The Big Over Easy

40. The Goring Foot Museum

Jack had been to the Foot Museum only once before, when he was at school. It had been considered the low point of the school year, only marginally less interesting than Swindon’s Museum of the Rivet or Bracknell’s collection of doorstops. The museum was another Spongg bequest and was an impressive structure built in the Greek style, and despite being sandwiched between a supermarket and a fast-food restaurant, had lost little of its imposing grandeur.

They were met by a white-haired gentleman of perhaps sixty. He had a bad stoop and walked with uncertain steps. He had to look at them sideways, as his chin was almost resting on his chest.

“Professor Tarsus? I am Detective Inspector Spratt of the Nursery Crime Division, Reading Police. This is Detective Sergeant Mary Mary.”

“I’ll never remember all that. I’ll just call you Ronald and Nancy. Who’s he?”

“This is Mr. Brown-Horrocks from the Most Worshipful Guild of Detectives.”

“Ah. You can be Ronald as well. Took your time, didn’t you?”

He had a heavy, gravelly voice that sounded like thimbles on a washboard.

“Pardon me?” asked Jack, unsure of his meaning.

“You chaps don’t seem to be interested at all. I had a couple of you johnnies around about three months ago, just after the theft. Ronald and, er…Ronald, I think their names were. They promised to make inquiries, and that was that. Bad show, I call it.”

“We’re not here about the theft, sir.”

The Professor appeared not to hear and beckoned them to follow him past the rows of ancient foot-orientated exhibits. The interior was as old and dusty as Jack remembered, the leaded windows caked with grime and the hard flags smoothed from three-quarters of a century of bored, shuffling feet. The Professor led them through a door marked “Private” and into a modern laboratory. Racks of jars lined the walls, most of them containing some sort of chiropodic specimen pickled in formaldehyde.

“What’s this?” asked Jack, pointing to an acrylic and polypropylene test foot in a worn jogging boot being sprayed with a foul-smelling liquid inside a glass case. The foot and its stainless-steel leg trod a rolling road in a convincing manner.

“Our test foot. I call him Michael. We can program it for any type of walking gait. We can even,” he continued excitedly, “simulate a dropped arch to investigate what type of shoe offers the best support. We have it sweating a salt-nutrient mixture and then analyze the bacteria that grows in the gaps between the toes. Would you care to take a look?”

“No thanks,” said Jack quickly.

Professor Tarsus grunted, then shuffled to one side of the room and pulled a sheet off a big glass cabinet. The lock had been forced, and inside the empty cabinet was a large cotton pad the shape of an inner tube. On the side were precise controls that monitored temperature and humidity. Jack’s nose wrinkled at the cheesy odor it exuded. Tarsus pointed at the empty case with a petulant air, as if they could somehow magically restore his property.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jack, “I don’t have any details of your break-in. We’re investigating several murders in the Reading area, and we hoped you might be able to help.”

Tarsus looked at them all suspiciously. “Murders? How can the Foot Museum be connected?”

“Thomas Thomm, Professor,” said Mary, “we understand he used to work here?”

“The name means nothing to me, Nancy.”

“He worked as a lab assistant — sponsored by Mr. Dumpty. You might have known him as… Ronald.”

“Then why didn’t you say so? Yes, I remember Ron very well. He was Dr. Carbuncle’s assistant. Left about a year ago.”

“Dr. Carbuncle?” repeated Jack, making a note. “Is he here?”

“He took early retirement,” replied Tarsus. “Ron even lived in his house for a bit, I understand. Nancy can tell you more. NANCY!”

He bellowed it so loudly that Mary and Jack jumped. A small voice said, “Coming!” and presently “Nancy” appeared. She was about the same age as Tarsus but displayed none of his infirmities. She walked with a youthful step and wore bright red leggings, a T-shirt with a picture of a foot on it and a leather jacket. She looked like some sort of aged foot groupie.

“Nancy, this is Ronald, Nancy and — er — Ronald. They’re police.”

“Hello!” said Nancy. “It’s Fay Goodrich, actually.”

They introduced themselves as she perched nimbly on one of the desktops. Tarsus looked on disapprovingly.

