his seven days a week, I’d be a nerve case, too. Sure that’s not your problem?”
I couldn’t help but stiffen. Slye observed this, smiled at me, then said, “Do you suppose Wishy is on to something, Max?”
Hanslow turned, only just then noticing my presence. He winced and moved his gaze to a point somewhere over my left shoulder. “Oh, didn’t realize you were in the room, Dr. Tyndale.” He didn’t sound pleased. The feeling was mutual.
“No, Wishy isn’t on to anything,” I said, answering Slye. “What would you do without Digby?”
“True,” Slye said. “He is indispensable to what passes for my happiness. Now, Wishy, what brings you out on this dreary day?”
“Crime, Bunny! Crime. I need your help! Lord, I wish you’d get a telephone!”
“I find them unrestful.”
“You have one in the city!”
“Yes, but the city is already unrestful, so I don’t notice it as much there.”
“Well, never mind that. Will you come with me to Holder’s Crossing?”
“What has occurred at Holder’s Crossing?”
“The colonel’s gone missing—looks like foul play.”
“Not Colonel Harris?” Slye said, looking troubled.
“Yes. Sheriff Anderson called and particularly asked me to lend a hand. Mentioned you, too, Bunny. Must have my Watson with me. And—er, you can come along as well, Dr. Tyndale, if you’d like.”
“We’d be delighted to help in any way possible,” Slye said. “Wouldn’t we, Max?”
This was by no means the first time we had accompanied Wishy on such an expedition. I had given up trying to persuade Slye that we were only encouraging Hanslow to embrace his delusion that he was an American Sherlock Holmes. Bunny rightly pointed out that Wishy would never claim to be as great as his hero. “Of course not!” I said. “My dear Slye, the gap between the intelligence of the two is nearly as wide as the ocean that separates them!”
“Oh no,” Slye said in his calm way. “Wishy isn’t at all stupid.”
I kept my tongue behind my teeth. Sometimes, friends must agree—even if silently—to disagree.
Wishy Hanslow had a second obsession—automobiles. I have been told that he razed his former stables and built a structure that houses no fewer than ten of them. It was easier to abide this infatuation. As a result of it, we rode in comfort in his chauffeured Pierce-Arrow Series 51 limousine to Holder’s Crossing. On the way, I asked him why he had been out in the storm.
“Oh, you’ve noticed my clothing is a bit damp! Very observant. I was coming back from driving myself to a separate case—”
“I told you I would have driven you, sir!” the chauffeur said.
“Yes, well, now I wish I had listened to you. Thing is, bad roads, had a flat, and had just managed to change the tire when the rain started.”
Slye asked him about that case, which involved finding a missing dog, detective work that apparently fell within Wishy’s capabilities. Somehow in the telling of his tale, he seemed to grow more accustomed to my scarred face, actually looking me in the eye when he answered my questions.
When Slye asked what he knew about the case at Holder’s Crossing, though, he blushed and admitted that he knew very little. Sheriff Anderson had called and stated that Colonel Harris had gone missing. “Said there was reason to suspect foul play, but that he would explain everything in detail if I would be so good as to bring you along.”
“How kind of him to mention me,” Slye said.
“I’ve asked him to ensure that nothing is disturbed until we get there. He promised he would do his best.”
“You know this missing gentleman?” I asked.
“Oh yes. He must be in his seventies now. I haven’t seen him in years, though.”
He briefly fell into one of his moods, but Wishy’s incessant chatter seemed to distract him, for by the time we arrived at Colonel Harris’s estate, he was looking mildly amused.
The estate lay three miles or so beyond Holder’s Crossing. We took a winding, mostly paved, relatively wide road up a wooded slope, passing a few narrow farm lanes here and there, before suddenly coming upon a clearing. A large two-story home stood at the end of a sweeping drive. The house was not as large as Slye’s, nor even Hanslow’s, but there could be no doubt that this was the home of a wealthy man. The grounds, although not extensive, were well kept. A service road led to a horse barn and other outbuildings, but no other houses were within sight. The home’s situation, placed as it was within the woods, gave one a sense of peacefulness and privacy.
A Model T was parked in the drive. It was splattered with so much mud that the grime nearly obscured the sheriff’s department’s markings on its doors. The vehicle was dwarfed by the far less muddied yellow Rolls-Royce parked next to it, a gorgeous machine that drew a sigh from Wishy. “A forty/fifty,” he said. “Silver Ghost. Six cylinders and quiet as a whisper.”
“The colonel’s?” I asked.
“Oh, I doubt that very much,” Hanslow said. “He’s something of a pinchpenny.”
“Still getting around by horse and buggy?”
“No, he sold off his horses five years ago, on his seventieth birthday.”
He fell silent, and suddenly looked so sad, I couldn’t help but feel both pity and curiosity. I was about to ask him what was wrong, when Slye said, “Wishy is an expert on automobiles, and a walking catalog of his neighbors’ vehicles. What does the colonel drive, Aloysius?”
“Model T Center Door Sedan—1915, I believe,” he answered, perking up. “Thank you, Bunny. I’m flattered you’ve noticed. I have a scheme in mind about the individual identification of automobiles, but I haven’t quite worked out all the details.”
“License plates do that, don’t they?” I asked.
“Oh, no. Not at all. Easy to switch them. Now what I have in mind involves something like the engine casting number—”
I was spared a lecture on his automotive identification scheme when the chauffeur opened his car door before ours, causing Wishy to remonstrate with him, and to switch his attention to the topic of automotive etiquette, and his strong view that his passengers should have been allowed to exit first.
The colonel’s elderly butler, Rawls, knew my companions—I noticed he did not attempt to relieve Wishy of his deerstalker. He looked pale and shaken, but maintained a dignified pace as he guided us to a parlor on the first floor. Sheriff Anderson, a stout man of sixty with luxuriant mustachios, stood by the fireplace, studying a small notebook. He looked up as we were announced and smiled. “Aloysius, thank you for coming! And you’ve brought Mr. Slye and Dr. Tyndale! Excellent!”
“Is this some sort of jest?”
We turned toward the speaker—a frowning, elegantly dressed young blonde, who lounged carelessly in a large chair at the opposite end of the room. She flinched when she beheld my beauty, and quickly busied herself with taking a cigarette from a gold case and fitting it into an ebony holder.
She was not alone. A pale, sandy-haired gentleman, whose clothes were equally fine, stood just behind her. He blushed when our eyes met, then moved to light her cigarette.
“You own the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost parked in the drive,” Hanslow said with some reverence, removing his hat in the lady’s presence.
She lifted her brows and addressed the sheriff. “Is this play actor supposed to find my uncle?”
“Allow me to introduce Colonel Harris’s niece and nephew, the children of his youngest sister,” Sheriff Anderson said coldly. “Miss Alice Simms and Mr. Anthony Simms.”
Anthony Simms came forward and shook hands with each of us as the sheriff named us. He had an athletic build and a firm grip, but his palms were damp.
Alice stayed where she was.
“Mr. Simms works in an office,” Hanslow began. “He rushed here today from work. Note the smudge of ink on his vest—”
“Are you certain that’s ink, Aloysius?” Slye asked.
