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

The Case of the Copped Cockatoo by Albert Bashover

Detective Edgar Snavely was in his favorite position. His long, thin frame was leaning back in the wood-slatted office chair, legs propped up on the scarred wooden desk. Through half-closed eyes, he watched the smoke curling up from his meerschaum pipe. The morning Florida sun forced its way through the dusty windows, slanted through the old wooden blinds, and highlighted his hawkish profile. Except for his feet, a half-filled bottle labeled “bourbon,” an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, and a telephone, the worn desktop was bare. It was a picture of Sherlock Holmes semi-asleep in Sam Spade’s office.

Incongruous, but that was the effect Edgar wanted. Edgar’s specialty as a detective was deductive reasoning as practiced by his idol, Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately for Edgar, his clients preferred the crudity of the Sam Spade technique to the subtlety of the reasoned approach. Clients were hard to come by, and though Edgar didn’t drink or smoke cigarettes, he felt that presenting the client with the proper ambiance was very important. A needlepoint on the wall behind the desk proclaimed, “No Crime Goes Unsolved When Snavely’s Involved.” Below that, a battered frame (he had artfully battered it himself) displayed his investigator’s license. Next to that was a framed letter from the Jacksonville police, thanking him for his help in solving the case of the Jacksonville cereal killer and requesting that he apply his deductive reasoning techniques everywhere. Though Edgar had studied criminal psychology for years, he couldn’t understand how a person could develop homicidal tendencies towards a breakfast food. An inefficient secretary in Jacksonville had made several errors in typing, including misspelling cereal, and typing “elsewhere” instead of “everywhere.” It took a bit of whiteout and retyping, but Edgar had made the corrections.

There was contentment in Edgar’s small, thin smile as he listened to the clatter of the antique typewriter in the outer office. Thaddeus Dinsmore, Edgar’s young protege, was busy typing up the record of Snavely’s latest exploits. The boy was young and inexperienced, but he was a willing worker — willing to work at minimum wage and the promise that he would be taught the principles of deductive reasoning. Suddenly the sound of typing stopped. In a moment, a well-built lad of seventeen with a head of tousled brown hair atop an acne-covered face tentatively entered Snavely’s office.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “There’s a lady outside who would like to see you about a case. Her name is Edwina Lamore.”

Snavely sighed, put his feet on the floor, and said, “Come in, Thaddeus, and close the door behind you. I think it is time to give you another lesson in deductive reasoning.” He stood up, clamped his pipe firmly in his mouth, and clasped his hands behind his back. “You say it is a lady who wishes to see me. Am I correct in assuming that you have reached this conclusion by the usual superficial observation?”

“Well, she looked like a lady, and she was wearing a dress...”

“Aha! She was wearing a dress. And no doubt she was carrying a purse.”

“Why yes...”

“Ah, Thaddeus, Thaddeus,” sighed Edgar. “An experienced detective goes beyond simple appearances. Have I ever told you about the case of the Baldheaded Countess? Or the case of the Bogus Bosom? I thought not. You say she told you she is a possible client and wants to see me about a case?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me, Thaddeus, have we had more clients or bill collectors in this office recently?”

“Well...”

“And would a bill collector come in here and say he is a bill collector? Of course not. He would say he is a client, and if he is a bill collector who has been unsuccessful in getting to see me in the past, he might try a disguise — he might perhaps dress up as a woman. Things are not always what they seem, young man. Now stop scratching that pimple, and show this so-called lady client in.”

Even Snavely had to be impressed with the disguise. Edwina appeared to be a petite blonde in her well-cared-for middle thirties. Her expensive red dress fitted her so well that any due bill she might have tried to hide, no matter how thin, would have to be hidden in her handbag. She flowed into the dingy office and seated herself in one of the upright chairs facing the desk. From the doorway, Thaddeus’s eager eyes followed her every move until she sat down and crossed her legs. Thaddeus blinked and looked at Edgar.

“You can come in also, Thaddeus,” Edgar said. “I would like you to take notes of this meeting. It might be educational for you.

“And now, Ms. Lamore,” said Edgar, turning his piercing eyes on the client. “If I may hear your story.”

“My problem is that my cockatoo is missing.”

“Mmmm?”

“Yes. You see, I recently had to go to Denmark for an operation. I had my cockatoo when I left the United States, but when I returned, I discovered it was gone.”

“And that surprised you?” asked Edgar with an arch smile.

“Of course. I had grown very attached to it. I would give anything to have it back.”

“I can understand that,” said Edgar sympathetically.

