Frederick M. Hueston, PhD

I was talking to one of the regulars at my favorite greasy spoon about the time change. I was blunt– I hate these time changes. But we agreed in our dislike of it being the end of summer, and time for the unnecessary ritual of turning the clocks back. This old body just can’t handle it anymore. 

I can never get a straight answer as to why we implemented daylight saving time anyway. Some say it was for the farmers. Others say it was for the wartime effort, and yet others say it was for the school children waiting in the cold darkness for a school bus. I don’t want to complain, but we need to just do away with it all. I just kept on rambling, voicing my strong opinions as the regulars just drank their coffee and shook their heads. OH NO! I thought, I’m turning into one of them– an old man sitting at the counter complaining about everything that’s wrong with the world!   

Fortunately, my phone rang. The voice on the other end sounded like Pee Wee Herman!

I really couldn’t figure out if it was an impersonation, or for real. What was even more confusing was the person’s name: Pat. That could be a guy or a gal’s name.  

Pat began telling me that a marble column in his/her house was ruined by one of the maids. My first thought was, holy crap– Pat has more than one maid? Must be tough, I thought.  

Pat kept babbling on and on about how disastrous this whole situation was, and I really wasn’t following the spiel very well. I finally got that the maid used a marble cleaner on the column and it left some kind of streak. I thought this job was just going to be a simple clean it again, but no, Pat insisted that I come out and take a look. 

Fortunately, it was only 5 minutes away. I finished my cup of jo, checked to make sure my watch was set an hour back and hopped in the ole Woody to head to Pat’s address.

I pulled the ole Woody and my old bones up to this house, which looked as big as the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. If you’re not familiar with the Biltmore, look it up. It’s huge, with awesome stone masonry, something like 300 rooms and 50 baths, built by the Vanderbilts back when there were rail, timber and oil tycoons living it up in style. 

As soon as I got out of the car a tall, pale gentleman dressed in a tux opened the door and motioned me to come in. He didn’t say a word so I followed him. The house was very cold and I don’t mean just the air temperature. The furniture looked old and the whole place reminded me of a haunted house. I was expecting Lurch or Uncle Fester to greet me any minute.  

The guy in the tux led me up a long flight of stairs. The stairs were all solid marble, not to mention the walls and everything else. 

As we reached the top of the stairs a lady with a long, flowing gown was standing there. She was very tall and slender. She had a cigarette, and I kid you not, stuck into one of those long cigarette holders. Holy crap, I thought. It’s Morticia Addams. She extended her hand as if she wanted me to kneel and kiss it, and then she broke the weird moment when she spoke.  

“Hi, I’m Pat, we spoke on the telephone… hehehehehe.” Yup, just like Pee Wee Herman. Somehow the voice didn’t match the body, face or anything else, for that matter. 

Well, the first mystery was solved, that had to be Pat’s real voice. She pulled her long dress up off the floor and told me to walk this way. 

I started laughing because it made me think of that line in Young Frankenstein where Marty Feldman said the same thing, and everyone limped all hunched over the way he did. I resisted the temptation to do the same. The situation was already too weird, even for me.

Pat led me back downstairs and into an empty room. The room was round and surrounded by large columns. It had a very cold air about it. She pointed to one of the columns. I walked over to the column and saw a large green streak running down. At first I thought that was odd for a marble cleaner of any kind to do. Upon a closer look I saw exactly what was wrong. I asked if I could inspect the other columns.

I touched each of the green marble columns and they were all solid green marble. None of them had the problem. I turned around and asked Pat if she’d had any of the columns replaced. She told me that she didn’t, but she also was not the original owner. I walked her over to the problem column and told her, “The reason you have a streak like this is because this column is wood. Someone painted it to look like green marble–and did a really good job. The cleaner one of your maids used contains a solvent which works like a paint remover. Your maid simply removed the paint.”

 I thought Pat was going to faint. I told her that she should replace this column with real marble like the others or call in someone like my concrete artist friend Eugenia to faux paint it. She thanked me and handed me her cigarette to hold while she wrote me a check. Got to love jobs like this. Another case solved.

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com.