Frankie, the bartender at my other office, saw the pretty blonde sitting in my place across the street, which said something about his vision, given how dirty my big window was.

Though it’s a corner location through a door on the street, the view faces out so I can see all the business I’m not getting.

I hadn’t had a client in a long time – I hadn’t had anyone in a long time – so I staggered across the street, just missing being hit by a ‘41 Chevy Fleetline. I stopped on a dime as I saw her. Actually, I almost needed a whole quarter to avoid rushing into her arms.

She was the kind of dame who looked like she would break in, using lock picks hidden in her long silk gloves, and wait for you impatiently. I could tell just by looking at her as she sat in my office, whose door was open wide with a pick still jammed inside, though I delicately wiggled that out and put it in my pocket as I nudged the door to the halfway point.

As I entered, she stomped out her cigarette on the linoleum, with a deft turn of the foot in its ankle-strap shoe, and faced me.

“What took you so long?” She had that smoky voice I associate with bar rooms and cheap whiskey, and her blonde hair hung over her right eye like it was curtains for someone.

“Schorry, schweetheart,” I said, regretting bartering my services for dentures from a dentist who wanted me to prove his wife was getting her canal rooted by the milkman. “If I’d known you were going to have to break in, I’d have been here to open the door.”

“How unusually clever of you. I’m not used to waiting, and I have been calling your office all day, so I decided I would come here and see how discreet your services were. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.”

“Yeah, I can tell you’re usually in a hurry when it comes to men,” I said, giving her the deluxe once-over.

“I’m going to let the leer and drool pass, Mr. Timothy Sander,” she said, casually lighting another coffin nail. “Because if you’re going to treat me like some good-time girl, this meeting is over, and you can forget about me paying to fix your rickety door.”

“Clearly you know my name,” I said, struggling to overcome my general reaction to tall blondes with eyes like private swimming pools. “You have an advantage over me.”

“Really? It seems I have the advantage of literacy. I read it on the door, below LEGAL TOOL DETECTIVE AGENCY. As to me, my name is Theresa Novell.”

Of the famous arms dealer Novells, I’ll bet, but seems you don’t want to say that right now. I’ll play it cool.

“Do your friends call you Miss Terry No…?”

She visibly shuddered. “Please don’t, Mr. Sander. I have heard it so many times. My parents had a sense of humour best described as cruel.”

“Gee, tough luck, toots, er, Miss Novell,” I said.

“Well,” she said, a slight smile crossing her lips, “it appears you can learn, after all, and that there are manners hiding under that gruff, unwashed, poorly dressed, soused exterior.”

“Thanks,” I quipped. “You have another one of those cigarettes?”

“I do,” she said, extracting another from the diamond-encrusted case she had placed on my desk, and then lighting and smoking it herself before I could offer my Zippo. “I imagine you’re wondering what brought me here.”

I’m also wondering if you thought that was clever. Really? I wasn’t asking about your tobacco supply. I was trying to bum a smoke, lady!

“Off-hand, I’d guess your private car, driven by a chauffeur you have a strange relationship with,” I said, sure she would make me pay for that. However, I felt I owed her for that cute business around the smoke.

“I drove here, Mr. Sander,” she corrected, flipping her hair out of her right eye so she could give me a dirty look. “I don’t have strange relationships with chauffeurs.”

I looked out the window. I don’t know how I could have missed the red, sporty ’40 Caddy 62 parked where my car sat when it wasn’t at its office, Al’s Garage down the block.

“I’m here about a kidnapping, Mr. Sander, and I cannot emphasize enough the need for discretion. I am willing to reward you quite richly…”

I gave her my best hint of hubba-hubba.

Even though it was summer, I could feel the temperature drop as her icy glare pierced through the frosted blonde hair.

“In money. Specifically, $100 a day plus expenses,” she concluded sternly.

This was more than I’d seen in a long time. I suppose I could have tried for more, but there’s greedy and then there’s stupid.

“Do you see this necklace?” she said.

I did. It was a short necklace, almost a choker, so I wasn’t able to take filthy advantage in terms of cherching la femme.

