Free The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin

apartment was a richly panelled silkwood affair, decorated with all manner of carved reliefs - mostly, it appeared, of fat folk falling from walls. Jack eyed the door appreciatively. This was a proper door. A proper rich person's door. The kind of door that he'd have for himself as soon as he'd made his fortune.
    Jack turned a key and opened up the door. 'You wait here,' he told the frog as he and Eddie slipped into Humpty's penthouse. 'We won't be long.'
    'Perhaps I ought to come inside,' said the frog. 'It's best that I, in there, should be. In the interests of security.'
    Jack slammed the door upon him.
    'Well, we're in,' said Eddie. 'Although it could have been easier.'
    'I thought I did very well. I'm new to this detective game. Remember it was
me
who got us in. Not you.'
    'I seem to recall that you were all for shooting the frog.'
    'I was bluffing.'
    'Right,' said Eddie. 'To work.'
    'Right,' said Jack. 'I'll have a look around. See if I can find some clues.'
    'No,' said Eddie, 'you just sit down quietly and don't touch anything. /'// search for clues.'
    'Yes, but—
    ‘Jack,' said Eddie,
'I'm
the detective. You're my partner.
Junior
partner.'
    Jack shrugged. 'Please yourself then.'
     
    Humpty Dumpty's penthouse was opulent. It was palatial, it was magniloquent. It was eggy.
    There were egg motifs on the richly woven carpets and the elegant silk wallpaper and on the fabrics of the furniture and even on the switches for the lights. Jack tinkered with one of these and lit up a gorgeous chandelier that hung overhead. It was festooned with hundreds of crystal eggs. Jack shook his head and whistled.
    So this was what being rich was all about, was it? Then he'd have some of this. But not exactly like this. There was something all-too-much about this. It was the scale, Jack thought, thoughtfully. Where Tinto's bar had been too small for him, everything here was much too big.
    Jack sat himself down on a great golden chariot of a chair in the vestibule and stretched his hands to either side of him. He couldn't even reach to the chair's arms. This Humpty had evidently been a fellow of considerable substance. Positively gargantuan.
    Jack watched Eddie as he went to work. The bear paced up and down, cocking his head to this side and the other, backing up, throwing himself forward onto his stomach, wriggling about.
    'How are you doing?' called Jack.
    'Would you mind opening the doors to the pool area for me?' said Eddie.
    Jack hastened to oblige. It took considerable effort to heave back the enormous doors, but when this was done, it proved well worthwhile.
    Jack found himself in the pool area. The pool itself was egg-shaped, which came as no surprise to Jack. It was mosaic-tiled all around and about and many of these tiles were elliptical.
    The entire pool area was sheltered by a great stained-glass dome of cathedralesque proportions. Jack gawped up at it in wonder. There were no egg motifs to be found up there; rather, the whole was a profusion of multi-coloured flowers, wrought in thousands of delicate panes of glass. The sunlight, dancing through these many-hued panes, cast wistful patterns over the pool area and Jack was entranced. He had never seen anything quite so beautiful in all of his life.
    The apex of the dome was an enormous stained-glass sunflower, its golden petals radiating out from a clear glass centre. Jack gave another whistle. He'd definitely have one of these roofs when he'd made his fortune.
    Jack pushed back the brim of his fedora. The roof was stunningly beautiful. But there was something... something that jarred with him. Something that didn't seem entirely right. That appeared to be out of place. But what was it? Jack shrugged. What did he, Jack, know about stained-glass roofs? Nothing, was the answer to that. The roof was beautiful and that was all there was to it.
    The beauty of the roof above, however, was somewhat marred by that which lay directly below it. Specifically, in the pool, or more