The Grub-And-Stakers Quilt a Bee (15 page)

“But the place would have been locked up,” Dittany protested.

“Oh, I’d have just pried open a window and crawled in if I had to. Happens all the time in our business. People are always going to leave keys for you, and they never do. But anyway, there I was and there he was and I knew darned well what would happen if Evangeline came along and caught me there, so I just said, ‘So long, old buddy,’ and hightailed it out of there. And that’s my story and you’ll just have to take it or leave it ‘cause I can’t do any better.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth?”

It was morning. Dittany had spent a not uncomfortable night with Osbert in Fred Churtle’s lean-to, the roofer himself having gallantly insisted he often preferred to sleep outside in the warm weather anyway, and that he’d enjoy having Ethel for company.

Ethel had enjoyed him, too. She was a new dog today, the sparkle back in her eyes, the thump back injier tail. Now she was sitting up in the canoe, whoofling with pleased interest at each new loon and grebe. Only once, when she spied a small, furry quadruped, did she tilt back her head in a plaintive woo-woo-woo.

But it turned out to be an otter, so Ethel quieted down and went on taking her census of the waterfowl.

Dittany, who was in the bow learning to paddle and getting on pretty well now that she’d discovered paddling a canoe requires essentially the same technique as sweeping off a porch, which she’d been doing ever since Gram Henbit bought her a child-size broom at the age of four, ventured to turn her head. “Did you hear me, darling?”

“Eh?” Osbert gave her a somewhat fatuous smile. “Sorry, darling.

I was trying to think of a word to describe the way your hair looks this morning. ‘Mist-bespangled aureole of shimmering golden light’ sounds awfully pallid and puny, don’t you think?”

“Darling, I’d hate to think I’m corrupting your crisp, virile prose style. Why don’t you settle for wet and stringy? What I said was, do you think Mr. Churtle was spinning us a yarn last night?”

“He made it sound pretty convincing, I thought.”

“Like when he told me yesterday he was writing his memoirs?”

“But why shouldn’t he? Everybody else does. Watch out for that big stone, darling.”

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. I thought it was another otter.”

Dittany decided she’d better keep her mind on her paddling.

Frederick Churtle, or Fred as he’d got to be known during their long fireside chat, could wait till they got safely back. Osbert had gently let him know any attempt to lose himself in the wilds would be taken as a confession of guilt and he wouldn’t get far anyway because Sergeant Mac Vicar’s three sons were all Mounties, so Fred had promised to show up as soon as the fish quit biting.

In sober truth, Fred hadn’t had so much as a nibble up to their time of departure and the fish breakfast to which he’d made grandiose allusions the night before had turned out to be bacon and eggs from Dittany’s basket, but fishermen’s lies don’t count. The Monks were both confident he wouldn’t let them down.

Once ashore, they decided to leave the canoe hidden under a shadbush in case they decided to pay another visit to Fred, who wasn’t a bad old scout provided he didn’t turn out to have bumped off his boyhood chum in revenge for the chickenhearted lie that turned his life upside down. Ethel hurled herself into the back of the truck. Osbert and Dittany got in front, and they bumped their way home. The house looked a tiny bit unfamiliar, as houses always do when their owners have been away. Ethel was disturbed by this, and said so.

“What’s she howling about now?” was Dittany’s first reaction.

Her second was, “Who’s been in here?”

Osbert dumped an armload of blankets and looked around the kitchen. “What do you mean, darling? It looks all right to me.”

“That’s the problem. Every drawer and cupboard’s shut tight as a drum. I always forget and leave something hanging open, and I know perfectly well I dropped that cup towel on the floor and forgot to pick it up after I used it to dust off the picnic basket. Who put it back on the rack like that?”

“You don’t suppose Mrs. Poppy had a twinge of conscience and dropped in to tidy up?”

“Osbert, you ought to know better than that. Besides, yesterday was Mrs. Poppy’s whist night.”

“What about Jane Binkle? She took care of the place while we were on our honeymoon.”

“That was mostly to water the plants. Jane wouldn’t come in without being asked. I didn’t even tell her we were going. Come on, we’d better take a look around.”

Even Osbert was convinced when he looked among his papers and found to his horror that his first draft had got tidily stacked together with his second draft and now he was faced with the embarrassment of trying to figure out which was which. As they kept hunting, it became increasingly obvious that some remarkably neat-fingered intruder had gone through every room in the house including the woodshed, the attic, and the bedroom Dittany kept ready for her mother and Bert when they dropped in unannounced, as they were wont to do, on their way from somewhere to somewhere else.

