Holmes and Watson had just entered the grounds of the Milverton estate when Erin’s Finest came into the President’s Dining Room.

The beer belly alone might have been enough to make me recognize him out of the corner of my eye, but the headgear eliminated all doubt. Who else in Erin, Ohio, would wear a Panama hat? It had to be Oscar Hummel, a man too vain to show his balding head in public and yet too cheap to buy a wig. He always covers his pate with some tasteless hat or cap.

He sidled up to Mac, who was standing at the front of the room in his role as director of the Reader’s Theatre. After a tête-à-tête of no more than thirty seconds, the two left the room together, going past our table on the way out.

“What do you think Oscar wants with Mac?” Lynda asked in a low voice.

“You can bet they aren’t talking baseball,” I said. “Oscar probably found out from the Winfield that Matheson was in Erin for the colloquium. Mac organized the colloquium, so he might know the guy, right? Remember, Oscar has a keen perception of the obvious.”

That’s what had me worried. Of course Oscar would have his men scour the hotel for witnesses, just as any big-city force would do. How long could it be before somebody remembered seeing a man and woman leaving the hotel or maybe even Matheson’s floor around the time of the killing? Hours, not days. I had visions of Oscar throwing Lynda and me in his basement cell and shining lights in our eyes. Suddenly it was hot in the President’s Dining Room.

The actors on the stools in front were winding down their presentation of “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton.” Holmes and Watson, nearly caught in the act of burglary, watch as Milverton meets with one of his blackmail victims, a mysterious woman. She pulls out a gun and plugs Milverton repeatedly. With the rest of the household awakened by gunfire, Holmes and Watson run for it. (I kind of knew how they felt.) The out-of-shape doctor barely makes it over the wall and then-

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

My body twitched and I sucked air.

“Man, Jeff, you got a guilty conscience or what?”

“Oscar!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Tell you in the hallway.”

Oscar Hummel is forty-seven years old and looks older, never been married and it shows. Sometimes I worry that he’s what I could become in another few years of bachelorhood, minus the belly, but then I remind myself that I have better clothes sense. He was wearing a plaid sport coat over hound’s tooth pants and a pink shirt, no tie.

I followed him and Lynda followed me. Mac was a few yards outside the door, sitting in a blue plastic chair and making a half-dollar appear and disappear in his oversized hands.

“Cut out the damned parlor tricks,” Oscar growled at him. Turning to say something to me, he finally caught on that Lynda was part of the entourage.

“Oh, joy,” he said. “The press. Just what I need at nine-thirty on a Saturday night when I oughta be popping a beer and watching the Reds in spring training.”

“The game was this afternoon,” Lynda said. “They played the Cubs. I don’t know who won.”

Oscar didn’t seem to be particularly cheered by this information. He sighed. “At least you can give me a cigarette, Teal.” His mother disapproves of him smoking, so Oscar never buys cigarettes. But that doesn’t stop him from smoking them. This time, however, Lynda shook her head. “Sorry, Chief, I quit.”

He favored her with a sour look. “In that case, get the hell out of here.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, just as if I didn’t know.

Lynda, ignoring Oscar’s order to leave, silently offered him a stick of Big Red. He took it without thanks.

“Murder,” he said, putting the gum into his mouth. “Hot-shot lawyer from Cincy. Hugh Matheson. I’ve heard of him - who hasn’t? - and Mac knew him.”

“Indeed,” Mac said, making the coin vanish with the slightest motion of his hand. “The news of Hugh’s passing in this unpleasant manner is most distressing.”

“We weren’t friends,” I told Oscar, “but I met him this weekend.”

“And I sat next to him during some of the lectures and at lunch,” Lynda volunteered. Very smart, pointing that out before somebody else does.

Oscar grimaced and took the gum out of his mouth. “I hate cinnamon. Are you trying to poison me or what, Teal?”

“Don’t talk like that,” I snapped. The murder had me about ready to jump out of my skin, and I certainly was in no mood for attempts at homicidal humor.

“What happened to Matheson?” Lynda asked Oscar, another smart move on her part.

“Shot in the neck. Hit an artery, spouted blood all over the place.”

“Where did it happen?” Lynda persisted in her best journalist voice.

“In his room at the Winfield. Somebody called 911 with an anonymous tip around seven o’clock. Enough with the questions, Teal. We already got enough of that from your man Silverstein. He picked up the dispatch on the scanner and got there even before my people did - made a nuisance out of himself as usual.”

“That’s my Ben.”

“Do you have any ideas about this anonymous caller?” I tried to sound only casually interested.

Oscar shrugged. “The call came from a pay phone not too far from the hotel. I haven’t listened to the recording yet but the dispatcher said it was a man talking in a high-pitched voice, like Minnie Mouse on helium.” Smartass. “I figure it must have been somebody who was almost desperate to not get involved, maybe somebody whose wife didn’t know he was at the hotel.”

Mac caressed his beard. “You are confident it was not the killer?” Thanks a heap, Mac.

“That wouldn’t make a lot of sense from the killer’s point of view, Mac. The sooner law enforcement gets to the scene of a homicide, the better. It would have helped the killer if the body hadn’t been found until tomorrow. As it was, we got there less than half an hour after the shooting.”

Oops. I’d unintentionally misled the police about the time of the murder, but it couldn’t have been by all that much; the blood was still fresh when we arrived around six-thirty.

“Where do I come into this?” I asked.

Mac said, “I persuaded Oscar that you should be involved in your capacity as public relations director for the college. The murder investigation is likely to spill over onto the campus grounds, given Matheson’s reason for being in Erin.”

“He didn’t say anything about Teal tagging along,” Oscar added.

“Consider me a bonus,” she said.

Applause erupted from inside the closed doors of the President’s Dining Room. If I remembered the agenda correctly, Kate must have been announcing the winners of the costume contest.

“As a working premise,” Mac said, “what do you think happened, Oscar?”

“Well... this is strictly off the record, Teal, understand?”

“Yes, massa,” Lynda said.

“It must have been somebody who knew him, not a homicide committed during a burglary. There was no break-in, for one thing, and it doesn’t look like anything was disturbed.”

Give Lynda and me points for neatness.

“Besides,” Oscar added, “we have a witness, another guest at the Winfield, who saw the victim open the door for someone who may have been the killer.”

Damn - just what I had feared. Somebody saw Lynda coming out of the room and me standing there. We must have given quite a show, the big hug. The pit of my stomach felt like a load of concrete had been mixed there. I shot a covert glance at Lynda. She swallowed hard.

“A witness!” Mac bellowed. “Oh, Oscar, you are the sly one, holding that back. Tell us about this witness.”

The chief allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk.

“She’s rock solid - an IRS attorney in town to check out the college for her daughter,” Oscar said. “She came back to her room down the hall to take a shower around six and saw Matheson open the door to a visitor. She didn’t see the visitor’s face, but get this: He was wearing one of those funny Sherlock Holmes hats. What do you call them?”