak. Just handed me a piece of paper with Jack Horner's address on it. She wore this feathered hat thing and she never stopped smiling. I could see her in the driving mirror. She fair put the wind up me, I can tell you.'

'Faster,' said Eddie. 'Drive faster.'

'Faster costs more money,' said the cabbie.

'Fast as you can then,' said Eddie, 'and you can have all the money I've got on me.'

'And all the money I have too,' said Jack.

The driver put his pressed-tin foot down. Til show you fast,' he said. And he showed them fast.

'Eddie,' said Jack, as he clung for the dearness of life to whatever there was for him to cling to.

‘Jack?' said Eddie, who clung on to Jack.

'Eddie, what are we going to do when we get there? We're no match for this woman-thing.'

The cab hung a left and went up on two wheels.

'Big guns,' said Eddie. 'We need big guns.'

'But where are we going to get big guns?'

'Big guns?' The cabbie glanced over his shiny shoulder. 'Did I hear you say big guns?'

'Watch the road!' shouted Jack.

'Big guns, I said,' said Eddie.

'I love big guns,' said the cabbie. 'Well, you have to in this business.' He now hung a right and the cab went up on its other two wheels.

'In the cabbie business?' Eddie was now on the floor; Jack helped him up.

'You'd be surprised,' said the cabbie. 'Folk get into my cab and ask me to drive somewhere, then tell me that they have no money.'

'Oh,' said Eddie. 'So you menace them with your big gun?'

'No,' said the cabbie. 'I shoot them. I'm mad, me.'

'Oh, perfect,' whispered Jack.

'Stay cool,' whispered Eddie. 'Mr Cabbie?'

'Yes?' said the cabbie. 'Oh hold on, there's a red light!'

'I'll wait until you've stopped then.'

'I don't stop for red lights,' said the cabbie. 'Not when there's a really big fare in it for me. I'll probably take the rest of the week off once you've paid up.'

'Ah,' said Eddie. And the cabbie ran the red light, much to the distress of the traffic that had the right of way. This traffic came to a sudden halt. Cars bashed into other cars. A swerving lorry ran into a shop front.

'Nearly there,' the cabbie called back. 'Best get your wallets out, and I'll take your wristwatches too.'

'You're a very funny fellow,' said Eddie.

'Thanks a lot,' said the cabbie, revving the engine and putting his foot down harder. 'And some people say that psychopaths don't have a sense of humour. What do they know, eh?'

'Nothing,' said Eddie. 'But about this big gun of yours...'

'This one?' The cabbie whipped it out of his jacket with his gear-changing hand. It was a very big gun indeed.

'Whoa!' went Jack. 'That's a 7.62 mm M134 General Clockwork Mini-gun. Max cyclic rate 6000 rounds per minute. 7.62 x 51 shells, 1.36kg recoil adapters, muzzle velocity of 869m/s.'

'You certainly know your weapons, buddy,' said the cabbie. 'And this one carries titanium-tipped ammunition. Take the head off a teddy at two hundred yards.'

'We're sawdust,' whispered Eddie.

Jack made shushing sounds. 'I used to work in the factory that manufactured those guns,' he told the cabbie. 'Do you have it serviced regularly?'

'I keep it well oiled.' The cabbie swerved onto the wrong side of the road, which made things exciting for the oncoming traffic.

'How many times have you fired it?’ Jack asked.

'Dozens of times,' said the cabbie, performing further life-endangering automotive manoeuvres.

'And you've not had the chamber-spring refulgated?'

'Eh?' said the cabbie, taking a turn along the pavement.