DANGEROUS PSYCHOPATH CAPTURED

The incredibly dangerous homicidal maniac known as “the Gingerbreadman” was captured almost single-handedly by Friedland Chymes last night. The cakey lunatic, whose reign of terror has kept Reading in a state of constant fear for the past six months, was brought to book by DI Chymes and some other unnamed officers in a textbook case of inspired investigation. “It really wasn’t that hard,” declared Chymes modestly. “Myself and some colleagues just did what was expected of any member of the police force.” The flour, butter, ginger and sugar psychopath, whose penchant for literally pulling his victims apart, is currently in a secure wing of St. Cerebellum’s, where he will doubtless remain for the rest of his life.

—From The Toad, March 23, 1984

Brickfield Terrace was a tree-lined avenue of houses built in the late 1890s and was situated only a few miles from the town center. Mr. Pewter’s house, Jack discovered, was the last one in the street and also seemed to be the only house not dissected into undistinguished flats. As he tugged on the bellpull, he noted an ugly hole where the boot scraper should have been. After a moment, the door opened, and a tall man with Victorian clothes, a large beard and a face like a bloodhound stood on the threshold.

“If you’re from The Owl ,” began Mr. Pewter without waiting to see who either Jack or Mary was, “you spelt my name wrong on the guest list for the Spongg Footcare Charity Benefit. It’s not Pooter but Pewter, as in tankard.”

His deep voice showed little emotion and was about as salubrious as his features.

Jack held up his ID card. “Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, Nursery Crime Division. This is Detective Sergeant Mary Mary.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Dumpty. You’d better come in.”

Jack thanked him, and they stepped inside. It was like walking into a museum, for the whole house was decorated and furnished in a middle-class Victorian fashion. There was no expensive furniture; all the pieces were of low-quality boxwood and poor veneer. A pair of plaster of paris antlers painted brown were waiting to be put up on the wall, and fans and other Victorian knickery-knackery filled every vacant space. Mr. Pewter contemplated Jack’s curious gaze with pride.

“It’s all original, Mr. Spratt. Every single piece, from the screens to the bedstead to the fans on the sideboard. As very little of poor-quality Victorian furniture survives, for obvious reasons, it’s of almost incalculable value. I bought these plaster of paris antlers at Christie’s last week for seven thousand pounds. I had to beat off stiff competition from Japan; they love this stuff almost as much as I do. Shall we repair to my study?”

“Please.”

Mr. Pewter led them through to a library, filled with thousands of antiquarian books.

“Impressive, eh?”

“Very,” said Jack. “How did you amass all these?”

“Well,” said Pewter, “you know the person who always borrows books and never gives them back?”

“Yes…?”

“I’m that person.”

He smiled curiously and offered them both a seat before sitting himself.

“So how may I help?” he asked.

“You were at the Spongg Footcare Charity Benefit last night at the Déjà Vu Ballrooms?”

“I was.”

“And you spoke with Mr. Dumpty?”

“Indeed I did, Inspector. Although, to be honest, I didn’t really get much sense out of him.”

“Was Mr. Dumpty drunk when he arrived?”

“Mr. Dumpty was a bit drunk all the time. He had a brilliant mind, but he wasted himself. I sat next to him, as I thought I could get him to join one of my self-help groups. You may not know, Mr. Spratt, but I run the Reading Temperance Society. We do what we can for people like Mr. Dumpty, using a combination of group reliance, prayer and electroshock aversion therapy. I spoke to him sternly about his habit when he joined the table.”

“What did he say?”

Mr. Pewter coughed politely. “He said, ‘Pass the Bolly, old trout, I’ve got a tongue like the Gobi Desert.’ I refused, and he got Marjorie to pass it over instead. I tried to make him see reason, but he just told me not to be an old, er…”

“Fart?” inquired Mary helpfully.

“Exactly so, young lady. I tried again to make him see sense but he became sarcastic. I warned him about that, too, as I also run Reading’s branch of Sarcastics Anonymous—”

“And after he became sarcastic? Then what happened?”

“He drank more and more until he was picking arguments with just about anybody on any subject. The whole sordid business came to a head when Lord Spongg approached the lectern and announced he was starting a fifty-million-pound fund for the rebuilding of St. Cerebellum’s, the woefully inadequate mental hospital. Mr. Dumpty got up before any of us could stop him and pledged the full fifty million plus any ‘brown envelopes’ that might be necessary. There was an embarrassed hush, and his lordship made a joke of it. Mr. Dumpty told him he would be coming into a lot of money in the next couple of months, called Randolph a clot and then fell flat on his face.”

“Unconscious?”

“Not quite. Lord Spongg escorted him outside with a waiter. Upon his return he apologized for his absence and explained that he had sent Mr. Dumpty home in Spongg’s own car.”

