The Grub-And-Stakers Quilt a Bee (23 page)

Dittany fretted. “With all those mice hurling themselves at me, I might have been a wee bit jittery.”

“Did you actually open the box yourself?”

“Come to think of it, no. Mrs. Fairfield did. But I was right there watching, and she was very careful. I suppose I could ask her. No, I guess I couldn’t, in view of that hairtangle we got into this afternoon.

Not that I blame Arethusa, darling. I just wish everything hadn’t blown up all of a sudden like that. I suppose it does look pretty rotten to throw a middle-aged woman out on her ear right after she’s lost her meal ticket, even if she did bring it on herself.

We’ll have to manage some kind of going-away present, I expect, just so nobody can say we sent her off penniless. Could we squeeze another few dollars out of the egg money, do you think?”

“I expect likely,” said Osbert. “We’ll make Aunt Arethusa cough up, too. And there must have been a little something coming to Mr. Fairfield in the way of salary, wasn’t there?”

“Darn little. Maybe we ought to get Dot Coskoff out on the street corner passing the hat while the tide of public sympathy’s still running in Mrs. Fairfield’s favor. Let’s ask Miss Paflhagel if she’d like to kick in for auld lang syne.”

“Kick into what?” That was Hunding herself, looking somewhat less bedraggled than she had a few hours ago.

“Oh, hello,” said Dittany. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, I think. Were you planning to offer me anything to eat?”

“If you like. It’s about time you got something into your stomach.

How about a cup of weak tea and a piece of toast for starters?

I’ll be getting supper in a while.”

Miss Paffnagel said tea and toast would be acceptable and expressed wholehearted enthusiasm at the prospect of supper. Once she’d got her mouth comfortably full, she asked again, “What was that you said about kicking in?”

“Oh. Well, you see, Osbert’s aunt gave Evangeline Fairfield the boot this afternoon, and we’ve been thinking we ought to get up some kind of retirement fund for her.”

“Vangie? Don’t fret yourself about her. She’ll manage one way or another. Flap in through people’s bedroom windows and suck the blood from their throats, I expect. Getting back to the subject of supper, you did say you were planning to serve it fairly soon?

Something on the hearty and substantial side, perhaps?”

“We could grill a steak outdoors,” Osbert volunteered.

“Let’s. If you happen to have a polished bronze mirror ready to hand, I could show you a neat little trick for kindling the sacrificial fire.”

Osbert said he didn’t have a polished bronze mirror and thought he’d just use a match. He went off to find the charcoal while Dittany started putting a salad together and Hunding began excavations on a plate of molasses cookies that hadn’t got put away after the impromptu tea party.

“Now what’s the poop on Vangie?” the latter asked as Dittany picked up a cucumber to peel. “Not to criticize the native customs, but one might almost have thought a lady so imbued with the social graces as Miss Monk could have waited till Perry was cold in his coffin before plunging the knife.”

“Arethusa would have preferred to wait, I’m sure,” Dittany replied, “but Mrs. Fairfield wouldn’t let her.”

“How so?”

“Well, it would have been all right if Mrs. Fairfield had been content to settle down under her weight of woe for a while and let us rally round with cups of tea and words of cheer. Instead, she insisted on galloping over to the museum.”

“Which she’s about as well equipped to handle as a good-sized wombat,” Hunding remarked. “Vangie’s the type who picks up a few catchwords and applies them without regard to context in a frequently vain attempt to make you think she knows what she’s talking about. With all respect to Miss Monk, however, one might almost have thought some small temporary job could have been found for her instead of the summary coup de grace.”

“Mrs. Fairfield didn’t want some small temporary job,” Dittany objected. “She wanted to run the whole show, and she’d been pretty offensive about letting everybody know it. You can’t boss volunteers around as if they were galley slaves. She tried that on me the very morning after Mr. Fairfield died, which wasn’t very judicious considering I’m one of the trustees. She also gassed a good bit about her expertise while making it obvious she didn’t know which end was up. What really put the frosting on the bun, though, was when she bawled out the plumber.”

“But why shouldn’t Vangie bawl out a plumber? I’ve bawled out plumbers myself.”

“In the first place, she had no real cause to, as far as I could see.