“Somewhere out there in the city, there is a larger copy of this necklace.”

Her voice snagged on a tear here. I hate it when dames cry, even though I’ve seen it a lot, usually during dates.

“Unfortunately, a party who shouldn’t have it now does.”

“That sounds like theft, not kidnapping,” I responded. “Or is someone wearing it, and they’re being held captive as some kind of bargaining chip?”

As she composed herself, I was thinking about these necklaces. While they might have been chipped from the same rock, they definitely couldn’t have been made of chips – we had to be talking serious gems here.

I was also thinking I might be out of my depth.  If somebody was looking to bargain with that kind of ice, I was in serious trouble, because I was used to clients and suspects not that much wealthier than I am.

Money sometimes makes me as nervous as a big-pawed puppy in a room full of landmines. I lose track of it when it hangs out with ponies and shady ladies, or at bars.

“The other necklace is around the neck of my pet, with a harness to hold it in place. He was stolen from my home last night,” Miss Novell finally said in a voice with added huskiness.

“I’m going to guess it’s a mutt the size of your purse, lady. Fifi? Fluffy? Mitzi? Precious?”

“Ratso,” she said, encasing my already dizzy head with a thick layer of smoke.

“Ratso? That’s a funny name for a dog,” I wheezed.

It is indeed, Mr. Sander,” she conceded, “especially since he isn’t a dog. He is, in fact, a capybara.”

“A capybara?” I repeated.

“Yes. It’s a large South American rodent. Ratso is technically a lesser capybara, but I don’t want to give him a complex, so I don’t tell him he’s a sub-species.”

“Yeah.” Because you wouldn’t want a rat to have low self-esteem or anything.

Since it was clear I wasn’t going to get one from her, I scrambled in my desk for a cheap, hand-rolled cigarette. I offered her the only other one I had, but she demurred with a rattling wave of her gloved right hand, from the big bracelet and the other felony tools tucked into the silk. I lit up, inhaled and breathed out a thin vapour, rather than the dense cloud she kept sending my way.

“You know, Terry – can I call you that? – much as this is heart-warming and informative, you’ll forgive me if I ask why you put a giant diamond necklace around the neck of a rodent.”

“Well, there are only a few real diamonds in his copy, Tim – if I may call you that. It’s mostly paste. We’re rich, but not that rich… Perhaps you aren’t familiar with the Novell Munitions Company, despite its having been in Pittsburgh for nearly one hundred years, and in Texas before that.”

Like I said, I’d heard of them. I didn’t want to spook her, though, and I’m ashamed to say I’m not big on guns. Oh, I have one, which I fired once in 1935, because I tripped over my shoelace while chasing some cheating dame down a flight of stairs.

“Are you in there, Mr. Sander?” Terry snapped her fingers, surprisingly loudly. “I believe you were actually having a flashback. How detective novel of you!”

“I’m here,” I retorted. “I know I haven’t been good at it either, but let’s get to the point here. I’m a busy man.”

“I picked you precisely because I know you’re neither busy nor well-regarded. I was sure that would guarantee a low profile,” my client responded coolly.

“People are clamouring to talk to me all the time. Even the army wanted to get me, and if it weren’t for these flat feet…”

“Bill collectors do not count as character references. And are you telling me you are actually a flatfoot detective? Oh, how delicious.”

“Yeah, it’s a treat,” I said. “So let’s see – you’ve got a missing rodent with a collar around its neck, and you think you know who’s got it. Why don’t you call the ASPCA?”

“National security,” she responded curtly.

I did at least a double-take – maybe even triple. “A short, direct answer? I’m stunned.”

“At this moment in our history, I’m sure you can understand the importance of keeping military secrets close to oneself, so as to avoid their falling into the wrong hands.”

“And yet you failed? You messed up and now you’ve endangered the safety of the good ol’ US of A?”

“While that was far from diplomatic or subtle, you are correct.”

“What did you do?” I asked. “Write the secret instructions for a new bomb in code inside the collar?”

Miss Novell looked like she’d seen bad stock reports.

“Wha? I was just kidding! That’s what you did!? You put classified information inside a rat’s collar?”

