Thought I'd give you this while we could all still remember what the plot was. Note I continue a perfectly good tradition of bowdlerising Christie.

1937

Body eight was a dead Taggart, and he was stabbed on the dock of the Kingsport harbour late that evening, in the shadow of a skeletal davit, while Jem was on the phone to Halifax haranguing them about the fingerprints he didn't have. The davit looked eerily like a scaffold and the Taggart eerily like one of the many Taggarts arrested in the subsequent riots that stemmed from Colin Mansel's murder of the hapless Dick.

Jem heard about it over breakfast from an exasperated Teddy.

'Helen, love,' he said, buttering toast, 'what was that rhyme you said it was like? In the Christie book?'

Helen thought a minute then began,

Ten little soldiers went out to dine,
One choked his little self and then there were nine –

She stopped abruptly as Teddy cleared his throat. Jem supposed the smell of scrambled eggs could be said to pair badly with poetry about the systematic demise of soldiers.

'Anyway,' said Faith, 'no one's choked.'

'Unless you're counting asphyxia,' said Jem. 'Which I think I am. Can you remember the rest of the murders without the pneumonic, lamby?'

'Well,' said Helen, 'soldier nine oversleeps, which might fit with your poisoned corpse, but then number eight thinks he'll stay in Devon, so…' She shrugged. Jem picked up a forkful of scrambled eggs, and had to admit he couldn't see that mapping either. Inwardly he groaned; cherry picking theories was a bit like having one's cake and eating it. In the long run it never worked.

Christopher said, 'Seven chops himself in half, though,' apparently oblivious to Teddy's discomfort. 'And that does work. And you were saying someone was burned?'

'No need to sound so enthused,' said Teddy. 'Horrible way to go, if you ask me. The smell is like…never mind. Don't tell me that fits, too?'

All three gremlins chorused zealously,

Two little soldiers, sitting in the sun,
One fizzled up and then there was one.

Jem shook his head. 'It's too haphazard about what bits of the poem are in use and what parts aren't.'

'Sides,' Teddy said, 'It hasn't got anyone being stabbed.'

But then several things seemed to happen at once. The fingerprints from Halifax came through, delivered by a courier who looked overworked, and who Jem suspected of being underpaid. He slipped the man a further note for his trouble and began matching them to the evidence he'd amassed. And what they threw up was a link to the dead Taggart, 'Which surprised me,' said Jem, 'because there's no match for Dick Taggart. If it wasn't Colin Mansel that killed him, it wasn't this person, either. And, while I normally would have said this thing with Taggart was just standard Taggart V Mansel stuff, sort of one in the eye for anyone who thought the hatchet was buried when Colin Mansel hung..' Jim shrugged.

'You don't think this is?' said Geordie.

'Too early to say,' said Jem. 'But it seems a bit much too suppose it's a coincidence that the same man who killed our dead Taggart has also been running around offing former jurors. So, yes, gun to my head, I think these things are connected.'

Geordie hummed. He said, 'When you summoned me here you said there was another thing. Something that didn't fit.'

Jem hummed in his turn and fussed over his instruments. 'You aren't going to like this,' he said.

'Tell me anyway,' said Geordie.

'Right,' said Jem, 'well, the stuff I got off Colin Mansel's gun – and you have to understand this isn't exactly an art form – but from what I can tell, Colin Mansel never held the gun that shot Dick Taggart.'

Geordie groaned. Teddy said, 'But Doc, if that's right, why's the original murderer running around murdering the people who let him off scot free?'

'He never said it was the same person, Inspector,' said Geordie. He looked and sounded exhausted. To Jem he said, 'They aren't the same, are they? In fact, they can't be, or the evidence you'd just been rabbiting on about would match. Is that right? Whoever fired that gun at Dick Taggart is not the man who strangled, poisoned and otherwise butchered those jurors.'

'No,' said Jem.

'But they want to make it look like it was,' said Geordie.

Teddy raised both eyebrows. 'How d'you make that out?' he said. It was a good question. But then Geordie said, 'Because Inspector Lawson did for Colin Mansel, and Inspector Lawson was an established devotee of Cicero.'

They went back to the safety of the café they had discovered in the days of the Great Tea Controversy. Safely ensconced at a polished wooden table, and with a platter of sticky-sweet buns and a pot of tea between them, Teddy said, 'You don't really think your old Inspector did for Taggart, do you Gov?'

