“Humpty Dumpty didn’t fall. He was pushed.” The Dish was always good to spill whatever she knew. Ever since she ran away with the Spoon, she needed friends like me. After all, the Spoon was just stainless steel, not silverware, so the Dish’s quality china family couldn’t accept the relationship. I guess that’s why the Dish had to run away with the Spoon.
I’m the law here in Nursery Rhymeville. John Law to be precise. Basically good storybook people live here, but every so often, someone goes over the edge. Or off a wall. That’s when I come into the picture. Picture book, that is.
The Dish gave me Miss Little Muffet’s name as a lead. I talked to Muffet at her house, which she hasn’t left in years. In fact, she can’t even get out of bed anymore, what with her morbid obesity, the result of her addiction to curds and whey.
“Check with Spider,” Miss Muffet advised me. “He gets around, you know? The whole dangling from the web thing. Oh, and before you go, could you fill this bowl from that pan on the hotplate for me?”
The Spider, known as Itsy Bitsy, figured in several stories, and always caused trouble. He was smart enough not to break any laws, but he played fast and loose with mischief. I knew that he hung out with the Mouse who lived in the clock at Hickory Dickory Dock Manor. No Itsy Bitsy there, but the Mouse asked me if I knew the Muffin Man.
“Sure,” I answered, “Muff and me go way back. Why?”
Mouse replied, racing down the clock as it struck one, “He was the last one to see Humpty in one piece, if you get my drift.”
I checked out Drury Lane, where the Muffin Man lived. And I do mean lived. I found the body, half-eaten, sprawled on the floor. Muff had tried to write something on the tile as he died, using his own frosting. It said, “no fat.” What the holy hot cross buns did that mean?
Pop the Weasel was skulking around outside in the mulberry bush, so I nabbed him and took him downtown for questioning. He wouldn’t crack, but the Muffin Breath Analyzer Test cleared him anyway. Pop did let drop that Old Mother Hubbard was in the neighborhood earlier.
Hubbard was always searching for something to give her poor dog, and her cupboard was famous for being bare. Maybe she got a little muffin treat for Fido.
Hubbard was as prickly and difficult as ever, but her poor dog was so thin and hungry, I knew he was innocent. Another dead end.
Then I got a break. A silky one. Itsy Bitsy dropped down as I rested on a tuffet, trying to figure this mystery out. “Looking for me, copper,” the Spider hissed softly.
“Yeah, Itsy. Someone told me you might have information on the Humpty Dumpty murder case. Do ya?”
Itsy Bitsy twirled on his web, taking his time. “Maybe. Start with the brother and sister act. I think they can point you to the murderer.” He rose upward. “And by the way- that wasn’t me who went up the water spout; it was the Little Teapot, although I don’t know how he did it, short and stout as he is.”
The brother and sister act meant Jack and Jill. I pulled in at the emergency ward where Jack was getting his broken crown checked out. He swore he fell down the hill, fetching a pail of water that was too heavy, but Jill spilled the beans when I flashed my badge.
Jack got roughed up by Old King Cole, apparently not so merry an old soul. Jack found out about Cole’s drug problem (that pipe he was always calling for) and the Old King decided to scare Jack into silence.
“So who’s the tough guy that worked Jack over?”
In a tiny voice, Jill said, “Little Jack Horner. He’s part of Old King Cole’s court, and . . .”
“Yeah?” I asked, browbeating Jill to finish.
“He’s not such a good boy as he says he is.”
Everything starting falling like dominos then. I found Horner, purple thumb and all, at Jack Sprat’s house on the back forty of Old King Cole’s kingdom. Horner had gotten the simple thatched place for Sprat and his wife gratis. Why? Horner wasn’t a good boy, as Jill surmised.
Horner wasn’t so tough facing me. I’m a little more formidable than Jill’s brother. After I slammed him hard into a brick wall a couple of times, he become more cooperative.
“So why the free house for Jack Sprat? What’s in it for you?” I grabbed his throat, pinning him to the wall.
“I’m . . . involved with his wife.” Horner gasped for breath. “I’m a chubby chaser,” he confessed.
“How does Sprat feel about that?”
“Doesn’t matter. He can’t do anything about it. I got the goods on him.”
“How so?” I relaxed my grip on Horner’s throat.
“His wife told me. Jack Sprat just wanted a decent meal, for once in his life, you know, since his wife can eat no lean. So he killed Humpty, fried up the giant egg and added the Muffin Man to his feast.”
Of course. Muff’s “no fat” message meant “Jack Sprat who could eat no fat.” Except for this one time.
I arrested Jack Sprat, who was now too heavy to run from me. Booked him and hoped things would settle down in Nursery Rhymeville, when a new case fell on my desk; who killed Cock Robin?
Rod Drake came, he saw, he wrote. Read Rod’s other stories published in Flashing in the Gutters, Fictional Musings, Flash Flooding, Flash Forward and AcmeShorts.
This was great.
Have you ever read ‘The Big Over Easy’ by Jasper Fforde? That uses a similar concept, although amusingly it is Jack Spratt who is the policeman in that.