Percy and Ingrid sat in the car, which was now parked outside the Valtos residence.

"Would you like to hear a story?" asked Percy.

"Why not?" returned Ingrid.

"Once upon a time, there was a chartered accountant who worked for a company called Lollypop Super Sales. He was a very clever accountant, and also a potentially clever fiddler. However, he was a well-behaved fellow, and he didn't believe in doing things like fiddling the accounting ledgers. So he didn't.

"The trouble was that this certain accountant, who went by the name of Archibald, had a secretary who was studying accountancy. She perpetrated a rather successful embezzlement, which left poor Archibald in the hot seat. The curious thing about the whole business was the secretary's motive. She could have swindled Lollypop Super Sales on a grand scale, but she chose only to rob them of a paltry pittance. It was later discovered that the secretary had her eye on Archibald's job, and had laid the blame at his feet in order to dissuade the Lollypop manager from allowing Archibald to continue with his current source of employment. Anyway, she might have been an aspiring young fiddler, but she was a poor liar, because she made a few fatal slips that gave her away."

"Why do I let you do this to me?"

"Because we love each other?"

"Yes, but you're going to have to tell me the missing links when the inspector arrives anyway. So I can listen to some more Sneaky Spy waffle, while we're filling in time."
"Sneaky Spy waffle?"

"Sneaky Spy waffle."

*          *          *          *

"Are you ready to explain all of this now?" asked the inspector, when they were all together in Valtos's living room.

"Certainly," said the Sneaky Spy, "It's all very simple actually. The person who killed Alicia Valtos knew that Anthony Skilton was a butler for the Valtos couple. It wasn't too difficult to find that out, because the killer was Ashford, who lived with Skilton. Yes, Gunfellow, I came to your house last night to check on some things that Skilton had told me, and I happened to bump into you. You've worked that one out for yourself, haven't you?" Admittedly it was a little breach of a certain law, but I had Skilton's best interests at heart at the time. I just had to be sure that he was telling the truth."

Skilton stared in shock at Ashford.

"How could you? What have you got against the Valtos couple? And what have you got against me?"

"Nothing in both cases," said the Sneaky Spy, "Ashford is just a little inclined to do terrible things, and you made the mistake of trusting him. Incidentally, Inspector, when I paid him a call last night, he also confessed to the robbery that was in the paper a few weeks ago, and showed me the loot. You might like to ask him later about the present location of the millions of dollars in jewellery and cash notes, that these two have got hidden away somewhere."
Higgins was amazed. He had arrested Ashford merely to hear Percy out on his own terms. Percy's talents, his persistence, and his devotion to Valtos' butler had taken his breath away.

He voiced his feelings.

"Well Percy, if I could interrupt you for a moment at this point, we'll need Nathan's confession in order to make this solution to the problem hold water, but that shouldn't be too difficult, since he cannot possibly deny his attempts to murder you, nor his sickening success with Irwin Valtos."

"So it's all sorted out then, or it will be when I'm finished telling my story," said the Sneaky Spy.

"Not quite," said the inspector, "I am aware, Mister Dale, that you acted out of a desire to help Anthony Skilton, and you seem to have made plenty good of it, having solved not one but two crimes. In future, however, I will not be inclined to show any leniency, or make any excuses for your breaking the law."

"I'm sure you won't," said the Sneaky Spy, "and now I will tell you the rest of it. The thing that threw me in the early stages of the development was a motive. Everything pointed to Skilton, because he stood to gain a butler's inheritance if he killed the Valtos couple. However, the other things that pointed to Skilton - the medical items in his coat - were too obvious. Nobody could be as ham-fisted as that. I was convinced that Skilton was being framed. But by whom? Valtos?

"The thought had occurred to me, but there was no motive there. I've known Irwin and Alicia for a long time, and I'm quite convinced that they enjoyed a successful marriage. Valtos was not a killer. Skilton was the most likely lead to follow. So I asked him a few things, and he told me that he had won a large lottery prize, and now had a large house of his own, and at the same time, a resultant problem. Skilton enjoyed his work, and wanted to keep on doing it, despite his newfound wealth. He's also had an endearing respect for Mr and Mrs Valtos.

"So I broke into his house, having asked Valtos to keep him here, and found a lottery prize notification letter, and a few other things too. The most important of these was Ashford here. I know that Ashford had an excellent reason to commit the murder, because I found something in Skilton's files that told me a little about Ashford's employment."

