"And what do you want?" "Joining me for breakfast?" "Let's see what we've got for you today." "How about this one?" "Samson?" "No!" "Come on, out we get." "Come on, spit." "Good boy." "Good boy!" "Thank you, Elliot It's bad enough that he chews up the newspapers." "And anything left in my in-tray." "An entire thesis on sub-dural haematoma yesterday." "A Barclaycard application is not carcinogenic." "Let's not prejudge the research on that." "You're not going into the lab?" "This afternoon, possibly." "When I've tidied this presentation." "Well, just... keep the door locked in future." "Come on, Samson, we're going." "Come on, good boy." "Come with me." "There's a good boy!" ""DANSE MACABRE" BY SAINT-SAËNS)" "Yes!" "A second audition!" "What did I say?" "!" " It's all happening!" " Yes, you like that, eh?" "But I'm rewarded by scratching you." " Jordan?" " What?" "Your wife has some good news." "Yes, wonderful." ""The director and I were impressed by your interpretation of the character" ""as an intellectual vacuum. "" "What does that mean?" "They liked the way you made her empty-headed." "Right." "Oh, right!" "Well, maybe... if for the next interview I had my hair up more..." "Young lady, you're putting on weight!" "It's normal in pregnancy." "Yes, I sup..." "Pregnant?" "!" "Why?" "What do you mean, why?" "She's a sexually mature adult." "God knows, we could do with some round here!" "And soon, the joys of parenthood will be yours, won't they, Polly?" "Good luck!" "Do we know who the father is?" "Cathy, there are only two mangabeys in this house." "They only mate with their own species." "You wouldn't copulate with an orang-utan?" "Don't dignify that with an answer!" "L wish I'd never started this conversation." "Are you going to be late for the clinic?" "The first screening is not until 10.30." "It's someone you may know, actually." "Remember Dr Sally Creek, who worked with me in a grotty portacabin in the early '70s?" " Thought she emigrated?" " She did." "This is her son." "L promised to give him a full MOT every couple of years." "Doesn't he get embarrassed, stripping off" " in front of a friend of his mother's?" " Oh, yes." "Last time I saw you, you were panicking about the moles on your back." "Was I?" "Probably." "Has somebody been keeping an eye on them for you?" "Not lately." "Oh, dear." "Has it been as bad as that?" "Mouth wide open, tongue down." "L thought with you moving in glamorous showbiz circles, you'd meet young ladies." "Nn, not reawy." "A certain type, I suppose." "Must be difficult." "Smashing." "On the bed now." "Underpants down, lie back, think of England." "What was it your mother was telling me the last time I rang about you fathoming out some complicated murder case?" "Cough." "Yes." "It's been getting a bit of a habit." "Ever since I ran into this... crime writer woman, things seem to keep happening." " Unattached?" " What is?" "!" "This person." "You always had this inside-out way of looking at things that makes you good at what you do." "That's lovely." "On your side now, knees up to your chin." "So, have you still got all your monkeys?" "Oh, yes. 14, and a 15th expected shortly." "Plus our son and his wife." "And they call it evolution" "How's the baby gorilla?" "Ha, not much of a baby these days." "You should come and see us." "It's been a long time." "That's all champion!" "There's a tissue there if you need it." "Continuing." "Conclusions drawn on the mutative role of mould in the liver cells of turkeys." "Oh, my God!" "Oh... no!" "No!" "NO-O-O-O!" "NO!" "NO!" "HELP!" "HELP ME-E-E-E!" "ARGH!" "Anyone home?" "Anywhere will do." "That'll be fine." "L'll just be two ticks." "Elliot, do you have any change?" "L've nothing smaller than a 50 for the..." "Elliot?" "Elliot!" "JORDAN!" "JORDAN!" "Mother?" "105, and that's coming up to three minutes now." "L don't think that's bad when you consider I came up here at a fair lick." "What's that?" "A pulse meter." "You clip it to your ear." "It measures your heart rate." "She said everything is fine, but my aerobic capacity is a bit low, so do more exercise." "Eight flights of stairs shouldn't knacker you." " Knackers me." " Yeah, well... you'd expect..." "I mean, you're a lot more..." "Yeah?" "Do you fancy a... quick walk before lunch?" "Yes." "The key is still in there." "The door is solid as a rock." "How long will it take to cut through the window grille?" "Thank you so