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"I met with Mr. Bailey, the hotel detective," my employer said as she sipped her soup. "He has some fancy title because it's a fancy place, but he's the house dick. It turned out that he was eager to help. This is not the first time there's been an intimation of an impropriety by Trainor – his first name is Donald – but he's related to the manager and is therefore difficult to fire. And, of course, scandal is the worst option, but until now Mr. Bailey has been thinking that scandal was inevitable sooner or later.

"But I gave him another option, which he was eager to seize. We will arrest Trainor, on our side of the river, and from the point of view of the hotel he will simply stop coming to work one day. The scandal would be averted. This made Mr. Bailey quite happy, and he had no problem giving me the information I wanted."

So, we ate and we discussed the details of dealing with Donald Trainor, and the only possibly awkward moment was narrowly averted.

Ron would periodically start squirming, shifting her shoulders around, then she'd realize she was doing it and force herself to stop. Christy observed this and at one point she smiled and was about to say something to Ron, but I caught her eye and emphatically shook my head. I had no idea what she'd been about to say, but I knew it was a bad idea.

Jan observed this, of course, but she didn't comment. Fortunately, Ron was absorbed in seeing how much butter she could slather on a warm piece of corn bread and she didn't notice any of this.

At the end of the dinner, Ron excused herself and went off towards the bathrooms. When she returned, her posture and expression told me that the offending undergarment had been disposed of.

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