'I think someone was gunning for him,' said Geordie, 'and Lawson had had about as much of the Mansel-Taggart nonsense as he could stomach. Christ, we all had.'

'Yes,' said Teddy, 'but it doesn't necessarily follow that – '

'He quoted that bloody Roman at Colin Mansel, Teddy. I heard him, didn't I? I sat in that stuffy interview room and listened to Lawson quote Cicero one minute and shout blue bloody murder at Mansel the next.'

'Still,' said Teddy, 'it's a far cry from that to…' He shrugged, helpless but undeterred.

Benwick nodded urgently. Geordie said, 'Anyone else remember that story of Ken Ford's that got Kitty Forster in such a state all those years ago?'

Jem munched a bun. Dustings of cinnamon and icing clung stickily to his fingers and he dabbed at them with a napkin, nodding all the while.

'Sure,' said Teddy around a mouthful of tea. 'Police corruption. But that was Toronto.'

'Yeah, well,' said Geordie, 'they haven't got the monopoly on bent coppers, and when you're up against the kind of mess the Mansels and Taggarts were generating day after day, sometimes a bit of rule-bending feels justified.'

'But you don't really think,' said Teddy again.

'I think,' said Geordie, 'I'm waiting on the evidence. Doc?'

Jem inhaled deeply. The little café smelled of fresh baking and aromatic tea. It was no place to talk fit-ups and murder.

'I'll tell you as we go,' said Jem and scraped his chair backwards. The others followed.

It was easier like this, Jem thought as they picked their way through the city, the workaday press of people knocking against them as they went. Like this he didn't have to look Geordie in the eye when he explained about the gun and how there was nothing on it to connect it to Colin Mansel, except Taggart's blood, and that only proved the shooter had had enough conscience to check Taggart's pulse, maybe staunch some of the bleeding after the fact. Easier to say, so of course Jem didn't say it.

He waited until they were inside the King's Arms and squinting at the dark interior before catching Geordie's eye and telling him all these things. Geordie nodded. Benwick went in search of Rob Mansel for further inquiry. Teddy, Geordie and Jem waited, still in the doorway, still squinting, breathing in the smell of the place, all fermented wheat, fried bread and lemon juice.

It was nothing. Lemon juice was a great all-purpose thing. Jem knew this. Had watched Faith use it variously to polish floors, season chicken and help Sophy invent invisible ink. He clicked his fingers anyway, and signalling Benwick that they were off, motioned the others out of the door.

'You're thinking again, Doc,' said Teddy as they picked their way back to Larkrise, squinting now in the sunlight. Jem did not answer. He was still thinking it out. Geordie let him do it. Back at Larkrise Jem sat, limbs akimbo on the floor and scrabbled for the nearest useful aide. Because the chess set was closed and the dollhouse long-since relocated to Sophy's room upstairs, this happened to be doll Poliomyelitis of the carnival. Not really looking, Jem gathered up the other dolls too, Baron Typhus, Baroness Cholera, Lady Scarletina and the Countess Cyanotica, the whole doll collection in its medically-minded entirety.

'Right,' said Jem, assembling his props. 'We know we're looking at two different crimes here.'

'But they're linked,' said Teddy.

'Sort of,' said Jem. 'Look,' and he held up Diphtheria. 'This, whatever my daughters tell you, is Dick Taggart. And this,' he waved Baron Typhus by one porcelain arm, 'is the man that shot Taggart. This,' picking up the red Lady Scarletina, 'Is Colin Mansel, because the colour of her dress seems apt for bloodshed. Now,' Jem gestured at Geordie, 'you, Superintendent, are going to show me what happened, because I wasn't around when all this was going on and you witnessed it. Where was Taggart, where was Mansel, where were you and your Inspector?'

Gingerly, and with much audible grumbling, Geordie got down on his knees so that he too was sat amidst the confusion of dolls. For good measure he heaved a cushion after him and set it behind his impeccably upright back.

'If we're being really technical,' he said, 'I was a green constable at the time. And have you any idea the last time I attended a doll's tea party?'

'Sophy can soon fix that,' said Jem. 'Nattie will help, I'm sure. Now, Mansel. Taggart. Who was where, when?'

