Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

“You would imagine so,” grunted the exasperated captain, “except that each witness described the suspect differently. The guard said an elderly greyhaired man wounded him, the employees saw a youngish blond man at the loading dock, and I saw a balding middle-aged man watching the bank truck. There seem to have been three men involved, yet the actual robbery attempt was made by only one person.”

“Mmmm,” murmured Edgar. He took his meerschaum out of his pocket and loaded it. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“I would rather you didn’t.”

“I see where a bit of deductive reasoning is needed here,” said Edgar as he lit up and exhaled a blue-grey cloud. “The answer to your problem is quite clear if you can cut through the deceptive haze of the obvious.”

“Yes, cutting through the haze is a problem,” coughed the captain, waving ineffectively at the approaching fog.

“Your John Doe is obviously just one person but one who is a master of disguise,” continued Edgar. “He is cleverly using this ability to appear as what he is not. Therefore, I would suggest that you look for what you did not see.”

“Huh?”

“This criminal went to a great deal of trouble to look like three different men; therefore, it would not surprise me if the next time you see him he will confuse you once again by looking completely different. I suggest, dear brother-in-law, that you look for a woman — a ‘Joan Doe.’ ”

“A woman?”

“Yes. It is the obvious conclusion to the mind trained in deductive reasoning.”

“Edgar, your mind never ceases to amaze me.”

“It takes training, James. And now that I have been of some help to you, I hope you will return the favor by giving me some information. I am looking for a man named Igor Cranston. I have a client who believes he may have stolen a cockatoo.”

“A cockatoo?”

“Yes. It is a white parrotlike bird that...”

“I know what a cockatoo is, Edgar. I was just surprised that you were looking for one. It just so happens that we’ve received a call from the owner of the Florida Feathered Friends pet store. He said that a man had tried to sell him an expensive cockatoo under suspicious circumstances. The man had no papers of ownership and appeared very nervous. He said he had found the bird and knew it was valuable. The pet store owner wouldn’t buy it, of course, and suggested that the man find the owner, possibly receiving some small reward, or perhaps sell it privately.”

Captain LeStreet hated it when he was able to help Edgar. It only meant that now Edgar would feel it was necessary for him to reciprocate.

“Thank you very much for that information, James,” said Edgar as he curled another wreath of blue-grey Turkish smoke around the captain’s rubefacient face. “And I think I may be able to repay you with some useful information of my own. As I pointed out before, you should be looking for a master of disguise who will probably be posing as a woman. At this moment my assistant Thaddeus has been assigned to trail someone who might be the very person you are looking for.”

Captain LeStreet put up a defensive hand. “Thank you for the help, Edgar, but I think my police are capable of developing their own leads.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are, James. In any case I will keep you informed if anything more develops.”

“Thanks heaps, Edgar. Now if I can get back to work...”

The next morning, Edgar heard the typewriter chattering away as he was climbing the stair to his office. Thaddeus was already hard at work typing up his report on the previous night’s activities.

“I’ll be done in a minute, Mr. Snavely,” said the eager Thaddeus.

“Why don’t you come into my office and give me an oral report in the meantime,” suggested Edgar.

Thaddeus stopped typing and followed Edgar. “After Miss La-more left here yesterday, she went shopping at the Publix supermarket. She bought a head of lettuce, a carton of milk — two percent fat—”

“I’m not interested in her shopping list, Thaddeus. Tell me where he, or she, went. Did he contact anyone?”

“I’m sorry to report, Mr. Snavely, that she spotted me in the parking lot of the supermarket. I tried to tell her it was just a coincidence that I was there, that I was on my way home to my mother. Miss Lamore said she lived all alone in this big apartment, and she needed someone big and strong to help her carry her groceries. I really couldn’t say no, so I went with her.”

“Very good, Thaddeus. So you actually got into his, I mean her, apartment. Did you get a chance to look into any of the clothes closets? Was there anything there that was, shall we say, out of the ordinary?”

“I really couldn’t say, Mr. Snavely. You see, just as she invited me into her apartment, her phone rang. She was beginning to make me feel very uncomfortable, so when she went in to answer the phone, I put the groceries down and left.”