“Whoever it was kept tidying up as he went along because he thought that would keep us from realizing he’d been here,” Osbert deduced when he’d got through saying a number of other things about lowdown sneaks and ornery sidewinders. “Little did he know it would be the quickest way to tip us off. Not that you’re untidy, darling,” he added hastily.

“Nor you, darling,” Dittany replied with about equal truth. “We just like to keep the place looking lived-in. But what puzzles me, eh, is that he doesn’t seem to have taken anything. Gran’s seed pearl brooch and the dining room silver, and my squash blossom necklace and the concho belt Mama and Bert brought you, they’re all present and accounted for. So are the typewriters and the television and everything else, as far as I can see. So what was the point?”

“He was looking for something,” said Osbert.

“What, for instance?”

“I can’t imagine. I think we’d better get hold of Sergeant MacVicar.”

To Osbert’s surprise, it was Ray who answered the station telephone.

“Hi, Ray. Where is everybody?”

“At the funeral,” the deputy answered. “How come you’re not?”

Osbert turned to Dittany. “Darling, Ray wants to know how come we’re not at the funeral.”

“Because we forgot about it, that’s why,” his wife replied in stricken tone. “Oh, gosh! My name’s going to be mud at the museum.”

“I expect so,” Osbert replied with more truth than tact. “Ray, would you tell Sergeant Mac Vicar to get in touch with us as soon as he can? We’ve had a breakin. No, don’t you come. Sergeant MacVicar wouldn’t want you to leave the station unattended. Besides, nothing’s been taken as far as we can make out. I guess I’ll have to go out and buy something valuable enough to steal, so Dittany won’t be ashamed in front of the neighbors.”

Dittany stuck her head under his arm. “I do not feel ashamed. I feel scared, if you want to know. Don’t pay any attention to him, Ray. I mean do pay-oh, you know what I mean. Just please get word to Sergeant MacVicar as quickly as you can.”

“Sure thing, Dittany. Hey, Osbert, did you locate that roofer?”

“No problem. That’s why we were out all night. He’s camping up on Little Pussytoes.”

Osbert and Ray got into a conversation about camping out on Little Pussytoes. Dittany left them to it and wandered back to put the kettle on. A cup of tea couldn’t hurt and might do some good.

By that uncanny sixth sense of hers, Arethusa appeared on the doorstep just as Dittany was setting the bread and butter on the table. She hurled her bkck kid gloves and purple velvet toque at the sideboard and flung herself into one of the kitchen chairs.

“Damme, wench, where were you? The trustees were planning to go in together. We hung around the vestibule till we well-nigh got trampled underfoot by the pallbearers. Couldn’t you have kept that ravening letch at bay long enough to get out of bed and attend to your civic responsibilities?”

“Osbert does not raven,” Dittany replied with well-bred hauteur.

“We spent the night up at Little Pussytoes on a secret mission for Sergeant MacVicar. When we got back a little while ago, we found the house had been-Arethusa, what were you doing last night?”

“I was entertaining the nephew of the deceased, one Jehosaphat Fairfield, and his wife, Berthilde. They came up for the funeral to see if there was anything in it for them.”

“Arethusa, that’s unkind.”

“Nonsense. Why else would they have come?” Arethusa started eating cheese but did not stop talking. “They can’t stand Evangeline and hadn’t seen Uncle Peregrine since Jehosaphat’s graduation from barber school. Or was it dentistry? He and Berthilde have a great many teeth between them. Big white ones, like those fake china chompers you see getting dipped in blueberry juice on television. I expect Jehosaphat buys them wholesale.”

“Where are they now?”

“Therese Boulanger invited the whole gaggle over to her house in a burst of masochism. She’s putting on a buffet.”

“How come Therese didn’t ask you?” said Dittany, eyeing the fast-vanishing cheese with a certain amount of alarm. “Osbert, you’d better come. Your aunt’s here.”

“Did you ask her why she robbed the house?”

“What?” roared Arethusa. “Why, you vilifying varlet! What do you mean, robbed the house?”

“Somebody broke in last night and ransacked the place,” Dittany explained. “Only they straightened up afterward so I knew it wasn’t you.”

“Stap my garters! They didn’t take your grandmother’s silver?”

“As far as we can tell so far, they didn’t take anything at all.”

