The Toyminator

4

“It wasn’t me.” And Eddie fell back in alarm. “It wasn’t me – I’m as innocent as.”

“It was you, you scoundrel.” And Smokey Joe huffed as he puffed. “I’d know the looks of you as I’d know the colour of moonlight, those mismatched eyes and your scruffy old paws.”

“It’s cinnamon plush,” Eddie protested. “I am an Anders Imperial.”

“Oh yes? Oh yes?” Smokey Joe did rockings and smoke came out of his ear holes. “You weren’t wearing that fedora when you came into this here establishment, but I’ll wager that under it there’s a bottle cap in your left ear.”

“That’s my special tag.” Eddie now cowered behind Jack’s legs. This was all a little much.

“Scoundrel and trickster,” puffed Smokey Joe, pointing an accusing cigar at this scoundrel and trickster.

“Now just stop this,” Jack said. “I feel certain that you have made some mistake.”

“Mistake?” said Smokey Joe and rolled his eyes, which seemed to smoke a little, too. “He took one hundred of my finest Turquoise Torpedoes and I demand proper payment.”

“I am confused,” said Jack. “You said that my associate here purchased these cigars from you.”

“With tomfoolery coin of the realm.”

“Still not fully understanding.” Jack gave his shoulders a shrug.

“Bogus coin, he paid me with. A high-denomination money note, in fact. I placed it into my cash register and moments after he left it went poof.”

“Poof?” said Jack, miming a kind of poof, as one might in such circumstances.

“Poof,” went Smokey Joe. “And never take up mime as a profession. The money note went poof in a poof of smoke and vanished away.”

“A poof of smoke?” said Jack, not troubling to mime such a thing.

“And of no smoke that I have ever seen and I’ve seen all but every kind.”

“I am most confused,” said Jack.

“And me also,” said Eddie. “And wrongly accused. Let’s be going now.”

“Oh no you don’t,” said Smokey Joe, and with the kind of ease that lent Jack the conviction that it was hardly the first time he had done such a thing, Smokey Joe drew out a pistol from beneath his counter and waggled it somewhat about.

“Now hold on,” said Jack. “There’s no need for that.”

“There’s every need,” said Smokey Joe. “You were thinking to depart.”

“Well, yes, we were.”

“And you cannot. We shall wait here together.”

“For what?” Jack enquired.

“The arrival of the constables, of course.”

“Ah,” said Jack. “And you expect their arrival imminently?”

“I do,” said Smokey Joe. “I pressed the secret button beneath my counter when you entered my store. It connects by a piece of knotted string to the alarm board at the police station.”

“Most unsporting,” said Eddie.

“Which is why I engaged you in a lot of time-wasting toot,” said Smokey Joe, “to give the police time to appear.”

“Then all that business about chickens?” Jack asked.

“That wasn’t toot. You should fear those chickens. I know whereof I speak.”

“You failed to mention that I should similarly fear the arrival of the constables.”

“I kept that to myself. Now just you stand still, or I will be forced to take the law into my own hands and shoot you myself.”

“For stealing one hundred cigars?” Jack threw up his hands. Smokey Joe cocked the pistol.

“Easy, please,” said Jack, his hands miming “easy” motions and miming them rather well. “I will pay you for the cigars. There’s no need to go involving the police.”

“But I never bought the cigars,” said Eddie. “It wasn’t me, Jack, honest.”

“I know it wasn’t, Eddie.”

“It was too,” said Smokey Joe. “And his soggy feet made puddles on my floor. I had to employ the services of a mop and bucket. And they don’t come cheap of an evening, I can tell you. They charged me double.”

“I’ll pay you whatever you want,” said Jack.

“With what?” whispered Eddie.

“I’ll write you an IOU,” Jack told Smokey Joe. “I’m a prince, you know.”

“Then why aren’t you wearing a crown?”

“Actually, I am,” said Jack. “It’s under my fedora.”

“It never is,” said Smokey Joe.

“It never is, is it?” said Eddie.

“In fact,” said Jack, “you can have the crown and all the jewels on it. Will that be payment enough?”

“It must be a very small crown to fit under that hat,” said Smokey Joe, cocking his head in suspicion.

