The public detectives and the tall man were now gone, the former having wrestled the latter down the stairs and out the door. Waggins and the puppies were gone too. As for the turtle, no sooner had the door slammed behind everyone than he collapsed from sheer exhaustion right in the middle of the carpet and was now snoring.

“Well, that was abrupt,” I said. “But wasn’t that a quick wrap-up of the case?”

“Yes,” Bones said, “but that is often the way of it.”

“Perhaps,” I said, not that I really knew—I’d never worked on a case before. “But how did you know that this Mr. Jefferson Hope did it? And why did he do it?”

“Elementary, my dear Catson,” he said. “I looked for the common thread in the case. We knew that at the first crime scene, two men went in, but only one came out. We knew there was a tall man with tiny feet—our murderer—but we also knew there was a cab. It was natural to assume someone else, a cabdriver, had driven them there. But—”

“But,” I said, feeling myself grow excited in a way I could never remember feeling before, not even when my life had been at risk during the Cat Wars, “when the old woman who wasn’t an old woman came to claim the gold ring, and when Mr. Javier followed her in the cab later but only saw a tall man matching the description of our killer emerge, you deduced that the common thread was the cabdriver; that there wasn’t, in fact, a separate cabdriver, but that the cabdriver must be our killer!”

“Precisely,” Bones said. “I am impressed by your perception.”

“Well, you practically told me.”

“Not at all, though. With the public detectives, I’d no doubt need to connect all of the dots, and still they might not get it. But you, my very dear Catson, are capable of connecting at least some of the dots all on your own.”

If I could have, I’d have blushed with pride.

“So then,” Bones said, “having figured that our murderer was either a cabdriver or at the very least impersonating one, I enlisted the aid of my young associates in locating him. Puppies who live on the streets have so much useful knowledge and ways of finding out whatever they don’t know, because people mostly dismiss them as stupid and their presence as a nuisance.”

“But what about the pills?”

“Pills?”

“Yes, the pills. When you left earlier, you said you wanted to prove that the pills were what killed er, John Smith.”

“Oh.” He waved a dismissive paw. “That was just a ruse. I never want the human detectives to know precisely what I’m up to until I want them to know what I’m up to. Of course I knew at least one or more of the pills contained cyanide. I could smell it.”

Huh.

“So,” I said, “we know who killed er, John Smith and the secretary, and how, but why did he do it, Bones?”

“Does it really matter?” the dog said, looking suddenly deflated.

“Does it really…” I was practically spluttering. “How can you say it doesn’t matter?”

“The criminal is in custody.” The dog yawned. “I’ve invented handcuffs.” The dog yawned again. “The turtle now has a jetpack.” He yawned a third time. “In the face of those three happy events, what else could possibly matter?”

“But why did he do it?” I insisted to know.

“That, my dear Catson, is a rather thorny question. And one I don’t have the complete answer to as yet. Really, based on what evidence is currently available, the only motive we have is revenge, and that we only have because the murderer gave it to us by writing it on the walls at both crime scenes in red paint! Well, that and the fact that a woman’s wedding ring was found at one of the scenes, a ring the murderer desperately wanted back. We can therefore infer that the crimes had to do with revenge over something involving a woman, but no further than that.”

I stared at him for a long time. Seriously? That was all he had for me?

“Look,” he finally said, “the only way we’ll ever know why Jefferson Hope wanted revenge is if he tells us. And right now, he’s not talking. Sometimes, my dear Catson, you need to be content with knowing you’ve caught the right person, knowing that you’ve proven how he did it, and knowing you’ve taken a very bad person off the streets and put him behind bars, unable to hurt anyone else ever again.”

“And that’s enough for you?” I said.

“Not really,” he admitted. “But today it has to be. Tomorrow, I will rise to fight again.”

I considered everything he’d said. The way he put it, it did sound like enough had been accomplished for the time being.

Then I considered how usually around midnight I need to race around my apartments, as best I can now with my bad leg, until I wear myself out in order to get to sleep at night. But it was long past midnight—hours past, in fact—and I was already worn out.

The sky outside was lightening, moving away from darkness, and soon the sun would be rising. I thought to leap onto my cozy cushion, but it was still covered in shattered glass. Mr. Javier would have to attend to that when he woke up.

As for me, I would simply curl up here on this lovely patch of carpet, like so, close my eyes and—

“What are you doing?” Bones asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked, eyes still shut. “And shouldn’t you be on your merry way by now?”

But the dog didn’t reply to my question. Instead, he said eagerly, “Great! While you do that, I’ll send for the rest of my things!”

“Things?” I opened one eye. “What things?”

“My violin, for starters.”

The dog played the violin?

“Also, I was thinking,” he said, sounding truly excited, “perhaps I’ll take the bedroom on the left? You don’t seem to use either bedroom for sleeping, but it would appear that more of your own things are in the one on the right and I wouldn’t want to appear inconsiderate.”

Now both my eyes were wide open.

“You’re not—” I started to object, but the dog merely continued, as though I’d not spoken at all.

“And I was thinking … ” He stood there, paw to lip. “A chandelier. I think this place could use a chandelier. What do you think? Perhaps over the dining room table?”

“Bones! One last time, you don’t live here!”