The Grub-And-Stakers Quilt a Bee (12 page)

“Sorry,” she said with a pathetic sniffle. “As I was saying, and Mrs. Monk will bear me out because she was there with me, this alleged Brown came back and I recognized him as a person my husband had known years ago, before we were married. Without wanting to blacken anybody’s name, I’ll only say I personally didn’t shed any tears when we lost sight of him. That was thirtyeight years ago, now that I’ve had a chance to think back and figure it out, so you can imagine what a jolt it gave me to see him * Ellis was the traditional nom de noose of Canada’s official hangmen. Capital punishment was abolished December 29,1967

there today. Mrs. Oakes, do you suppose I could have a spot more tea?”

“Of course.” Minerva leaped for her cup, then started passing cakes and cookies and crumpets in a veritable whirlwind of hospitality.

“Do try one of these hot milk sponge cakes, Mrs. Fairfield.

You’ve got to keep up your strength.”

“I suppose I must.” Mrs. Fairfield nerved herself to consume the dainty, then took another in an offhand sort of way as if she didn’t want herself to know she was doing it. “It does seem odd Frederick Churtle happened to show up at the museum just when Peregrine -but we mustn’t jump to conclusions, must we? I suppose what happened was that Frederick simply found the door locked and went away.”

“But the door wasn’t locked,” Minerva reminded her. “Don’t you remember? We turned the knob and went right on in.”

Mrs. Fairfield stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. We did, didn’t we? Peregrine would have locked up, of course, when he left. But he-he never left. If you’ll all excuse me, I think I’d like to go back upstairs for a while.”

This time, even Dittany couldn’t begrudge a sympathetic murmur.

Arethusa merely helped herself to the last cream cake.

Minerva wiped her eyes on her napkin. “Poor soul, what must it be like for her, here among strangers without even a bed to call her own?”

“Yes, well, that brings us to the next order of business,” Arethusa replied with her mouth full. “What are we going to do about her?”

“Do about her?” Therese Boulanger gasped. “Arethusa, how can you bring that up at a time like this?”

“Because, ecod, it’s later than you think. Ask Dittany.”

“Whatever it is, we can’t discuss it now with poor Mr. Fairfield barely settled into his coffin and the upstairs windows wide open,”

snapped Minerva. “Here, Dittany, try a piece of Hazel’s spice cake.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it to eat on the way.”

“With your white gloves on?” snickered Zilla. “What’s the allfired rush?”

“I have to find Sergeant Mac Vicar and tell him what Caroline Pitz said about Fred Churtle.”

“Can’t Caroline tell him herself?”

“Come to think of it, I shouldn’t wonder if she already has.”

Dittany picked up her fork and began to deal with the spice cake in a more seemly manner. “I’d better tell him anyway, though, just in case.”

“You’re awfully thick with the Mac Vicars all of a sudden, aren’t you? I heard the four of you went over to Scottsbeck last night for a Welsh rabbit.”

“The Welsh rabbit was incidental. What we really went for was to grill Cedric Fawcett, the plumber who was fiddling around with the museum sink yesterday. At least Sergeant Mac Vicar and Osbert tried to, only Fawcett didn’t say much except about wanting another beer. Mrs. Mac Vicar and I just rode along with them for the heck of it. Osbert’s deputizing again, you know.”

“Deputizing? Whatever for?” Hazel demanded. “We don’t have to call out the guard just because somebody had the rotten luck to fall out an attic window, do we?”

“Go take a close look at those attic windows, then ask me again.”

“Dittany!” Therese uttered the name in a sort of ladylike yelp.

“You’re not implying there was some kind of hanky-panky about Mr. Fairfield’s accident?”

Dittany pulled her chair closer and lowered her voice. “Keep this under your hats, girls, but-“

“My stars and garters!” said Minerva Oakes.

It was clear she’d voiced the consensus of the gathering.

“So you see why I have to make sure Sergeant Mac Vicar knows Fred Churtle was there last night?” Dittany finished when she could get a word in edgewise.

“Well, of course,” cried Hazel. “This Churtle probably came by to hit Mr. Fairfield up for another five thousand dollars and tossed him off the roof in a fit of pique when he wouldn’t come across.”

“A fine way to treat an old pal you haven’t seen for thirtyeight years,” Zilla snorted.

“Now, let’s not go jumping to conclusions,” said Therese. “A person’s innocent till he’s proven guilty, you know.”