“Embarrassing for you. And this happened last night? What time?”

“We haven’t the faintest idea. We left here about half past seven or maybe eight o’clock and didn’t get home till just a little while ago. Whoever did it must have been in the house quite a long time.

He went through the place like a dose of salts.”

“Egad, it’s a good thing I took those quilt pieces home.”

“No doubt,” said Dittany, stifling a yawn with ill success. “Oh, here comes Sergeant MacVicar, thank goodness. Who’s that woman he’s got with him? Osbert! Osbert, look. She’s wearing a purple dress with chartreuse and turquoise squiggles on it.”

“Dash my buttons, so she is,” cried Arethusa. “What’s he bringing her here for? Why hasn’t he dragged her down to the station and started beating her with a rubber hose? Or reciting ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night?”

“Don’t be so bloody-minded. You don’t suppose that’s really the woman who was in the museum?”

“Of course I do. ‘Ods bodikins, child, aren’t you going to answer the door?”

“You’d better let me,” said Osbert, “in case she turns violent.”

But she didn’t. In fact, the woman looked more amused than alarming as Sergeant MacVicar performed the introductions with his usual punctilio.

“This is Miss Hunding Pafihagel, a former colleague of Peregrine Fairfield. Miss Arethusa Monk and Mr. and Mrs. Osbert Monk, who have kindly offered to put you up, Miss Paffnagel, there being no public hostelry in Lobelia Falls now that Andrew McNaster has seen fit to turn the inn into a restaurant and bar.”

“This is tremendously kind of you, Miss Monk,” said Miss Pafihagel, making the natural mistake of turning to the older woman.

Arethusa could be gracious enough when she put her mind to it.

Right now, though, her mind was elsewhere. She scribbled her autograph on a piece of paper lying handy (which turned out on later inspection to be a recipe for yoghurt pudding with wheat germ and alfalfa sprouts that Zilla Trott had left for Dittany), handed it to Miss Paffnagel with a perfunctory smile, and left the house.

“That was Osbert’s aunt,” Dittany explained. “She’s gone home to “od somebody’s bodikins. How do you do, Miss Pafinagel? Have you had your dinner?”

“Dinner? Oh, you mean my lunch. That is to say, you mean by dinner what I mean by lunch.” Miss Pafinagel was obviously a person who liked to get the facts pinned down. “Yes, I have. That’s how they nabbed me. After poor old Perry’s funeral, I went back to that place where I ate yesterday. Some waitress with the most extraordinary pectoral development I’ve ever seen recognized me and called the cops.”

“Do you mean you attended the funeral in that outfit and nobody spotted you sooner?” Dittany asked incredulously.

“I had a black raincoat in the car and put it on before I went into the church. This is the only dress I brought with me, and it did seem a bit lively for a funeral. Perry was always kind of a fussbudget about the proprieties, you know. It’s drip-dry and I have one of those inflatable hangers with me, so I rinse it out at night and it’s ready to go by morning. I hate pants in the hot weather, don’t you?”

Miss Pafinagel was awfully lighthearted for a custodee, Dittany thought, if that was the word. She couldn’t really be arrested, or on the verge of becoming so. Maybe she was being detained as a witness or something. Dittany thought Sergeant Mac Vicar had his nerve to foist the woman off so peremptorily on her and Osbert, but she could see Osbert was doing his best not to gloat openly, so she didn’t say anything.

She didn’t reply to the pants query either, since she was still wearing the Levis she’d put on for their excursion into the wilds. It didn’t matter. Miss Paffnagel wasn’t waiting for an answer.

“You could have knocked me over with a quetzal yesterday when I walked into that funny old dump and found Perry Fairfield sitting there with an embroidered hot water bottle cover in his hand.”

“You hadn’t known he was there?” Osbert asked.

“Heavens no. I hadn’t seen him since we were at the Bugleheim together. I was curator of Mayan artifacts. Perry was assistant to old Bugleheim’s great-nephew, which meant he got to do the dirty work and somebody else hogged the glory as usual. That was the story of Perry’s life, poor wimp. At least I’m glad he got to run his own show finally, even if it didn’t amount to a row of potsherds.”

“We’re just getting started,” Dittany informed her stiffly.

“I know. Perry told me all about it. The Aralia Polyphema Architrave Museum. Should look good on paper, anyway. I’ll send a nice little write-up to the Curators’ Gazette. That would have pleased Perry. He wanted so desperately to get some recognition one way or another.”