much for waiting for me L really appreciate it" "Is there any lock you can't pick your way in through?" "A "little walk before lunch"?" "What the hell did you want to go up that hill for?" "!" "L said, "Are you on for a brisk stroll to the top?"" "And you said, "I'll drink to that. "" "L said, "Bollocks to that", which you'd have heard if you hadn't gone off like a lunatic!" "If I have to keep stopping for you to catch up, it's not continuous." "Irregular exercise has no beneficial effect." "Oh, shut up!" "What?" "No, it's just..." "Know when you leave a beetroot too long and it goes sweaty?" "Don't push it, Jonathan!" "Sorry." "Jonathan Creek." "Ingrid, hi, how are y...?" "My God!" "Wha...?" "How did...?" "Mrs Strange, have you any idea why your husband would have locked his study door?" "This particular ape - you might have noticed we have a menagerie here - has a taste for paper." "Just closing the door won't keep him out." "L imagine that's why he locked it - to protect his work." "And this suit of armour, or whatever it is, in there?" "The sword was part of that?" "It's an authentic 12th-century Samurai battle dress." "He picked it up eight years ago on a lecture tour of the Far East during his anthropological phase." "Can I ask you not to sit like that?" "He's reading it as a display of sexual dominance." "Um... your husband enjoyed a high profile in the field of medical research?" "Well, I don't know about enjoyed." "There are some very short-sighted people in our society, who put the welfare of a laboratory mouse above a treatment for tumours." "Because he believed in what he was doing, and said so, he was not very popular with the so-called animal rights fraternity." "It appears he was speaking into this Dictaphone when the attack took place, just seconds before you returned." "May I?" "No..." "Oh... nol" "NOl" "No... nol ARGHI" "Elliot, do you have any change?" "L've nothing smaller than a 50..." "Well... we do seem to have a problem here, Mrs Strange." "With the door still locked from the inside, as it was, the fact that no one could have left the room without you or the taxi driver seeing them, and as we seem to have eliminated any panels or openings in the walls..." "Inspector, the evidence is there." "Someone was in his study and stabbed him." "Don't ask me how, don't ask me who." "And don't tell me it's impossible." "L know it's impossible!" "You're the detectives." "You tell me how it was done!" "Because if you can't maybe there's someone else who can." "They've been right the way round, every corner, every crevice." "The cupboards are chock-full of rubbish." "The chimney's blocked off." "A rat couldn't get through." "There are four walls of solid brick behind all this!" "There was no one else in the building?" "Jordan was in the garden." "Cathy had gone shopping." "L wasn't working today." "L just went to the clinic to get some files." "Do you know, the thing I really don't understand is how the hell I'm coping." "It's as if I've had a painkilling injection." "Everything is numb." "Whoever did this, we're all wondering how they got out, but how did they get in in the first place?" "The window was barred, the walls are all solid..." "Unless, of course, they were in here already when he went to lock the door so he couldn't see them." "The police had the same idea." "They took the whole thing to bits and put it together again." "Not very successfully." "Pretty hefty gash here, in the desk." "The killer went for him, probably." "He dodged out of the way." "Hmm, the body was over there... but there's blood on the desk as well." "Fair old struggle between them by the look of it." "These books would have come from..." "that top shelf?" "Looks as if they've been used as missiles." "Like they've been thrown across the room." "And why?" "Out of all this lot, why pick three books from a shelf that he could hardly reach?" "Unless he didn't and they flew across the room on their own." "Can I say two words here, if anyone's listening? "Amityville Horror"." "Why don't you go and see to Cathy?" "That sedative will be wearing off." "You know I'm right." "You just can't face the truth!" "You see why I need someone else here?" "Someone from the planet Earth!" "Night seems to have stolen up on us." "You'll stay over, won't you?" "Both of you." "It feels like we're teetering on the edge of reality." "L really don't want to fall off." "Oh, sorry..." "I