The Monopoly cannon cowers in the kitchen. The rocking chair from the billiard room, caput. A witness swore Uncle Pennybags was footloose in the company of Colonel Mustard, loitering behind Peter Pan’s statue in the Kensington Mews. The reprobates reeked of Swiss Army knives as they staged a “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” duet for a honeymooning candlestick and thimble. Scuttlebutt has it the FBI will APB Bullwinkle the Moose. In such a crisis, we could use Danger Mouse. A fighting chance. A lantern lit with battleship clues. Mrs. Peacock’s prances about the observatory in a poodle skirt, plucking kangaroos and boomerangs from the professor’s stovepipe hat, and it’s just a matter of time before Miss Scarlet elopes with a grifter named Toulouse. A flimflam man who cheats at Chutes and Ladders. A snake oil con with a rap sheet for shoplifting wheelbarrow MacGuffins. On Boardwalk, femme fatales are packing .22s and .38s; we all have excellent penmanship; we’ve paid our patriot dues. None of us were the architects of that atmosphere of quarry stone and panther. That feng shui sayonara. That Cat People zoo. We can’t be jailed for feeding truffles to endangered monkey wrenches. No wonder Erato no longer seems amused. It’s time to elementary Doctor Watson. To shift to mano a mano j’accuse. Who wins the jackpot shootout between Darth Vader and Beetlejuice?* The usual suspects are paging the Patron Saint of Neapolitan. Or spumoni. Let’s snuggle in our loveseat with a bag of pecan sandies. Let’s believe whatever they tell us on the news.

 

*Hint: Choose the silver modus operandi, not the noose.