Chapter 6: Globules

I’d read that relative to surface area, a sphere is the most efficient container of a given volume. Somehow, this seemed odd to me – why not a cube? – so I spent a little time working things out. It’s true, the sphere is superior. What’s more, a cylinder is better than a cube and, if you really want to know, I concluded that the more the cube is elongated to a rectangular cuboid – or whatever it’s called – and the more a cylinder diverges from congruence of diameter and height, the less effective the two bodies become.

This dissertation on geometry is what I imagine the literary critics would call a contrivance, as it brings me to my meeting with Thomas Towers, the most inappropriately named client I ever had. In fairness to me, the above-mentioned cerebration, though still in progress at the time I have in mind, had started a couple of days before Thomas dropped in, so I’m not being too devious.

The top half of the partition between my waiting roomlet and the office was of frosted glass, so I’d noticed that I had a visitor, but out of sheer cussedness I’d decided to ignore the fact for a while. Though the outline was indistinct, I felt sure that the caller was a male. He seemed to be standing or leaning between the two landscape prints on the far wall and looking through one of my ancient magazines. Was he honing his mind with an antedeluvian Readers Digest, or learning how to catch freshwater fish? You’ll note that the material I provided was not too contentious. No ‘Gun of the Week’ stuff and nothing from the newsagents’ top shelves.

I don’t know how long my man would have stayed there, but he showed no sign of impatience for ten minutes. Maybe he’d had a mind-slip and thought he was calling on his dentist. Well, that might have explained his apparent reluctance to proceed.

If it was a chicken game, I cracked first. I walked over, opened the inner door and without really looking at the chap, asked him to enter, then ambled back to my chair. By the time I’d taken up my position, he’d just about got into the room. That was no mean feat for him, since he was as near spherical as a man can be. I put his height at five-five. As to his circumference, words almost fail me. Rotund doesn’t begin to express it. He was the most roly-poly fellow I’ve ever seen. If he’d been tipped over, it would have been even money whether or not he could have been righted. On second thought, maybe tipping over a globe is a contradiction in terms. Sorry to go on about this, but I write of a remarkable sight. I put the man at about forty years of age.

“Morning. Have a seat,” I said, waving in a take your pick gesture and wishing I had a sofa to accommodate him. I’d been cunning enough to get visitors’ chairs without arms – no point in letting people get too comfortable – so he managed to deposit himself, albeit with considerable overflow.

“Good morning,” he said. “Mr Potts?” The voice was a high squeak, possibly, I thought, a consequence of all that flesh constricting his vocal chords. He was sweating and ill at ease. I can’t be too precise about the wardrobe details – clothing a shape like that can’t be easy. I’ve said before that I don’t like harping on about the physical peculiarities of others, lest they should do the same for me. Oh, would that we could be so wise, to see ourselves through others’ eyes. Okay, I borrowed that from the Scottish bard and amended it a little. I seem to recall observing a plain dark suit, a cream shirt and a lightly-patterned predominantly mid-blue tie. The thinning hair was mid-brown and plastered flat.

“Yes. Can I do something for you?”

“I hope so. I really do.” Agitated.

“Please go on. My time is yours, up to a point.”

He steadied himself with a deep breath. “I need your services, Mr Potts. My name is Thomas Towers.” I could hardly help thinking that here was a misnomer to beat all others. Couldn’t he have been called Ball, Roundtree or Rolls? Anything but Towers. “I’m very upset. If you can’t help, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Helping people is my business, Mr Towers,” I said. “What’s troubling you?”

“I hardly know what to say,” he squawked. “I’m with Goodbody & Frith. Maybe you know of us?”

I didn’t, and told him so.

“Well,” he said, “We’ve been in business for many years. We supply greeting cards, decorative wrapping paper and the like. There are only twelve of us, but we survive.”

“I see,” I said. “Now, why do you need me?”

He’d begun to wring his hands. “You may think this a little silly, but it’s important to me.”

“Mr Towers, I never consider anything silly or otherwise without knowing the facts.” Grave, yet reassuring.

“That’s a relief,” he replied. “Now, my firm was founded by an Englishman named George Goodbody. He came from Lancashire and it seems they had a culture there involving in-house social clubs. The idea was that employees paid small amounts each week, so that they could have a special celebration at Christmas. This was started up at our company from the beginning. It’s completely unnecessary these days, as we’re all in reasonably comfortable circumstances, but it’s become a tradition with us.”