“Would you mind doing that again?” asked Eddie.

“Why?” said Smokey Joe.

“Well, you did it rather well, and it’s not the sort of thing you see every day.”

Smokey Joe obligingly did it again.

“Even better the second time,” said Jack.

“Thanks,” said Smokey Joe.

“So, would you like to see the crown?”

“More than anything else I can presently imagine.”

“Right, then,” said Jack, and he swept off his hat with a flourish. It was a considerably flourish. A considerably hard and sweeping flourish. As flourishes went, this one was an award-winner. So hard and sweeping was this award-winning flourish that it knocked the pistol right out of Smokey Joe’s hand and sent it skidding across the store floor.

“Run!” shouted Jack to Eddie. And both of them ran.

Although they didn’t run far.

They ran to the door and through the doorway and then they ran no further. They would have dearly liked to, of course. They would dearly have loved to have run to Bill’s car and then driven away in it at speed. But they did not. They came to a standstill on the pavement and there they halted and there they raised their hands.

Because there to greet them outside the store were very many policemen. Some stood and some knelt. All of them pointed guns. They pointed guns as they stood or knelt and they laughed and grinned as they did so. For these were Toy City’s laughing policemen, though this was no laughing matter.

A very large and rotund policeman, a chief of policemen in fact, leaned upon the bonnet of Bill’s splendid automobile. He was all perished rubber and he was smoking a large cigar. It wasn’t a Turquoise Torpedo, of course, but an inferior brand, but he puffed upon it nonetheless and seemed to enjoy this puffing. Presently he tapped away ash and shortly after he spoke.

“Well, well, well,” said Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis, for it was none but himself. “Surely it is Eddie and Jack. Now what a surprise this is.”

The “shaking down” and the “cuffing up” were uncomfortable enough. The “flinging into the police van” lacked also for comfort, and the unnecessary “necessary restraint”, which involved numerous officers of the law either sitting or standing upon Jack and Eddie during the journey to the police station, lacked for absolutely any comfort whatsoever. In fact, the unnecessary “necessary restraint” was nothing less than painful. The “dragging out of the police van”, the “kicking towards the police cell” and the “final chucking into the cell” were actually a bit of a doddle compared to the unnecessary “necessary restraint”. But not a lot of fun.

“I can’t believe it,” Eddie said, at least now uncuffed and brushing police boot marks from his trenchcoat. “Wrongly accused and arrested. And this only our first day on the case.”

“My first and indeed my last,” said Jack.

“Now don’t you start, please.”

“Look at me,” said Jack. “They trod on me, they sat on me. That Officer Chortle even farted on me. And I could never abide the smell of burning rubber.”

“We’ll soon be out of here,” said Eddie. “As soon as my solicitor arrives.”

“You have a solicitor!”

“I’m entitled to have one. I know the law.”

“But do you actually have one?”

“Not as such,” said Eddie. “It’s always details, details with you.”

“And it’s always trouble with you.”

“You love it really.”

“I don’t.”

The face of the laughing policeman whose name was Officer Chortle, a name that made him special because it was printed across his back, grinned in through the little door grille.

“Comfortable, ladies?” he said.

“I’m innocent,” said Eddie. “Wrongly accused. And Jack’s innocent, too. He’s an innocent bystander.”

“Looks like a hardened crim’ to me,” chuckled Officer Chortle. “And a gormster.”

“How dare you,” said Jack. “I’m a prince.”

“Aren’t no princes,” laughed Officer Chortle. “That mad mayor we had did away with princes.”

Jack cast Eddie a “certain” look.

“And,” said Office Chortle, “who can forget Edict Number Four?”

“I can,” said Eddie. “What was it?”

“The one about curtailing police violence against suspects.”

“Ah, that one,” said Eddie. “How’s that going, by the way?”

Officer Chortle chuckled. Menacingly. “And when it comes to it,” he continued, “you look a lot like that mad mayor.”

“No I don’t,” said Eddie. “Not at all.”

Officer Chortle squinted at Eddie. “No, perhaps not.” He sniggered. “The mad mayor had matching eyes and those really creepy hands.”

