The Grub-And-Stakers Pinch a Poke

THE GRUb-AND-STAKERS

PINCH A POKE

by Charlotte MacLeod

writing as Alisa Craig

Skulduggery’s afoot and mayhem

abounds as Charlotte MacLeod triumphs

with this madcap mystery

starring the Grub-and-Stake Gardening

and Roving Club of Lobelia Falls,

Ontario.

The play’s the thing to help The

Grub-and-Stakers win the Scottsbeck

Drama Festival’s coveted prize:

114 pieces of theater memorabilia

that will add the crowning touch to

the local museum. Dittany Monk,

secretary of the museum and the

gardening club, has convinced her

husband to enter the contest. With

a drama written by Osbert (better

known as western writer Lex Laramie),

how can they lose? The plot

is the Yukon’s great unsolved mystery:

the shooting of Dan McGrew.

The cast is superb, led by Osbert’s

Aunt Arethusa, eminent author of

roguish regency romance. The trouble

begins when real bullets-not

blanks-open the show with a bang!

Someone’s out to kill Arethusa’s

(continued on back flap)

Other Books by

Charlotte MacLeod

Writing as

Alisa Craig

A DISMAL THING To Do

THE GRUB-AND-STAKERS MOVE A MOUNTAIN

THE GRUB-AND-STAKERS QUILT A BEE

THE TERRIBLE TIDE

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THE BILBAO LOOKING GLASS

THE CONVIVIAL CODFISH

THE CURSE OF THE GIANT HOGWEED

THE FAMILY VAULT

GRAB BAG

THE LUCK RUNS Our

THE PALACE GUARD

THE PLAIN OLD MAN

REST You MERRY

SOMETHING THE CAT DRAGGED IN

THE WITHDRAWING ROOM

WRACK AND RUNE

Coming Soon from

Charlotte MacLeod

Writing as

Alisa Craig

A PINT OF MURDER

MURDER GOES MUMMING

WRITING AS

THEGRDB-flNI

HNHflPOKE

-8THKEB8

AVON

PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT, DISCUS AND FLARE BOOKS

“The Shooting of Dan McGrew” by Robert Service, which appeared in The Collected Poems of Robert Service, is reprinted by permission of Dodd, Mead & Company.

THE GRUB-AND-STAKERS PINCH A POKE is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form. This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

AVON BOOKS

A division of

The Hearst Corporation

105 Madison Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Copyright Š 1988 by Alisa Craig

Published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address International Creative Management, 40 West 57th Street, New York, New York 10019.

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

Printed in the U.S.A.

For the incomparable trio:

Barbara Mertz, Elizabeth Peters,

and the Sitt Hakim

THE SHOOTING OF

DAN McGREW

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jagtime tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,

There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dogdirty, and loaded for bear.

He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,

Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.

There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;

But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There’s men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;

And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;

With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,

As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.

Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he’d do, And I turned my head-and there watching him was the lady that’s known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze.

Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.

The ragtime kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,

So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands-my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars?-

Then you’ve a hunch what the music meant … hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that’s banished with bacon and beans,

But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;

For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman’s loveA woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true(God!

how ghastly she looks through her rouge,-the lady that’s known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;

But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;

That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie;

That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through”

guess I’ll make it a spread misere,” said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away … then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, “Repay, repay,” and my eyes were blind with blood.

The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,

And the lust awoke to kill, to kill … then the music stopped with a crash,

And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;

Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,

And “Boys,” says he, “you don’t know me, and none of you care a damn;

But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I’ll bet my poke they’re true,

That one of you is a hound of hell … and that one is Dan meGrew.”

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,

And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.

Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,

While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that’s known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.

They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,” and I’m not denying it’s so.

I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us twoThe woman that kissed him and-pinched his poke-was the lady that’s known as Lou.

Robert W. Service

THE CAST

ARETHUS A MONK-The reigning queen of regency romance has three admirers at her feet …

will one of them die for love?

ANDREW McNASTER-They used to call him

Andy McNasty. Now he’s a virtuous innkeeper playing the part of a villain. Or is it the other way around?

CAROLUS BLEDSOE-He’s the hero of the play

but a devil with the ladies. Is it his vengeful ex-wife -or a jealous rival-who’s trying to give the devil his due?

WILHEDRA THORBISHER-FREEP-She was

the other woman in Bledsoe vs. Bledsoe-but she wonders who’s kissing him now!

