George Washingtons Teeth

"Lieutenant Ashley, please come in," said Hiram Moss to the burly detective framing the doorway to his office. Ashley nodded and followed the trail of Moss's well-manicured finger to the armchair on the reverse side of the antique rolltop desk. He folded his large frame into the leather chair. It creaked loudly, accentuating the early morning silence.

Outside, snow thick as fleece fell against the long casement windows. It was a snowy day in the nation's capitol; snowy, stormy and dull and cold. Inside the Institute's Museum of History and Technology, however, things were far from dull. For curator, Hiram Moss, that could never be the word used to describe the circumstances that had thrown Lieutenant Ashley once again into his neat little world.

"I know that's a noisy chair, but it's rather comfortable, don't you think?"

"Yes," replied Ashley, his gray eyes scanning the painted walls adorned with various plaques and awards. He sighed, opened his small notebook and removed a pen from his inside pocket. "Just like it was last week when I sat in it for the first time. But that was before Mr.Duncan's er- situation."

"I know," said Moss, his small, dark eyes never actually meeting Ashley's gaze. "This entire matter is all so strange. In the five years I have been here, I've never encountered anything like this before. I just don't know what to make of it. And poor Mr. Duncan! My God, what can I say?"