Not long afterward, I did ask him:

“Will it always be like this? If there are more cases, will I think one is complete only to find out later there is still much to be learned? Like a second half?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Will they all be two-parters?”

I was thinking about the Case Files I was writing down, but I could hardly tell him that.

“To be on the safe side,” he said, “I would answer: You never know, my dear Catson. But realistically speaking: That is highly unlikely. I suspect, in our future, our cases shall be self-contained one-parters, in the main.”

That relieved me somehow.

But then a new thought occurred to me.

“Way back in the beginning of yesterday, which was such an incredibly long day, you sighted that squirrelly squirrel, your nemesis, Professor Moriarty. And then of course you lost sight of him. Somehow, though, at the time, I thought he would figure into this tale. And yet, he has not, even though I did catch him spying through the bay window. Do you think he still will someday?”

“All I can say, my dear Catson, is watch and learn. Watch and learn.”

How annoying.

Then I thought of my own thoughts about squirrels yesterday:

Devious. Highly intelligent. Incredibly organized. Deceptively adorable to humans. Not to mention, you never quite know what nefarious things one might be hiding beneath a bushy tail.

On top of all that, Moriarty was supposed to be a criminal mastermind.

With a villain like that, one who had infected this last case with his presence throughout even though he hadn’t necessarily done anything yet, how could he not appear in a mystery one day soon?