At Mac’s house we checked out the eleven o’clock news to see if the Cincinnati TV stations had picked up the murder of the city’s most famous lawyer. At the same time I was surfing the news websites on my iPhone. Ben and Lynda’s story wasn’t on the web yet, and only Channel 9 had a sketchy “this just in” report of about ten seconds near the end of the newscast. But TV4 used a full two minutes on the colloquium and the Woollcott Chalmers Collection. After a few seconds of me talking about the theft, it focused mostly on Chalmers using his cane to point out the wax bust of Sherlock Holmes and various other highlights of the Sherlockiana display.

It must have been midnight by the time the others went to bed, leaving Mac and me to adjourn to his study. Here I must explain that the study of Sebastian McCabe is a wonderful working room, a large one, not a House Beautiful model of decorating. It has books on all four walls, sure. But it also has the computer he writes on, a bar with a beer tap, and a big-screen TV. When the Big One gets dropped and humanity has to stay indoors for few generations, that’s where I want to be. It’s my favorite room in all the world.

I commandeered a comfortable leather chair while Mac tapped himself a Cincinnati microbrew called Christian Moerlein OTR Ale into a frosted mug.

“Do not just tell me what happened,” he directed. “Re-live your adventures. Spare no details.”

I gave him everything I could remember, right down to the conversation with Queensbury in the men’s room. Okay, I left out the hugs with Lynda because I saw no reason to appeal to his prurient interest. But I gave him everything else.

“You,” Mac said at the conclusion, “are in great peril. And Lynda with you. Pardon the detective story cliché, but if we fail to unmask the murderer without undue delay, Oscar is going to reach his own conclusion and it won’t be pretty.”

“Wow, you really are a Great Detective.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, Jefferson, below even puns. As to your actions, I must say that blundering around in the murder room, then concealing it from Oscar as though you had some personal culpability to hide, really was remarkably dense.”

“It seemed a good idea at the time,” I mumbled, steamed that he was right.

Mac drank deeply of his beer and stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth.

“Besides,” I added, “at least we found the books.”

“Ah, yes. And what do you see as the importance of that?”

“Well, now we know that Matheson stole the books, of course - the last salvo in his ongoing feud with Chalmers.”

“What became of the third missing volume, the Beeton’s Christmas Annual?”

“How should I know?” I pried my eyes open and stifled a yawn, all-too-aware that my brain was on low speed at best. “Maybe the killer took it for a souvenir. Who knows what somebody wearing a deerstalker might do?”

“Then you accept Oscar’s assumption that the earlier visitor to Hugh’s room was the killer?”

I hesitated. “It’s a good working theory, at least.”

“Agreed.”

“So then all we have to do is find the person beneath the hat?”

“Indeed. That task may be simple to state but not necessarily easy to accomplish, however. There are many possibilities and many people who should be interviewed. Take out your notebook, please.” Without thinking, I did so. “Write down these names: Gene Pfannenstiel, Molly Crocker-”

“Hold it.” I stopped with my pen halfway through ‘Pfannenstiel.’ “I’m not your Watson - or your secretary.”

“And quite a good thing,” Mac commented, drawing another beer. His administrative assistant, Heidi Guildenstern, is an insufferable woman whom I have long suspected of being a spy for Ralph Pendergast. “I prefer to think of you as my amanuensis.”

Later, I looked that up in a dictionary and found out it out means “one employed to take dictation,” coming from the Latin word for a slave acting as a secretary. But even that night in Mac’s comfortable man-cave, before I knew exactly what the word meant, I resented it because it was a big word I didn’t know the meaning of.

I handed Mac the notebook and pen. “Do it yourself, genius.”

“Really, Jefferson,” he said with a sigh, “you can at times be remarkably petty and stubborn.” Oh, you think so, too. For the record, I prefer to think of myself as determined, not stubborn.

Despite his feeble protest, Mac wrote a bunch of names and handed the notebook back to me. I looked at the list:

Gene Pfannenstiel

Molly Crocker

Noah Queensbury

Graham Bentley Post

Woollcott Chalmers

Renata Chalmers

Reuben Pinkwater

The person whose phone number was on the notepad in Hugh’s room

“Who’s this Reuben Pinkwater?” I asked.

“A book dealer from Licking Falls. Undoubtedly you’ve seen his display at the colloquium.”

“The bald guy? Yeah, I’ve seen him.”

Maybe Matheson had been killed for the missing book after all. But how would this Pinkwater know Matheson was the thief? And why hadn’t he taken the other two books? After a little sleep I’d probably have other questions, but right now I could think of just one more:

“Do you really consider all of these people suspects?”

“By no means,” Mac said. “A few are merely individuals who might have seen or heard something of significance.”

“You’re going to interview all of them?”

Mac’s bushy eyebrows, both of them this time, shot up as if he were astounded at the notion. “Of course not, old boy! You are.”

I was reduced to inarticulate noises.

“How would I have time to interview any of them, much less all?” Mac continued. “I have duties as host of the colloquium. Surely you are more than capable of formulating the proper questions for each to elicit enlightening responses?”

That was really playing dirty. How could I say no? But I didn’t give in right away. I threw the notebook on a small table near my chair and we discussed it. The discussion ended with me saying, “I’m not doing it for you. This is my own investigation for my own good. I just hope I can put the finger on somebody before Oscar finds another witness that saw Lynda and me leaving the murder room. Anyone’ll do, so long as he’s guilty.”

“Ah, the Max Cutter approach,” Mac observed.

“Maybe I can get Lynda to help. Her neck is on the line, too.”

“Splendid! A fine detective duo you two would make, in the grand tradition of Nick and Nora Charles, John Steed and Emma Peel, Fox Mulder and-”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, standing. “Just one more thing before I go to bed: Ed Decker said the Hearth Room C key that’s kept in the Muckerheide Center offices wasn’t shiny and you said yours wasn’t either. That’s supposed to be an indication those keys weren’t copied; Decker knows that much. So how did Matheson get in without leaving a trace? Do you think Gene helped him?”

“I am quite certain that he did not,” Mac said, “and for the best of reasons: Hugh Matheson did not take those books or cause them to be taken or acquire them after they were taken. He was not the thief, nor - I am reasonably certain - did he even know who the thief was.”

Chapter Twenty-Two - Public Relations

For hours I lay in bed without sleeping, the day’s events churning over and over in my mind as I positioned myself on my right side, my left, my stomach, my back, my right side... Eventually I must have nodded off or I wouldn’t have had the dream.

Mac and Lynda were there, and so were Woollcott and Renata Chalmers, Judge Molly Crocker and Hugh Matheson. Everybody was running from the Winfield to Muckerheide Center and back again in speeded-up time, like a Keystone Kops movie. Chalmers shook his cane at the others as if in reprimand.

They were all wearing deerstalkers.