“I was wondering,” said Mary before he had a chance to start playing again. “This detective sergeant’s job I’m applying for. Who is it with?”

He looked at his watch.

“An excellent question. In ten minutes we’re holding a press conference. I’ve a detective in urgent need of a new sergeant, and I think you’ll fit the bill perfectly. Shall we?”

The pressroom was five floors below, and an expectant journalistic hubbub greeted their ears while they were still walking down the corridor. They stepped inside and stood as unobtrusively as possible at the back of the large and airy room. Mary could see from the “Oxford & Berkshire Constabulary”–bedecked lectern and high turnout that press conferences here were taken with a great deal more seriousness than she had known, which probably reflected this city’s preeminence over Basingstoke when it came to serious crime. It wasn’t that Reading had any more murders than Basingstoke—it just had better ones. Reading and the Thames Valley area was more of a “fairy cakes laced with strychnine” or “strangulation with a silk handkerchief” sort of place, where there were always bags of interesting suspects, convoluted motives and seemingly insignificant clues hidden in an inquiry of incalculable complexity yet solved within a week or two. By contrast, murders in Basingstoke were strictly blunt instruments, drunkenly wielded, solved within the hour—or not at all. Mary had worked on six murder investigations and, to her great disappointment, hadn’t once discovered one of those wonderful clues that seem to have little significance but later, in an epiphanic moment, turn the case on its head and throw the guilty light on someone previously eliminated from the inquiries.

She didn’t have time to muse upon the imaginative shortcoming of Basingstoke’s criminal fraternity any longer, as there was a sudden hushing of the pressmen and a burst of spontaneous applause, as a handsome man in his mid-fifties strode dramatically from a side door.

“Goodness!” said Mary. “That’s—”

“Yup,” said Briggs, with the pride of a father who has just seen his son win everything at sports day. “Detective Chief Inspector Friedland Chymes.”

Friedland Chymes! In person. There was a hush as the famous detective stepped up to the lectern. The assembled two dozen newspapermen readied themselves, pens poised, for his statement.

“Thank you for attending,” he began, sweeping back his blond hair and gazing around the room with his lively blue eyes, causing flutters when they lingered ever so slightly on the women present in the room, Mary included. She found herself almost automatically attracted to him. He was strong, handsome, intelligent, fearless—the most alpha of alpha males. Working with him would be an honor.

“It was the small traces of pastry around the gunshot wound on Colonel Peabody’s corpse that turned the case for me,” began the great detective, his sonorous tones filling the air like music,

“minute quantities of shortcrust whose butter/flour ratio I found to be identical to that of a medium-size Bowyer’s pork pie. The assailant had fired his weapon through the tasty snack to muffle the sound of the shot. The report heard later was a firecracker set off by a time fuse, thus giving an alibi to the assailant, who I can reveal to you now was…”

The whole room leaned forward in expectation. Chymes, his only apparent vanity a certain showmanship, paused for dramatic effect before announcing the killer.

“…Miss Celia Mangersen, the victim’s niece and, unbeknownst to us all, the sole beneficiary of the missing will, which I found hidden—as expected—within a hollowed-out statuette of Sir Walter Scott. Yes, Mr. Hatchett, you have a question?”

Josh Hatchett of The Toad newspaper had raised his hand in the front row.

“What was the significance of the traces of custard found on the Colonel’s sock suspender?”

Chymes raised a finger in the air.

“An excellent question, Mr. Hatchett, and one that pushed my deducting powers to the limit. Bear with me if you will while we go through the final moments of Colonel Peabody’s life. Mortally wounded and with only seconds to live, he had somehow to leave a clue to his assailant’s identity. A note? Of course not—the killer would find and destroy it. Guessing correctly that a murder of this magnitude would be placed in my hands, he decided to leave behind a clue that only I could solve. Knowing the Colonel’s penchant for anagrams, it was but a swift move to deduct his reasoning. The sock suspender was made in France. ‘Custard’ in French is crème anglaise—and an anagram of this is ‘Celia Mangerse’—which not only correctly identified the killer but also told me the Colonel died before he was able to finish the anagram.”

There was more applause, and he quietened everyone down before continuing.

“But since anagram-related clues are now inadmissible as evidence, we sent the pork pie off for DNA analysis and managed to pinpoint the pie shop where it was purchased. Guessing that Miss Mangersen might have an affinity for the pies, we staked out the shop in question, and yesterday evening Miss Mangersen was taken into custody, whereupon she confessed to me in a tearful scene that served as a dramatic closure to the case. My loyal, and annoyingly chirpy, cockney assistant and biographer DS Flotsam will of course be writing a full report for Amazing Crime Stories in due course, after the formality of a trial. Ladies and gentlemen: The case… is closed!”

The assembled journalists rose as one and burst into spontaneous applause. Chymes dismissed the adulation with a modest wave of the hand and excused himself, muttering something about needing to open a hospital for orphaned sick children.

“He’s amazing!” breathed Mary, somehow convincing herself—as had all the other women present—that Chymes had winked at her across the crowded room.

“I agree,” replied Briggs, standing aside as the newsmen filed out, eager to get the stories into the late editions. “Don’t you love that ‘the case is closed!’ stuff? I wish I had a catchphrase. He’s an asset not only to us here at Reading but also to the nation—there aren’t many countries that haven’t requested his thoughts on some intractable and ludicrously complex inquiry.”

“He’s remarkable,” agreed Mary.

“Indeed,” went on Briggs, seemingly swept up in a paroxysm of hagiographic hero worship. “He’s also a hilarious raconteur, has a golf handicap of two, was twice world aerobatic champion and plays the clarinet as well as Artie Shaw. Speaks eight languages, too, and is often consulted by the Jellyman himself on important matters of state.”

“I’m going to enjoy working with him, I can see,” replied Mary happily. “When do I start?”

“Chymes?” echoed Briggs with a faint yet unmistakably patronizing laugh. “Goodness gracious, no! You’re not working with Chymes!”

“Who then?” asked Mary, attempting to hide her disappointment, and failing.

“Him.”

Mary followed Briggs’s outstretched finger to an untidy figure who had taken his turn at the lectern. He was in his mid-forties, had graying hair and one eye marginally higher than the other, giving him the lopsided look of someone deep in thought. If he was deep in thought, considered Mary, it was clearly about something more important than his personal appearance. His suit could have done with a good pressing, his hair styled any way but the way he had it. He might have shaved a little less hurriedly and made more of an attempt to exude some—any—confidence. He fumbled with his papers as he stared resignedly after the rapidly vanishing press corps.

“I see,” said Mary, sounding a great deal colder than she had intended. “And who’s he?”

Briggs patted her arm in a fatherly manner. He could sense her disappointment, but it wasn’t up to him. Chymes picked his own people.