Professor Simon Shellcrest

Professor Simon Shellcrest is a bespectacled snail with a mustache and a little tweed coat, whom Brennan introduces as Professor Simon Shellcrest MM E2·01:49:54. At dinner he says "I say, is that an armadillo from Texas? My goodness, that man's turned into a ball, how extraordinary." MM E2·01:50:07. Brennan has him clap his little hands as dinner commences MM E2·01:50:17.

Professor Shellcrest is a snail, and after the squire's death Colonel Hawkins says he was by the fireplace discussing the day with the Professor MM E2·01:49:54 MM E3·00:48:44. In MM_05 he is the only guest to cheer "Hooray!" at Sylvester's request, adding "I like him." MM E5·01:03:00 MM E5·01:03:06. In MM_06 Jeremy names him as the third guest who might fit the "crunch" of a shell, an old associate of his father's MM E6·01:58:26 MM E6·01:59:20. In MM_07 Lars remembers him as attracted to Sylvester and excited to be part of a murder mystery, wanting to be the murderer or at least the red herring MM E7·00:48:37 MM E7·00:49:26.

In MM_10 Brennan describes Shellcrest, Lawrence Longfoot and Lord McCrae in the tower as looking as if the constables had kicked the shit out of them MM E10·00:19:53. In the epilogue he explains that the constables escorted them there, and that Longfoot told the constables to "knock them out here, for plausible deniability" MM E10·02:35:53. Brennan says Longfoot's head and shoulder injuries came from Lars's fight with the masked figure, which let Cottonbottom hide in plain sight MM E10·02:36:17.