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Many clients had sat in the uncomfortable chair across the enormous desk from the equally enormous Harry Slothe, World Famous Private Investigator, but few had been as nervous as Winchell Meaney. As Mr. Slothe's confidential assistant, I sat in on most of those meetings, and this time was no different. Meaney had been talking for nearly an hour. I'd already filled two notebooks - mostly with drawings and doodles, and also schematics for a machine that will one day replace the common ground squirrel. But when I heard Mr. Slothe's rumbling baritone, I sensed it was time to listen.
"Allow me to sum up, Sir." As he spoke, Mr. Slothe took liberal bites of one of Peaseporter's famous chili dogs. I knew from experience that he would finish it - and several more - before the client left, adding to his already prodigious girth and further straining the specially-built wheelchair he uses. My boss is the only person I've ever known whose mouth is a two-way street: words coming out at the same time food is going in.
"As the producer of the daytime drama 'The Rich and the Randy,' your livelihood has become threatened by the so-called 'phantom' who is haunting your studio. You say that production has halted until the matter can be put to rest. And while my assistant, Mr. Baloney, and I have preferred the Gilligan's Island reruns that have temporarily replaced your program, I hate to turn away a fellow human being in trouble. Especially one who has placed such a large stack of hundred dollar bills on my desk." He proceeded to the next chili dog. "I surmise you have a clue as to the identity of this mysterious phantom?"
"I know you'll find this incredible," the small man trembled, "but I believe it is the ghost of one of our actors - Reginald McFarland - who was killed in a terrible boiler explosion over a year ago."
"If I may, Mr. Meaney. I am familiar with your program and I happen to remember that the boiler explosion was a part of the show. It killed off Mr. McFarland's character, but what became of McFarland the actor?"
"I think he went into dinner theater. Oh please, Mr. Slothe. Help me stop this madness. Help me!" The poor man broke into sobs that forced me to turn back to my desk before shaking with uncontrollable derisive laughter.
And that was how we came to be at the studio the following day. Mr. Meaney was in slightly better spirits when he saw me wheeling Mr. Slothe's 381 pounds onto the soundstage. "Oh, thank heaven," the producer exclaimed. "Let me start by introducing you to our janitor, Mr. Bartleby. He was the last one to see the Phantom."
As the old man approached, I described him to Mr. Slothe. That's one of the drawbacks to being blind; the advantage is that he doesn't accidentally catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror on bath night.
Mr. Bartleby was bald, in his sixties, wearing pince-nez glasses. He walked with a pronounced limp. "I guess you want to ask me some questions," the old man said.
"That won't be necessary," replied Mr. Slothe. "Since you are Reginald McFarland, alias 'the Phantom.'"
HOW DID HARRY SLOTHE KNOW?
The character formerly played by McFarland on "The Rich and the Randy" was a bald, limping janitor named Bartleby. The pince-nez disguise did not fool Harry Slothe.