didn't realise." " Almost human." " He's not so clever." "L thought, for a gorilla, that was impressive." "Would you eat the toilet roll?" "What sort is it?" "Andrex?" "Probably not, no." "Actually, Jordan, I was about to go in there." "Not just yet, Jonathan." "Come with me." "Amazing things." " How long have you had them?" " 19 years, since my first capuchin." "L find their social behaviour totally compulsive." "And... the animals your husband used in his research?" "Are kept at the institute." "They didn't include the higher primates." "Whatever the truth is of what happened in that room Jonathan will fathom it." "He's got, like, this incredible way of juggling things in his mind." "L'm glad he's found someone, finally." "God knows, it's taken him long enough." "It's not like that, actually." "Jonathan and I are more just..." "Why?" "What has he been saying?" "He doesn't need to say anything." "It's there in his body language." "In what way?" "When we are sexually attracted to someone, our whole posture changes." "Barrier signals are dropped." "We leave our mouths open for longer, we moisten our lips more." "If you study his eyes, his pupils dilate when he looks at you." "It's an involuntary gesture." "He won't be aware it's happening." "Jonathan?" "Is doing all that?" "And I never noticed!" "This is my line of business - orthopaedic office systems." "If you want a power-assisted swivel with dedicated desk control, this is the one." "You've got your variable height and tilt individual foot support and lift." "Yeah... reminds me of the gynaecology ride at Disneyland!" "OK, relax." "L didn't bring you in here to show you a chair." "Of course not." "You and I, Jonathan, we're the same." "We grew up with science all around us, but we also know there's something else out there science can't even get near!" ""The Shining"." "Ever see that film?" "L'm afraid I did, yeah." "L'll tell you something weird about it - the initials SK." "Stanley Kubrick, right, who directed it," "Stephen King, who wrote the book and South Kensington, where I went to see it!" "The whole thing only struck me a year ago." "L kept thinking to myself, "SK, why?"" "And that night, do you know what I discover?" "The film is being shown on Sky Television!" "S" " K-Y!" "Can you explain it, Jonathan?" "No one can explain that!" "Can I go to the toilet now?" "In that film, the hotel is built on the site of an ancient Cherokee burial ground, leading to a string of unexplained horrific deaths!" "L think that's what's happening here, in this house." "L'm not sure the Cherokees ever got as far as Amersham, Jordan." "But if I were to tell you that our house was built on unconsecrated soil where murderers and witches were buried in the 17th century, you'll begin to see." "L'm sorry." "How can you eat?" "Got no appetite." "Why isn't someone doing something?" "Instead of just sitting here!" "L mean, he's dead and we're just... sitting!" "For God's sake, Elliot's been murdered!" "And what have they sent?" "!" "L can't believe this!" "One policeman!" "How will he find the killer standing out there?" "!" "You watch him!" "He just wanders about by the gate!" "Does he think the killer will walk by?" "!" "It's a joke!" "Cathy, that's just a duty constable posted there to keep away sightseers." "The CID are carrying out a thorough investigation, I promise you." "Well, what have we got?" "Some books that fell off a top shelf, an empty suit of armour." "It doesn't exactly shout at you." "L don't know." "How it was done is a puzzle, but what really stumps me is why." "Lf, even for the sake of argument, your husband killed himself and wanted to make it look like murder, he won't do it in a hermetically-sealed room." "It completely defeats the object." "Equally, if someone wanted to make it look like suicide, rigged up the locked room, why stab him in the back and why leave that Dictaphone behind?" "He must know it proved he'd been attacked." "Well early night, I think." "Sleep on it." "L might get the rest of those books down tomorrow, check on those shelves." "For now, I'll say goodnight." "Goodnight." "Night." "L know exactly what you're thinking." "The sword came out of the wall on some sort of mechanism, probably from behind those books on the top shelf, shot across the room somehow and got him in the back!" " The sword was on the suit of armour." " Wait a sec..." "The person he was shouting at