It's Easter in Reading—a bad time for eggs—and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself. But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody. And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town . . .

A second installment of the satirical Nursery Crime series that began with The Big Over Easy finds Jack Spratt, having been demoted for his poor judgment during the Mr. Bun poisoning, pursuing leads about the disappearance of star reporter "Goldy" Hatchett, whose case is bizarrely related to the Gingerbreadman serial killer investigation. 50,000 first printing.

Locked Room Mystery is dead! Can you work out the culprit in this witty short story?