“Did you ever meet Mr. Dumpty?”

“Yes,” she said, as a smile crossed her lips, “he was a pal of Dr. Carbuncle. He used to come in here quite a lot.”

“What did they talk about?”

“This and that, feet ailments mostly. They were good friends. Hump was staying at his house.”

“Dumpty? With Dr. Carbuncle?”

She nodded. “Humpty said he’d been forced to leave his apartment. Carbuncle was a widower; he lived alone in Andersen’s Farm, just on the edge of the forest. I expect he took in paying guests for the company.”

Jack thought for a moment. “So when did Dr. Carbuncle retire?”

“Three months ago. We had quite a party. Humpty was there with a tall brunette, and I think almost every chiropodist in the Home Counties turned up — Carbuncle was much respected. Spongg gave a warm speech and presented Dr. Carbuncle with one of his celebrated Bronze Foot Awards for services to the foot-care industry.”

“And the break-in occurred…?”

“Two days later,” said Miss Goodrich provocatively. The Professor shot her a fierce glance.

“The two events are unconnected,” explained Tarsus. “Carbuncle would never have stolen it. I have known him for almost three decades.”

Miss Goodrich muttered something and stared at the ceiling. This was obviously an argument that had been grumbling on for some time. Jack’s attention went back to the broken cabinet as Mary took Fay off for more information.

“Perhaps you’d better tell me what was stolen?”

“In here,” said Tarsus proudly, “was my life’s work. Thirty years ago I extracted it, nurtured it, fed it, kept it warm and damp, protected it from parasites, even defended it from financial cutbacks in the seventies. It was the greatest, most stupendous… verruca in the world.”

He sat on a nearby chair and covered his face with his hands and sobbed loudly.

“A verruca?” repeated Jack. “You mean that nasty little warty thing you get on your foot? That’s all?”

Tarsus looked up at him angrily. “It wasn’t just any verruca, Ronald. Hercules was a thirty-seven-kilo champion. The biggest — and finest — in the world!”

He shed twenty years as he spoke animatedly about what was obviously his favorite subject.

“He was the son I never had. The only other verruca to come close was a lamentable twenty-three-kilo tiddler owned by L’Institute du Pied in Toulouse. Hernán Laso of Argentina claimed that he had a forty-seven-kilo specimen, but it turned out to be a clever fake made from papier-mâché and builder’s plaster.”

Jack looked at the broken case again, and Tarsus continued. “It was used primarily for research. Dr. Carbuncle was working with it when he retired; some sort of genetic engineering, I believe. Experimenting with a new viral strain of superverruca.”

Suddenly things started to come into sharp and terrible focus.

“Isn’t that unbelievably dangerous?”

“Not if conducted properly. Anyway, it didn’t bear fruit. He’d been on the project for nearly two years and eventually called a halt and retired. I came in the following week to find Hercules gone. Its only value is in research. Without precise heat and humidity control, it will dry out and die. And I think, Ron — may I call you Ron? — that even you can appreciate the uselessness of a dead verruca.”

“Of course,” said Jack uneasily. “I need Dr. Carbuncle’s address.”

Tarsus grasped Jack’s elbow, drew him close and whispered, “You will find Hercules, won’t you?”

“Of course,” replied Jack. “He was the son you never had, right?”

As Jack, Mary and an increasingly uncomfortable Brown-Horrocks drove towards Andersen’s Wood and Dr. Carbuncle’s house, they could see a throng of traffic heading into the city center. It was still only ten, and the Jellyman’s dedication wouldn’t be until midday. That done, he would be driven on a parade route around the town, open several hospitals and an old-people’s home, meet members of the community and then have dinner over at the QuangTech facility with the mayor and a roomful of Reading’s luminaries, Spongg, Grundy and Chymes among them.

“Hercules is the answer,” said Jack as they drove rapidly down the road. “I think I know what Humpty’s plan was — I’m just not sure how he was going to execute it.”

“You don’t think…?”

“I do,” replied Jack grimly.

“You do?” echoed Brown-Horrocks, folded up in the backseat. “How, exactly?”