Not wanting to halt his flow, I scooped my hands, inviting him to go on.

“Well, from time to time, we appoint a treasurer who collects the payments and accounts for them. Then we decide what we are to do. I’ve held the purse strings for two years and last week, the blow fell.”

“What blow?” I asked.

“Our money,” he groaned. “The funds disappeared. It must have happened late on Friday. That’s pay-day, so it’s when I collect, then I put the cash away in the evening. Normally, I don’t look at it again until the following Friday but this time, one of my colleagues called to pay his contribution on Saturday morning. He’d been away from work for two days and just happened to be passing my home. When I went to add his money to the rest, the box was empty. It’s terrible.”

“I see,” I said. “How much is involved?”

“Sixty-three dollars,” he wailed.

I was accustomed to strange cases, but offhand, I couldn’t think of anything odder than this. “Mr Towers,” I said, “I sympathise with your position, but do you realise that even if I can help you, the cost in my fees and expenses would be more than you’ve lost?”

He wobbled his pumpkin head in a nod. “I understand that,” he said, “but this is a matter of honour. I don’t care about the cost.”

I silently applauded his morals, if not his common sense. “All right,” I said. “I have another case in progress, but I can’t do much about it today, so if you’ll give me some details, I’ll look into the matter.” In fact, I hadn’t had a case for over two weeks. I mentioned my fees, which made him blanch a little but didn’t seriously dent his resolve, which he’d summoned up to the extent that he positively forced a day’s pay upon me.

Thomas said he was a bachelor, living with his widowed mother. There was no-one else in the house. I said I wanted to see the place, so we set off, using both our cars. Twenty minutes later we reached the spot – a detached, two-storey red-brick building in the southern suburbs; a middling social area. I was introduced to Mrs Towers, in a confrontation that was almost too much to bear. The matriarch was, I guessed, in her late sixties. I suspected that her hair had whitened at some point, but was now a striking carroty shade. She wore a startling print dress, with unidentifiable curly red, green and yellow things writhing on a white background. But it was her shape that was most arresting. Thomas was evidently a chip off the old block. I’d thought that he was the ultimate in globularity, but Ma Towers was about his equal. She might have been the merest shade shorter than her son, but barely deferred to him in girth. I was experiencing this, but having trouble believing it.

In terms of excitement, there was little to choose between mother and son. Mrs Towers was, it appeared, aware of the facts and acutely distressed. The two seemed to be trying to outdo one another in the misery stakes.

Together, we made a tour of the property, during which I ascertained that Mrs T. slept on the opposite side of the house from her son, her bedroom being higher than his, owing to a tiny landing and a turn in the stairs. We went back to the living room.

Thomas explained that he secreted his social club funds in a tin money box, which was no more than a toy, kept under a pile of towels in an upstairs cupboard. The more I quizzed this pair, the weirder the whole thing seemed. Finally, I suggested interviewing them separately, “Nothing improper,” I said. “Simply a question of details emerging from two different sources, without extraneous chemistry.”

Mrs T. was tickled pink – I think it was my inspired use of ‘extraneous’ that got to her. “You mean like in those English country house mysteries?” she said, eyes agleam.

I nodded. “Something like that. Think of me as Miss Marple. You might be surprised what comes out.”

I commandeered the living room and dealt with Thomas first. It was revealing. He had his doubts about his mother; misgivings reinforced by the fact that there was, as he saw it, no other party involved. There hadn’t been a break-in and there’d been no visitors in the week concerned, so no-one but Thomas and his mother had had access to the cash. Furthermore, Thomas had been suspicious of Mrs T. for some time. She received housekeeping money from him and in the past few months had regularly returned from the weekly shopping with more things than seemed reasonable, considering what she claimed to have spent. Then there was the sudden appearance of double-glazed windows – an undiscussed extravagance which Thomas reckoned they couldn’t afford. There was more in the same vein, all suggesting that the financial propriety of Ma Towers was questionable. In fact, Thomas confessed, had the present exigency not arisen, he would have been inclined to engage me to look into his mother’s conduct.