"I will first need to interview Mr. Clifford Steele," Woodcock Jones declared, his hands folded primly behind his back while he stared at the now sizable cluster of police officers and crime scene technicians at the door to the study.

  "Mr. Clifford Steele..." Peg Begnawed said slowly as she scratched the name into a small notepad. "Mr. Man," she said, waving to a baby faced police officer who nonetheless had an impressive mustache. "Find Mr. Clifford Steele and bring him here to be interviewed at once."

  "Yes, Detective Begnawed!" the young police officer chirped, turning to push his way through the crush of his curious coworkers.

  "And, bring lunch with you too!" she shouted at his back. Woodcock thought he might have seen the man wave over the heads of the police still looking curiously into the room, but he wasn't sure. The second floor hallway was getting rather crowded by that point.

  "Who is Clifford Steele?" John Flotsam asked curiously, tilting his head at Woodcock like a little bird.

  "Clifford Steele," Woodcock said, drawing the name out dramatically, rolling the r liberally across his tongue, "was the subject of Mortimer Torpid's last novel, a scathing deconstruction of the western cowboy and everything despicable about it."

  "So, you think that it could be a case of professional rivalry? One that turned murderous?" Peg Begnawed asked as she tucked her notebook into an internal pocket of her jacket.

  "To call Clifford Steele a rival of Mortimer Torpid would be like calling McDonald's a rival of La Tour d'Argent," Woodcock said with a sniff.

  Peg wrinkled her brow and John cast his big curious eyes back and forth between the two of them.

  "I don't know what that is..." John said faintly, looking embarrassed.

  "Neither do I," Detective Begnawed said, not looking embarrassed at all. "Did you just sneeze?"

  "It is a famous french restaurant!" Woodcock snapped.

  "Ooh..." they both chorused.

  Woodcock breathed tightly through his nose and permitted himself to briefly massage his temples.

  "Say," Peg said, turning to John with a wide grin. "Why don't we play a game of snap while we wait for Officer Man to return? It's not like we've got nothing better to do."

  "I love snap!" the boy enthused. "Can we play memory snap? I'm quite good at that one."

  "Ugh," Woodcock grumbled quietly while the two left the room, chattering endlessly as they often did. The crowd outside the study door had largely dispersed, the officers returning to whatever tasks or loitering they were doing before being drawn in by the spectacle of Woodcock's deductions.

  Turning back the room and the dead body, Woodcock heaved a sigh. At least it left him some time alone in the room to give a once over without a prying audience to perform for.

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  Not quite an hour later saw all of them gathered back in the study of Mortimer Torpid. Woodcock Jones, John Flotsam and Detective Peg Begnawed stood in front of the body while Clifford Steele stood awkwardly across from them, his back to the door and the cluster of police in the hall.

  Peg crunched through the crispy coating on her haddock, moaning in appreciation and accepting a paper napkin from Officer Man as he went around the room handing them out.

  "Gods," she groaned, "There's nothing more British than a good fish and chips."

  "Quite," Woodcock agreed, though his raised eyebrows and the disdainful wrinkle of his nose said otherwise.

  "I've always been partial to sausage rolls, myself," John piped up, his mouth full of chips.

  "What!"

  "No!"

  "That's just not the thing!"

  A chorus of angry British grumbling sounded throughout the room and John's little narrow shoulders hunched up around his ears as his cheeks burned bright red.

  "Really, John," Woodcock drawled. "Read the room."

  The only person who appeared unmoved by little John Flotsam's opinion was the ostentatiously dressed Clifford Steele, standing with his thick arms crossed over his thicker middle and glowering at Woodcock. He was dressed in an impressive outfit, consisting of cowboy hat, plaid western style button down shirt, crisp blue jeans tucked into shiny brown cowboy boots, topped with a suede leather jacket with fringe across the arms and chest. His red cheeks and bulbous nose sat on top a truly impressive fu manchu style mustache.

  "If y'all are quite done here, I do got places to be," he drawled in a thick southern accent.

  "Mister Clifford Steele," Woodcock greeted him.

  "Deadeye," Steele snapped back.

  "I'm sorry?" Woodcock frowned.

  "It's Clifford 'Deadeye' Steele," the man reiterated angrily.

  Woodcock stared back at him blankly. "Ah, yes. For your shooting record."

  "Austin County clay pigeon champion three years counting," the man said proudly, smoothing his wide square hands down over his rounded stomach.

  "Very impressive," Woodcock said flatly. "If only the same could be said of your books."

  "Excuse me?" Steele asked, though it was clear from his steadily reddening face that he had heard and understood what Woodcock had said.

  "Your series of western novels have certainly earned you a fair bit of money and reputation. But, Mr. Torpid put that all into question with his latest novel, didn't he?" Woodcock asked with an arrogant tip of his head.

  Clifford Steele sniffed and crossed his arms again. "Everyone's a critic," he said dismissively.

  "I suppose," Woodcock agreed. "But, not everyone is a world renowned author and satirist."

  This time Clifford Steele scoffed out loud. "World renowned?" he repeated with scorn. "I'd like to know what parts of the world even know the name Mortimer Tepid."

  "Torpid," John corrected him. Steele gave the boy a scathing look from under his bushy eyebrows.

  "Do you consider yourself a man of passion, Mr. Steele?" Woodcock asked, taking a step forward, his long legs eating up the space between them easily.

  "I suppose I do," he drawled, squinting at Woodcock with suspicion.

  "A man who criticizes your work, your profession even, would inspire hatred in anyone, don't you think?" Woodcock asked, taking another gliding step toward the man.

  "I think you'd have to respect the opinion of the man first, before you hate him for it," Clifford Steele said with a wry twist of his mouth.

  "But if you did, would that hatred be strong enough to lead a man to kill?" Woodcock asked, leaning forward to pin Clifford Steele with a pointed look, before leaning back to look down at the man's jacket and the bit of fringe he had pinched between his fingers.

  "My, what is this, Mr. Steele?" Woodcock asked with a raised eyebrow, pulling his fingers away and gesturing to the fringe.

  "What?" John asked, jumping forward even as the detective from Scotland Yard approached from Woodcock's other side.

  "Oh my! Now, that is something," Peg mumbled, her own eyebrows climbing up her forehead as she gazed down at Clifford Steele's jacket.

  "What?" he asked, confused. Looking down, he seemed surprised to see a bit of black clinging to the end of the fringe on the front of his jacket. "What's that?"

  "It looks," Woodcock said, straightening up and pausing for dramatic effect, "like the ink of a typewriter."