“What time was this?”

“About eleven.”

“Did you know Mr. Dumpty well?”

“Socially, hardly at all. But in the course of my professional life, I had reason to see quite a lot of him.”

Jack and Mary leaned closer. “Go on,” said Jack.

Pewter pressed a lever on the office intercom and said, “The Dumpty file, please, Miss Hipkiss.”

He then turned back to Jack and Mary and continued. “Humpty approached Perkupp and Partners about eighteen months ago with respect to some share dealings he was interested in. Since he had a considerable sum of money to invest, it was thought best that a partner in the firm should advise him. I was allocated as his personal broker.” He shook his head sadly. “Mr. Dumpty dead! What a dreadful business. Who inherits his estate?”

Jack and Mary glanced at each other. Neither of them had considered probate. His will had dictated “all to wife,” but he was divorced, so it seemed a bit gray.

“We don’t know yet. Why do you ask?”

“Only because I have to move fast to try to sell these shares. Barring miracles, Spongg’s will be bankrupt within the next two months, and Mr. Dumpty’s shares will be worth nothing. If we could get probate sorted out straightaway and I could start selling, then I might make something out of this whole dismal mess.”

Jack was still in the dark. “Just how many shares did he have?”

At that moment Miss Hipkiss entered with a heavy buff folder. Mr. Pewter thanked the secretary with a badly concealed wink and then consulted the file.

“At a rough estimate I’d say about… twelve million.”

Jack had to get him to repeat it. He wrote it in his pad and underlined it. “Twelve million shares? In how many companies?”

“Oh!” said Mr. Pewter. “I thought you knew. Every single one of them is in Spongg Footcare PLC! ”

There was a pause as Jack and Mary took this in.

“So the egg had all his eggs in one basket,” observed Mary. “Is that normal?”

“It’s against all logical thinking, Miss Mary. If you have a large portfolio of shares, it is always considered prudent to spread the risk.”

“So how much is all that worth?” asked Jack.

Pewter picked up a calculator and consulted a list of stock-market prices in a copy of The Owl . He pressed a few buttons.

“At current rates a little over a million pounds.”

Jack whistled. “That’s a very good portfolio.”

Pewter didn’t agree. He leaned back in his swivel chair, which creaked ominously.

“No, Inspector. It’s a very bad portfolio. He spent about two and a half million pounds on its acquisition.”

“You’re losing me I’m afraid, Mr. Pewter.”

The stockbroker thought for a moment. “Against my advice he continued to buy even when the share price dropped hourly. He holds—held —thirty-eight percent of Spongg’s.”

Jack was not too familiar with the machinations of share dealings, but one question seemed too obvious not to be asked.

“Why?”

There was a pause.

“I have no idea, Mr. Spratt. I can only think that he wanted Spongg shares to recover and to then sell them at a profit.”

“How much could they be worth?”

Pewter smiled. “At the all-time high in the sixties, Humpty’s share would have been worth almost three hundred million. But the possibility of that, given the downward trend of Spongg’s fortunes, is infinitesimally small. He might as well have smeared the cash with gravy and pushed the bills into the lions’ enclosure at the zoo.”

Jack thought for a moment. “Did Mr. Dumpty seem naive in money matters?”

Pewter looked quite shocked. “Oh, no. He was quite astute. He had been playing the stock market for a lot longer than I’ve known him, although I understood he had a bit of trouble in Splotvia. He floated a company to exploit mineral rights, but a left-wing government took power and nationalized the land. Badly burned.”

Pewter paused for a moment and played absently with a pencil from his desk.

“So what was he up to?” asked Jack.

“I have no idea,” replied the stockbroker. “He became obsessed with Spongg’s about eighteen months ago. I never found out why. Spongg’s will go under; it’s only a question of time. Unless,” he added, “there was another plan.”

“Such as?” returned Jack, craning forward and lowering his voice.

Mr. Pewter fixed him with a steely gaze. “Winsum and Loosum Pharmaceuticals would have paid a lot of money to get hold of the shares. They’ve been trying to take over Spongg’s for years. They might pay him a good return on his investment.”

“How much?”

“Today? Ten million. Fifteen if he got Grundy in a generous mood. But I must say if that was his plan, I’m surprised he left it so long. Spongg’s demise is pretty much inevitable, and Winsum and Loosum can just wait until it goes and then pick up the pieces.”

“Solomon Grundy was at the Spongg benefit, wasn’t he?”

“He never misses them, Inspector. Along with Randolph Spongg and the Quangle-Wangle, he’s Reading’s most generous philanthropist. Did you know that he personally paid forty million pounds to keep the Sacred Gonga in Reading when the museum threatened to sell it?”