“A deerstalker,” I said in a choked voice, nearly limp with relief.

Maybe it really was the killer this witness saw - it sure wasn’t Lynda. Aside from the chapeau she wasn’t wearing, the timing was off by half an hour. We weren’t even finished with Post by six o’clock.

“Yeah, that’s it - a deerstalker,” Oscar said. “I figure it should be easy to find this character. How many people can there be running around Erin in a deerstalker hat?”

Chapter Twenty - What We Have Here... (Part Two)

Mac’s answer to Oscar was a sound that started as a rumble in his stomach and burst forth from his lips as a hearty, uncontrolled laugh.

“What the hell’s so funny?” Oscar demanded.

“Deerstalker caps,” Lynda said, “are about as rare at this little confab as big ears on an elephant.”

Standing between Mac and Oscar, no wonder she thought of elephants. Oscar glowered at her.

“Surely you understand what this colloquium is all about, Oscar?” Mac said. Without waiting for an answer, he added, “Unfortunately, this isn’t the only crime that has marred an otherwise delightful occasion. Do you suppose there could be a link between the theft last night of several rare Sherlock Holmes volumes and the murder of Hugh Matheson?”

“Well,” Oscar said heavily, “there sure as hell seems to be some kind of connection to Sherlock Holmes.”

But Oscar didn’t know what the link was - his officers apparently hadn’t found the hidden books in Matheson’s hotel room.

“Obviously, you’re going to be conducting some interviews around here tomorrow,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you would check in with Ed Decker, let him know what you’re up to. You know how touchy he is about turf issues.”

Oscar grunted, which I took to be an affirmative response. “If you remember anything that might be important about the victim, give me a call. You have my cell.”

“I’m sure I’ll be in touch,” Lynda said, earning a malevolent stare from the chief.

“Good night, Oscar,” Mac said. “And thank you for the flower.”

“The what?”

Mac reached into Oscar’s plaid sport coat and pulled a carnation out of the inside pocket. He affixed it to the lapel of his Victorian suit coat while Oscar watched with an expression composed of equal parts surprise and chagrin.

“You ought to stick to magic,” Oscar told Mac. “You’re good at it. Leave the detective work to law enforcement.”

With a curt nod to each of us he disappeared down the escalator.

“I’d better go, too,” Lynda said. “I’ve got to get to the office and help Ben with his story for the website and tomorrow’s paper.”

Mac and I wished her good night. It was ten o’clock and I felt a deep weariness, as if I’d been up for at least three days. And, like Lynda, I still had work to do.

“I’d better call Ralph and get it over with,” I told Mac with a sigh of resignation.

“You have my sympathy,” he said.

“I need it. But it would be even worse if Ralph heard it someplace else first. Never let your boss be surprised.”

I pulled out my phone, chose Ralph’s name from my contacts list, and tapped his phone number.

“This is Jeff Cody,” I said when the provost had answered in his precise voice. I could hear music playing in the background. Could that really be Dave Brubeck? “You aren’t going to like this.”

“That I believe. Well, what is it now?”

“One of the participants in this Sherlock Holmes colloquium thing has been murdered.”

“Good God in heaven!”

I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear. The expression on Mac’s hairy face showed that he’d heard Ralph almost as well as I had.

“It isn’t as if the body showed up in the middle of Muckerheide Center,” I said quickly. “The murder was off-campus.”

“Thank God for that. Give me the details.” I could have sworn Ralph had stopped to drink something between the two sentences.

I summed up the case as Oscar knew it - leaving out, of course, what I knew that the chief didn’t.

“What we have here, Ralph,” I concluded, “is a very unfortunate set of circumstances, especially with the murder following the theft so closely. But I’m on top of it. I’ve spent quite a bit of time discussing this case with the chief of police. I’m sure that when he finds this mysterious visitor in the deerstalker the murder will be solved.”

“And I suppose we can look forward to yet another spate of unfavorable publicity when someone is arrested,” Ralph said. “At least it isn’t likely to be a college employee. Is it?” The last two words came out almost as a plea.

The doors of the President’s Dining Room swung open. Sherlockians spilled out in a sea of now-familiar faces - Molly Crocker, the deerstalkered (yes!) Dr. Queensbury, Sven Larsen, Professor Whippet...

“Well, Cody?”

I went as far as I could, assuring Ralph that neither Mac nor I nor anybody connected with St. Benignus College had been wearing a deerstalker cap today.

“What you have to do is downplay the college connection with this so-called colloquium,” said Ralph, who had made a speech earlier that day accepting the Woollcott Chalmers Collection as a highlight of what he now dismissed as the “so-called colloquium.”

I promised him I’d use all my influence with the police and the press. It was an easy promise because I have none. But it mollified Ralph, who believes otherwise.

“I suppose your intentions are good, Cody,” he conceded. “I might even be able to make something out of you if you weren’t under the constant influence of the execrable McCabe.”

The thought had been expressed before, and not just by Ralph. It’s undeniably true that my life would be simpler and less turbulent without Sebastian McCabe in it. But it would be a lot less interesting, too.

“Mac’s right here,” I told Ralph. “Want to talk to him?” There I went again, showing that constant influence.

“Spare me, Cody. I’m warning you, if you can’t get control of this story I’ll find someone who can.”

He hung up.

“Good show!” Mac said. “That was a most convincing performance, old boy, just then and earlier with Oscar as well. Now perhaps you would care to give me the unexpurgated version.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” Mac said, making a show of studying his unlighted cigar, “the whole story of your personal involvement in the murder - the details of which you did not share with Oscar for quite good reasons, no doubt.”

Chapter Twenty-One - Too Many Suspects

“How do you figure-”

“Hell and damnation, Jefferson,” my brother-in-law thundered, “do not trifle with me at a time like this! I cannot pretend I knew instantly the reason for your strong interest earlier in Hugh Matheson’s argument with Noah Queensbury. I would be doltish indeed, however, if I did not see the implications of it now. That, coupled with your late arrival, your question about who else arrived late, and your sly looks at Ms. Teal - congratulations on your rapprochement with her, incidentally - all make the conclusion inescapable: You are in this mess up to your red eyebrows.”

I raised my hands in protest, speaking quickly as Kate and the Chalmerses appeared among the crowd in the doorway of the President’s Dining Room. “It’s not like I killed the guy or anything, but it’ll look bad if Oscar finds out I’m the one who called 911 and didn’t leave my name. I could say I didn’t have time to tell you about it, but the truth is I wanted to leave you out of it for your own good.”

“People have been trying to do things for my own good all of my life,” Mac said. “Fortunately, I have thus far managed to frustrate them at every turn.”

With my sister and Mac’s friends almost within earshot, we agreed to discuss the matter later at his house. Mac hobnobbed with the other Sherlockians until they’d all disappeared to their own homes or hotel rooms, then piled me and his house guests into his oversized Chevy.