“It’s a capybara,” she started. “I do wish you’d stop calling him a…”

“Let’s play veterinarian later, ma’am! We could all be dead ducks if this is as serious as you’re making it sound.”

“In any case,” she continued, pausing for a moment to light up another cigarette, which she left smoldering in her hand, “that is not PRECISELY it. It was more a game of Chinese whispers, on a grand scale.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but what does that mean in this case?”

“A team of scientists works on our products, Mr. Sander. Each of them works on one component in a separate facility. We arrange for them to be picked up, and the pieces are assembled at an entirely different location.”

“So no one can have all the information, in case they get kidnapped or bribed? That makes sense.”

“I’m so glad you agree,” she said, rewarding herself with a puff. “However, there had to be a record kept somewhere of all the parties involved, in case of some terrible circumstance in which no-one was left who knew them all.”

“So you kept the list on some piece of paper tucked inside the collar lining, maybe?”

“Correct,” she conceded. “And the only person who could have known this, other than myself and my family, was our butler, who was occasionally required to remove the collar in order to give Ratso his bubble bath. We trusted him with the possibility of finding that information because he’s worked for the family for more than twenty years.”

“His bubble…? Oh no, let’s not get off track again. So you suspect the butler did it?”

“Well, he was gone for the evening when the petnapping occurred, but I imagine he was involved, given that the burglars had a key.”

“And let me guess,” I said, reaching for the trenchcoat I had tossed across the broken-down chair in the corner. “The butler did not report for duty this morning, and there’s no answer at his place.”

“He’s actually live-in help,” Terry said, “but, yes, he is nowhere to be found. I need you to find him, because he is the only way I can find that list, not to mention Ratso.”

“Really?” I said. “You don’t have a second copy? None of the scientists have a hint of who their colleagues are?”

“Of course not,” Miss Novell said. “My family is very close-mouthed. We don’t go around sharing secrets or keeping these things where just anyone could find them.”

“Except, of course, anyone who gives Ratso a bath or takes his collar off.”

“That is a rather small list,” she snapped. “I’m glad you’re putting your coat on. Given Jeeves’ tendency to drink on his days off, I’m sure someone in one of your gin palaces may have a hint as to where to look.”

She held out her gloved hand, and I briefly thought she wanted me to kiss it, but then it dawned on me, and I handed over the felonious tool.

She then reached into her purse and extracted a small manila envelope, which she handed to me, and also produced a photograph of someone who, judging from the penguin suit, could only be…

“Your butler is named…? Oh, of course he is.”

“I shall be at that fairly clean restaurant on the corner. If you have any leads in the next couple of hours, you may phone me there. You will also find a crisp $100 bill in the envelope, though I suspect it will rumple instantly the moment you touch it. Do keep track of any other costs, as long as they do not include recreational drinking.”

And with that, she slipped out, like a big blonde ghost.

I was sad to see her go, but it was nice to watch her leave.

It was summer, so I untucked my shirt, accidentally flashing some of my hairy gorilla stomach - not that there was anyone there to appreciate or be revolted by it - then slipped on my trenchcoat and headed out the door, first making sure the door would still lock, and then securing it. I also put that one hundred dollar bill into my wallet, whose occupants, a twenty and a five, nearly sobbed with gratitude at having such a distinguished guest. Across the street I went, not for the first time today.

“Hiya, Frankie,” I said as I walked in, looking around at the usual assortment of losers, alkies and chartered accountants. There was a new guy in the darkest corner, in the back near the john.

“Hiya, Tim. You-gonna-pay-your-tab?”

He always said it in that speedy, automatic way, because by this point he pretty much knew the answer. He also knew I’d pay it someday, because my ship had to come in sooner or later, no matter how landlocked I seemed right now.

“Can you break a C-note?” I said.

“You adding counterfeiting as a sideline now, Sander?” Frankie said, giving me a wink from his one baby blue (he’d lost the other eye in WW I, and had a bright red eye patch over it).

“Nah,” I said, sitting at the bar and letting him see the green colour of my money. “I got me a dame…”

“Ah, nobody’s THAT desperate,” he said.

