STRAW-INTO-GOLD DEFENDANT NAMED

The jury was shocked into wakefulness on the eighth day of the Straw-into-Gold trial by the dramatic naming of the defendant yesterday. The previously unnamed illegal gold-spinner had been making a mockery of British justice by his insistence that the judge try to guess his name before he would agree to plea. After seven days and 8,632 guesses, the judge finally hit upon the correct name, whereupon Rumplestiltskin (this reporter can now faithfully record) flew into an inflamed passion, accused the judge of “listening down chimneys” and stamped his foot so hard it went through the floor. The defendant thus identified, the trial came to a speedy conclusion, and he was jailed for twenty years.

—From The Gadfly, April 30, 1999

“What’s your prose like, Mary?”

“Rusty—but not too bad.”

“Good. There exists the faintest possibility that I might make it into the Guild. If I do, I want you as my Official Sidekick.”

“I’m flattered of course, sir—but Chymes is on the selection committee. How would you get him to change his mind?”

“Need-to-know basis, Mary. What news?”

“Mrs. Singh sent up the initial autopsy report on Winkie.”

Jack took it from her and read. There was nothing that had changed dramatically since her initial ideas the night before. One cut, very savage, leading to death from shock and loss of blood. The look on Winkie’s face, partial rigor and the fact that he had urinated on himself might relate to his witnessing something terrifying.

“Terrifying?” queried Jack. “I suppose someone coming at you with a broadsword would be terrifying.”

Jack handed the report back. It seemed unusual, but what in this inquiry wasn’t?

“Okay, boys and girls,” Jack announced to the NCD officers who had waited patiently and a little nervously for him to return from almost certain suspension at the hands of the IPCC, “it’s the end of day four. The body count is rising, and we’re no closer to finding out who killed Humpty. Here’s the story so far: Mr. and Mrs. Christian, the woodcutter and his wife, find a missing consignment of gold. Ashley, any luck on this?”

“Nothing recently stolen, sir—just the usual urban myths of missing Nazi bullion.”

“Keep on it. Small-time criminal opportunist Tom Thomm murders them both with the Marchetti shotgun we find at Humpty’s and steals the gold. He takes it to his old friend and mentor Humpty Dumpty, who starts to sell the gold to buy shares in a company that’s rapidly going down the tube. All goes well until Humpty comes home to his flat six months later to find Tom Thomm shot dead in the shower. He correctly assumes it was his ex-wife, Laura, and the shots were meant for him, so he goes to earth. Where, we don’t know.”

“Why didn’t he report it?” asked Otto.

“Probably because he’s in over his head laundering money from the original theft. It would make him an accessory.”

“Ah.”

“He then buys shares in Spongg’s with the laundered gold money, but not even Randolph Spongg has any idea how he could raise the share value—the company has been sliding downhill for years. Humpty has a jealous mistress named Bessie Brooks, who tries unsuccessfully to kill him, and this afternoon we learn from her that he remarried sometime in the past two weeks.”

He paused for a moment.

“His will had ‘all to wife’ written on it, so until Humpty’s Spongg shares are worthless, she is a wealthy woman and a thirty-eight percent shareholder of Spongg’s. On Sunday, Humpty breaks cover and is seen drunk at the Spongg Charity Benefit, offering to pledge fifty million to rebuild the woefully outdated and inadequate St. Cerebellum’s mental hospital, somewhere he has been an outpatient for nearly forty years. He offers to offload his shares to Grundy, who refuses. That night someone kills Humpty. It’s likely that William Winkie saw the murderer from his kitchen window and tried to blackmail whoever it was. So he’s killed, too.”

“It was a Porgia MO, wasn’t it?” observed Gretel.

“It was,” conceded Jack, “but I’m pretty sure he had nothing to do with it.”

Mary nodded in agreement.

“The killer might have done that to send us off looking in other directions, a logical inference of which is that we just might be looking in the right place,” said Jack.

Then he paused for a moment.

“We need to know several things: who his new wife is and where he’s been living for the past year. Grimm’s Road was just his office. He might have spent a few nights there on his wall, but not more. Grundy says he turned down Humpty’s offer of ten million, and Grundy’s wife, Rapunzel, was having an affair with Humpty—something Grundy knew about and sanctioned. Humpty’s car is still missing, and then there’s the bird shit.”

A brief titter went round the room.

“It’s not funny. If he had enough shit on his shoes to bring it all the way to Grimm’s Road, he must have been wading in it. And wherever the bird shit was will be the place he’s been living the past year. Ashley, any leads on the car?”

“Not good, sir. We spoke to his garage. He had his car serviced three months ago—so we know it’s probably still around.”

“Okay, what about Humpty’s marriage?”

Ashley and Gretel shook their heads. They had exhausted all the registrars in Berkshire and Oxford and were moving farther afield. As Gretel pointed out, he might have got married in Las Vegas.

Jack surveyed their faces. “Any questions?”

There weren’t any.

“Okay. Make yourselves comfortable, because we’re going to run over tomorrow’s job from midday to 1530 hours: looking after the visitors’ center for the Sacred Gonga.”

He went over what they’d be doing with the aid of a drawing on a flip chart and a hastily photocopied plan. There wasn’t much to say, but he tried to make it as important and serious as he could. Besides, there was an outside chance they might get a look at the Jellyman. They all listened to Jack but soon realized they were supernumerary to the Sacred Gonga security staff.

“We’re there to make up the numbers, aren’t we?” asked Gretel.

“It’s orders, so we do our best,” replied Jack. “Mary will take questions. That’s it for now. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”