was on the phone!" "They weren't in the room at all, but on the phone, making some sort of terrible threats!" "It could have been any one of the three of them - his wife or dumb and dumber!" "If he was on the phone, how come the receiver was replaced?" "Plus, I'll tell you something else." "L think Elliot Strange was having an affair with his daughter-in-law." " Based on what?" " L just got a strong feel." "There was more to all those tears." "Her own marriage has gone to the pictures." "All that guff from him about paranormal forces!" "There's definitely something going on under the surface we're not seeing." "Mmm." "Problem and a half." "Shall I get in?" "If you want." "Or... what about this?" "One of the animals did it." "One of the little ones." "Could have been hidden inside a cupboard that was too small for a person and stabbed him in the back." "Right..." "I see your reasoning." "But you think it sucks." "Why?" "It's that image of the organ grinder's monkey coming at you with a sword." " Would you scream for mercy?" " Or put some money in its tin?" "Thing I can't get my head round, if the sword missed him, when it caught the edge of the desk, why was there blood there?" "L just can't work out where it's all leading." "We're in bed together, Jonathan." "Where's that leading?" "Why is it, do you suppose, that you keep on seeing me?" "Sod's law?" "The reason is because you're deeply attracted to me emotionally and sexually." "Ingrid explained it all." "Your body gives off all sorts of signals you don't even know about." "And why do you keep seeing me?" "L just want you for your brain." "What's this?" "Sorry?" "This... thing that measures your pulse?" "!" "What have you got this on for in bed?" "Er..." "I..." "Oh, you bastard!" "What?" "Is that what you were going to do?" "Check your heart rate while we were having sex?" "!" "L mustn't overload it." "Overload it?" "!" "Thank you" "Don't make love to me with that heavy goods licence" "How dare you assume I was going to walk in here and get into bed with you!" " But you did." " That is irrelevant!" "You have no right to assume it!" "L wouldn't sleep with you, Jonathan, if my life depended on it." "L can't imagine whatever made you think I would." "It was Ingrid." "She told me the same as she told you, that your body language showed interest." "That just shows you what a hollow farce it all is, doesn't it?" "So you can bugger off and let me get some sleep!" " But this is my room!" " L'm not in the mood for smart-arse logic!" "Just go!" "Gone up to 125 now." "Get out!" "JONATHAN!" "What in the name of God...?" "What happened?" "He just went..." "I don't know..." " What?" " Ape shit!" "Where?" " Don't try to move." " It's OK, no, I... just took a tumble." "He just came at me, almost like he was..." "Possessed?" "You invent conjuring tricks?" "Sorry?" "Is that what you're going to do?" "Work out how this was done so we'll all be amazed?" "But you're not going to bring him back to life, are you?" "No, Cathy, we're not going to do that." "That is weird." "Weird as weird can be." "What is?" "This footprint." "What?" "There's another one here." "Someone's been climbing up these shelves." " Hello?" " Hello, is that Cathy Strange?" "No, but she's up and about now if you want to talk to her." " Inspector Masterson is due at 10.30." " Half past." " Will you let her know?" " Yes, I'll tell her." "Bye." "Where are you going?" "L'm going to poke about in her room." "Give me a shout if she comes back in." "L'm not too sure she'd thank you for this." "L'm damn sure she wouldn't." "What's happening now?" "!" "L think we'd better go downstairs." "L never knew you kept a diary!" "There's a lot you don't know, Jordan." "Do you want to read it out?" "Well, you're a journalist, I suppose you did shorthand?" "!" ""October 15." "At long last!" "E and I had fantastic sox... "" " I think that's meant to say sex." " It does say sex!" "Actually, it says sox, but we won't quibble." "Oh, really" "L did two years secretarial!" "L think I know the difference between sex and sox!" "I..." ""Afterwards, as we lay knackered next to each other... "" " NAKED it says!" " Sorry, if we're being accurate, naked's outline would be different." "E and I had sex?" "Why is that such a crime?" "The "I" doesn't stand for Ingrid, Jordan." " Doesn't stand..." "You're making this up!" " L wish she was." "What, you knew?" "How?" "L may be a wizened