“Knock it off! I got me a dame who wants me to find somebody for her.”

“Another new line of business, Tim? I guess even women get an itch, and…”

“I do the funny lines here, Frankie! I’m on a case.”

Glancing towards the back, I said, “Who’s the new guy?”

“He didn’t say his name,” Frankie said. “He just asked me for the best whiskey we got and went off to hide in the all-concealing shadows there.”

“Stop listening to those radio serials, Frankie. I’ll have my usual, and give me another of whatever he’s having. I’m going to go join him over there.”

“I ain’t that kind of bar, Tim…”

“Stow it. I ain’t that kind of guy, but I think I’ve seen him somewhere before…”

As I got closer, my suspicions were confirmed, thanks to the faint glow from the jukebox. Incredible as it may seem, it was Jeeves.

I put my draft down, and handed him his shot of whiskey. “Mind if I join you, mister? The name’s Sander – Tim Sander.”

Not surprisingly, he was a Brit. “I don’t mind, detective. I could hardly run forever, after all.”

I was a little surprised. “How’d you know I was a…?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Cor blimey, you look like one. You couldn’t be more out of a cheap novel or movie serial if you tried.”

“So obviously you know why I’m looking for you. Finish your drink, and then you’re gonna take me to where the rat…”

“Capybara,” he corrected sternly.

“Oh, I’m not going through that again,” I snarled. “I’m sure your boss wouldn’t appreciate this going into a second day, and if we play word games that way, it just might.”

“I imagine she’s just down the road in that restaurant, trying to charm all the locals,” Jeeves sighed gloomily.

“Are we talking the same girl here? She’s pretty easy on the eye, but charm is just a bracelet to her, I think.”

“I assume you have a car somewhere around here, detective?” Jeeves said, gulping that drink with far more gusto than I attributed to a Brit. I half-expected him to sip it with his pinky held out.

“Yeah, kind of. It looks like a car, anyway,” I admitted.

My ’35 Chevy Standard was at Al’s because of its bad oil drinking habit. It was probably on Step Twelve by this point, but until now I had to admit I was powerless over the bill.

“I’ll take you to where he is,” Jeeves said, staggering up from the chair. “But let’s go right now.”

“I gotta let your boss know – “

“Please don’t! We can talk about that when we get there, detective.”

This seemed weird, but I was used to that by this point in my life. After all, I lived in Pittsburgh, worked as a private detective and had had TWO cases involving rodents so far. I’m not at liberty to discuss the other, due to a settlement and, frankly, embarrassment.

“See ya, Frankie,” I said, dropping a fiver on the bar.

“I’ll take that off your tab, Tim,” he said. “That leaves only twenty dollars to go.”

Al’s was on my side of the street, but in the opposite direction from The Squeaky Spoon, the aforementioned mostly clean restaurant. I went right into the garage, followed reluctantly by the light-stepping butler.

“Hi, Al!” I shouted to the hairy, stocky mechanic.

“Hello, Mr. Sander,” Al said. “Come to look longingly at the old wreck again?”

“Can you break a C-note?” I said.

“Oh, god,” Al marveled. “Frankie wasn’t kidding when he phoned me. And yeah, I think I can.”

“What’s the damage?” I asked.

“That’s a pretty long list,” Al quipped, “but if you mean the cost for repairs and labour, that’s $17.”

I cracked open my rather stiff wallet and took out the $20.

“Keep the change, Al,” I said as I handed him the Jackson.

“Drive carefully, Tim,” he said with rusty fondness. “That rust bucket is just waiting for its

next disaster.”

I was going to have to stop by the bank sometime and deposit that bill. They’d probably be happy to see me in a way, as I had an overdraft waiting in one of their big comfy chairs for me.

Al drove the car slowly out to the street. It was purring like a slightly asthmatic kitten.

“Let’s go, Jeeves,” I said to the butler, who had knelt to rub an oil stain off one of his fancy shoes.

“Let us indeed, Mr. Sander,” he said, though his stiff upper lip quivered at the sight of my aged car.

As we got into the car, he reached into an inner pocket of his cloth coat. I didn’t see any obvious bulge, so I played it cool, but my inner puppy was beginning to tread carefully.

