“Delighted to be of service, Inspector. I am always here if you need to talk again.”

Mr. Pewter saw them to the door, and they walked back to the Allegro.

“You can drive,” said Jack, tossing the car keys to Mary.

She got in and looked around the spartan controls dubiously.

“Seventies design classic,” said Jack. “The Allegro was a lot better than people give it credit for. The clutch is on the way out, so it bites high, and don’t be too aggressive with the turn signal—I broke it the other day, and I’m still awaiting a replacement.”

She turned the key, and the little engine burst into life. Jack was right, the clutch did bite high, but aside from that it drove very well—and with a surprisingly comfortable ride, too.

“Hydrogas suspension,” commented Jack when Mary asked. “Best thing about it.”

“So,” said Mary as they made their way back towards the city center, “Humpty was buying shares in a company that is heading rapidly downhill—why do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he wanted a staff discount on corn plasters. Perhaps he liked Randolph. Perhaps he’d gone mad. Speaking of which, let’s see if we can get any sense out of Dr. Quatt. But not quite yet. Take a right here and pull up outside Argos. I said I’d drop in and check out the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center—we’re on duty there Saturday.”

They pulled up at the curb, and Mary switched off the engine. It rattled on for a bit before it finally died.

“Must get that seen to.”

They climbed out of the car and looked at the glass-and-steel structure built on Forbury Gardens. If it had been anything other than the dreary day it was, the sun’s rays would doubtless have cascaded from the many-faceted glazed roof and given an effect as magical and wondrous as the treasure the building was built to house. As it was, the only thing cascading from anywhere was the rainwater running into the drains from the downpipes.

“Ugly as sin if you ask me,” said Jack.

“Beautiful piece of architecture,” said Mary, precisely at the same time. “We agree to differ,” she added. “A fine building should always court controversy. Isn’t that traffic warden staring at you?”

“Oh, shit,” said Jack. “Keep moving and pretend you haven’t seen her.”

But it was too late. The traffic warden, a woman about Jack’s age but whom the years had not blessed as kindly as, say, Lola Vavoom, trotted up to him. And she didn’t look very happy.

“Jack!” she said with an overblown sense of outrage. “You never call me!”

“Hello, Agatha,” said Jack with as much politeness as he could muster. “You’re looking well.”

“Don’t try and sweet-talk me, worm. Think you can just toss me aside like a… like a… like a used thing that needs tossing aside?”

“Steady on, Agatha.”

Mary stared curiously at the uniformed bundle of hot indignation—the overdone mascara and lipstick looked more like warpaint.

“Don’t you ‘steady on’ me, Jack. You don’t call, you don’t write—”

“Agatha, it’s over. It’s been over for a long, long time.”

“Maybe for you,” she said angrily. “What about if I came and told your wife, Sarah, about it? What would she say, huh?”

Jack sighed. “Sarah is… no longer in the picture. I remarried—”

“Remarried?” she asked in a shocked tone. “When?”

“Five years ago. And listen, you and I were finished long before I even met Sarah.”

“Do you have any idea how this makes me feel?”

“No,” said Jack, who had resisted the temptation of humiliating her with a restraining order, since she happened to be Briggs’s partner, “I have no idea at all. How’s Geoffrey?”

“Not half the man you are. The trombone’s driving me nuts—and he wants to change his name to Föngotskilérnie.”

“You have my sympathies. I’m busy, Agatha.”

She cheered up, blew her nose on a light mauve handkerchief, leaned closer, gave him a coy smile and walked her fingers up his tie.

“I’ll be waiting for your call, Jack. Anytime. I’ll be waiting. For your call. Whenever.”

“Good day, Agatha.” And he turned quickly and moved away.

“Yikes,” he said in an aside to Mary. “That was Agatha Diesel. Makes Dr. Quatt seem a picture of rationality.”

“There’s nothing mad about being miffed at rejection,” said Mary, who thought that even people like Agatha needed a champion in their corner.

“A week’s passion in 1979,” he replied wearily, “twenty-five years ago. And she called it off for a fling with Friedland. She doesn’t pester him because he has a hundred-yard restraining order out on her.”

“Ah,” said Mary, suitably contrite. “You’re right: mad as a March hare.”

They approached the main doors of the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center, which had been cast in a bronze relief that depicted in detail the turbulent history of Splotvia, from the earliest days of Splotvane I “The Unwashed” all the way through the medieval civil wars to the modern socialist republic, still coming to terms with itself after the overthrow of Splotvane XIV “The Deposed” in 1990.

The heavy doors were locked and bolted, so they walked around the side to the service entrance. This was also shut tight, but at least there was an entry phone and TV camera. Jack picked up the phone and announced themselves. Without a word the door slid open, and they were admitted to an inner cubicle to which there was no exit other than the way they had come or through a second door shut tight in front of them. To their right a uniformed guard sat behind a thick sheet of bulletproof glass. The door shut noiselessly behind them.

“Welcome to the Sacred Gonga Visitors’ Center,” said the guard in a marked Splotvian accent. “Can you place your IDs in the drawer, please?”

A steel drawer opened beneath the glass, and they did as he requested. He slid the drawer to his side, and after he’d studied the IDs for a moment and compared their likenesses with those on his database, the door to the building opened in front of them.

“Thank you,” said the guard as he handed their IDs back. “If you take a seat, Professor Hardiman will be with you shortly.”

Mary looked cautiously around. The interior of the building was modernist but subtly mixed with the geometric motifs that one usually associated with Splotvian architecture. It was pleasing, and she liked it.

“DI Spratt?” came a voice from the other side of the room. They turned and rose to meet the Professor, a small and dapper man who had the rosy red cheeks of outdoorsy good health. “My name is Bruce Hardiman. It was my grandfather’s expedition that discovered the Sacred Gonga. And you must be DS Mary. How do you do?”

He shook hands with both of them and thanked them profusely for giving up their lives, if necessary, to protect the historic artifact.

“To protect and serve,” replied Jack dryly.

“How very Gonga of you,” observed Hardiman respectfully. “To die in the service of the Sacred Gonga is to die a worthy death indeed.”

“Professor,” said Jack, “we’re not actually planning on dying at all; we’re just here to protect it. I’m sure nothing will go wrong.”