The Classical Detective

Chapter One: Something Happened in Latin Class Today

“Roma in Italia est. Italia in Europa est.”

-Hans Orberg; Lingua Latina

Eccentric? Eccentric doesn’t meet the half of it. He was the kind of man who, if he told you that he knew Latin, Greek, German, French, and something called Syriac, fluently, you would look at him and at once believe him. However, he was also just such a man that if he told you he woke up this morning with no living memory of how one is supposed to tie a shoe, well, you’d find that no less difficult to believe. He was a good man, a passionate man, a hopelessly idealistic sort of fellow likely to shout “God save the Queen!” even though he was fully American and had never even been to England. His students loved him (even if they didn’t always know what to do with him).

He was not a particularly tall man, about 5’7’’ when wearing the right shoes, and he could always be counted on to be wearing a button up shirt of muted color with a tie all askew (often with the thin part of the tie in back hanging lower than the fatter part in front). He wore almost exclusively pleated khaki pants which he seemed to have bought in bulk from one of those stores that requires you to pay a membership to shop there. He wore glasses to help him see but they usually had so many fingerprints upon them that it made people wonder whether they weren’t more of an impairment than an aid. He had blondish hair parted on one side and he unfailingly wore either a goofy kind of grin on his face or a look of abject despair. There was no middle ground with him nor was there any warning which mood he would be in from one minute to the next.

There is, of course, much more one could say about him, but this is enough to give you a sketch of his personage for now. This is a little window into the peculiar sort of fellow that everyone loved even while rolling their eyes at him and his idiosyncrasies. His name was Paul David Fitzgerald “the Second” (not Jr., you understand, and he insisted on this point), but his students simply and affectionately called him “Mr. Fitz.” To his friends and colleagues he was just “Fitz” or “Fitzy.”

You can imagine, therefore, the surprise of the faculty, staff, and indeed the entire student body of Providence Classical School, when in the middle of his 2nd period class (7th grade Latin) the police marched into his room and shortly thereafter brought him out in handcuffs. No one could have expected that cool, crisp, Arizona morning that one of their beloved teachers would be accused of murder and taken into custody. Of all the people there employed at Providence, Mr. Fitzgerald was surely the least likely to have murdered anyone or anything (except perhaps someone’s patience).

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At the very same moment that Mr. Fitzgerald was being patted down in front of little Sarah Grayberry (the best Latinist in the seventh grade) there was on the second floor of that same school building another class going on as usual.

“Every time the rooster crows the sun comes up. Therefore the rooster’s crow causes the sun to come up. Which fallacy is this?” Asked the teacher.

Three or four faithful hands shot up across the room. None of them were called on.

“You there, boy, in the corner, studiously avoiding my gaze. What say you?”

Ethan sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, “Ad hominem probably.”

“Is that what you really think?” Asked the teacher dubiously.

“I don’t know.” Said Ethan.

“What does ad hominem mean?” Asked the teacher.

“I don’t know.” Said Ethan.

“Then why do you always offer it as your answer if you don’t know what it means?” Quizzed the teacher.

“I don’t know.” Said Ethan.

All throughout this conversation, if it could be called a conversation, Elizabeth Cho was about to have an embolism while frantically waving her hand in the air. Mr. Matthews had no doubt that she knew the correct answer. She always had the correct answer.

“Miss Cho, I think Ethan can come up with it. Please sit calmly in your seat.”

At this she crumpled disappointedly back into her chair like a kicked puppy.

“Mr. Stone, back to you.” Ethan Stone looked thrilled to still be under his teacher’s scrutiny. “I know you know what ad hominem means. Do you know why? It’s because I overheard you in the hallway just the other day telling someone that the news is full of little else but ad hominem attacks on political candidates.”

This was quite true. Though he wanted, for some reason, to appear ignorant of the answer, Ethan Stone definitely knew this wasn’t it.

“So…” said Mr. Matthew “what does ad hominem mean Mr. Stone?”

“It means to attack the person or their character rather than their argument.” Ethan finally blurted out.

A few of the students looked surreptitiously at each other with a smirk. A few of them applauded. A few of them turned toward Mr. Matthew with a quizzical look on their face as if to ask, ‘Is that right?’

“Exactly, Mr. Stone! So then, our example concerning the rooster cannot be ad hominem, right?” Queried Mr. Matthews.

“I guess not.” He said.

“Would you care to wager a second guess?”