“Huh! Not if certain people around here whose names I don’t have to tell you get wind of the story, which you can darn well bet they will if they haven’t already. Churtle’s going to be damned regardless, unless Sergeant Mac Vicar can prove it was somebody else. You go ahead, Dittany. I’ll talk to you later.”

That was a needless remark of Zilla’s. They all would. And so would those members of the club who didn’t get invited to Minerva’s, and a few more people besides. Dittany put down her fork and picked up her handbag.

“Thanks for the lovely tea, Minerva. I expect I’ll see you later on at the funeral parlor.”

Little did she know how wrong her expectation would prove to be. Events began taking a new turn as soon as she got to the police station. There, whom should she find but her own beloved Osbert, deputizing for all he was worth.

“Hello, darling,” he said. “I’m holding the fort. Ormerod Burleson’s still away on holiday, Mrs. Mac Vicar’s at the sales, the sergeant’s off trying to trace that woman in the purple dress, and Bob and Ray have been called out to arrest Cedric Fawcett.”

“Not our plumber? What did he do?”

“He assaulted Andy McNasty with a snake.”

“A rattlesnake?”

“No, one of those squiggly things they poke down drains. He wrapped it around Andy’s neck, then he squished a plunger down on top of Andy’s head. He was threatening to twist Andy’s ears off with a wrench when Andy’s secretary laid him out with a bottle of Dr. Brown’s Celery Tonic and called the police.”

“That beer-swilling slug? Are you sure you’ve got the right Fawcett?”

“I know, darling, I couldn’t believe it, either. But it turns out Cedric has quite a reputation for coming to a slow boil, then wading in with whatever he can lay his hands on. His brothers have had to buy him off a few other times, according to Ray, but this time I guess Andy’s determined to press charges. Bob says he didn’t mind the snake so much, but he looked upon the plunger as an unpardonable affront.”

“One can see why. Not that I have any particular tendresse for Andy McNasty, and not that there weren’t a few times back there last March when I could cheerfully have whammed him one myself.

But, darling, if Cedric Fawcett’s such a wild man, don’t you think he might possibly-“

“Yes, darling, I do think he might possibly, and so does Sergeant Mac Vicar, especially since Fawcett and Mr. Fairfield appear to have been alone together in the museum after Mrs. Fairfield left.

The hitch is, you can’t haul a possibly into court on a murder charge. Unless Fawcett breaks down and confesses, we have nothing whatever to show he had any hand, or plunger, as the case may have been, in Mr. Fairfield’s death. We’re hoping this woman in the purple dress may be able to cast some light on the matter, assuming she ever turns up. It’s not like tracking yaks, you know,”

Osbert explained earnestly. “All she has to do is change her dress, and she becomes the Invisible Woman. She could be anywhere by now. Well, maybe not anywhere, but someplace we’d never think to look. I mean, what if that was a rented car she was driving, and she simply dumped it at the nearest airport and got on a plane?”

“The only near airport’s Charlie Evans’s pasture, and all he does is fly around in that little old monoplane dusting crops,” Dittany pointed out. “A woman in a nice purple dress with turquoise and chartreuse squiggles would hardly care to squeeze in there with all that bug juice. Not to confuse the issue, darling, but I have a further complication for you. Does Sergeant Mac Vicar know Frederick Churtle’s van, presumably containing Frederick Churtle, was seen leaving the museum yesterday at suppertime?”

“Darling, are you sure?”

“Mrs. Fairfield claimed she saw what she thought was a brown truck pulling out as she and Minerva were walking toward the museum last night on their way to find Mr. Fairfield’s body, though of course they didn’t realize at the time what they were heading for. Caroline Pitz has now confirmed it was Brown’s, which is to say Churtle’s. She got a good look at it when she went out to pick lettuce for supper.”

“Why didn’t she tell Sergeant MacVicar?”

“Why didn’t he ask? Remember, darling, most people still think Mr. Fairfield fell out the attic window. Caroline knew the roofer’s equipment was still in the hallway and she naturally assumed he’d come to do something about it. You can’t blame her for that.”

“I could, but I shan’t if you don’t want me to. Only I do think Sergeant MacVicar should know about this right away.”

“That’s why I hurried over here instead of staying to help Minerva wash up, darling.”

“Oh well,” said Osbert, “Aunt Arethusa will have licked the platters clean by now, anyway. Ah, here comes Mrs. MacVicar. I expect that means I’m off the hook. Come on, I’ll walk you home.

