The Adventure of the Missing Wallet and the Tall, Cheap Man

Watson, I must explain to you that, while, for the sake of order and to avoid your confusion, I’ve been thus far presenting my notes to you in chronological order, I, as I’m quite wont to do, have grown quite bored with documenting them thusly and would, instead, like to fast forward, as they say, to a slightly more recent adventure. I shall henceforth do the same; flit forward and back in time in order to inform you and, I hope, entertain the both of us in doing so. This tale begins as follows:

On a blue-grey day in October I disembarked the bus headed towards the pier in Santa Monica, hoping there to observe the drug and weapons trade that occurs below it. I stepped off the last step and, as I heard the pneumatic pump and rubber against rubber of the closing doors, I looked down and saw something unusual, something I daresay has not been seen in this area for perhaps as much as 15 years.

At my feet, on the cold cement, lay a Quicksilver velcro-close wallet of electric Blue and turquoise – or at least those had been its colours new as it had since faded considerably—of the type not made nor sold since the early 1990s. Velcro, I should explain, is an ingenious hook-and-loop fabric closure system. It operates as two fabrics, one of hooks, the other of loops, but with both in such density and number that the closure is effortless; as soon as the two sides meet, the seal is made and will not be broken without some effort and, one should note, noise.

It was clear that the wallet belonged to a left-handed man of above-average height as could be determined by the shape and location of the wear on the velcro flap as the upward curve was situated on the right-hand side of the wallet and its peak to the left, indicating the use of a long and large left thumb to open it.

A quick scan of the area showed no slightly billowed left hip pockets where the wallet, not now or ever stretched to a great thickness, was doubtlessly carried up to its dislocation.

I knew before picking it up that the billfold had not been there more than 25 minutes and that the money inside would be intact, for, had the wallet lay there for longer, a passenger of the prior bus would surely have discovered and plundered it. One of the disadvantages of living in such a huge metropolis as this Los Angeles is that the anonymity it affords one makes it easy to steal without remorse or even afterthought. As for the second point, that of its undisturbed contents, had anyone stolen the cash inside, it surely would have been left opened and probably not in such a conspicuous spot.

Upon inspection, the construction of the wallet showed little sign of compromise and clearly belonged to someone of meticulous habits. This gave me hope that its owner would not be hard to find, especially in this bay area where shabby and worn clothing was the norm.

I opened the wallet and was unsurprised to find five hundred-dollar bills with the likeness of a man you’ll have heard of and seen, Watson, one Benjamin Franklin, American statesman.

Given the route of the bus I just departed and those the others that run nearby, the owner of the wallet would have to be found within an area of sixteen city blocks and could likely be found within the day. However, having other things requiring my attention, I decided to employ other methods.

I didn’t feel it to be a safe assumption that the wallet’s owner was a routine visitor of these parts—surely something out of the ordinary occurred to cause a man of such meticulous habits to drop a belonging usually stowed so safely away upon his person, else I would have simply been waiting at the bus stop for him on the morrow. While pursuing this course might yield the desired result of reuniting man and wallet, I hadn’t the time to waste chasing what could be a dead end. No, I resolved to make a posting on the Internet. When first I found myself in this place and time, Watson, I found myself decrying the lack of ads in the newspapers that we employed to such great ends in our day. For while the newspaper has such sections now, they are read by very few, meaning the money spent is typically money wasted. A short while later, however, I was ecstatic to find a web site frequented by people from all walks of life and social status: Craig’s List. I’ve since employed its Lost & Found section to successful result on numerous occasions. It also has the singular advantage of being free, though there is quite a bit of blowback due to and fun made of my archaic diction... This not to mention that my name is usually met with incredulity and mockery.

In any case, I posted having found a wallet containing $500 that I would return to its 6’7” owner if they could tell me where it was lost. After reading 67 e-mail messages (which I shall explain to you at a later date, Watson), I came upon the sole message from a man who admitted that he did not know where he lost the wallet, but in our subsequent exchange of missives was able to describe it in detail. His language was succinct and felt likely to correspond to the careful regimen observed behind the good care of the wallet. We arranged to meet the following morning at Starbucks staffed by the lovely maiden Hillary Goode, allowing me the chance to bid her hello, having arrived there to do so on numerous occasions only to find her not working at those times.

20 minutes before the pre-arranged time found me seating myself in the corner darkest and furthest from the door to observe the tall man. I knew there was a likelihood that the man of such exact habits could be one to arrive either very early or at least prepared to do business at the exact time agreed upon.

17 minutes transpired and the tall man arrived, early enough to purchase his coffee and meet right on the hour of 10 o’ clock. While appearing nonchalant, I watched carefully to make sure that he handled his money and drink with his left hand. On seeing that was the case, I approached him, introduced myself, gave him his wallet and bade him good day.

He insisted upon paying me a reward, and, while I initially scoffed, he begged and pleaded and bought me a Starbucks gift card as well as a plain bagel with cream cheese. The bagel, I’m happy to tell you was fresh and filling. The gift card, however, was for a mere and paltry $5. Apparently a man doesn’t come to carry such funds as $500 on his person without being a bit of a miser.