LEANDER HELLESPONT-Leader of the

Scottsbeck Players, he has a show-stopper of a motive to want his rival dead.

“What the heck do we need Sarah Bernhardt’s Sunday bustle for?”

demanded Zilla Trott.

“There’s nothing here about Sarah Bernhardt’s bustle,” said Dittany Henbit Monk. As secretary to the trustees of the Aralia Polyphema Architrave Museum and also to the Grub-and-Stake Gardening and Roving Club into whose collective hands had fallen the task of managing the museum, Dittany had dealt with a wide range of correspondence. This letter opened up a new vista. “It just says theatrical memorabilia.”

“Huh! Signed photographs of Ivor Novello and a lock of Rudy Vallee’s hair, I’ll bet.” Hazel Munson was on a diet, therefore inclined to take the darker view.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake have a cookie and quit grumping,” said Minerva Oakes. “Rudy Vallee had gorgeous hair. Come on, Dittany.

Let’s hear the rest of the letter before we get down to the wrangling.”

“Well, as I said, it’s from Desdemona Portley on behalf of the Traveling Thespians. You know how hard she’s worked to keep the troupe together, but things haven’t been the same with them since Mum married Bert and went into the fashion eyewear business.”

“I’ll bet the fashion eyewear business hasn’t been the same, either,”

said Dot Coskoff, who’d once played the former Mrs. Henbit’s bosom friend in a souped-up production of Anne of Green Gables.

“Skip Dessie’s maunderings, she always did go on and on. What’s the gist?”

“The gist is that Jenson ThorbisherFreep and his daughter Wilhedra are trying to get up a drama festival over at Scottsbeck.

They want to restore the old opera house and make it a center of cultural vibration for the citizens of Scottsbeck and surrounding communities of which, as Dessie points out in some detail, Lobelia Falls is one.”

“As if we didn’t know,” sniffed Dot. “Cultural vibration sounds like a pretty shaky proposition to me. Is she trying to hit us up for a donation?”

“I expect she means vibrancy and not exactly a donation,” Dittany replied. “She wants us to participate.”

“Participate how?” Zilla shook her head till her thick, short gray hair stood out like a Sioux war bonnet, though in fact she was mostly Cree. “Are we supposed to dance in the chorus?”

“Why not?” chirped Minerva. “My varicose veins are no worse than Dessie’s.”

“And your teeth are a darn sight better,” Zilla conceded loyally.

“Look,” snarled Dittany. “Do you want to hear this or don’t you?

“Offhand I’d say no,” snapped Hazel Munson, “but go ahead and get it over with. Desdemona Portley wants us to be in some play she’s getting up for the Thorbisher-Preeps, is that it?”

“Not precisely, eh. The thing of it is, the ThorbisherFreeps expect the different groups to produce their own plays. Dessie’s asking us to write the play, paint the scenery, provide costumes and props, fill whatever parts the Traveling Thespians don’t have enough actors for, and sell lemonade and cookies between the acts on behalf of the Opera House Fund.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope, that seems to be it. The plum in the pudding is that whichever group puts on the best performance wins the Jenson ThorbisherFreep collection of theatrical memorabilia.”

“You already said that, and what’s so plummy?” Zilla argued.

“What would we do with a bunch of false whiskers and old theater programs?”

“We’d be expected to keep the collection intact and on permanent display either at the opera house or in some appropriate public building,” Dittany explained. “Like for instance the Architrave.”

“We do still have that little back bedroom over the kitchen to fill up,” Minerva pointed out.

“Yes, but would that be the right kind of stuff to fill it with?” asked Hazel. “The Architrave’s supposed to represent a typical Canadian house of the post-prairie settling period, you know.”

“Couldn’t it be the typical home of some Canadian who collected theatrical memorabilia?” Dittany argued. “Anyway, if we decide we don’t want the collection, we can always let the opera house keep it.”

“What do you mean we?” yelped Hazel. “You’re not proposing we stick our necks out again?”

“We always do, don’t we?” Dot Coskoff pointed out. “We did use to have a lot of fun at the Traveling Thespians, I must say.”

“I didn’t,” said Dittany. “I always got stuck with the tiny toddler parts.”

“That’s because you were a tiny toddler at the time,” Dot reminded her. Dittany was still roughly a quarter of a century younger than any of her fellow trustees, and indeed always would be unless one of them resigned from the board and somebody’s daughter stepped in. Dot didn’t go into all that, but merely added, “I suppose Dessie expects Arethusa to write the play.”