You look right purty in them glad rags, Miss Dittany ma’am.”

“Why, thank you kindly, Deputy Monk.”

They acquainted Mrs. MacVicar with this new development, got her assurances that she’d let her husband know as soon as she could get hold of him, and headed back for Applewood Avenue. As Osbert was opening the back door, a mass of blackish fur hurtled through the air and two paws the size of dry mops planted themselves in the pit of Dittany’s stomach. Her mother’s hat went flying and she’d have followed it if Osbert hadn’t grabbed her.

“Ethel,” he roared. “Unpaw Mummy, you beast. Look what you’ve done to her dress. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

Ethel was not. On the contrary, she made it plain she was in no shape to handle criticism. Hurling herself at their collective feet, for Ethel was a large enough animal to manage this with no strain, she burst into mournful lament.

“Now you’ve hurt her feelings,” said Dittany. “What’s the matter, Ethel? Had a falling-out with your woodchuck?”

The whimpers became howls. They apologized, petted, wheedled, sympathized. Osbert examined Ethel’s paws for possible thorns, abrasions, or woodchuck bites. Ethel didn’t wince, but neither did she shut up. At last they got her into the kitchen, filled her bowl with what cates and dainties their larder afforded, and urged her to eat. She took a despondent nibble or two much in the manner of Mrs. Fairfield with the macaroon, sighed heavily, cast dimmed eyes up at them from under the mat of fur that hung down over her eyes like a sheepdog’s, albeit Ethel was not in fact a sheepdog and might not actually have been a dog at all, and laid her head against Dittany’s knee to the further detriment of the black crepe dress.

“She’s pining away,” Dittany moaned. “Osbert, what are we going to do?”

He knelt on the varnished linoleum beside the doggie dish.

“Ethel, old pard, this isn’t the end of the trail. You can’t hang up your saddle and turn your face to the sunset over one lousy woodchuck.

Come on, let’s see you tie on the old feedbag. A full belly makes a stiff upper lip, you know. Here, try some roast beef.”

Ethel condescended to let a morsel pass her lips and appeared to find it good. At least she left her mouth conveniently open in case anybody might be planning to give her another piece.

“See, darling, all she needed was a little tender, loving care.

Attagirl, Eth, eat it up.”

“Maybe if I hold the dish to her mouth, she’ll lap the gravy,”

Dittany offered.

Ethel considered the matter, then essayed a trial slurp.

“She’s getting gravy all over your dress, darling,” said Osbert.

“What’s a dress compared to the comfort of a dog in distress?”

“Nobly spoken, sweetheart. Here, let me help you hold the dish.”

It was in this touching tableau that Sergeant Mac Vicar found them.

“Sergeant,” cried Osbert, “we were just on our way to find you.”

“The fact leaps to the eye,” the sergeant remarked with gentle irony.

“But Ethel came home in dire straits,” Dittany amplified, “and we couldn’t leave her to pine alone and desolate.” Her mother had sung a couple of seasons with the Scottsbeck Savoyards and she’d learned a good deal of Gilbert and Sullivan as a result. “We think the woodchuck must have given her the mitten. Did you find the woman in the purple dress?”

“Would that fate had allotted me some easier task, like searching out yon proverbial needle in the haystack. However, the RCMP

have put out an all-points bulletin and Mrs. Mac Vicar has instituted inquiries among her acquaintance, so I am not without hope.

Mrs. Mac Vicar finds it hard to believe that nobody in Lobelia Falls will be able to come up with a description of this mysterious female and the car she was driving.”

“Speaking of description,” Dittany said eagerly, “Caroline Pitz saw-“

“Frederick Churtle, as we now know him to be, parked in the museum driveway yesterday as she was picking lettuce for supper in her front yard,” Sergeant Mac Vicar finished for her. “Mrs. MacVicar apprised me of that fact some hours ago. I myself have ascertained that Churtle, or Brown as we may call him for purposes of convenience, resides over in Scottsbeck at 42 Glendale Street, which runs off Burnside Road, which in turns runs off Summit Avenue which, as you know, runs past the shopping mall.

There is no summit, no glen or dale, and no burn in the vicinity, but that is beside the point.”

“Then what precisely is the point?” Dittany asked him, knowing how risky it was to let Sergeant Mac Vicar get off on a side issue.

“Do you want us to ride over to Scottsbeck with you and sit on Churtle’s, or Brown’s, stomach while you give him the third degree?”