He passed me a billfold with a card in it.

“Nice fake. I almost believe it,” I said.

“You should,” Jeeves said. “I am an agent of MI6, indeed.”

“Yeah, and I’m Elliott Ness,” I quipped.

“I imagine you have more than a slight acquaintance with prostitutes, yes,” he said.

Low blow. Okay, so he knew Ness was working Vice with the feds, which the average person might not.

“So what are you doing here in the States, then, Agent Jeeves?”

“That is not my real name, but you may call me that,” he responded. “It goes without saying I can’t go into great detail, but let us just say I am here to make sure the wrong hands do not get a hold of the Novells’ weapon plans.”

“Well, that’s going swimmingly, isn’t it?” I snapped.

“Actually, it is, so far,” he retorted.

I was struck dumb for a moment. It happens.

“Would you care to explain that to me? Because it sure looks snafu to me.”

“Certainly, Mr. Sander,” he said. “First of all, now that we are away from prying ears, let me inform you that most of what Miss Novell told you was a lie.”

“A lying dame? Say it ain’t so,” I said in my best deadpan.

“Not a very chivalrous sentiment,” Jeeves chided. “In any case, she did so with the best of intentions.”

“I’d expect a G-man to say that, yes. You guys know all about best laid plans and all,” I snapped.

“Your cynicism is truly unpleasant, Mr. Sander, and…”

“Stow it, limey!” I started the car and began driving down the street. “Where are we heading to?”

“Keep going north ‘til we hit Railroad, then turn right at Smallman Street,” he said.

I’d have turned on the radio to cut the awkward silence, but I hadn’t had one installed yet.

“Terry, er, Miss Novell suspected there was someone in her circle trying to get information,” Jeeves abruptly volunteered. “Therefore, she asked me to spirit the capybara away and to contact all the scientists to gather in a new location so we could figure out another approach to things.”

“That seems kind of risky,” I opined. “If someone’s that clued in, maybe they’d just follow you or her and get a hold of everything that way.”

“I see your point,” Jeeves said, though I could tell from his pale and pinched face that it hurt him to say it. “However, it was a decision which had to be made quickly, because Miss Novell believed it was an inside job.”

I looked at him and debated whether to abruptly turn the wheel and throw him from the car.

“Not me, you simpleton!” he said, clearly reading my face. “I’m going to show you a photo which might give you some idea of what’s going on.”

He reached into his coat and produced another manila envelope. Honest to God, I think the Novells must have had a side business manufacturing those things.

He opened it and showed me a picture that almost made me want to throw myself from the car. It depicted Miss Novell standing in an archway, right next to…herself!?

“Is this a trick shot?” I inquired, though I knew the answer.

“No, Mr. Sander, it is not any kind of trompe d’oeil,” Jeeves explained. “And when all other solutions are eliminated, then whatever remains, no matter how unlikely, is – “

“She has a twin sister!?”

“Yes,” Jeeves said with a slightly sheepish look. Well, honestly, can you blame him?

“Oh, Frankie the bartender’d have a field day with this,” I said exasperatedly. “An evil twin?”

“Well, I’m not sure whether a strict moral judgement can be made, Mr. Sander, but certainly she is less fortunate and public than Terry,” he allowed.

I don’t remember hearing of her having a twin sister, but then Miss Novell was always the most public face of the family. You occasionally saw the father, or the mother in the background of shots, but you have to lead with your ace, and she got all the looks in the clan. Well, until now.

“Yes, Tarashi Novell,” Jeeves went on to explain. “Though she’s older by two minutes, she has never quite been as prominent or lucky as her sister. Rumours of unfortunate affairs and even more unfortunate operations…a slight tendency to attend parties, or to make after-hours clubs out of associates’ homes in their absence, and take party favours that weren’t on offer. Her last boyfriend to date was, it turned out, German on his mother’s side, so the family made her break up with him. It just wouldn’t look right.”

“Tarashi?” I said. “That sounds kind of Jap. And…oh, wait – Tarashi Novell? What the hell is WRONG with that family and names!?”

