The Big Over Easy

“This is her office,” said the executive. “What a terrible thing to happen! I didn’t think she would want to… you know… herself. She seemed in such fine fettle.”

Jack walked around her desk and noticed a picture of her and Humpty in a gilt frame. There was a computer, telephone, correspondence. He stopped. There, on the blotter, was a single piece of paper folded once, with his name written clearly on the front. He took out a fountain pen and pocketknife to avoid touching it, delicately opened the note and read it. He read it again, to make quite sure.

DI Spratt,

I know you will be the officer to read this, and I want you to know that what I did was out of love, not hate. We had been moving towards a reconciliation, and all was going well—until I saw him with a bimbo and my blood boiled. I went to his home and prayed for God to forgive me as I pulled the trigger. Your visit yesterday made me realize that there would be no escape from retribution. Perhaps I am just saving everyone a lot of time and bother.

PS: Please tell Mr. Spatchcock that I won’t be able to make my 9:30 appointment this evening.

It was signed Laura Garibaldi-Dumpty. Jack opened her desk diary and compared the handwriting. It was quite distinctive and there was no doubt in his mind that she had written it. He looked at last week’s entries in the diary, but there was nothing of interest, just dinner dates, tennis, that sort of thing. She hadn’t been planning anything out of the ordinary.

Mary appeared at the doorway as Jack was going through the desk drawers.

“Have a look,” he said, indicating the note.

She read it and gave a low whistle.

“So she did kill him.”

“Probably with this,” replied Jack, pointing at a small nickel-plated .32 automatic pistol he had discovered hidden under some papers. “Better get SOCO over here to take possession of the evidence. We’ll need to double-check the handwriting on the note and check the pistol for prints and residue. It kind of surprises me she has a gun, though.”

“I don’t think so,” replied Mary, pointing to one of the many pictures on the wall. It depicted a smiling Laura celebrating a win at the British Small-Bore Rifle Championships. Humpty was in the group, holding a bottle of champagne—and Randolph Spongg was there, too. Pistols, it seemed, were not as alien to her as one might have supposed.

“What did Mr. Aimsworth say?”

“He saw her climb over the barrier, pause for a moment and then jump. By the time they had hit the emergency stop, it was already too late.”

SOCO arrived within half an hour, but there wasn’t much to do. The note was taken away with three other examples of her handwriting, and one of the officers named Shenstone gently lifted the pistol from the bottom drawer. There were five cartridges missing from the clip, but nothing else that could be found. The team was gone in under forty minutes. It was different on the main biscuit-manufacturing level. It took eight firemen, Mrs. Singh and her two assistants the best part of six hours to find all of Mrs. Dumpty. Biscuit manufacture wouldn’t restart for another week.

“It seems fairly clear-cut,” said Mary as they drove back to the office in the Allegro.

“Keep talking.”

“She kills him early yesterday morning, realizes after we visit her that she will be first in the frame, has a fit of remorse and then… kills herself.”

“It seems a bit too perfect.”

“How can it be too perfect?” said Mary, wondering whether Chymes would still want her on his team without the Humpty investigation to poach. “She wrote the note, didn’t she?”