“A cockatoo is a parrotlike bird from Australia,” offered Thaddeus. “They make very good pets, and...”

“I know what a cockatoo is,” said Edgar. “Please continue, Ms. Lamore.”

“I lent Foo-Foo — that’s my cockatoo — and her stand to my next door neighbor, Igor Cranston. Foo-Foo never needed a cage. She would fly around my living room when she wanted to, but she always returned to her bird stand. I was never afraid she would fly away. Igor said he would take care of her while I was away. He seemed like such a nice man. Now they are both gone.” She took a tiny handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed it under her eye.

Edgar applied his most comforting smile, but his sharp eyes never lost their inquisitive glint. “I’m sure we can help you, Ms. Lamore. There is a fee, of course...”

“It is Miss Lamore now. My husband passed away two years ago and left me with quite a bit of money. I have been well taken care of...” Edwina cast a sideways glance at Thaddeus. “At least monetarily. Money will be no problem.”

Edgar stood up and reloaded his meerschaum from a tobacco can in the desk drawer. “It would help if you could describe your cockatoo and your neighbor in as much detail as you can. Thaddeus, take notes.”

Edwina put her handkerchief in her handbag. “Foo-Foo is all white with a beautiful white crest. She can count to ten. Igor is bald, five foot eight or nine, and can probably count much higher. I made the mistake of telling Igor how valuable Foo-Foo is, but I never expected him to move away while I was gone and take Foo-Foo with him. He knows how much I loved my cockatoo.” Edwina leaned closer to the notetaking Thaddeus so he might more accurately record her words. “I have a lot of love to give, you see, so I lavished all my affections on Foo-Foo. She was all I had at the time.”

She looked sadly at Thaddeus. Thaddeus scribbled faster.

“I had circulars printed and passed around the neighborhood asking for the return of my bird,” continued Edwina, “but so far I have had no response. Now I feel I must have professional help to find Igor and Foo-Foo.”

“Did this Igor Cranston ever tell you what his occupation was?” asked Edgar.

“All Igor ever said about his work was that it had to do with money.”

“Mmmm...” offered Edgar. He blew a heavily aromatic cloud to the ceiling. “That’s not much to go on, but we will do our best. Now if you will return home, Miss Lamore, you can leave your problem in our hands. We will contact you as soon as we have any information.”

As soon as the door closed behind Edwina, Edgar turned to Thaddeus, “There is more to this game than meets the eye, Thaddeus. Tell me what you observed about our client.”

“Well, she seems to miss her cockatoo...”

“Just as I thought. You insist on seeing only the obvious. What about the disguise?”

“The disguise?”

“Of course. It was just about perfect. To anyone but a trained observer, it would appear that an attractive, probably sexually hungry woman was interested in finding a missing cockatoo.”

“That’s what she said...”

“But Edwina — perhaps I should call him Edwin — made one glaring mistake. Did you notice how she appeared particularly interested in you?”

“Well, I... I,” Thaddeus reddened down to his fingernails.

“I don’t want to disparage you, Thaddeus, but let’s face it. Why would a woman’s amorous intentions be directed to a pimply-faced youth when there was a mature man of obviously superior attributes in the same room? The answer is evident: a younger, inexperienced person can be more easily manipulated.

“Thaddeus, our client does not want us to find a missing cockatoo at all. He probably already has one. Our client wants us to locate Igor Cranston.”

“Wow!” said the awestruck Thaddeus. “I would have never figured...”

“Don’t be disheartened, Thaddeus. It takes years of training to be able to think as I do. Now we must work fast. Follow Edwin, or Edwina if you prefer it that way. Don’t let him out of your sight. I don’t know what this transvestite’s game is, but we will find out. Stay with him until you see the lights in his apartment go out, then report to me. I am going to see my old friend and brother-in-law Captain LeStreet at the police department. He may be able to give us some information on this Igor Cranston.”

Ocean Beach is a small, incorporated town on the Florida coast. Normally the Ocean Beach Police Department is a quiet place. The usual police activity is dispensing speeding tickets to tourists and occasionally stopping two eighty-year-old retired accountants from fighting over a parking space. On this day, however, the place was buzzing. There had been an attempted robbery at the Bloomingsax department store, and a guard had been wounded.

Captain James LeStreet was a small man with a roly-poly body and a matching round, florid face. His white hair, which usually stood up like two pointed horns on either side of his balding head, was flattened with perspiration. He was trying to simultaneously answer a phone call from the city council president, interrogate a witness, and get a report from a patrolman. The second phone on his desk started ringing just as Edgar walked in.