old bat to you, Cathy, but that doesn't mean I'm as blind as one!" "Some other time I'll give you a lesson in subliminal bonding gestures." "For God's sake, I'd seen it coming for months." "L could almost say he needed it to flush it out of his system." "Afterwards, when he told me, he threw himself on my mercy." "You're lying!" "Elliot would never tell..." "Cathy... you have the body of a woman and the brain of a sexually-stunted newt!" "L can't get my head round this!" "On top of everything, my wife was sleeping with my father!" "Once, Jordan!" "Perfect tense!" "And can't you see that you were as responsible as she was?" "!" "If you'd take your marriage by the scruff of the neck and make it work!" "How did this happen?" "Where did it happen?" "Not in this house?" " In this house!" " Where?" " Can't you guess?" " Cathy, you didn't?" "!" "Oh, for God's sake, does it matter?" "Not in the swivel chair?" "!" "We set it to maximum tilt." "The hydraulics were wonderful!" "With my father in my chair?" "!" "How could you do that to me?" "!" "Oh, right!" "And how do you think I felt?" "Losing my husband to a bloody monkey!" "The fingerprints on the sword have been identified." "They all belonged to your husband." "As he picked it up the other morning, that's no surprise." "Is that all?" "The circumstances here are unusual." "You can't expect a solution to just fall out of the sky!" "Mrs Strange, you said you went into town to buy some clothes?" "If you wouldn't mind telling us which stores you visited?" "L didn't kill him!" "For God's sake, I wasn't even here!" " Yes, so if you could let us know..." " Don't you believe me?" "!" "You think I could have killed him?" "!" "No one's accusing you at this stage." "No, but you will if I can't account for my movements!" "It's just elimination." "She's very emotional." " L said..." " Ask her or him if you want a reason!" "They had every reason!" "L wouldn't put it past them!" "You see the irrational hysteria?" "Where have we seen that?" "Two words - "Fatal Attraction!" Am I right?" " If I could butt in..." " Your statement will be compared..." "Oh, right, I'm on trial here because you can't take my word for it!" "Have you nothing better to do than...!" "L know who murdered him!" "If anyone is interested." "The footprints on the shelves, what was that all about?" "Someone had climbed this bookcase, when there's a set of steps over there." "Taken books from the top shelf, hurled them across the room." "Does that make sense?" "Then I realised that was the whole point, it doesn't have to make sense." "Well, that was most illuminating, Mr Creek." " Now, if we could get back to our question?" " Uh... er..." "I think there may be more." "There was no sense either in that gorilla suddenly going off its rocker, leaping off the balcony, when a day before it had been as nice as pie, flushing the lavatory after it had been and everything." "So what connected these two acts of total madness?" "About half an hour ago, in this room, I found it." "A book of his... that he had signed on the inside." "All sealed up and ready to be sent off to someone called Teresa Tolling." "Does that name mean anything to anyone?" "Apart from the fact it's an anagram of Elliot Strange?" "Which probably means there's no such person or address." " An anagram made up by who?" " Exactly." "From the fact it's been folded and this isn't his handwriting, it was obviously a stamped-addressed job someone had sent him." "The envelope for which was still down there in the bin." ""Huge fan... "" ""If you'd kindly sign the enclosed and return it to me," ""I'd be the envy of all my colleagues. "" "Oh... my God!" " L think I'm beginning to see!" " You see it now?" " So, when Elliot had..." " Exactly." " And when Samson chewed, both..." " Precisely." "Thank you If you have something to tell us, for God's sake, spit it out!" "If they'd done that, they might still be alive." "Spit it out?" "What?" "What did Dr Strange do that Samson the gorilla also did?" "Looking at how chewed up and bitten into this is they both tasted the gummed flap on this envelope." "The second I realised, it frightened me to death." "How easy it is for a lunatic to commit a long-distance murder." "No letter bomb." "Just some pretext for them to lick a SAE that you've sent them." "You could put anything on the sticky bit." "Poison." "In this case, from the effect it had both times," "I'd say