'Something like that,' said Eddie. 'So, it's The Hall of Nearly All The Records for us.'
'The hall of nearly all the records?'
'The curator is a very honest man. He can't be expected to remember everything.'
'Well, obviously not,' said Jack. 'He'd look stuff up in the record books.'
'Record books?' said Eddie. 'What are record books?'
'Books with records in them.'
'A novel idea,' said Eddie. 'I'll pass that on to the curator. He has nearly all the records in his head.'
'What?' said Jack. 'They're not written down?'
'He does have a very large head.'
Jack shook his not-so-very-large head. 'Just one thing,' he said. 'How far away is this hall?'
'Right across the other side of the city.'
'And will we be taking a cab?'
'I don't think I have sufficient money for the fare. I was so drunk that I actually paid off my bar bill at Tinto's last night.'
'So you'll be walking?'
'We'll be walking,' said Eddie.
'You'll be walking,' said Jack. 'I did enough walking yesterday. And I'll keel over from hunger soon anyway. We should have used the Chief Inspector's money to get some new wheels for Bill's car.'
'I know what,' said Eddie. 'We'll telephone The Hall of Nearly All The Records.'
'Inspired,' said Jack. 'Where's the telephone?'
'Somewhere amongst all this mess; let's search for it.'
A thorough search of Bill Winkie's office turned up a number of interesting things.
It also turned up a telephone.
Jack turned up the telephone.
'Is this it?' he asked, turning it down again.
'That's the kiddie,' said Eddie.
'This toy telephone with the piece of knotted string holding the handset on?'
'Pretty smart telephone, eh? I bought it for Bill as a birthday present.'
'But it's not a real telephone.'
'Please don't start all that again, Jack. Just dial The Hall of Nearly All The Records and let's get on.'
'And the telephone number is?'
'Oh, give it to me.' Eddie snatched away the telephone. Then he looked at it in a mournful manner. And then he handed it back. 'You'll have to dial,' he said; 'no fingers.'
Til just dial a number at random,' said Jack. 'You never know, luck might be on our side.'
Eddie, who had tired with groaning, made a low and growly sound instead. Jack dialled out some numbers and held the wooden handset to his ear.
'Hall of Nearly All The Records,' said a voice.
'Wall!' went Jack, dropping the handset.
Eddie scooped it up between his paws. 'Hello,' he said.
'Hello,' said the voice. 'Hall of Nearly All The Records.'
'Splendid,' said Eddie. 'This is Chief Inspector Bellis here. I need some information.'
'If I have it, it's yours,' said the voice.
'Splendid once more,' said Eddie, turning to Jack. 'Get a pen and paper, Jack, and write down what I tell you.’
Jack sought pen and paper. 'Go on then,' he said, when his seeking had reached a successful conclusion.
Eddie awoke with a start. 'Sorry,' he said, 'nodded off there.' And he told the curator of The Hall of Nearly All T\i.e Records what he wanted to know.
'Easy,' said the curator, and he reeled off the list.
'Slow down,' said Eddie, as he dictated this list to Jack.
'And...' said the curator.
'Yes?' said Eddie.
'Aaaaaagh!' went the curator, and the line went dead.
'Oh,' said Eddie.
'How do you spell that?’ Jack asked. 'Is it a single "O"?'
'No, it's Oh! As in a surprised, if not a little shocked, Oh! The curator just went Aaaaaagh! And then the line went dead.'
'So how do you spell Aaaaaagh?'
Eddie shook his head. 'I think the curator just got murdered,' he said.
'Oh,' said Jack. 'That's bad. That's really bad. This new killer is as smart as the old one. But at least we do have the list.'
Eddie sighed. 'Read it back to me,' he said.
Jack read the list:
'Humpty Dumpty,
'er...’
'Little Boy Blue,
‘Jack Spratt,
'Little Tommy Tucker,
'Little Jack Horner,
'Little Miss Muffett,
'Georgie Porgie,
'Old Mother Hubbard.'
'Humpty Dumpty, Little Boy Blue, Jack Spratt,' said Eddie, beating the palm of his right paw with as near to a fist as he could make from the left. 'They're in the correct order. But hold on. There're only eight names. I'm sure I gave you nine. I wasn't really paying attention to which ones they were at the time, I was just trying to keep up with the curator. But I do remember how many there were. There were nine. You've left one out.'
'No I haven't,' said Jack.
'You have, Jack. I remember there were nine. Show me the list.'
'There're just eight.' Jack made to tear up the list, but Eddie knocked it from his hand and fumbled it up from the floor.
And then Eddie perused this list and then Eddie really groaned.
'I'm sorry,' said Jack.
Eddie shook his head, slowly and sadly. 'I should have known,' he said. 'I should have realised.'
'Perhaps it's not the same one,' said Jack.
'It's the same one,' said Eddie. 'There was only ever one Wee Willy Winkie. Even though he preferred to be known as Bill.'
They repaired to Tinto's Bar to take a late and liquid breakfast.
Eddie was a sad and sombre bear.
'I'm so sorry,' said Jack. 'It only really clicked when you called out his name for me to write down. Who Bill Winkie really was. But what I don't understand is, why did he become a detective? He should have been lording it up on his nursery rhyme royalties.'
'He was tricked out of his royalties by Wheatley Porter-man. Signed a really bad contract. Porterman had made so much money from Humpty, he thought he'd take all from the next client. Wee Willy went public on the way he'd been tricked; no one ever got tricked again. But he was broke, but he was a natural detective, you know, all that "tapping at the windows and crying through the locks" stuff in the nursery rhyme. And checking up on whether the children were in their beds by eight o'clock. Natural detective. And now he's... you know.'
'We don't know he's you know. He's missing, that's all.'
'He's dead,' said Eddie, dismally. 'He's as dead as. This killer delights in fitting ends for his victims. Boiling the big egg man, giving the ex-shepherd the bitter end of his crook, Tommy Tucker going out on a high note, like you said. And the fellow who does all the searching goes missing. Simple as that.'
'I'm so sorry.’ Jack ordered further drinks that he had no means of paying for. 'Put them on my tab,' he told Tinto. The clockwork barlord, who had been listening in to the conversation, did so without complaint.
'This time it's really really personal,' said Eddie.
'We know who's going to be next,' said Jack. 'Like you said, that puts us ahead of the game.'
'Oh dear,' said Eddie. 'We'd better hurry. Tinto, call me a cab.'
'All right,' said Tinto, 'you're a cab.'
Jack began to laugh.
'That's not funny,' said Eddie. 'That's such an old joke.'
'But I'm young; I've never heard it before.'
Til call a cab for you,' said Tinto, whirring away to do so.
'I thought you couldn't afford a cab?' Jack took to finishing his beers.
'We'll worry about that when we get to Little Jack Horner's.'
Eddie finished his beer, and then two of Jack's before Jack could get to them.
The cab was a fine-looking automobile. It was a Mark 9 Black Cab Kerb Crawler, with lithographed pressed steel body panels, chrome-trimmed running boards and brass radiator grille.