My mind reeled. Frankly, it wasn’t how I thought our justice system worked.

At last, I simply threw up my paws. If they had made an arrest, I might as well have a snack.

“Anyone hungry?” I offered.

Inspector No One Very Important scrunched up his face in what apparently passed for deep thought for him. “I could eat,” he decided.

“Bones?” I prompted.

“Always,” the dog said.

“Mr. Javier!” I called. “Are you still awake?”

Mr. Javier entered the room slowly, in his usual four-legged fashion but with the jetpack still attached to his back. Perhaps he’d decided to try being a little more cautious with his device, at least indoors. After all, there was the threat of all that crashing, particularly into walls.

“Of course I’m awake, Boss,” Mr. Javier said. “I try my best to be awake whenever you’re awake and might need me, which, I must confess, can be a bit challenging.”

“Challenging?” Was I a demanding boss and had never realized it before?

“Wake, sleep, wake, sleep, wake, sleep—about sixteen times on the average day. Except for today. Today it’s been almost all awake.”

“Yes, well, I’m sorry for any inconvenience. You have the dog to blame for that. But since you’re up anyway, do you think you might prepare us all a snack? What do we have in the kitchen?”

“A little bit of this, probably too much of that. But really, Boss, we’re no longer limited to what’s already in the kitchen.”

“We’re not?”

“Of course not! We can get the takeout!”

“The takeout?”

“Yes, the takeout, Boss! The takeout, the takeout, the takeout!”

My, the turtle was working himself into a tizzy.

“You know, Boss,” Mr. Javier prompted, “the takeout? You get those menus they shove under the door, then you call the dining establishment, and you tell them exactly what you want. Then, they tell you how much it will be and that you can pick it up in ten to twenty minutes, and you go out to pick it up. Within a half hour, you have a wonderful meal in the privacy of your own home that no one under your roof actually had to prepare!”

Clearly, he had given this a lot of thought.

“We could never get the takeout before,” Mr. Javier said, “because by the time I would get it home, it would be the next day or even the day after that. The food might be stale or maybe your desire for it would have passed. But now? With my jetpack? We can get takeout from anywhere! What’s your pleasure, Boss? We could get the Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Chicago deep-dish pizza, New York thin-crust pizza, New Haven white clam pizza, Australian shrimp on the barbie, Lebanese, Ecuadorian—”

“Mr. Javier.” I held up a paw to stop him before the turtle reeled off every ethnic cuisine on the planet. Was there a continent he’d missed? I didn’t think we had time to wait and see what he came up with for Antarctica.

“Yes, Boss?”

“You decide,” I said magnanimously.

“Oh.” The turtle’s eyes went wide. Well, as wide as a turtle’s eyes can get. “Oh!”

Within moments, the turtle had jetted over to the telephone, a black contraption that sits on an occasional table I hardly ever use. It’s the phone I hardly use since I don’t care much for talking on it; the table I do use occasionally. Mr. Javier removed the receiver from the base of the telephone, dialed a number, spoke rapidly and replaced the receiver. Then he flew down the stairs without thought for his own safety—crash—and out the door.

It truly was amazing.

Within a half hour, the turtle was back with dozens of little white cartons. While he was gone, we had rehashed the case so far. All the things I’d told Mr. Javier about while he was preparing the salmon croquettes were included, with the addition of the parts about: the old lady coming to retrieve the ring in answer to the newspaper notice; Mr. Javier following the cab and seeing not an old lady exit, but rather a tall man matching the description of our murderer; finally arriving at the information about Smith’s stay at the boardinghouse, Smith’s kissing of the daughter, Smith’s beating by the brother, and the ridiculous—to my mind—arrest the public detectives had made as a result. In the remaining time, Bones had showed Inspector No One Very Important some fencing moves while I mostly yawned.

“What did you get, Mr. Javier?” I asked as he began to set the meal out on the dining room table.

“I thought, Boss, for this first takeout experience, we would go traditional, so I got Chinese. Next time, we can branch out a bit, be more adventurous. I got the wonton soup, the spareribs, the egg rolls, the Moo Shu pork, the shrimp with cashews, the—”

He reeled off so many dishes, I feared what effect Mr. Javier’s new obsession might have on my wallet, let alone my waistline. But it all smelled so good, I could hardly complain.

Just as we sat down for our snack and just as I was reaching with my chopsticks for a plump jumbo shrimp, the doorbell rang.

“I got it, Boss!” Mr. Javier cried. “I got it!”

A moment, one crash, and some heavy footsteps clomping up the stairs later, Inspector Strange walked into the dining room.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “there’s been another murder.”