“Oh no. Not you, Edgar. Not today!” Captain LeStreet wiped his head with a crumpled, damp handkerchief.

Edgar was used to his brother-in-law’s gruff ways. Since LeStreet had married Edgar’s sister Dottie, Edgar had been involved in many of his cases. Edgar’s help might not have been outwardly appreciated, but he knew that underneath Captain LeStreet’s irascible exterior was a confused little man crying for help. Edgar was always there to help. Dottie made sure of that. Dottie loved her little brother and insisted, under threat of connubial disharmony, that her husband use Edgar’s talents.

It was a two-way street. Edgar knew that he could always expect any help he needed from the Ocean City Police captain. On this day, he had come to get information about Igor Cranston, but one glance at the excited confusion of the police captain’s office indicated to Edgar that this was one of those times when LeStreet needed the calm, incisive mind of detective Edgar Snavely more than Edgar needed him.

“I was going to ask you for some information on a certain character that I am investigating, James, but I see that you are quite busy at the moment. Perhaps if you could tell me a little about the problem you are working on, I might be of some assistance.”

Captain LeStreet opened his mouth to express in no uncertain terms the manner in which Edgar might best be of assistance to his police department, but then he had the quick picture of his returning home that evening to a less than happy Dottie. He took a deep breath, dismissed the others from his office, and dutifully started his explanation to the attentive Edgar.

“There has been an attempted robbery of a bank truck that was picking up the day’s receipts at the delivery dock of Bloomingsax department store. Several employees had noticed a suspicious looking man casing the delivery dock for the past couple of days and had reported it to management. The manager of Bloomingsax is a friend of mine, and he asked me to look into it. I had some shopping to do for Dottie anyway, so I personally went to Bloomingsax yesterday to investigate the problem. At the loading dock, I observed a ‘John Doe’ across the street, acting suspiciously, but he didn’t break any laws so I just made a note of it and continued my shopping. This afternoon an attempt was made to rob the bank truck at the Bloomingsax loading dock by an armed man. The bank truck guard pulled his gun, but not fast enough. The perpetrator fired, and fled without getting any money. The guard was badly wounded, however.”

Edgar was perplexed. “There doesn’t seem to be a problem here, James. This ‘John Doe’ was seen by the guard, by several employees, and even by you. It would seem that there would be no problem in apprehending him.”

“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.”

Edgar sat down in his swivel chair with a disappointed look. “Ah, Thaddeus,” he sighed. “You have a long way to go before you are able to fill the boots of any great private investigator. You had the perfect opportunity to find out what our client was about, and you muffed it.”

The phone on Edgar’s desk jangled loudly. Edgar picked it up before the reproved Thaddeus could get back to his own desk to answer it and heard the satin voice of Edwina Lamore.

“I’m so glad I caught you, Mr. Snavely. I received the oddest phone call last night. A Miss Snodgrass called to tell me that she had seen one of the circulars I had distributed. She told me that a man she knew had sold her a cockatoo just yesterday for one thousand dollars. From the description in my circular, she believed it to be my Foo-Foo. She said she would return it to me, but I would have to reimburse her for the money she paid for the bird.”

“It is possible that this ‘Miss Snodgrass’ is telling the truth,” said Edgar. “It is also possible that Miss Snodgrass is an accomplice of your friend Cranston, and this is his way of getting money for the bird without showing up himself. He might be afraid that you would have him arrested for birdnapping.”

“You are so clever, Mr. Snavely. But what shall I do? I do want my Foo-Foo back. She is very valuable to me.”

Edgar thought for a moment. “Do you have a telephone number so that you might get in touch with Miss Snodgrass?... Good. Call her and have her bring the bird to my office tomorrow at precisely nine A.M.

“I would like you to be here also, Miss Lamore, with the one thousand dollars. If Miss Snodgrass’s story is true, it will cost you a thousand dollars, but you will have your bird. If her story is not true, with some discreet questioning I should get a lead as to where we can find Igor Cranston.”

“Do you think this Miss Snodgrass has Miss Lamore’s bird?” asked Thaddeus when Edgar had hung up the phone.

“All will be revealed in time,” said Edgar. “Not only will Edwina Lamore and Miss Snodgrass be here tomorrow, but I will also invite a surprise guest, my friend police captain James LeStreet. We should have a very interesting get-together.”

A none-too-happy Captain LeStreet was the first of the guests to arrive at Edgar’s office the next morning.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here, but Dottie insisted I stop off on my way to work. What’s going on, Edgar?”