'Well,' said Geordie, 'I was here, just behind…Never mind. Doesn't matter because it wasn't just me. There were loads of us. Half of us were behind the Stella Maria and the other half behind the Stella Luna. I was in the latter half with Inspector Lawson, so saw the whole thing in excrutiating, chaotic detail. This was a big thing, bringing in the Mansels and Taggarts. Lawson, though, he was right in the thick of it. Not all inspectors did that sort of thing, but he did.'

'Not like anyone we know then,' muttered Teddy. Geordie ignored him. He positioned Typhus-as-Lawson a little ahead of his knees and said, 'For the purpose of the exercise I'm playing my past self. Taggart was…here…' and Geordie thoughtfully placed Dipheria-Taggart against a nearby coffee table, 'and Mansel was here.'

Almost automatically he set Scarletina-Mansel between the two dolls. For a long time afterwards, no one said anything. Only Tuesday, lazing in a sunspot, punctuated the silence with an occasional, nasal snore. It was all too apparent what misadventure had spelled the downfall of Colin Mansel.

'They weren't alone, either,' said Geordie. 'Colin and Dick. I mean, this wasn't pistols-at-dawn. There were lots of them. Rob Mansel, now, he would have been Colin's right arm, so over...here.' He reached for doll Polly and set her next to Scarletina-Colin.

'Right,' said Jem. 'That's what I thought. Now, Mansel,' waving at Lady Scarletina in her red, 'shoots Taggart. Except that's not what happens, because none of the evidence bears it out. But if we suppose your Lawson was a bloody good shot…'

'Doc!' said Teddy, and for once there were no gremlins around to be horrified.

'He was ace,' said Geordie. 'To put it your way. You're thinking he shot Taggart over Mansel's shoulder and in the ensuing chaos no one clocked it. Or wanted to.'

'But the gun,' said Teddy.

'Was standard police issue,' said Jem. 'Remember what Geordie was saying about the Mansels and Taggarts having a finger in that pie? No one would have thought twice about it because obviously Colin Mansel had got his gun from a corrupt plod and used it to off Taggart.'

'And it was pandemonium,' said Geordie. 'After that shot rang out…People were crawling everywhere. There was screaming, and swarming and – well, you've seen your share of mobs, Inspector. You'll know what I mean. An easy thing for Lawson to do a brief triage of Dick Taggart's dying, pick up the gun, and land it on Mansel as he arrested him.'

'Accounting,' said Jem, 'for the fingerprints I don't have on file but that areon Colin Mansel's gun. Supposed gun.'

Teddy looked faintly green, but Jem thought Geordie looked worse, all hollowed out and haggard where he leaned against the wingback chair.

'And Rob Mansel saw,' said Geordie. He tapped dazedly at Poliomyelitus-Mansel. 'Christ.' He said it with no real heat to it, and somehow that was worse than if there had been. 'I should have known. Seen something.'

'You couldn't have seen it,' said Jem. 'Chaos, like you said. And even if you had, who'd have listened?'

But that wasn't the point, not really. The loss of ideals always hurt, idols too. Jem knew, because once he'd gone to war and lost his share. And once, before all that awfulness, he had looked up at the rose window of Knox Presbyterian, great theological jewel of the Glen, and found it empty. That had been worst of all because he had sat there, alone and empty in a pew surrounded by family he knew did not feel the same vacancy. They were all saying their prayers with a sincerity that left Jem inwardly shouting at the void presented by the rose window, Where have you gone? Why me, why only me? And then, aggrieved, Well, you needn't come rushing back, then. I'll manage fine. And he thought maybe Judith Carlisle, after years estranged from family and doctrine, knew some of that, too. Thought that was good.

Jem smiled a watery, imperfect smile at his friend of these many long years and said again, 'You couldn't have done anything, Geordie. You said it yourself, you were a constable. It would have been impossible.'

Geordie nodded. Tuesday hefted himself out of his sunspot and gambolled sideways-fashion over to their triad, nosing the now-deceased Taggart-Diphtheria doll as he went before settling on Geordie's knees, little white socks on the man's broad besuited chest.

'Tuesday,' said Jem warningly but Geordie only scratched the dog's ears and said, 'It's quite all right, isn't it, old chap? You know I don't mind.'

