Tinto made disgruntled sounds, but trundled off to serve his new clientele. Jack loaded what drinks remained onto a convenient tray and joined Eddie at a secluded corner table.
“Why all the secrecy?” he asked, when he had comfortably seated himself.
“I don’t want to alarm Tinto,” whispered Eddie. “These monkeys were murdered, I’m sure of it.”
“You can’t be sure of it,” said Jack.
“From the evidence left behind in Bill’s office, I can,” Eddie said. “The padlock had been torn from the door – our cymbal-clapping corpse-to-be couldn’t have done that. Whoever killed the monkey removed the padlock and waited in Bill’s office, knowing that the monkey would come there, is my guess. He sat in Bill’s chair and smoked a cigar – this cigar.” Eddie produced a cigar butt from the pocket of his trenchcoat with a dramatic flourish and displayed it to Jack. “There was evidence of a struggle and a round burned patch on the ceiling. The monkey was murdered, but as I said, he was more than just murdered. The worst of it is that I think the monkey must have known that someone was trying to kill him and he came to Bill’s office for help, probably thinking that some new detective had taken up residence there. And had I been able to get into that office earlier, perhaps I could have helped him.”
“Or perhaps you would have been murdered, too?”
“Perhaps,” said Eddie, taking up another beer.
“So where do we go from here?”
“We have several options. We might visit Professor Potty and see whether he has anything useful to impart. We might visit Chief Inspector Bellis, perhaps get his blessing, as it were, to work the case.”
“And perhaps get yourself arrested?”
“Perhaps,” said Eddie once again. “But I have another idea. What we have to consider here, Jack, is motive. Why would someone want to murder every cymbal-playing monkey in Toy City?”
Jack looked at Eddie.
“Apart from the fact that they are a damned nuisance,” said Eddie. “This seems to have been a very well-planned mass-murder. All in a single night? All the work of a single killer? I wonder.”
“So what do you have in mind?”
“This,” said Eddie, and he pushed the cigar butt in Jack’s direction, “this is the only piece of solid evidence we have. It’s an expensive cigar. I wonder how many cigar stores in Toy City stock them? I wonder if they might recall a recent client?”
“Seems logical,” said Jack. “So how many cigar stores are there in Toy City?”
“Just the one,” said Eddie.
It had to be said that Jack was very pleased to be back behind the wheel of the late Bill Winkie’s splendid automobile. It was an Anders Faircloud, made from pressed tin the metallic blue of a butterfly’s wing. It was long and low and highly finned at the tail. It had pressed-tin wheels with breezy wide hubs and big rubber tyres.
Jack, who hadn’t driven for a while and who could in all honesty never have been described as a competent driver, nevertheless felt confident behind the wheel. Perhaps just a little overconfident. And as it happens, Jack was also now a little drunk. He and Eddie left Tinto’s Bar and Jack followed Eddie’s directions to Toy City’s only cigar store.
“Slow down!” shrieked Eddie, cowering back in his seat.
“I am slowed down,” said Jack. “Don’t make such a fuss.”
“Slow down, it’s right here. No, I didn’t say turn left!”
The car, now turned left upon two of its wheels, bumped up onto the pavement. Shoppers scattered and those with fists shook them. Jack did backings up.
“We’ll walk in future,” Eddie cowered. “I’d quite forgotten all this.”
“I know what I’m doing,” said Jack, reversing further into oncoming traffic.
“We’re all gonna die,” said Eddie.
Toy City’s only cigar store, Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar, was a suitably swank affair, with lots of polished wood and a window full of smoking ephemera – all those things that look so interesting that they really make you want to take up smoking.
Jack ground the polished wheel-hubs of Bill’s splendid automobile along the kerb before Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar and came to a juddering halt.
Eddie, who had seriously been considering converting to Mechanology and preparing to make his personal apologies to whom it might concern for not joining earlier, climbed down from the car, waddled around to Jack’s side and, as Jack climbed out, head-butted him in the nuts.
Jack doubled up in considerable pain.
“When I say ‘slower’, I mean it, you gormster!” said Eddie. “Now act like a professional.”
Jack crossed his legs and wiped tears from his eyes. “If you ever do that to me again,” he said, “I will tear off your head and empty you out.”
“Jack, you wouldn’t!”
“Right now I feel that I would.”
“Then I’m sorry,” said Eddie. “So if you are up to it, do you think that you could see your way to limping into Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar, doing your toff act and finding out who bought the cigar?”
“I’ll try,” said Jack. “Sometimes I really hate you.”
“Do you?” said Eddie.
“Not really,” said Jack.
Jack did a bit of trenchcoat adjustment and fedora tilting, pushed open the door and entered Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar. The door gave a merry ting, ting as he did so.
“You shouldn’t do that,” the bell told the door. “That’s my job.”
Jack stood in the doorway and breathed in Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar. And for those of you who have never been in a cigar store, that is just what you do: you breathe it in, is what you do.
There is a magic to cigars, a magic never found in cigarettes. Cigars are special; there are complicated procedures involved in the manufacture of them. There is certain paraphernalia necessary for the proper smoking of them, such as special end-cutters, and certain matches for the lighting thereof. And who amongst us does not know that the very best of all cigars are rolled upon the thigh of a dusky maiden? A cigar is more than just a smoke, as champagne is more than just a fizzy drink, or urolagnia is more than just something your girlfriend might not indulge you in, no matter how much money you’ve recently spent buying her that frock she so desperately wanted. And so on and so forth and suchlike.
Jack breathed in Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar.
“It really smells in here,” he said.
Eddie Bear made growling sounds.
“A fine smell, though,” said Jack.
Mahogany-framed glass cases displayed a multiplicity of wonderful cigars, cigars of all shapes and sizes and colours, too. There were pink cigars and blue ones and some in stripes and checks. And of their shapes, what could be said?
“These ones look like little pigs,” said Jack, and he pointed to them.
Eddie cocked his head on one side. “Do you see what those ones look like?”
“And how might I serve you, sir?”
Jack tipped up the brim of his fedora and sought out the owner of the voice: the proprietor of Smokey Joe’s Cigar Bar, Smokey Joe himself.
“Ah,” said Jack as he viewed Smokey Joe.
The proprietor smiled him a welcome.
Smokey Joe was a sight to behold
A sight to behold was he.
His head was a ball,
And his belly a barrel,
His ears were a thing of beaut-ee.
He was built out of brass,
And if questions were asked
Regarding the cut of his jib,
He’d reply with a laugh
And a free autograph,
Signed by a pen with a nib.
And he chugged a cigar
In his own cigar bar,
For bellows were built in his chest.
And he blew out smoke-rings
And numerous things,
Which had all his clients impressed.
“What exactly was that?” asked Eddie.
Jack shrugged. “Poetry?” he said.
“Odd,” said Eddie. “Now go for it, Jack.”
And so Jack went for it.
“My good fellow,” said Jack, “are you the proprietor of this here establishment?”