It was no good. May knew he would have to find out what was going on by himself.
Arthur Bryant couldn’t handle cases that required an understanding of human relationships, and would take off into lunatic new directions if left unchecked. Someone had to keep an eye on him.
May peered around the door of his partner’s office and watched Bryant knocking the contents of his pipe into the brainpan of the Tibetan skull on his desk. Half of the bookcase had been emptied, and two immense stacks towered on either side of the desk, framing the old man with playscripts, manuals, comics, art books, histories, encyclopedias, miscellanies and a number of surprisingly sleazy pulp thrillers.
‘I knew it,’ May said with a sigh. ‘You’ve been thinking again.’
Bryant widened his watery blue eyes in surprise. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said. ‘Now that you’ve finished holding your little chats, we can talk. Do come in, and shut the door behind you.’
‘None of your deranged diversions this time, okay?’ May warned, settling himself in another overstuffed armchair that had appeared in the room. Bryant seemed to accumulate furniture wherever he went. ‘It’s a fairly straightforward case, despite the circumstances of the death.’
‘What do you mean?’
May pointed to the nearest stack of books on the desk. He could see spines which read: The History of Icelandic Hospitals, Confessions of a Soho Call Girl, Phrenology for Beginners, The Role of Duty in the Operas of Gilbert & Sullivan, A Treatise on the Correlation Between Victorian Dental Care & Naval Policy and—open on top of the pile—Poetic Justice: The Morality of Dramatic Puppetry. ‘I mean there’s no point in going though all this stuff, hidden meanings about puppets.’
‘I was reading it because I had some ideas about the case,’ said Bryant cheerily. ‘I know you think you’re going to make an arrest in the next day or so, but you won’t.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘There were thirty-five invites to the party, and fifteen guests left downstairs in the main lounge at the time of Noah Kramer’s death, plus the wait staff, the chef in the kitchen and the doorman. Eleven of these guests went up to see what the fuss was about when Robert Kramer kicked in his nursery door. That’s a surprisingly high number of curious people, don’t you think? I assume you’ve talked to everyone now, and have some idea about their feelings for one another.’
‘It certainly helped to sit down and talk to them. Why wouldn’t you sit in on the interviews?’
‘John, there’s nothing for me to do there. I never ask the right questions. You’re better with people. You know what time they all arrived, which ones left and when they did so. You have all their timings and statements. You’ve got graphs and that computer thing.’
‘It’s a new application. You should try using it.’
‘I don’t need to. I mean, surely this is just a matter of elimination, and then putting the screws on the remaining likely suspects.’
‘I know a lot more than I did this morning, and you would if you’d come in to help me. I thought you were going to give me the benefit of your wisdom.’
‘My money’s on the husband. He’s got shifty eyes. Far too close together for my liking.’
‘Motive?’
‘Oh, I’m sure one will come up.’
‘I was rather hoping you could bring a little more insight to the case than that.’
‘As it happens I can, but you wouldn’t like it, particularly as it involves a paradox worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan. I think I’ll wait for a while, until you’ve given it your best shot. I still have more reading to do. Begone with you now.’ Bryant wrapped the arms of his bifocals around his ears and returned to his books.
‘Wait,’ said May, ‘am I missing something here? You’re annoyed with me because the investigation is likely to prove more mundane than you hoped it might be, is that it? You honestly thought Giles might find some kind of mechanical equipment inside the puppet that could control it?’ May was furious. ‘I’m sorry the world isn’t weird enough to keep you interested. You know what’s wrong with you, Arthur?’
‘No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.’
‘You see words on pages but you never see beyond them to the heart. If this was a story in one of your grubby old books you’d be interested, wouldn’t you? Imagine: A rich, successful couple thinks they have everything, but the one thing the father wants most of all is denied to him, so his wife provides him with a son from her lover on the condition that she can continue the affair, and he silently endures the arrangement so that he can raise a boy of his own, with the complicity of his wife and the man she prefers. But the triangle fractures, and the reason for the arrangement is removed. Now a mother is comatose with grief over the death of her only child, her husband doesn’t know what to say that can comfort her, and the lover remains trapped on the outside, suspicious that tragedy might somehow strike again. That’s boring old real life for you, is it? Their worlds have been overturned not once but twice, and we have a chance to give them closure—’