a particular kind of poison, like some sort of bad acid, something that would kill him, but would turn his brain inside out along the way." "You are saying some... animal rights activist could put something on the flap of that envelope?" "Say they got hold of some dodgy stuff," " fatal in the right dose." " Excuse me." "My father was found in a locked room with a sword in his back." "Explain that!" "L've looked at it every which way." "No one else could get into this study and no one could get out." "It may be that there's another sequence that could explain it all." "So far, I can only come up with one." "Dr Strange had locked the door to make sure he wasn't disturbed." "First of, he deals with his morning mail." "Signs the book someone's sent him." "Licks the flap to seal the envelope." "Might taste funny, but he won't read anything into that." "He won't know he's swallowed some lethal hallucinogenic drug." "Only now, it's just a matter of time before he starts tripping out, seeing things that aren't there." "Continuing." "Conclusions drawn on the mutative role of mould in the liver cells of turkeys." "Oh, my God!" "Oh... no!" "No!" "NO-O-O-O!" "HELP ME-E-E-E!" "Tumbling off the shelves onto that blade had to be an accident." "Something the killer..." "no one could have foreseen." "The drug was the murder weapon." "The sword - a rather horrible bonus." "Elliot, do you have any change?" "L have nothing smaller than a 50..." "Elliot?" "Something set that gorilla off." "We all saw it." "L just think it's too much of a coincidence." "It has to be the envelope." "At some point later in the evening, it went back in the study looking for a snack." "So, if poor old Samson hadn't chewed his paper..." "Hang on, you said that's a made-up name." "How will we trace the person that sent it?" "What was interesting about the address on the envelope the killer sent was the name of the street." "Here, look." "Polo Park Lane..." "when it should have been Pool Park." "Polo instead of Pool." "Two letters transposed suggests a typing error." "Except it's been written by hand!" "But it could have been copied from something mistyped." "If someone wanted to kill a famous scientist, and wanted to find out where he lived, they'd... write to his publishers?" "Who would forward it here." "They'd never give out his address to the public." "Any more than Elliot would when he wrote back." "He knew how many cranks there were." "As I discovered when I checked his files." "So, what if they wrote to someone else in the house who wasn't so careful?" "Cathy Strange, actress, daughter-in-law of Elliot Strange, would receive a fan letter sent on by her agent from someone who knew she lived in the same house." "She'd write back." "A little thank you." "Address at the top of the page." "Except she mistypes Pool Park Lane as Polo Park Lane." "L'm afraid that's exactly what happened." "On October 7th, you wrote to Alistair Tyree of Nantwich in Cheshire." "Alsager House, 17 Polo Park Lane." "Could be an almighty coincidence, but... if his saliva checks out against that envelope and you find he's a paid-up liberationist with known drug connections..." "You wouldn't be at all surprised." "L wouldn't, actually." "You're a cocky sod." ""Within three days, forensic investigation" ""confirmed Tyree, an unemployed graduate" ""with convictions for radical activity and drug trafficking," ""as the missing link in the strange case of Elliot Strange and the House of Monkeys." ""Once again, the probing lateral brain of Jonathan Creek" ""had pierced the dark, restoring reason to another seemingly impossible mystery. "" "All right, I know it's cheesy and tacky and corny, but it also sells books and it'll get me in the shops!" "It's fine for you." "You've got a secure income." "L need the dosh!" "Be different if I wasn't on my own, had someone else to support me." "And everything." "You're right." "L'm being selfish." "You know we came that close, when we were at that house to doing it." "And then I got all bitchy and blew up again." "Sorry about that." "It's all right." " What do you mean?" " Sorry?" "You think I was bitchy?" "Is that what you were thinking, "What an utter bitch"?" "!" "What is it with you?" "!" "You can never say the right thing, can you?" "Never!" "L didn't mean..." " Can we start again?" " No!" "L've gone right off the boil now." "110 lying down!" "You've got to get some exercise."