This Featured Detective Never Caves In
The Dear Holmes “Featured Detective” Program honors one detective per mystery for their clever and well-thought-out solution to the case. To learn how to send in your own solution, visit Dearholmes.com/solve.
Dear Detectives,
With another slew of curious cases under our belts, it’s time again to honor some of our sharpest sleuths with the distinction of Featured Detective!
When the case of The Celtic Curse first came to our attention, there were unsurprisingly more questions than answers at hand. Was the death of Mortimer Payne an accident, or an act of malice? And what of the cave-in that his expedition fled? Whether or not that itself was an accident, there was no sure way of knowing whether it had been the actual cause of the man’s death.
Reverend Skinner helped kick off the case with a strong series of suspect profiles, including that of Dylan Dewey, but despite his interviews with Dewey, and Cate and Bowen Heather, there were few specific people who stood out as singularly suspicious. There were motives to go around, after all, much of the expedition party sought either fame, fortune, or both, yet the circumstances weren’t quite adding up.
Early on, several sharp investigators posited that whether or not the cavern collapse was a natural occurrence (most suspected it was), Mr. Payne’s death was clearly not. For even if he had perfectly fallen onto a rock such that he succumbed to the injury, it seemed dubious that his clothes were wet, caked in mud, when he was supposed to have been in a relatively dry cave when he fell. A number of sleuths observed that Dewey seemed worthy of scrutiny, but few could place their fingers on the exact reason… then Reverend Skinner’s follow up letters arrived, and the pieces of this puzzle started falling into place!
Detective Brian F. of Palm Bay, FL, was the first to observe, among other curious things, Dewey’s contradictory reaction to light in the aftermath of the cave-in. Why wasn’t he bothered by the brightness like the others who’d been in the cave? And did that mean he was responsible for Payne’s demise?
It comes as no surprise that Featured Detective Brian answered each of these queries astutely, and went on to wrap a neat ribbon around this case. With explanations for the death itself, and Dewey’s quirks, this sleuth left no stones unturned.
Congratulations from the Dear Holmes Team to Detective Brian F. — a special reward will soon be at your door!
Honorable Mention(s) to Detective Joy P. for a dashingly stylish letter, and to Detective Wisner H., for asking all the hard-hitting questions (Indeed, “Why so much scotch?”)!
Want to be next month’s Featured Detective? Learn how to submit your solution by visiting DearHolmes.com/solve.