“I won’t keep you long, James. I am having a particular person here in a little while. I thought you might want to be here to see if you would recognize her — or him — as a participant in the Bloomingsax shooting.”

“Her? Him? Are you still on that disguise kick? I told you it was a man that we all saw. If that’s what you asked me here for...”

The door opened, interrupting the captain’s protests. A tallish woman, about forty, with fiery red hair piled high on her head and wearing an orange two-piece suit, walked in. She carried a brown purse in her left hand, and in her right hand she carried a black bird stand topped with a crossbar. A string on the crossbar was tied to the leg of a large white cockatoo perched there.

“Hello. I’m Miss Snodgrass. I’m to meet a Miss Lamore here,” she said.

“Come in,” said Edgar. “I am Edgar Snavely. This is my assistant, Thaddeus Dinsmore, and the other gentleman is Captain LeStreet of the Ocean City Police Department.”

Miss Snodgrass’s jaw noticeably tightened. “What is the law doing here? I am just a good citizen doing her duty by returning someone’s property. I’m doing nothing illegal.”

“Have no fear, Miss Snodgrass,” soothed Edgar. “We are all here for the same reason: to meet Miss Edwina Lamore.”

As if on cue, the door opened once again, and Edwina Lamore entered.

“Foo-Foo!” she cried as soon as she saw the bird.

At the sound of her name, the bird spread her wings, which seemed to fill the room, and leaped from the stand in the direction of Edwina. Unfortunately for Foo-Foo, the cord securing her leg to the bird stand pulled taut. The bird made a sudden, unplanned mid-air U-turn, which caused her to crash-land on Miss Snodgrass’s hair. As a result, the bird, the stand, and Miss Snodgrass’s bright red hair fell to the floor of the office. There was a split second of silence as everyone stared at the melange of black bird stand, white bird, and red hair on the floor. Snodgrass was busy trying to hide “her” bald head with his purse.

“The Bloomingsax shooter!” exclaimed Captain LeStreet.

“Igor Cranston!” cried Edwina.

Snodgrass, née Cranston, tried a quick turn to make a hasty exit through the office door but was hampered by a too-tight skirt. He was brought to the floor with a flying tackle by the quick acting Thaddeus. Captain LeStreet, who moved pretty quickly for a short, overweight cop, helped Thaddeus push Cranston into a chair, and the two of them held him there.

“Edgar, call my office and tell them to send a car and a couple of uniforms,” puffed Captain LeStreet. “I don’t know how you did it, Edgar, but you certainly came through this time.”

Stony-faced, Edgar reached for the phone with his right hand and his meerschaum with his left. He would need a little calming nicotine before he would be able to explain things to the captain.

The smell of the meerschaum’s smoke was killing LeStreet, but he couldn’t help but smile at Edgar, who was sitting in his office across the desk from him. The local newspaper had proclaimed LeStreet a hero for catching the Bloomingsax shooter so quickly, and Dottie had promised him a celebration sauerbraten for dinner that night. The only thing that could make life better was for Edgar’s next case to take him to New Zealand.

“I knew immediately, of course, that Snodgrass was not a woman,” explained Edgar. “It was a simple matter of deduction. No real redheaded woman would wear an orange dress and carry a brown purse. The colors are all wrong.” He watched the smoke from his meerschaum curl lazily upward from his pipe, only to get caught and ripped apart in the slowly revolving fan blades above the captain’s desk. “Now, the gender of the other party, Edwina Lamore, is another matter. Edwina claimed to be so femininely upset at what happened in my office that she asked, in fact insisted, that Thaddeus accompany her and Foo-Foo home. That was the chance I was waiting for. As they left I whispered to Thaddeus to check out Edwina Lamore’s apartment thoroughly, and not to return until he knew for sure that she was what she pretended to be.”

A buzz from the intercom on the captain’s deck preceded a nasal announcement that a Mr. Thaddeus Dinsmore would like to see the captain and Mr. Snavely. The captain asked the secretary to let him in.

“Well, Thaddeus,” said Edgar as the young man entered, “I hope you did a more thorough job this time.”

Thaddeus blushed and looked at the floor. “I did my best, Mr. Snavely.”

“And you are now convinced that Edwina Lamore is indeed a woman?”

“She sure is,” said Thaddeus.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, I had to stay all night to do it, but as you suggested, I checked absolutely everything.”

“Very good, young man. You are still young and inexperienced, of course, but I must admit that you now seem to understand that thoroughness is essential in our business. Stick with it, Thaddeus. With a little more maturity you might make a good detective. By the way, do I imagine it, or is your face clearing up a bit?”