“They were not creepy,” said Eddie. “And neither was the mayor mad.”

“Not mad?” Officer Chortle fairly cracked himself up over this. “Not mad? Well, he wasn’t exactly cheerful when the mob tarred and feathered him.”

Eddie shuddered at the recollection. “Has my solicitor arrived?” he asked.

“I’ll have to ask you to stop,” said Officer Chortle. “Solicitor, indeed! If you keep making me laugh like this I’ll wet myself.”

“We are innocent,” said Eddie. “Let us out please.”

“The chief inspector will interview you shortly. You can make your confessions to him then if you wish. Although if you choose not to, I must caution you that me and my fellow officers will be calling in later to beat a confession out of you. And as we do have a number of ‘unsolveds’ hanging about, you will find yourselves confessing to them also, simply to ease the pain.”

And with that Officer Chortle left, laughing as he did so.

“Perfect,” said Jack. “So it’s prison for us, is it?”

“It might be for you,” said Eddie, “if it’s anything more than a summary beating. You’re the meathead, after all. You have some status. It will be the incinerator for me. I’m as dead as.”

“We have to escape,” said Jack.

“I seem to recall,” said Eddie, “that you do have some skills with locks. Perhaps you’d be so good as to pick this one on the door and we will, with caution, go upon our way.”

“Ah, yes indeed,” and Jack sought something suitable.

And he would probably have found it also had not a key turned in the lock, the door opened and several burly though jolly and laughing policemen entered the cell and hauled him and Eddie from it.

Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis’s office was definitely “of the genre”. It had much of the look of Bill Winkie’s office about it, but being below ground level it lacked for windows. It didn’t lack for a desk, though, a big and crowded desk, with one of those big desk lamps that they shine into suspects’ eyes.

The walls were lavishly decorated with mug shots, press cuttings and photographs of crime scenes and horribly mutilated corpses. Eddie recognised the victims pictured in several of these gory photographs: the P.P.P.s who had been savagely done to death by the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker’s evil twin during the exciting adventure that he and Jack had had but months before.[7]

Upon the floor was a carpet, which like unto Bill’s dared not to speak its name. And it was onto this carpet that Jack and Eddie were flung.

“This treatment is outrageous,” Jack protested. “I protest,” he also protested. “I demand to speak to my solicitor.”

“All in good time,” said Bellis, settling himself into the chair behind his desk and gesturing to the two that stood before it. “Seat yourselves. Would you care for a cup of tea?”

“A cup of tea?” Jack got to his knees and then his feet.

“Or coffee?” said the chief inspector.

“I’d like a beer,” said Eddie.

Chief Inspector Bellis frowned upon him.

“Or perhaps just a glass of water.” Eddie arose and did further dustings down of himself.

“You’ll have to pardon the officers,” said Bellis, leaning back in his chair and further gesturing to Jack and Eddie. “Sit yourselves down, if you will. The police officers do get a little carried away. They are so enthusiastic about maintaining law and order. They do have the public’s interests at heart.”

“They don’t have one heart between the lot of them,” said Eddie, struggling onto a chair. “They’re all as brutal as.”

“They overcompensate,” said Chief Inspector Bellis. “I expect it’s just the overexuberance of youth, which should really be channelled into sporting activities. That’s what it says in this book I’ve been reading – Learn to Leap Over Candlesticks In Just Thirty Days, by J. B. Nimble and J. B. Quick. Perhaps you’ve read it?”

“I’ll purchase a copy as soon as I leave here,” said Eddie. “Do you suppose that will be sooner rather than later, as it were?”

“Well, we’ll have to see about that. There are most serious charges.”

“Charges?” said Eddie. “There is more than one charge?”

“You can never have too many charges.” Chief Inspector Bellis grinned from ear to ear, then back again. “It’s like having too many chickens. You can never have too many chickens, can you?”

“Chickens again?” said Jack.

“I like chicken again,” said Bellis. “Again and again. I can’t get enough of chicken.”

Jack shook his head. “I am assuming that you are talking about eating chicken?” he said.

“Obviously. But it’s such a dilemma, isn’t it?”

Eddie shook his head and wondered where all this was leading to.

