She shuffled across the room, her short walking stick making her limp far more than was necessary.
“Not really,” she replied, settling herself in an old leather armchair that had horsehair stuffing falling out of its seams. “He was only a lodger.” She said it in the sort of way that one might refer to vermin. Jack wondered just how fantastically unlucky you would have to be to have this old crone as a landlady.
“How long had he a room here?”
“About a year. He paid in advance. It’s nonreturnable, so I’m keeping it. It’s very hard getting lodgers these days. If I took in aliens, spongers or those damnable statisticians, I could fill the place twice over, but I have standards to maintain.”
“Of course you do,” muttered Jack under his breath, attempting to breathe through his mouth to avoid the smell.
At that moment one of the dogs got out of its basket, pushed forth its front legs and stretched. The hamstrings in its hind legs quivered with the effort, and at the climax of the stretch the dog lowered its head, raised its tail and farted so loudly that the other dogs glanced up with a look of astonishment and admiration. The dog then walked over to Mrs. Hubbard, laid its nose on her lap and whined piteously.
“Duty calls,” said Mrs. Hubbard, placing a wrinkled hand on the dog’s head. She heaved herself to her feet and shuffled over to a small cupboard next to the fridge. Even Jack could see from where he was standing that it contained nothing except an old tin of custard powder and a canned steak-and-kidney pie. She searched the cupboard until satisfied that it was devoid of bones, then turned back to the dog, which had sat patiently behind her, thumping its tail on an area of floor that had been worn through the carpet and underlay to the shiny wood beneath.
“Sorry, pooch. No bones for you today.”
The dog strode off and sat among its brethren, apparently comprehending every word. Mrs. Hubbard resumed her seat.
“Now, young man, where were we?”
“What sort of person was he?”
“Nice enough, I suppose,” she said grudgingly, the same way a Luddite on dialysis might react to a kidney machine. “Never any trouble, although I had little to do with him.”
“And did he often sit on the wall in the yard?”
“When he wasn’t working. He used to sit up there to — I don’t know — to think or something.”
“Did you ever see him with anyone?”
“No. I don’t permit callers. But there was a woman last night. Howling and screaming fit to bring the house down, she was. Really upset and unhappy — I had to threaten to set the dogs on her before she would leave.”
He showed her the photo of the woman in Vienna. “This woman?”
Mrs. Hubbard squinted at it for a few moments. “Possibly.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No.”
Another dog had risen from the basket and was now whimpering in front of her like the first. She got up and went to the same cupboard and opened it as before, the dog sitting at the same place as the first, its tail thumping the area of shiny wood. Jack sighed.
“Sorry, dog,” she said, “nothing for you either.”
The bull terrier returned to its place in front of the fire, and Mrs. Hubbard sat back in her chair, shooing off the tomcat, which had tried to gain ascendancy in her absence. She looked up at Jack with a puzzled air.
“Had we finished?”
“No. What happened last night after the woman left?”
“Mr. Dumpty went to a party.”
She got up again as another dog had started to whimper, and she looked in the cupboard once more. Considering the hole in the carpet and the area of shiny wood that the dogs’ tails had worn smooth, Jack supposed this little charade happened a lot.
“When did he get back?” asked Jack when she had returned.
“Who?”
“Mr. Dumpty.”
“At about eleven-thirty, when he arrived in the biggest, blackest car I’ve ever seen. I always stay up to make sure none of my lodgers bring home any guests. I won’t have any sin under this roof, Inspector.”
“How did he look?”
“Horribly drunk,” she said with disgust, “but he bade me good evening — he was always polite, despite his dissolute lifestyle — and went upstairs to his room.”
“Did he always spend the night here?”
“Sometimes. When he did, he slept on the wall outside. The next time I saw him, he was at peace — or in pieces, to be more precise — in the backyard when I went to dump the rubbish.”
She had expected Jack to laugh at her little joke, but he didn’t. Instead he sucked the end of his pencil thoughtfully.
“Do you have any other lodgers?”
“Only Prometheus upstairs in the front room.”
“Prometheus?” asked Jack with some surprise. “The Titan Prometheus? The one who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind?”
“I’ve no concern with what he does in his private life. He pays the rent on time, so he’s okay with me.”
Jack made several notes, thanked Mrs. Hubbard and beat a grateful retreat as she went to the same cupboard for the fourth time.
5. Prometheus
TITAN ESCAPES ROCK, ZEUS, CAUCASUS, EAGLE
A controversial punishment came to an end yesterday when Prometheus, immortal Titan, creator of mankind and fire-giver, escaped the shackles that bound him to his rock in the Caucasus. Details of the escape are uncertain, but Zeus’ press secretary, Ralph Mercury, was quick to issue a statement declaring that Prometheus’ confinement was purely an “internal god-Titan matter” and that having eagles pick out Prometheus’ liver every day, only to have it grow back at night, was “a reasonable response given the crime.” Joyous supporters of the “Free Prometheus” campaign crowded the dockside at Dover upon the Titan’s arrival, whereupon he was taken into custody pending applications for extradition.
Jack walked up the creaky steps to the upstairs landing. He had just raised his hand to knock on the door opposite Humpty’s when a deep male voice, preempting his knock, boomed, “One moment!”
Jack, puzzled, lowered his hand. There was a sound of movement from within, and presently the door opened six inches. A youthful-looking, darkly tanned man with tightly curled black hair answered the door. He had deep black eyes and a strong Grecian nose that was so straight you could have laid a set-square on it. He looked as though he had just got out of the shower, as he had a grubby towel wrapped around his waist. On his muscular abdomen were so many crisscrossed scars on top of one another that his midriff was a solid mass of scar tissue. He was so cleanly shaven that Jack wondered whether he had any facial hair at all, and his eyes bored into Jack with the look of a man used to physical hardship.
“Yes?” he asked in a voice that seemed to rumble on after he had spoken.
“Mr. Prometheus?”
“Just Prometheus.”
“I’m Detective Inspector Spratt, Nursery Crime Division. We’re investigating Mr. Dumpty’s death. I wondered if I might talk to you?”
Prometheus looked relieved and invited him in, his voice losing its rumble as he no longer took Jack to be a threat.
The room was similar to Humpty’s in levels of shabbiness, but Prometheus had tried to make it look a little more like home by pinning up holiday posters of the Greek islands. Stuffed in the frame of the mirror was an assortment of postcards from other Titans and minor demigods, wishing him well with his ongoing asylum application. A mattress covered with rumpled sheets lay on the floor, and on the bedside table, next to a copy of Plato’s Republic, was an empty bottle of retsina and a small bowl of olive stones. A copy of Shelley’s account of Prometheus’ escape from the rock in the Caucasus lay open on the only table, and Jack picked it up.