The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

'We're really tired,' said Jack. 'We're tired and we're hungry and our tempers are very short. Knock your knocker smartly, or I will tear it right off the door and fling it down the drive.'

'Knock knock knock knock knock,' went Peter's knocker.

And presently the big front door eased open and the face of the kindly loveable white-haired old toymaker peeped out.

'Can I help you?' asked the toymaker.

Jack grinned painfully. Eddie took to trembling. 'Might we come in, sir?’ Jack asked.

The toymaker wore upon his kindly loveable white-haired old head a leather cap affair, drawn down low to the bridge of his nose. Attached to this was a complicated eyeglass contraption.

The toymaker pushed the eyeglass aside. 'Pardon this,' he said. 'My eyesight is not as good as what it once was. But come in, do, I always have time for guests.'

Peter made grumbling sounds.

'You're most kind, sir,' said Jack.

The toymaker ushered them in and closed the big front door behind them. 'Into my workshop,' he said. 'Down the corridor there.'

Jack, with Eddie once more clinging to his leg, stepped down the narrow corridor and once more into the workshop.

'Sit down,' said the toymaker, indicating the comfy chair.

'I'd prefer to stand, sir,' said Jack.

'As you wish, as you wish.'

'We're very sorry to trouble you,' said Jack. 'But we have come here on a very grave matter.'

'Oh dear, I don't like the sound of this. I don't like grave matters. They are usually most horrid.'

'I think,' said Jack, 'that it might be for the best if you were to accompany us immediately to the chocolate factory. There is something you must see. Many things, in fact.'

'The chocolate factory? I haven't been there for years and years. Do they still produce those delightful little hollow chocolate bunnies?'

'Amongst other things,' said Jack.

'Wonderful,' said the toymaker. 'But not today, thank you. I'm far too busy. Perhaps in a month or so.'

'It has to be today,' said Jack. 'In fact, it has to be now.'

'No, it cannot be today.'

Jack took a step forward. 'It has to be today,' he said.

'I don't think I like your tone, young man.' The toymaker took a step back.

Jack took another step forward. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but it has to be today. And now. You have to know what has been going on in your city. It's very bad and you are going to be very upset, but you have to come with us now.'

'And what if I refuse?'

'I really am sorry, sir,' said Jack, squaring up before the ancient, 'but if you refuse, I will be forced to drag you.'

‘Jack, no!' Eddie tugged at Jack's rotten trenchcoat.

'Sorry, Eddie, this has to be done.'

'No, Jack.' Eddie's nose began to twitch. A curious smell had suddenly reached it.

'Sir,' said Jack, 'come with us, please.'

‘Jack,' whispered Eddie, 'I smell a smell.'

'Not now, Eddie. So, sir, will you come?'

'I think not,' said the toymaker.

'Then I'm truly sorry.' Jack reached forward to grasp the old man's shoulders.

'That smell,' said Eddie. 'It's getting stronger.'

Jack gripped the ancient by his narrow, bony shoulders and gently tugged at him. The old man didn't move. Jack tugged a little harder. The old man remained rooted to the spot. Jack tugged very hard this time. But the toymaker would not budge.

He simply remained right where he was. Old and frail. But unmoveable.

'Come on now,' puffed Jack, pulling with all his might.

'I think not.' The toymaker slowly reached up between Jack's dragging hands and removed the leather cap that he wore upon his kindly white-haired old head.

Jack stared and then Jack ceased his futile tuggings. And then Jack took a step or two back. Three steps in fact. And very smartly indeed.

In the very centre of the toymaker's kindly loveable old forehead there was a hole. It was a neat, round hole. The kind of hole that a bullet fired from a clockwork pistol might make.

'You!' said Jack. 'It's you.'

'That would be the smell,' Eddie whispered.

'Me,' said Mr Sredna.

'But I shot you dead.'

'Do I look dead to you?'

'Oh dear,' said Jack. 'Oh dear, oh dear.'

'And you call yourselves detectives.' Mr Sredna laughed. It was Tinto's laugh, the one that resembled small stones being shaken about in an empty tin can. 'But you had me going there, almost. I believed you were Jon Kelly. But I never take chances. You shot a false head.' Mr Sredna lifted this head from his shoulders and cast it down to the floor. An identical head rose up through the collar of his shirt. 'This is my real head,' he said, 'and you won't be shooting this one.'

'Oh dear,' said Jack once more.

Eddie might have had something to say, but he was far too scared to say it.

'Fun and games,' said Mr Sredna. 'It was such a delight to see you running around Toy City, always too late.' Mr Sredna glared down at Eddie, who had taken to cowering behind Jack's leg. 'I do have to say,' said he, 'that, on the whole, you're not a bad detective. Not as good as Bill Winkie though, but then he knew that I was the prime suspect. He tracked me down to the chocolate factory within twenty-four hours of receiving his advance money and being put on the case.'

'He did?' said Eddie, fearfully. 'He never told me that he did.'

'I don't think he wanted to put you in danger. He broke into Humpty Dumpty's apartment and worked out how I'd done it. The moment he saw that lens in the roof he knew it had to be me. Or perhaps it was my little chocolate calling card in the fridge.'

Eddie might have shrugged, but his shoulders were too trembly.

'And then he broke into the chocolate factory while I was asleep. Searched the place. Even found my strongroom. All that gold down there had him thinking. And so did the Maguffin. He found that along with all my maps of the outer •world and my accounts books. He stole the Maguffin to trap me here in this world and must have passed it to Tinto for safekeeping. Probably, I think now, so that Tinto would pass it on to you if something happened to Bill and you continued with the case.'

'He was very clever.' Eddie shook fearfully.

'But not that clever. The next morning he went to see Chief Inspector Bellis to tell him that / was the murderer and lead him and all his men to the chocolate factory in the hope of capturing me. But he never got to see the real Chief Inspector Bellis; I just happened to be loafing around outside the police station, impersonating the real Inspector. He was very brave, was Bill Winkie, he never talked, even under all that torture. He wouldn't tell me what he'd done with my Maguffin.'

If Eddie had been able to make fists, he would have made very big ones now.

'And that's about all,' said Mr Sredna. 'There isn't anything else to say. I won't bother to ask you for the Maguffin, Jack. Neither you nor the bear will be leaving this room alive.'

'Now hold on,' said Jack. 'Don't be hasty.'

'There goes that deja-vu again.'

'I'm sure that we could come to some arrangement.'

'I pride myself,' said Mr Sredna, 'upon having an all-but-limitless imagination. I can think up things that no other mortal being can think up. Apart from that one over there.' Mr Sredna gestured towards the bound and gagged and quivering toymaker, all bunched up in the corner. 'And the remaining moments of his life are numbered in seconds. But even I, with all of my imagination, cannot think of any arrangement that might be made which does not involve you dying.'

'You may well have a point there.' Jack's eyes darted all around the room in search of, perhaps, some very large and deadly weapon. Or something else that might provide a final twist in the tale and allow him and Eddie to miraculously survive.