LIKE PULLING TEETH

The dentist is set up in business by his father-in-law. The large third floor corner office is only a block from a large private detective agency. The dentist learns a lot about the detective business from his detective patients.

The 1907 financial panic dries up any help for the dentist from his father-in-law. Business also dries up as people stretch their budgets.

The dentist’s solution is to subdivide his office. It’s easier to rent someplace that is not vacant, so he paints detective agency on the door and the front window, adds furniture.

Along comes a detective client and the dentist is backed into becoming a detective. Soon his dentist office is collecting dust as the detective work picks up.

A banker’s wife walks in, looking for a detective to find the goods on her philandering, master hunter husband. That is the only way to get a divorce back then.

Dentist starts following the banker, becomes obsessed. He closes the dentist office, sleeps days, shadows the banker at night. He knows banker is up to something.

Late November, 1910: Banker furtively leaves his office with a suitcase and a gun case. He changes cabs twice, ends up at a train station in New Jersey. He enters a private railway car with its shades drawn.

The dentist steals aboard the train. The train trip ends in Brunswick, Georgia. Out come 7 bankers carrying a few shotguns. They speak hunting talk when locals are nearby.

They boat out to Jeckyl Island. The dentist makes his way solo to the island. He discovers the purpose of their meeting. There are plenty of heated discussions.

One less banker leaves the island. Dentist tries, fails to find the banker. Dentist takes the train, heading back home. At the Washington, D.C. transfer, the New York paper headline is “Banker missing in hunting trip to New York’s Five Fingers Lakes”.

The dentist could unset that tale, and finds he is now a loose end to be dealt with. THE END