At this renewed prompting for an answer two things happened simultaneously. Ethan sighed a long, deep, soul-wearying, sigh and Miss Cho relapsed into waving her hand in the air like the world would fall out of being if she didn’t get called upon this time.

“Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” Grunted Ethan.

Poor Elizabeth swooned in her seat with resignation.

“Bingo” said Mr. Matthew. “After this, therefore because of this. Which is a common fallacy indeed. It’s the difference between correlation and causation and it’s one of the most common errors made in daily reasoning. Even so-called ‘experts,’ in various fields, make this mistake all of the time.”

Ethan looked briefly up at Mr. Matthew, gave a bit of a nodding shrug and then tried to slink reclusively back into oblivion. Sad for him, or else not so sad, Mr. Matthews had no intention of letting this bright young student fall into oblivion if he had his say about it.

Mr. Matthews, Titus to his friends and family, had worked with teenagers his whole adult life. From shortly after he ceased to be a teenager himself he had gotten involved with teaching middle and high school students at his church. Whether Sunday school or Wednesday night “youth groups” he was always there. After he finished college, at which he studied religion and philosophy, he started teaching in a classical Christian school. He found that he enjoyed teaching students how to think Christianly about not only the Bible, but also History, Literature, Philosophy, Logic, and many other things. One got much more time to work with students as a school teacher than as a youth leader at church.

Titus was now 28 years old. He was, himself, a perpetual student. He had degrees in philosophy and theology and was always chipping away at a doctoral dissertation for a Great Books program that no one (least of all himself) was really sure he’d see the end of. He was about 5’10’’ and relatively thin although stocky in build. He was balding and so kept his head shaved close because he felt there was no point in keeping up a ruse of “having hair.” Outdoors he usually covered his head with a Scally cap anyway. Indoors he enjoyed asking his students if they noticed that he “parted his hair on the other side today.” When not in his teaching attire, a button up collared shirt and tie with khaki pants (not pleated), he could usually be found in jeans and a t-shirt with a band name or video game character on it, and wearing some sort of running shoe. Of course several nights a week he could also be found wearing a GI, because he was a practitioner of Chinese Kenpo. Titus was generally well liked, quick witted, a bit snarkier than he ought to be, and he deeply cared about his students and connecting them with truth. You will, of course, get to know him better as this story unfolds.

As Mr. Matthews was finishing up and dismissing his Logic class he happened to glance out the window just in time to see Mr. Fitz being stuffed, rather unceremoniously, into the back of a police car. His fixed gaze out the window was noticed by the students who immediately stampeded to the window in a game which could only be described as “king of the window,” a derivation of the beloved childhood classic “king of the hill.”

“What are they doing with Mr. Fitz?” Cried Mackenzie Sommers. “Are they really arresting him? Why would they be arresting him?” Her voice rang out in a kind of shrill alarm.

“He probably finally corrected the wrong person’s grammar.” Said Jace O’Neil. “I know I would support legislation against grammar Nazis like him.”

“Oh, do shut it!” Said Claire Carter. “This isn’t a time for jokes. They really just put our teacher, in handcuffs, into the back of a police car. Can’t you take anything seriously?”

“Well, I’ll try, but only for you Claire.” Jace said, making a kind of dreamy eyed face at her. A jest to be sure, but many suspected him to jest his love for Claire just a bit too often.

Claire rolled her eyes at him in utter disgust and turned away. Though as she turned away there was an infinitesimally brief flicker of a smile on the corner of her lips.

At this point all the students broke into a roar of discussion and wild surmises about what could possibly have happened to lead to the current circumstance of Mr. Fitz’s arrest. But none of them could have guessed, would have guessed, nor would they have believed it had anyone told them, what the actual facts were that led to this event.

Mr. Matthews was just trying to calm his riotous classroom when, over the speaker on the wall, there came an announcement from the office.

“Attention please. Attention please. All students, faculty, and staff, may I have your full attention please.” It was Mr. Snyder, the headmaster at Providence and, believe me when I say, he had that which he was asking for. It became deadly silent all throughout the school. “All students, faculty, and staff are to proceed to the gymnasium for an important all-school meeting. Please go directly to the gymnasium rather than your next class. Thank you.”

As the noise began to rebuild itself in the room Mr. Matthews instructed the kids to calm down and quietly head to the gym. As they filed out the door he looked back over his shoulder towards the window and saw the police car pulling away from the school and heading toward the main road. Titus was rather perplexed by this situation and thought to himself, ‘Fitzy, my friend, what on God’s green earth have you gotten yourself into?’

(On to Chapter Two)