One phone call and half an hour later, Carl was introducing me to Presto. He was short with thick, black-rimmed glasses and a shock of hair that covered his face like one of those Highland cattle.
“Rock, this is Pete Knowles. Pete, this is my English teacher, Rock Tuff.”
“I thought your English teacher had some nerdy name like Elma Pretty.”
Carl covered his embarrassment by saying, “That was another teacher. Rock has changed his name and profession.”
We explained what we wanted. We started with the one name we knew for sure, Nathan Slugg. I saw immediately why they called Pete Presto: his fingers danced on the computer keys like the feet of Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. Each time he paused for a few seconds, I expected to hear applause. In an amazingly short time, he had found the current generation of Sluggs, but now, as we suspected, the name had changed: it was now Nathan Crooks.
“At least he kept the same first name, if he’s our man,” I said.
“What do we do now?”
“I get back to work,” Pete said. Not surprisingly, he serviced and repaired computers. We thanked him. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Stuff.”
“I suppose we should report our findings to Trade and Son,” Carl suggested. They sounded like a family plumbing business.
“But what if Crooks is innocent? We don’t want to have the police pounding on his door.”
We had his address, so at seven p.m. we rang his doorbell, introduced ourselves, and emphasized that our visit was unofficial. The small house was neat, clean, and simply furnished. He introduced us to his wife, who offered us coffee which we declined, our systems still buzzing with our day’s consumption of caffeine. Their daughter Sally joined us. I noticed that she was beautiful; I also noticed that Carl noticed it too. She was in her early twenties, just a little younger than Carl.
“Mr. Crooks, last night someone broke into the Town Hall and slashed portraits of a former mayor and two councillors, men who had wronged your ancestor, Nathan Slugg, causing him to swear vengeance on them. Do you know anything about this incident?”
Nathan looked worried, his wife and daughter alarmed.
Oh, Nathan, I begged you t let it drop or pass it on to the next generation as all the others have done. Besides, all of the people involved are long dead.”
“That’s true, darling, but there is a matter of family duty and I didn’t want to leave Sally with the obligation. I just wanted the matter to end.”
Sally’s lower lip began to tremble as if she were about to cry. Carl handed her his handkerchief. It was the first time I had thought of the word “chivalrous” as applying to him.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes sparkling with tears or gratitude.
“How did you discover it was me?”
We explained our research.
“What will I be charged with?”
“Break and enter, destruction of public property, vandalism,” I listed, then I felt foolish. The broken lock could be repaired for a few dollars, the pictures were not eagerly sought by the Louvre or the Prado.
“Carl, maybe we don’t need to tell the police at all. The business is over now.”
“I agree.”
Nathan shook our hands, his wife gave us each a big hug, and Sally thanked Carl with a long kiss. Another Rock Tuff case is concluded, I thought.
A few days later, Carl called me at my office. “Good news. The lock has been repaired, Councillor McIlroy’s nephew has been hired to replace the slashed portraits, and Trade and Son have relegated the case to the cold files. Oh, yes, and I’ve had dinner with Sally Crooks. She’s a great young woman and she agrees with my theory that Shakespeare’s plays were really written by his son Hamnet.”
“But Hamnet died when he was only eleven years old.”
“I know. That’s a problem, but we’re working on it.”