“You see,” said the chief inspector, “my wife makes me sandwiches for my lunch.”

“Chicken sandwiches?” Jack asked, not out of politeness, but possibly more as a diversionary tactic, in the hope that perhaps Chief Inspector Bellis would just like to chat about sandwiches for a while, before sending him and Eddie on their way.

“That’s the thing,” said Bellis. “I like chicken sandwiches. But I also like egg sandwiches. But you’ll notice that although you mix and match the contents of sandwiches – cheese and onion, egg and cress, chicken and bacon – no one ever eats a chicken and egg sandwich.”

Eddie looked at Jack. And Jack looked at Eddie.

“He’s right,” said Jack.

“He is,” said Eddie. “So why is that, do you think?”

“Because of the eternal question,” said Bellis.

“Ah,” said Eddie.

“Ah,” said Jack.

“What eternal question?” said Eddie.

“Oh, come on,” said Bellis. “What came first, the chicken or the egg? I mean, how could you eat the sandwich? You wouldn’t know which bit to eat first. You’d go mad trying. And believe me, I have tried. And I have gone mad.”

“Most encouraging,” whispered Eddie to Jack. “I can see this being a long and difficult evening.”

“Is it evening already?” asked Jack.

“Let’s just assume that it is.”

“There’s no solution to it,” said Chief Inspector Bellis. “It’s one of those things that’s best left alone. Forgotten about, in fact. In fact, let us never mention the subject again.”

“I’m up for that,” said Eddie, offering the chief inspector an encouraging smile. “So, is it all right if Jack and I go now?”

Chief Inspector Bellis shook his head. “Not as such,” he said. “In fact, not at all. There are these charges to be considered. Things do not look altogether good for you.”

“But I am innocent,” said Eddie.

“That, I’m afraid, is what they all say.”

“But Eddie is innocent,” said Jack. “And I can prove it.”

“Can you?” Eddie asked.

“Of course I can,” said Jack. “The proprietor of the cigar store said that Eddie purchased those cigars yesterday evening, did he not?”

“I heard him say that,” said Eddie.

Chief Inspector Bellis perused notes upon his desk. “That is what he said,” he said. “Shortly before eight, last evening, just before he closed up.”

“That’s right,” said Jack. “He said something about the rain and Eddie leaving puddles on his floor.”

Chief Inspector Bellis did further perusings and nodded.

“Then it can’t have been Eddie,” said Jack.

“No, it can’t,” said Eddie. “I have an alibi. I was in Tinto’s Bar at that time, and that’s right across the city.”

Chief Inspector Bellis made a thoughtful face. It was a very good thoughtful face and both Jack and Eddie were tempted to ask him to make it once more. But only tempted. They showed laudable restraint. “Well, an alibi is an alibi,” said the chief inspector. “But I can see no reason why we should let that stand in the way of letting the law take its course and justice getting done.”

“Eh?” said Eddie.

“What?” said Jack.

“Well,” said Bellis, “as I won’t be following up on the alibi, it hardly matters, does it?”

“Eh?” said Eddie again.

And Jack did another “What?” Although louder than the first.

“Crime and punishment share a certain empathy,” Chief Inspector Bellis explained, “in that both are dispassionate. The criminal goes about his work in a dispassionate manner. He cares not whom he hurts or harms. He doesn’t care about the feelings of others. And so the law behaves towards the criminal in a similar manner. The law cares not for the criminal, it simply seeks to lock him away so that he may perform no further crime.”

“But I’m innocent,” said Eddie.

“And if I were not dispassionate, I would care for your woes,” said Bellis. “But that would be unprofessional. I must never get personally involved. There’s no telling what might happen if I did so, is there?”

“You might free the innocent and convict only the guilty,” was Eddie’s suggestion.

“The distinction between guilt and innocence is a subtle one.”

“No, it’s not,” said Eddie. “You’re either guilty or you’re not.”

“I’ll thank you not to confuse the issue. Charges have been made and you have been arrested. End of story, really.”

“This is outrageous,” said Jack. “I demand to speak to your superior.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Oh yes it will,” said Jack. “I will see justice done. I really will.”

