Chapter 47

“You see, but you do not observe.”

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red-Headed League

I blinked. “Morgan, what are you talking about?”

“What’s going on?” Tom demanded.

“Who?” Philip Green asked.

Morgan ignored our comments and grinned.

“DD, let me introduce you to Nurse Mary Holder, alias Grace Dunbar.”

I stared at him, in shock.

“You were really good as Grace Dunbar,” Morgan told her. “You almost had me fooled, but those eyebrows and that false smile will give you away every time.”

I could not take this in. What was Morgan doing? What had I gotten him into? Grace Dunbar didn’t at all resemble the description Morgan had given me at Kiki’s of Nurse Holder. He’d described Nurse Mary Holder as blonde, gray eyes, no glasses, and slim. Grace Dunbar is a buxom redhead with green eyes and glasses. She’d undoubtedly sue him for false arrest, and I wasn’t going to be able to help him. His career was over.

“Are you sure she’s Nurse Holder?” I asked, staring at her.

“DD, this is something I learned in those facial recognition seminars I told you about. Almost 80 percent of all human communication is nonverbal, so like my instructor Dr. Jack Brown taught me, you have to record the minutest details when you interview someone. If you’re a cop, you ignore this advice at your peril. It’s all important. How they hold their arms. What they do with their hands, their fingers, their fingernails. Especially women. Do they wear nail polish? If they do, what color? Do they wear jewelry? What type? What kind of clothes do they wear? What’s the shape of their eyebrows? I knew I’d seen those eyebrows before.”

“But she’s got green eyes and red hair and...” I protested.

“Miss Grace Dunbar here, like most people, can’t completely disguise her true feelings when she talks. I noticed some of her facial characteristics were exactly like Nurse Holder’s. And certain other things fell into place and all of a sudden, bingo, it came together.”

Grace Dunbar stood there with a thin smile, cool as a statue. “This is ridiculous,” she laughed.

Philip Green exclaimed, “This is exactly like Sherlock Holmes in one of the Adventures. He says, ‘You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected... No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution.’ Lieutenant, you must tell us all the details. How did she give herself away?”

“Well, for one thing, Miss Dunbar here never smiles a true smile. A true smile is in the eyes, not the mouth. And her eyes never squint. In a true smile, your eyes squint. Then there’s those eyebrows. They’re exactly like Nurse Holder’s. She disguised herself extremely well as Grace Dunbar, but it’s difficult to disguise the eyebrows.”

Grace Dunbar threw Morgan a snide look. “You’re arresting me because of my eyebrows?”

Morgan ignored her. “Another big clue was those little pearl earrings she’s wearing now. They’re exactly the same as the ones Nurse Holder wore.”

As we all stared at her, Grace Dunbar touched her left earring.

“And another thing, all the while we’ve been talking, have you noticed how she’s kept her hands on her hips or in her pockets. That’s a sure sign she’s trying to conceal something from me. Most people use their hands, even if it’s just to touch their eyes, ears or hair. The only time she’s used her hands was to take her glasses off and to unconsciously touch that earring. She’s Mary Holder, alright!”

Morgan bowed in Grace’s direction. “I salute you. You were nearly an expert at managing your behavior, even most of the non-verbal channels. But there was one more thing. Your speech pattern. When you used the phrase ‘Time will tell’ more than once, I clearly remembered Nurse Holder saying that too. It was her verbal handle. Some people say ‘you know.’ Nurse Holder always said ‘time will tell.’ The chances of two people having that speech pattern and all of the other characteristics are astronomical.”

“Morgan you really are like Sherlock Holmes.” I saluted him.

“Well, the phrase is what made the little light bulb go off in my gray cells. That and yes, your eyebrows, Miss Dunbar.”

“So she’s alive after all, and this is where she disappeared. Do you think Toller will be able to identify her?”

“I’m certain he will. As will her fingerprints and her handwriting. And we’ll find out how she got back into the Grange mansion to kill Mrs. Toller.”

“What about her green eyes?” I asked

“Contacts. See how they’re a bit too green,” Morgan pointed at Grace Dunbar’s eyes.

“What about motive?” Tom asked. “Maybe she’s been looting the estate.”

“We don’t know yet, but that’s a good guess. Hopefully it’ll all come out. Right now, Miss Dunbar, I’m going to read you your rights and cuff you.”

Morgan reached behind him to get his cuffs. Philip Green tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “So if you arrest her, does that mean we can stay here and search for the Doyle manuscript?”

Morgan turned to Green and said, “No.”

In that nano-second, Grace Dunbar drew her 32-caliber automatic from her pants pocket and shot Morgan point-blank in the upper chest.