Finished listening?

You’re right!

Ells said “You’re not a gardener! You’re an actor!” She went on to explain that she’d felt that the gardener seemed familiar earlier, but couldn’t quite place her finger on it. It wasn’t until the investigators stepped onto the elevator that it dawned on her: she’d seen Willard on her favorite soap opera, Elevators of Our Lives. In fact, the quote-unquote “gardener” had said the exact same line about his father on the program.

Willard confessed to the ruse and also confessed to using his uncanny knack for fake crying. He launched into a long lecture about the best ways to make yourself fake cry. At first Ells and Ernie were slightly insulted at having been tricked, but as he really got into his spiel, they both had to admire his dedication to the craft. In fact, Ernie surreptitiously took note of two different crying methods that he planned to use to get out of his next library book fine. Willard asked the investigators to not tell Fern that they’d found him out as a fraud.

The pair of detectives encouraged him to come clean, so that he might pursue whatever his interests actually were, without worry of repercussions. Personally, my hope is that he continues his pursuit of cultivating Brussels sprouts, because the world can always use a few more sprouts. Did you know that there is a variety of sprout called the Tasty Nugget? If you were looking to solve the mystery of “What is the Best Brussels Sprout Name?” you can consider that case closed! I could talk about sprouts all day, but then you’d be late for book club, so I’ll schedule some time to follow up with you next week.

Anyway, Ells and Ernie re-entered the inn just as a cuckoo clock was striking the hour. The detective duo rounded a corner and noticed the grumpy bellhop they had seen before. He was carrying a medium-sized blue suitcase and was muttering under his breath while pushing on a door in the hallway. Ernie happily stepped up and asked if he needed a semi-amateur dance enthusiast to deliver a high-kick to the door. Startled, the bellhop looked Ernie up and down with suspicion, grumbled something about the door being stuck and walked away. The detectives heard the bellhop mumble an insult towards Ernie as he walked away. How rude!

They nodded at the same elevator operator as they passed her, and nearly ran headfirst into a guest who was rounding the corner and carrying an extremely adorable pug. After a suitable amount of you-first’s and no-after-you’s, and no-I-insist’s, the very polite guest smiled and introduced himself as one Archibald Brown. He told Ells and Ernie that they simply had to try some of the pasta with the tomato and cream sauce. Archibald explained that he lived in the next town over, but that he was taking a long weekend at Cozy Slopes Inn. He told them that his room was directly above the kitchen and he hadn’t been able to resist following his nose downstairs when dinner was prepared.

Ernie avoided making the joke that, based on the orange stain on the front of his shirt, it seemed like the man was taking some of his meal to go. It can be quite a burden to have the keen eyes of a detective, but Ells and Ernie almost always used their powers of observation for good. The duo told Archibald they were on their way to the kitchen right now to play a game of Barrels and Flags and asked if he wanted to join them, but Archibald told them thank you and sorry and to excuse him because he was already 15 minutes late.

Ells and Ernie broke out their official travel copy of the board game Barrels and Flags. I’ll skip over the thrilling play-by-play of the game, but it was a close match.

As Ells made the winning throw, Ernie snapped his fingers and cried, “That’s it!” and the forecast seemed to call for a brainstorm. Ernie told Ells that he hadn’t smelled the pasta sauce from his room earlier and he doubted that it was even possible. On a hunch, he called Donnie Henderson, his cousin’s-friend’s-father’s-aunt’s acquaintance, who happened to be a travel agent. Ernie asked if Donnie could get him a room at Cozy Slopes Inn, and he stated specifically that he wanted to get the room above the kitchen. After some sounds of typing, Donnie came back and gave Ernie two pieces of bad news. First, there wasn’t a guest room above the kitchen, and second, Cozy Slopes Inn didn’t have any rooms available until November.

When Ernie rehashed his phone call, Ells’ eyes lit up. Ernie recognized the look and waited for the brilliant deduction that Ells was getting ready to make. Ells smiled and told Ernie that they needed to go find Fern immediately.

The duo left the kitchen and made their way back towards the entrance to the manor, passing Archibald, Archibald’s pug, and Archibald’s crossword puzzle as they hurried along. Ernie muttered that if Archibald didn’t want to play the game with them, he didn’t need to make up an excuse about being late. Ells thought for a minute and then replied that it wasn’t an excuse, doing the crossword puzzle in that armchair was exactly what Archibald was late for.

When they arrived at Fern’s office, they found Fern in the process of rolling up the blueprints that got everyone all worked up. As the investigators took a seat in front of the spotlessly clean desk, Fern went to stow the blueprints in a closet, however, the closet door refused to open. After pulling on it repeatedly, Fern cursed her own luck and wrote down a note to call the handyman and have him unstick it. In a clearly agitated state she told Ells and Ernie that the manor was in need of more than one repair, and that she was worried that one bad review could be enough to run her out of business.

Fern shifted her focus back to the detectives and asked if the investigators had discovered anything about the passage.

It’s so often that investigators get asked to figure out where a missing thing went; I personally found it rather refreshing that Ells and Ernie are being asked about something that suddenly appeared.

Fortunately, Ells and Ernie had quite a bit more to report. They told Fern about the door in the passage and about the strange puzzly markings on it.

Fern looked interested and when she asked if they had figured it out, Ells and Ernie shared a look and then revealed that they’d figured out many things that day. Fern looked surprised, and her face probably matched my own. These investigators have been working all day to uncover a mystery, and then they just casually say, without even gathering a crowd, that they’ve solved everything? I’m just saying, a little showmanship would be nice.

Fern asked if they had opened the door and with a curious look in her eyes, Ells shook her head and said “We won’t be able to open the door in the tunnel right now because–”

And that’s how you do a cliffhanger. Boom. I mean, I’m dying to talk with you about what Ells said, so you should figure it out ASAP. Because I can tell that the drama is just eating away at both you and me right now. Press the continue button and then enter the rest of the line into the box and I’ll know we can continue.