The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

'But it's the first time I've ever travelled in a posh lift like this. Can we stop at all the floors?'

'No,' said Eddie. 'But, as I was saying, energetic engineering. Busy busy busy. It's been known to drive men mad. And mad men make mistakes. Rhymey frogs, fluffy trains, grumpy clocks, frank chickens.'

'Don't they just get scrapped?'

'Not when they amuse Mr Anders.'

'I'd like to meet this Mr Anders.' The lift came to a standstill. 'We're here,' said Jack.

'No we're not. You pressed one of the buttons. I told you not to. Press the penthouse one. Let's see if we can beat that frog.'

They didn't beat that frog. He was waiting at the penthouse door, a bunch of shiny keys in his froggy fingers. He looked a little puffed, though. But then, frogs often do.

'The policemen stuck all this tape across the door,' said the frog. 'They said they'd come back some time soon, to stick on a •whole lot more.'

Jack ran his finger along the strip of brightly coloured tape and licked his fingertip. 'Yellow berry,' he said. 'Very tasty.'

'Doing that's illegal,' said the frog.

'It is,' agreed Eddie. 'Yellow berry? Are you sure?'

Jack broke off a strip of the strip and stuck it into his mouth.

'Illegal,' said the frog once more.

'You're not rhyming that with anything,' said Jack, making lip-smacking sounds.

'That's probably because he lives in mortal dread of the police,' said Eddie. 'Them dishing out such vicious on-the-spot punishments to offenders and everything.'

'Quite so,' said Jack, hastily wiping his mouth. 'So, shall we go inside? Attend to the financial business of the important Mr Anders? Kindly open up the door, Mr Froggie.'

Mr Froggie handed Jack the keys. 'I'd rather you did it,' he said. 'I'd prefer not to touch the tape.'

Jack glanced at Eddie.

Eddie shrugged. 'We're here now,' he said. 'Might as well do it.'

Jack pulled away the yellow-berry-flavoured tape. 'Which key?' he asked the frog.

'Any one of them will do; they're all the same and none are new.'

'That's not very secure, is it?'

'No one who's not official ever gets past me. I'm as vigilant as it's frog-manly possible to be.'

'You can't argue with that,' Eddie said. 'Open up the door, Bill.'

'I'm in charge here.' The door to the late Humpty's apartment was a richly panelled silkwood affair, decorated with all manner of carved reliefs - mostly, it appeared, of fat folk falling from walls. Jack eyed the door appreciatively. This was a proper door. A proper rich person's door. The kind of door that he'd have for himself as soon as he'd made his fortune.

Jack turned a key and opened up the door. 'You wait here,' he told the frog as he and Eddie slipped into Humpty's penthouse. 'We won't be long.'

'Perhaps I ought to come inside,' said the frog. 'It's best that I, in there, should be. In the interests of security.'

Jack slammed the door upon him.

'Well, we're in,' said Eddie. 'Although it could have been easier.'

'I thought I did very well. I'm new to this detective game. Remember it was me who got us in. Not you.'

'I seem to recall that you were all for shooting the frog.'

'I was bluffing.'

'Right,' said Eddie. 'To work.'

'Right,' said Jack. 'I'll have a look around. See if I can find some clues.'

'No,' said Eddie, 'you just sit down quietly and don't touch anything. /'// search for clues.'

'Yes, but—

‘Jack,' said Eddie, 'I'm the detective. You're my partner. Junior partner.'

Jack shrugged. 'Please yourself then.'

Humpty Dumpty's penthouse was opulent. It was palatial, it was magniloquent. It was eggy.

There were egg motifs on the richly woven carpets and the elegant silk wallpaper and on the fabrics of the furniture and even on the switches for the lights. Jack tinkered with one of these and lit up a gorgeous chandelier that hung overhead. It was festooned with hundreds of crystal eggs. Jack shook his head and whistled.

So this was what being rich was all about, was it? Then he'd have some of this. But not exactly like this. There was something all-too-much about this. It was the scale, Jack thought, thoughtfully. Where Tinto's bar had been too small for him, everything here was much too big.

Jack sat himself down on a great golden chariot of a chair in the vestibule and stretched his hands to either side of him. He couldn't even reach to the chair's arms. This Humpty had evidently been a fellow of considerable substance. Positively gargantuan.

Jack watched Eddie as he went to work. The bear paced up and down, cocking his head to this side and the other, backing up, throwing himself forward onto his stomach, wriggling about.

'How are you doing?' called Jack.

'Would you mind opening the doors to the pool area for me?' said Eddie.

Jack hastened to oblige. It took considerable effort to heave back the enormous doors, but when this was done, it proved well worthwhile.

Jack found himself in the pool area. The pool itself was egg-shaped, which came as no surprise to Jack. It was mosaic-tiled all around and about and many of these tiles were elliptical.

The entire pool area was sheltered by a great stained-glass dome of cathedralesque proportions. Jack gawped up at it in wonder. There were no egg motifs to be found up there; rather, the whole was a profusion of multi-coloured flowers, wrought in thousands of delicate panes of glass. The sunlight, dancing through these many-hued panes, cast wistful patterns over the pool area and Jack was entranced. He had never seen anything quite so beautiful in all of his life.

The apex of the dome was an enormous stained-glass sunflower, its golden petals radiating out from a clear glass centre. Jack gave another whistle. He'd definitely have one of these roofs when he'd made his fortune.

Jack pushed back the brim of his fedora. The roof was stunningly beautiful. But there was something... something that jarred with him. Something that didn't seem entirely right. That appeared to be out of place. But what was it? Jack shrugged. What did he, Jack, know about stained-glass roofs? Nothing, was the answer to that. The roof was beautiful and that was all there was to it.

The beauty of the roof above, however, was somewhat marred by that which lay directly below it. Specifically, in the pool, or more specifically still, on the surface of the pool's water: a very nasty crusty-looking scum.

'So how are you doing?’ Jack asked the ursine detective.

Eddie shook his tatty head. 'It's tricky,' he said. 'So many policemen's feet have trampled all around and about the place. But there's no evidence of a struggle. Humpty was bathing in the pool. The murderer took him by surprise.'

Jack peered down at the pool with its nasty crusty scum. 'Boiled him?' he asked. 'How?'

'Not sure yet,' said Eddie. 'My first thoughts were that the murderer simply turned up the pool's heating system. But that would have taken time and Humpty would have climbed out when the water got too hot.'

'Perhaps Humpty was drugged or asleep in the pool.'

'That's not how it was done. I'll tell you how it was done as soon as I've figured it out.'

'Hm,' said Jack, putting a thumb and forefinger to his chin and giving it a squeeze.

Eddie paced around the pool, did some more head cocking, some more backing away and then some more throwing himself down onto his stomach and wriggling about. Then he stood up and began to frantically beat at his head.

'What are you doing?’ Jack asked.

'Rearranging my brain cells,' said Eddie. 'Vigorous beating peps them up no end.'

'Your head's full of sawdust.'

'I know my own business best.'

'I'll leave you to it then.' Jack sat down on a poolside lounger. It was a most substantial poolside lounger, capable of accommodating, at the very least, a fat family. Possibly two. No, that would be silly, one fat family. And no more than that.