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some snuffy flibbertigibbet boss me around and come to think of it I ain’t gonna play any dumb-ass detectivin’ games, neither!”
    With that, he stomped to the door, threw it open, and started marching back toward the train station.

4
    ARMSTRONG B. CURTIS, ESQUIRE
    Or, Old Red Draws a Line in the Sand and Meets a Snake in the Grass
    “I’ll be right back,” I told Smythe as I hustled after my brother. I would’ve preferred saying “ We’ll be right back,” but I didn’t want to make a promise I might not be able to keep.
    I caught up to Old Red in the hallway with my speech all ready in my head. It was about Our Big Chance and How Far We’d Come and Not Giving Up … and Diana Corvus. I think it would’ve proved quite inspiring, if I’d only had the chance to give it.
    “Don’t bother,” Gustav said before I even opened my mouth. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
    “Oh?” I pointed down at our feet. “Then why are they still movin’?”
    Old Red looked over his shoulder. When he was satisfied Smythe wasn’t stealing a peek out of the office, he stopped.
    “I ain’t some bootlicker that big milksop can push around,” he said. “Hopefully, he knows that now.”
    “Trust me: No one’s gonna mistake you for a bootlicker. A madman, maybe, but not a bootlicker. Anyway, you’ve made your point, so now you can come on back and do as Smythe asks with your precious pride intact.”
    “What? Let the man play dress-up with me like I was a damn paper doll?”
    My brother looked down as if he meant to spit, but the sight of the gleaming clean marble floor stopped him.
    “Feh,” he said instead.
    “Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll smooth things over without any help from you. Like always. You just be here when it’s time for … whatever the hell comes next.”
    As I turned to go, I noticed a short, chubby-cheeked fellow eyeing us from farther down the hallway. He was dressed with grand formality, in black frock coat and top hat and spats, and he kept his gaze glued to me so firmly I felt the need to tip my bowler to him before striding back into Smythe’s impromptu tailor shop.
    “Everything’s alright,” I informed a huffing, puffing, pacing Smythe. “I talked some sense into him.”
    “So he’s coming back to put on his costume?”
    “Oh, I think it’d be best if he outfitted himself today.”
    And before Smythe could get to gnashing his teeth again, I bit the bullet. Chomped down hard on a cannonball, really.
    I swiped the red Stetson off the desk and plopped it atop my head.
    Unfortunately, it fit.
    “Unlike my brother,” I said, reaching for a pair of white trousers, “I ain’t too big for my britches.”
    Smythe kept on fretting and fuming at first, but the more I got myself looking like a candy cane, the more he calmed down. I even managed to get the lay of the land from him at last.
    The competition was to kick off at noon with a ceremony in the White City’s much ballyhooed Court of Honor. All the contenders would be present, and the contest judge—William Pinkerton, eldest of Allan Pinkerton’s heirs and head of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency’s Chicago office—would preside.
    “Pinkerton ain’t gonna compete himself?” I managed to ask as I buckled on my chaps.
    “No,” Smythe said.
    “But he’ll have a man in the ring for him, right?”
    “No.”
    “You mean you’re havin’ a World’s Greatest Sleuth competition without a contestant from the world’s biggest detective agency?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hmm,” I said, inviting elucidation.
    Which Smythe did not provide.
    So I tried again.
    “Hmmmmmmm.”
    “It couldn’t be helped!” Smythe cried. “Pinkerton wanted to keep his precious agency ‘above the fray.’ He was willing to act as judge, however, and he oversaw the creation of the contest rules.”
    “Oh ho! I’ve been wonderin’ about that. What are the rules, exactly?”
    “I don’t know. Pinkerton wouldn’t tell us. Real detectives don’t get