“Guess the product,” murmured Jack, gazing around at the curious decor and the large twin marble staircases that rose before them, curving up to the left and the right.
“Yeah, but what a dump,” replied Mary, pointing out the galvanized buckets that had been scattered about on the steps to catch the rainwater that leaked in.
“My grandfather used to work at Spongg’s,” said Jack. “He always said it was the best place to work in Reading. He lived in nearby Sponggville, and my father went to a Spongg-financed school. If Granddad ever fell ill, he went to the Spongg Memorial Hospital, and when he retired, he stayed in one of the Spongg retirement homes dotted around the country.”
“Was he buried in a corn plaster?”
“You must be Detective Inspector Spratt,” boomed a voice so suddenly that they both jumped. They turned to find a tall man dressed in a black frock coat standing not more than a pace behind. He had crept up on them as noiselessly as a cat.
Lord Randolph Spongg IV was a handsome man in his midfifties. He had black hair that was streaked with gray and a lined face that fell easily into a smile. His eyes glistened with inward amusement.
“Correct, sir,” replied Jack. “This is Detective Sergeant Mary Mary.”
He shook both their hands in turn and bowed graciously, then led them towards the staircase.
“Thank you for seeing us, Lord Spongg—” began Mary, but Spongg interrupted her.
“Just ‘Spongg’ will do, Sergeant. I don’t use my title much, and—don’t see me as fussy—but the first g is short and the second g long. Just let it roll around for a bit before you let it go.”
“Spongggg?” ventured Mary.
“Close enough,” replied Spongg with a mischievous grin. “Just put the brakes on a little earlier and you’ll be fine.”
He pointed his silver-topped cane at a satyr with pustules on its hoof and laid a friendly hand on Mary’s shoulder that she didn’t much care for—but might get used to, on reflection, given the opportunity.
“A charming picture, don’t you agree, Sergeant?”
Mary narrowed her eyes and looked at the strange creature.
“Not really, I’m afraid.”
Randolph Spongg paused for a moment, looked at the picture again and sighed deeply. “You’re right of course,” he said at last. “My grandfather had this all painted in 1921 by Diego Rivera. He suffered terribly from fallen arches, did Rivera. Did you know that?”
“I have to say that I didn’t,” confessed Jack.
“No matter. The result was a classical study of mythical beasts. My grandfather thought that it should reflect his products more, and he insisted that the creatures be made to suffer from some kind of foot ailment. Rivera quite rightly refused, so a Reading sign writer named Donald Scragg finished it off with all this product-placement stuff. Sometimes I think I will have Scragg’s paint removed, but artistic restoration is but the least of Spongg’s problems at the present.”
They followed Spongg as he ran nimbly up the marble staircase, expertly avoiding several more buckets that had been laid out on the landing. The corridor upstairs was almost wide enough to accommodate two lanes of traffic, but for stacks of old papers pushed haphazardly against the walls.
“Records,” explained Spongg, following Jack’s look. “We had a spot of bother with damp in the basement. Wait! Have a look at this.”
He had stopped in front of an oil painting of a venerable-looking gentleman, one of several that lined the corridor. Spongg gazed at it with obvious affection.
“Lord Randolph Spongg II,” he announced. The painting was of an elderly man with divergent eyes standing barefoot on a chair.
“My grandfather. Died in 1942 while attempting the land speed record. A great man and a fine chemist. He devised a trench-foot preparation in 1917 that paid for the company to lead the world in foot-care products for the next thirty years. He was the world’s leading authority on carbuncles and was working on an athlete’s foot remedy when he died. My father carried on his work, and we cracked it in the fifties; it kept us financially afloat for a bit longer. This way.”
He led them along the cluttered corridor until they arrived at a large mahogany door. Spongg pushed it open and stepped back to allow them to enter.
Spongg’s office was a spacious room with oak-paneled walls and a high ceiling, dominated by a portrait of a man they took to be the first Dr. Spongg. At the far end was a desk the size of a snooker table cluttered high with reports, and in the middle of the room was a model of the factory within a glass case. The room was lit by a skylight, and several more buckets and an old tin bath were laid around the floor to catch the water that leaked in.
Spongg read Jack’s expression as he saw the room and laughed nervously.
“It’s no secret, Inspector. We’re in a bit of a pickle financially, and I can’t afford to have the roof done. Cigarette?”
“Thank you, I don’t,” said Jack, noticing that there were actually no cigarettes in the box anyway.
Spongg smiled. “Wise choice. My father was trying to prove a link between nicotine and fallen arches when he died.”
“Did he?” asked Mary
“No. There isn’t one. But it’s due to my father’s hard work that we know even that much. I heard of Humpty’s death on the news last night. For almost a year now, we have been thanking providence for supplying the company with such an upright benefactor.”
He beckoned them both to the window and pointed out a large building of modernist style, a mirror-covered office block surrounded by a high-tech factory.
“Do you know what that is?”
Jack had lived in Reading all his life, and the rivalry between the two companies was well known.
“Of course. It’s Winsum and Loosum’s.”
“Winsum and Loosum. Right. They’ve been wanting to absorb us for some time. The Spongg family has only forty percent of the company, so a danger exists; we have been borrowing against the assets for the past twenty years to keep the old place alive—even old Castle Spongg is in hock.”
He indicated a table that was groaning under the weight of Spongg’s varied foot products.
“These are our bestselling lines. The need to remain competitive keeps the profit margin small, and we also suffer the most ironic of marketing difficulties.”
“Which is?”
“Success.”
“Success?”
“Product success, Inspector, not financial success. Have you ever had cause to use a Spongg preparation?”