"Well you had no blasted right to be going through those files at all," said Ashford, "which means you might have been the sort of bloke to murder Valtos' wife yourself."

"Not at all, Ashford. You were well aware of the fact that the butler is often if not always the prime suspect in a murder at a stately home in which a butler is employed. This is because many a novelist has decided to have the owner of the the house leave it to the butler in his will. You knew that Valtos had done a similar thing for Skilton, because Skilton told you, and you set out to frame him."

"How's that supposed to help me? I'm not going to inherit Valtos's wealth by killing his wife."

"Of course you wouldn't, but you might Anger Valtos enough to motivate him to kill Skilton. You could always kill Skilton yourself, if that didn't work. To seal the lid on the case, you needed only to kill Valtos as well. That would stop any of them from enjoying the Valtos inheritance."
"But it still won't help me to get hold of it. The Valtos inheritance could be given to some distant relatives. If I were to get hold of it, I would be giving away my involvement in the murder I've been accused of."

"My accusation is a valid one. The thing that you have avoided discussing is the fact that you weren't interested in the Valtos inheritance. It was merely a convenient motive for Skilton, which people would believe, when you framed him. You didn't want to kill Skilton yourself. It would look too obvious. So you framed him for Alicia's murder, in order to frame Valtos for Skilton's death, or alternatively have Valtos kill Skilton out of mistaken desire for revenge."

"But why would I want to kill my fellow resident Skilton?"

"Because you are in a position to benefit from his death, much more in fact than Skilton could ever have benefited from receiving the Valtos inheritance. Skilton wanted to butle for an employer who had won his respect, but he also wanted a clean and well-managed house of his own, which he could already afford. Skilton really had no motive - despite the possible gain from the Valtos inheritance - because he was  already so wealthy that he had hired you to be his butler."

"Don't look so shocked, Ashford. The theory about the butler was right all along. As many people would automatically say 'the butler did it.' Higgins had it all worked out, except that he would have blamed the wrong butler. You see, I also found in your employer's filing cabinet some documentary evidence to the effect that Skilton was following his employer's example, and leaving his wealth to you. By the way, Anthony, am I right in assuming that you stayed on at Valtos's for the good company? You would have gladly butled for your own family if you had one, wouldn't you?"

"It's true," said Skilton, "I am an orphan. A wealthy orphan now, but nonetheless a lonely one."

"So you didn't have anyone else to leave your wealth to anyway, apart from Valtos, who had enough of his own."

"That's right, but I would have amended it if I had met such a person in time. I'll be amending it now. There's still a charity or two that would be more deserving of my wealth than Ashford."

"Well they might be getting a fair bit more now, because even though we had a guilty one committing the murder, I believe that the Valtos estate now goes to Anthony Skilton, who will be remembered in the historical law reports as a man who has unwittingly turned the tables on many a novelist, as well as the trusted employee who endeavoured unsuccessfully to discredit him. Inspector Higgins, I believe that you owe an apology and some legal assistance to an innocent butler!"

With the case out of the way, Percy wondered how he might convincingly be surprised by Ingrid after shrinking himself again. To go to her house again would be stretching coincidence. He waited until she gave him some advance notice of a place that she would be attending without him.

She said that she wanted to shop for his birthday present in the city and then take a walk through the Botanical Gardens.

“I love that nice pathway that goes towards Government House’s borderline fence,” she said, which gave him a way to identify a good place to which he might teleport and get ‘caught.’

He waited for her in the garden beside that path at the estimated time of her arrival. One thing was different. This time there were several people in the gardens, mainly housewives whose husbands were at work. She would not be able to stop and talk to him. He guessed that she would most likely put him into her shopping bag until she could find a solitary spot to announce his fate.

He saw Ingrid approaching and let her see him. She walked over, looked around, and then picked him up quickly and lifted him up above her head, tilted her head back, opened her mouth and popped him straight in.

“Not even a lick,” he thought, “She sure solved the problem of avoiding being noticed.”

She walked for a while with him in her mouth, and then gulped him down.

That night she came to his house, snuggled up into bed with him, and licked him suddenly.

“It’s funny,” she said, “I can’t think what you remind me of, but you taste like something else I’ve had lately.”

Ingrid was becoming suspicious. To hide his secret, he would have to prepare the ruse of his Sneaky Spy career.