“She is even less fond of that observation than her sister is, so if you should meet her, I would suggest not bringing it up,” Jeeves warned. “As to the Japanese, you are correct. Mr. Novell had dealings with that country before the war, and one of his best clients suggested the name. Only later did we learn it means ‘lady killer’, which is probably not apt, but it sounded nice, and most people would be unaware of that. She is generally known as Tara, however.”

“Okay. So why is the suspicion on her? I mean, I wouldn’t date a Kraut either, unless she was that Dietrich dame, but you can’t help who you like, and the guy was born here, right?”

“Well, detective - when the family insisted she stop seeing Horst Henderson, she took it very badly, and said various rash things to the effect that she’d rather betray her family than her paramour.”

“Yeah, that sounds bad.”

Jeeves pointed out the window to a side street which was occupied by run-down warehouses. “That’s where we’re going - the Red Herring Canning Plant.”

“Really? The Red Herring? That seems like a loaded name under the circumstances.”

“I didn’t choose it, Detective,” my car-mate stated. “It’s been closed for years, so it seemed the best possible option.”

Looking at the cobwebs and dirt that coated the windows of the large but rather low brick building, I had a hard time picturing Miss Prissy going in there, but in my line of work, I’m used to some weird stuff – like the guy who had his mistress wear an elephant mask and harangue him with anti-Democratic-Party rants. He was a big local campaigner for Roosevelt.

We stepped out of the car and walked down the slightly cracked sidewalk that led to an olive-green door with decorative rust accents.

Jeeves took a key out of that big inner pocket and let us in.

There was a short hallway, with an office to one side that had a horribly deceased fern in it, as well as a 1938 Roy Best Thoroughbreds pin-up calendar hanging a little crookedly on its far wall. At the end was a blood-red door with a few scratches at its base and a rickety old wooden chair leaning up against it. I gulped and realized that was probably where we were going. Now I wished I had brought my gun.

When the outside door shut a moment later, I also wished I’d grabbed the flashlight from my drawer.

Ahead of me, Jeeves made a little irritated sound. I heard a dull thump as something hit the wall, which, as I caught up a few steps later, turned out to be the remains of the chair.

“Um, Jeeves? Do you think we should maybe get some reinforcements, or maybe call in the real cops?”

“It’s a bit late for nerves, Detective. In any case, it’s not as though there’s really anything sinister going on here. You have my word on that.”

“Yeah, about that,” I said. “You may have noticed that people around you do some pretty fancy hoofing with the truth.”

Jeeves rapped on the door. Shave-and-a-haircut…

“Really? I suppose I should be expecting something that obvious by now.”

The door creaked open, admitting some slightly dusty light into the corridor.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that it was Miss Novell who answered. “Come in, Jeeves,” she said somewhat distractedly. “We’re about to start.”

She began to turn back into the room, and then her eyes lit upon me and widened.

I had seen that look before in the eyes of people associated with my work – usually just before something bad happened, like fisticuffs or bounced cheques.

“Hello, Jeeves,” she said. “Who’s your friend?”

By this point, I could see into the room, which was brightly lit and had lots of machinery and assembly lines in it, around which were gathered several white-coated guys who were central casting eggheads, if ever such a category existed.

Off to one corner, in an open pen with grass and little plants in it, stood a big rodent I could only assume was Ratso. He turned his eyes towards me and gave a slow blink.

“Funny, lady,” I said, following Jeeves into the area, despite the increasing anxiety of the dame.

“Did you take a cab here or something?” she asked. “You should have come in and got the cash for it, then, instead of letting him trail in after you.”

“Okay, this is starting to get old,” I said, noticing in one corner of my eye that a trap-door was opening in the floor just a few feet behind us.

Miss Novell turned around just in time to see the same thing the rest of us were registering; to wit, her twin emerging from the passage, with company. Steel company. With bullet buddies.

“What a shame you won’t, Mr. Sander,” she purred. “Not that any of you is destined for posterity.”

“What the hell is that thing?” I said, indicating the long, heavy-looking gun she was toting.