“You tell him, Jack,” said Eddie.

“You’ll tell me nothing,” said Chief Inspector Bellis, “because I am dropping all the charges.”

“You are?” said Eddie.

“I am,” said Bellis, “because I know you are innocent.”

“You do?” said Eddie.

“I do,” said Bellis. “And upon this occasion I am prepared to let the fact that you are innocent stand in the way of letting justice be done.”

“You are?” said Eddie. “Why?” said Eddie.

“Because in return for this, you are going to do something for me. Something that I surmise you are already doing and something I wish you to continue doing.”

“I am now very confused,” said Eddie.

“I believe I am correct in assuming that you have returned to your old profession,” said Bellis, “that of detective.”

Eddie nodded.

“You see, I know that it was not you who purchased those cigars with the mysterious combustible currency.”

“You do?” said Eddie once more.

“I do,” said Bellis once more. “You see, I have these.” And he drew from his desk a number of plasticised packets and flung them onto his desk.

Eddie took one up between his paws and examined it. “Cigar butt,” he said.

“Eleven cigar butts,” said Bellis, “one found at each of the cymbal-playing monkeys’ resting places. All over the city. Eleven cigar butts. The twelfth you showed to Smokey Joe. You went there to enquire whether he recalled who he sold it to, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said Eddie.

“And the twelfth monkey?”

“Dead in Bill’s office,” said Eddie.

“Intriguing, isn’t it?” said Bellis. “And they all died within minutes of each other. And I do not believe that you ran all over the city on your stumpy little legs wiping each and every one of them out – did you?”

Eddie shook his head.

“And now you are investigating these crimes?”

“Yes,” said Eddie. “I am. We are.”

“And I would like you to continue doing so.”

“Really?” said Eddie. “You would?”

“Twelve monkeys,” said Bellis. “All the cymbal-playing monkeys. Annoying blighters they were, I agree, but they were our kind. They were toys. The murderer must be brought to justice.”

“I don’t understand,” said Eddie.

“About justice?”

“Well, I understand about that. Or at least your concept of it. Which is as just as.”

“Did you read the paper?” asked Bellis. “The crimes made page thirteen. I requested of my ‘superior’ that I be allowed to put a special task force on the monkeys’ case. The memo I received in reply stated that it was a low priority.”

“Typical,” said Eddie. “Disgusting, in fact.”

“I do so agree,” said Bellis. “I blame it on that mad mayor we had.”

“Now just hold on,” said Eddie.

“Yes?” said Bellis.

“Nothing,” said Eddie. “Go on, please.”

“You,” said Bellis, “you and Mr Jack here are going to act on my behalf. You are going to be my special task force. You will report directly to me on whatever progress you are making. Do you understand me?”

Jack nodded. “Up to a point,” said he. “So we will report directly to you to receive our wages, will we?”

Chief Inspector Bellis made a certain face towards Jack. One that Jack did not wish to be repeated.

“Would there be any chance of a reward, then,” Jack asked, “if we could present you with a suitable culprit?”

Eddie now gave Jack a certain look.

“Sorry,” said Jack. “The real culprit, then? The real murderer?”

“Exactly,” said Bellis. “And in return for this public-spirited action I will forget about all the trumped-up charges that we have piled up against the bear.”

“But I’m innocent,” said Eddie.

“I think we’ve been through that,” said Bellis. “you and Jack will be my secret task force. You will find the murderer.”

“We’ll certainly try,” said Eddie.

“Oh, you’ll do more than that. You will succeed.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Or you’ll feed the boiler.”

“Ah,” said Eddie.

“Ah indeed,” said Bellis.

“Hm,” went Eddie. “Well, we’ll certainly do our very, very best to succeed. You can be assured of that.”

“Nice,” said Bellis.

“But the trouble is,” said Eddie, “that the only clue we had was the cigar butt. And that just led to a case of mistaken identity. So I have no idea what to do next.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” said Bellis.

“I’m not too sure,” said Eddie.

“Brrrr,” said Bellis. “Is it cold in here, or is it just me?”

“Ah,” said Eddie.

“Ah indeed,” said Chief Inspector Bellis.