Tuesday stuck one paw up, exposing his belly and inviting the world's most awkward tummy rub. Geordie complied. Teddy said clumsily, 'Right, well…What the deuce is happening to those jurors, then, Doc? Because I can't make that fit.'

'What's happening,' said Jem, 'is that Rob Mansel saw what happened. And now he wants his vengeance.'

'Which is awkward,' said Geordie, as he reached around Tuesday for Poliomyelitis, still playing RobMansel, 'because now the clever so-and-so is taking it out on the people that got his brother hung for murder. Which means…'

Teddy was already up and marching purposefully towards the phone.

'Someone,' he grumbled, 'had better warn your old boss. And Benwick. And possibly that old hangman you two were so thick with.'

There was a whirring and clicking as Teddy punched purposefully at the phone and requested the connection for The Kings Arms. There followed a pregnant pause as they all awaited the connection.

Then Teddy's urgent 'Benwick? Constable Benwick? Inspector Lovall. Look, I need you to make sure Rob Mansel doesn't – he's what?! What do you mean he's not there? Went round – why would you – no, never mind, Benwick. Just find him. Go to – oh Christ. Inspector – Superintend- Sir, where does Lawson live now? It's important.'

Geordie rattled off the address. Teddy relayed it. 'Get there, Benwick, get there now.

But now Geordie was on his feet and moving with all the grace of a tiger after an antelope. Without seeming to do it had got the phone. He sad very coolly, very collected, 'Benwick? You still there. Good. Ignore Teddy. You're going to go direct to the waterfront, you understand? Yes I know Teddy said…No, forget that. You want the Waterfront and you want the dock with the Stella Luna. Yes, I'm sure. Trust me. Go now.' Still coolly, still collectedly, he rang off. Then, as if it was nothing he rang the Station House and requisitioned back-up.

'What was that about?' asked Teddy. 'We could have got him.'

'We'll still get him,' said Jem. 'Only not at the house. Your Super reckons if Mansel Mark II is going to try anything it won't be at the house, it will be where it all happened the first time.'

So saying Jem levered himself off the floor, picked his way through the confusion of Sophy's dolls and headed for the door.

They were too late. They took the car, screeching and careening down the roads, turning hard into the harbour wynds and closes, and still they were too late.

It was awful. Jem never knew which of them saw it first, the breathless Benwick, arriving on their coat tails, Geordie where he sat in the passenger seat, or Teddy, craning to look out the rolled-down window. Jem knew he saw but didn't really process until it happened. There was Rob Mansel, who swore by lemon juice and ran The King's Arms, leaning casually against a nearby davit. He'd got a length of rope in his hand and it lay there, supine and lazy.

Not thinking to, Jem tracked it from where it coiled on the ground up, up, to where the body of the surely unsuspecting Lawson – it had to be Lawson, Jem thought idly – stood, his feet on a crate, the coil of the rope, still lazy, still supine, around his neck.

There was a moment where Jem thought they had time. Benwick, bracing after his run must have thought it too. Back-up were coming. Benwick cried out, something sharp and indeterminate as Geordie sprang from the car.

Rob Mansel shouted over the wind and the salt of the sea, 'You watching, Bill? Watch what should've happened, eh?'

'That's not justice,' said Geordie.

'Yeah, well,' said Rob Mansel, fingering the rope in his hands, 'nor was what happened to Colin.'

Jem ran, they all ran, because the davit wasn't far and Rob Mansel wasn't going anywhere, but they were too late anyway. The rope went taut, Rob Mansel dealt the crate a vicious kick, and that was that. From somewhere on Jem's left came a retching noise that he took for Benwick being sick. Jem heard it and dimly registered that in all these years the constable had never witnessed a hanging, and but for this, probably never would have done, content as he was to man phones and check files and broker for headlines and press with Kitty over haphazard tea.

It was only a moment. It passed. Geordie got to Rob Mansel first and disentangled him from the rope. Jem left him to it, because already Benwick and Teddy were coming to help. So, it was Jem that lifted Lawson down, and got the rope off that awful, ancient, broken neck, and took a pulse anyway, because that was what one did. And then he accepted the offer of a sail some nearby and hapless bystander was offering him, because that was what one did, too. He gave dignity to the dead, and Geordie saw to justice, and maybe between them it worked out all right.