“This little pop-gun?” she said, even giggling slightly. “It’s a Sturmegewehr 44. It’s an adorable machine gun from Germany, darling.”

“Tarashi, I’m presuming?”

“Oh, you’re a bright one, mister,” Terry snarled. “What was your first hint?”

Jeeves took the words out of my mouth when he said, “You had a secret passage leading to here?”

“Tara, by the way, Sander, though you won’t have many more chances to offend me with that awful name. And to answer you, Jeeves, it was already here, as it happens. I just did some underworld snooping and found out this happy coincidence, once I realized you were coming here. I suspect the former owners of the Herring were bootlegging in the 1920s and 1930s.”

The rich get happy coincidences. The rest of us are just there when their ship comes in and drowns us in its wake.

“And now, since I see you’ve all so thoughtfully collected your plans in those binders” - with this, she winked broadly at the scientists, who looked like they might need a change of unmentionables – “I’d appreciate it if you’d gather in nice and close for a group shot.”

“What are you going to do with those plans?” I asked, figuring from watching his twitching eyes that Jeeves was calculating whether he could get behind her and take her out – and not for dinner.

“Really?” Tara said. “Are you actually going to try and trick me into revealing my scheme for world domination while your colleague tries to overpower me? Surely you must have figured out by now that I’m not exactly stupid. I am, of course, going to sell these plans to Germany, in exchange for money and sanctuary, since I’m sure the family will be reluctant to invite me to Thanksgiving after that.”

“Oh, I’m not sure about your smarts. After all, you dragged me into this.”

Tara nodded at Jeeves, which puzzled me. “You really aren’t making a case that way. Why do you imagine I’ve, as you put it, ‘dragged you into this’?”

Jeeves walked over to the trap-door and disappeared down the ladder which Tara had used to both fling the door open and to climb from the passage beneath.

“Um…”, I sagely offered.

“Yes, you’re FAR too clever for me.”

“Mr. – Sander, was it?” Terry chimed in. “Shouldn’t you be drawing your gun quickly about now and neutralizing her?”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“Well, that really was stupid of you,” she said wearily. “I’ve got to give you that one, Tarashi, much as it pains me.”

“Your sisterly love is most encouraging,” her double deadpanned. “I’ll think of you fondly in memoriam at the Biergarten in Stuttgart.”

Tara slinked her evil but fetching body into a position where she could see the whole room, though the emergence of Jeeves from the trap-door with a bag stuffed full of paper over one shoulder and a hand-gun in his grip also stacked the odds against us.

“I suppose I might as well explain this situation to you, since I know it will torment your tiny brain otherwise, and I’d rather it be occupied with a torment of my choosing. However, since we are forever finishing each other’s sentences, I suggest Terry should explain her oh-so-red-white-and-blue plans first.” At this, the villainess swung the machine gun in her sister’s direction. “Speak up, sister. It may be your last chance to drown me out.”

“W-well,” Terry said, “given my suspicions about my sister, I had planned to get the scientists, myself and, yes, Ratso, down to Brazil, where we could continue production of the weapons necessary to wipe Hitler off the map. We were to leave tonight on the family’s private plane to our factory in Rio, but we gathered here first to coordinate our plans. I had arranged for a bus to pick us up. And - ”

“All very sweet and patriotic, Rosie the Riveter,” Tara cooed, “but Jeeves and I will be leaving by that private plane soon, with the contents of those binders, destined for the munitions plants of Germany, but not before we replace the vital plans contained therein with this relatively convincing, but ultimately useless and even dangerous, fake information. You, on the other hand, Mr. Sander, will be found dead, along with the scientists and my dear sister, having attempted to steal the weapon specifications. One of the scientists will have found his cojones and shot you at the same moment you sprayed him with machine-gun fire. All very tragic, I’m sure, and one of the advantages of my opera gloves and Jeeves’ pristine white ones? No fingerprints other than yours. The documents will be found beneath your body, by the police who will have been summoned by an anonymous, disguised-voice call. Before I came over here, I left some incriminating evidence, typed on the typewriter in your office, outlining your nefarious designs and your pathetic dreams of wealth and abandon once you sold those secrets to the Germans.”

