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Dooley and I sat at the sidelines, as did Harriet and Brutus. In fact the four of us were ensconced on the porch, while the humans were all seated around the large garden table Marge had set for the occasion.

The weather was excellent, and so was the mood.

This may surprise you, as the day hadn’t been without its moments of tragedy. Uncle Alec had suffered defeat when he’d been forced to let Dan Goory walk free, unable to pin the murder of Heather Gallop on him with a sufficient degree of finality. Tex was still sulking after the shocking discovery that his neighbor Ted Trapper had been the one behind the terrible theft of his gnomes. And Odelia and Chase were still nowhere in their investigation of the murder of that same Heather Gallop.

As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t feeling all that happy either, as the matter of the mouse invasion still weighed heavily on my mind, and I still hadn’t seen my way toward a solution satisfactory for all.

“I talked to Rufus today,” Harriet said, tackling the topic as if reading my mind. “And he promised he’d come over tonight to talk to the mice.”

“Rufus?” I asked, much surprised by this denouement. “Why Rufus?”

“Because we have all failed in our mouse diplomacy,” said Harriet. “And I was thinking that maybe a giant dog like Rufus could succeed to talk some sense into Hector and Helga.”

It was definitely an idea worth exploring, I had to admit.

“Are mice afraid of dogs?” asked Dooley.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But it’s worth finding out. He is a great deal bigger and potentially more threatening than the four of us, even when working in tandem.”

“I think it’s a lousy idea,” grumbled Brutus, who for some reason wasn’t a big fan of the sheepdog.

“Oh, sugar buns,” said Harriet with a light tinkling laugh. “Stop sulking for a moment, will you? Rufus is simply going to talk to the mice and then he’ll be on his way again.”

“So a priest, a rabbi and a jackrabbit walk into a bar,” Dooley began, but I immediately silenced him. I frankly wasn’t in the mood for any more of his lame jokes.

“I heard you made an arrest today?” said Gran as she expertly sliced through her piece of steak.

“Yeah, and then I let him go again,” said Uncle Alec, munching somberly on a helping of peas in butter sauce. “No evidence.”

“Oh, Uncle Alec,” said Odelia. “You don’t really think Dan is a killer, do you? The man can’t even swat a fly without asking it for forgiveness first.”

“In my experience the most obvious answer is usually the right one,” said Uncle Alec. “Dan was there, and so was the victim, and his fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, which, by the way, also belonged to him.”

“What about the UPS guy?” asked Chase, helping himself to a helping of mashed potatoes.

“What about him?”

“UPS claims they never sent anyone, so it stands to reason he could be the killer.”

Uncle Alec grumbled something, clearly not convinced.

“Are you sure this Heather Gallop person was murdered?” asked Charlene. “Maybe she simply tripped and fell and hit her head?”

“She was murdered, all right,” said Alec. “With a garden gnome, if you please.”

At the mention of the word‘gnome’ Tex looked up sharply, rising from the gloom in which he’d been cloaked for the past twenty minutes. “Did you say gnome?” he asked.

“Tex is very upset,” Marge explained for the benefit of the rest of the company. “He discovered today that our neighbor Ted Trapper stole his gnomes.”

“And had the gall to deny the whole thing!” said Tex, his faith in humanity clearly severely shaken.

“Are you absolutely sure that Ted took your gnomes?” asked Gran.

“I picked them out of his garden myself,” said Tex. “Here, let me show you.” Animation had returned to his limbs and he got up and disappeared into the house.

“He keeps his collection of gnomes under lock and key now,” said Marge. “Afraid they’ll be stolen again.”

“Father Reilly’s gnomes were stolen,” said Scarlett as she frowned at a pea, pronged on a tine of her fork. Scarlett isn’t a big eater, and the amount of butter Marge likes to use when preparing her dishes had probably thrown her. You can’t maintain a figure like Scarlett’s on buttered spuds, veggies and steak. “We think it’s a gang of international gnome thieves, isn’t that right, Vesta?”

“Yeah, definitely a gang,” Gran confirmed. “We talked to several more people and so far three of them have had their gnomes snatched.”

“Surely Ted Trapper didn’t steal them all,” said Charlene. Charlene is one of those mayors who always sees the best in people, and it was clearly hard for her to believe that Ted Trapper would be an international gnome thief, or even a national one.

Tex had returned with a gnome clutched in his arms, darting nervous glances in the direction of the fence that divides his garden from Ted’s, as if afraid the man would suddenly pop up and snatch his gnome. “Look here,” said the doctor, and he turned the gnome upside down. “See this?”

We all craned our necks to see. On the bottom of the gnome a big red letter T had been written in permanent red marker.