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“Not the key,” I said with a smile. “The watch. You’ll remember that Charlene handed Hilbourne a nice watch along with the key. The key was to be worn around the neck, and the watch around his wrist. I think that watch was the prototype smartwatch Bob Rector designed, its function being notjust to monitor heart rate and blood pressure, like many of these gadgets, but also to hook up to the wearer’s nervous system, and offer the person on the other end, who’s monitoring the feed, a look into the person’s head.”

“The laptop!” said Gran. “Of course!”

“Exactly. Somehow they managed to swap out the watches before the ceremony. So the watch Charlene handed Hilbourne was in fact Bob’s smartwatch prototype. The idea was that Bob’s cousins would monitor what happened inside Hilbourne’s head, and that way they could hopefully glean important information like bank accounts, passwords, his passcodes and such, and somehow empty the accounts and transfer the money to their own bank accounts—presumably located in some non-extradition tax paradise.”

“And so when Johnny and Jerry asked to change rooms…” said Odelia.

“They refused, as they didn’t know how far the range of that smartwatch extended—presumably not very far—and they needed to stay as close as possible to pull this off.”

“So what went wrong?” asked Tex.

“I think the watch, being the first of its kind, didn’t work as planned. I think it gave Hilbourne some kind of shock to the brain—an aneurysm.”

“A brain bleed,” said Tex, nodding.

“But if his brain was bleeding, why was there blood on the carpet?” asked Marge.

“His brain was leaking!” Dooley cried.

“It’s possible,” Tex conceded. “It depends where in the brain the hematoma occurred. The fact that he bled through the nose probably saved his life, as pooling of blood inside the cranium puts pressure on the brain and could have killed him before he got to the hospital.”

“So instead of looking into his brain and stealing his passwords,” said Gran, “they almost killed him.”

“They must have panicked,” said Marge.

“And Johnny and Jerry chose that exact moment to force their way into the room,” said Gran, “and thought the cousins were roughing up Hilbourne and decided to intervene.”

“The cousins must have realized something was terribly wrong when they heard Lord Hilbourne cry out in pain,” I said, “or maybe they saw what was happening on their laptop, so they hurried into Hilbourne’s suite, wanting to help Hilbourne, and help themselves by swapping the watches again—making the evidence disappear. But Johnny and Jerry dropping by ruined their plan.” I shrugged. “And the rest I think you know.”

“When Mr. Ed first approached you,” said Harriet, “he said he heard Bob say ‘If I can just convince her I’m home free.’ It made Mr. Ed suspicious. What was that all about?”

“I think at first Bob was planning to outfit Evelina with the smartwatch, as planned. But he had to convince her to wear the watch all the time, so they could gather enough data. Later on he changed his mind and told his cousins he couldn’t go through with it.”

“I have a question, too,” said Tex. “When Emma Bezel asked me to date her sister, she didn’t tell me that Bob was dead. She told me he’d broken Evelina’s heart by not showing up for a date. Was she lying to me or didn’t she know that Bob was dead at that point?”

“Of course she was lying,” said Gran with a shake of the head. “Much easier to convince you that way. Imagine if she told you that her sister’s boyfriend had been found dead in the back of a potato truck. Would you have been as eager to have lunch with her?”

“Um…” said Tex, giving this a think.

“On second thought, better don’t answer that,” said Gran.

Odelia got up and pressed a kiss to my furry brow.“You did well, Max. I’m proud of you.”

“We’ll have to confirm Max’s theory,” said Uncle Alec, “but it all sounds very plausible to me. So plausible in fact that I think I might recruit him as my newest detective, Odelia.”

Odelia smiled and said,“No way. He’s my assistant.”

“Fair enough,” said the Chief with a grin. He got up to leave, but Odelia said, “Not so fast, Uncle Alec. I also have an announcement to make.”

“We have an announcement to make,” said Chase.

“Chase and I have given this a lot of thought,” said Odelia.

“And we’ve decided…” Chase continued.

“… that the wedding is off,” Odelia finished.

“What?!” Gran cried.

“But honey!” said Marge.

“I knew it,” Tex said, shaking his head. “I just knew it.”

“Well, that saves me the cost of having to rent a tux,” Uncle Alec muttered.

“What we mean to say is,” said Chase, “that the wedding as we originally envisioned it is off.”

“It’s become too unwieldy and too big for us,” Odelia explained.

“Instead I’ve got six plane tickets here,” said Chase. “One for each of you and also for Charlene and Scarlett.”

“Tickets? Tickets to where?” asked Gran.

“Vegas. If you agree, we would like to fly you out there next Saturday.”

“And you,” said Odelia, gesturing to myself and my three friends and housemates.