“But why would I do that? While we’re at it, why would you do something this complicated and, well, nasty?”

“I’m rich, darling. I’m supposed to do irrational, wasteful things no-one can understand. You, on the other hand, are poor, and everyone can understand what that might lead to. I’m sure you never even got around to spending that $100. As it happens, it was fake anyway.”

“You – you – bitch!” Terry snapped. She even took a step forward with a raised hand, before Jeeves waved her back with his gun.

“Oh, it’s so refreshing to finally see Miss Prissy lose her temper,” Tara said, smiling broadly. “I had begun to think you no longer even used the bathroom, given how perfect and ever-so-proper you’ve become. You’re far too young to be our mother, sis.”

“And you, Jeeves,” I said in a mournful tone. “How could you? After all, you’re one of the good guys.”

“It really has been a very long time since you’ve enjoyed the love of a bad woman, hasn’t it, Mr. Sander?”

“Sex!?”

“This from the man who practically had a telescope down my décolletage,” Tara sneered.

“Sex and money,” Jeeves clarified. “They do make the world go around, after all.”

While all this had been going on, Ratso had been ambling across the warehouse floor towards Jeeves and Tara, and at this particular moment, he had arrived at the feet of the dame.

“And you!” she said in a withering tone. “How I will not miss your stench and your disgusting personal habits, which even I won’t discuss, and – “

But at that instant, Ratso sank his sharp incisors into her shapely ankle, propelling her into a stumbling dervish. Instinctively, she bent down to grab at her leg.

The scientist to whom she should have assigned the aforementioned prominent body parts ran forward and backhanded her face, grabbing the machine gun with the other hand.

Jeeves foolishly turned towards the attacker, which allowed three of the other scientists to tackle and pin the butler/secret agent/turncoat to the ground.

The one remaining scientist reached into an inner pocket, took out a badge and shouted, “FBI! Nobody move!”

“Oh my God!” I bellowed. “Isn’t anybody who they appear to be in this thing?”

Ratso looked up at me.

“If you stand up and peel off a disguise to reveal you’re really Hercule Poirot, I’m going to scream!”

Ratso gave that slow blink again, while the FBI agents secured the treacherous twin and the bad Brit.

Terry came gliding over in my direction, her arms stretched wide and her luscious lips puckering.

I was ready for my close-up, but she knelt down, chucked Ratso under what was approximately his chin and gave him a kiss on that ugly snout.

“Do you know what that thing eats sometimes, lady?”

She stood back up. “I suppose I should thank you for something, Detective, though I’m not sure what. So…thank you, I imagine, for your small part in resolving this ridiculous plot.”

The door to the warehouse banged open, and six policemen came rushing in.

“I think the best thanks you can give me is explaining this whole thing to those guys before they get their billy clubs busy on me. I don’t really want to be pummeled black and blue, at least not by a bunch of guys, and not without dinner first.”

“I suppose I could do that much,” she allowed. “As to dinner – I hear the Squeaky Spoon has tolerable food. You do look as though you could gnaw on a leg of lamb or a chicken breast, Detective, and to make up for my sister’s counterfeit per diem, I could accompany you there as my treat.”

“I’m more partial to thighs,” I said, waggling my eyebrows.

“I’m not surprised,” she said, laughing in a voice of a richer vintage of whiskey than her sister’s held.

The FBI men, who were also scientists, quickly brought the cops up to speed, so I never got the beating some people would have said I deserved.

A month later, I got a reward from the Feds for my part in foiling this plan, mostly due to the Novells not wanting to pay my fee. You guessed it - $100.

Tarashi will be at the Virginia Correctional Institution For Women in Alderson, West Virginia, where I’m sure her dance card will be full.

Jeeves will be busy ‘shining his shoes’ at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, once he gets extradited back to his homeland.

Ratso is, well, a big smelly rat. Nothing’s changed there – though he does have a smug look on his furry face that was not there before.

As to Terry and me? We meet for the occasional lunch at the Squeaky Spoon, and dessert has been ordered at times too. She says she might introduce me to her folks some day, if she gets too drunk to think better of it.