In the second, she threatened not to pay him when she wouldn’t have had any authority to pay him anyway. In the third, she did all this chewing out right in front of the man who’s been coughing up the plumber’s wages out of his own pocket as a donation to the museum and a token of his personal regard for Arethusa.”

“A patron? Gorblimey! Didn’t Vangie know who he was?”

Dittany stopped short in the act of slicing her cucumber.

“You’ve asked a mighty interesting question, Miss Paffnagel. Mrs.

Fairfield must have known. She’s heard enough talk about Andrew McNaster ever since she came here. The thing of it is, the Fairfields were supposed to live in the museum as part of the deal.

We’ve been fixing up an apartment for them fast as we could. Not having any money to speak of, we’ve had to rely on free help a lot.”

” Twas ever thus at museums.”

“So it was a break for us when Andy-that is, Mr. McNaster, who’s a contractor, began sending his workmen over to give us a hand during their spare time. That meant we never knew when they’d show up, but of course that’s apt to happen regardless. Mrs.

Fairfield understood the situation, or should have. She’s done a little mild bitching from time to time, as who hasn’t, but I’d never seen her so downright belligerent before.”

“No, it’s not like Evangeline to fly off the handle,” Miss Paffnagel conceded, thoughtfully considering the last cookie and deciding in the affirmative. “Especially in front of a patron. Her customary procedure would be to give you one of those crocodile grins and make some catty remark cunningly disguised to pass for sweetness and light.”

She finished the cookie and began dabbing up crumbs from the plate. “Ah, well, these things happen. I’ve seen it often enough on digs. Some meek little mouse who hasn’t said boo for twenty years suddenly grabs the first obsidian dagger that comes to hand and begins hacking out the entrails of casual lookers-on. Vangie will calm down sooner or later, I expect. The main thing is to lock up the knives and cater to her every whim for a few years. Otherwise, I expect Berthilde will be back here socking your aunt with a whopping lawsuit for driving Vangie over the edge.”

“But she didn’t!”

“Oh, no doubt it’s been festering for years, but you know how lawyers for penniless widows get when they spy a rich defendant in the offing. I suppose what they’ll do is ask for some nice, round sum like five million dollars, then dicker for an out-of-court settlement.

Wouldn’t you think it must be almost time to put that steak on the grill?”

“I’ll go see.”

If Dittany’s voice sounded a trifle dim and faraway, it was not without reason. Could they actually be faced with the equally dire alternatives of having to put up with Evangeline Fairfield forever and a day, or else seeing Arethusa stripped of her money, her jewels, and even her gilded crocodiles, landing destitute on their doorstep some wild and stormy night when they’d absolutely have to take her in? She asked Osbert. To her dismay, he didn’t know.

“I’d have to ask my agent” was his uncomforting reply. “Archie handles all that legal stuff. Try not to worry, darling. There must be a rainbow shining somewhere.”

“Yes, darling. I’ll bring the steak.”

“Maybe you should bring us a few cold beers, too, eh.”

Osbert wasn’t all that much of a beer drinker as a rule. Perhaps he was feeling that if malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man, then maybe it could cast some light on the whys and wherefores of Evangeline Fairfield and Hunding Paffnagel, not to mention a swarm of bees that spelled BFBFFLLLYPUEC.

“Did you actually get a look at that letter Mr. Fairfield told you about?”

Osbert, who was a dab hand at a grill on account of all those camping trips, carved Hunding Paffnagel another strip of perfectly broiled steak and handed her a third beer. She helped herself abundantly to more salad and chips, chewed a while, then nodded.

“Yes, I did. He had it right there in his desk drawer. Typical of Perry. Woolly as a newborn lamb.”

“And what did the letter say?” Dittany prompted.

Hunding shrugged. “Don’t ask me. It was written in French, a language I never got around to learning.”

“Couldn’t you have asked him to read it to you?”

“I was infinitely more interested in persuading him not to read it to me. You must remember I’d been through this buried treasure delusion with Perry on various other occasions.”

“But you did at least get a close look at the letter?” Osbert persisted. “Other than its being in French, could you describe it in any way?”

“Well, needless to say, it was handwritten. With a steel nib, I should say, instead of a quill. The paper was yellowed with age and foxed in a couple of places. The ink was somewhat faded and brownish. The handwriting was rather pretty, as I recall, in a spiky sort of way, even and well-spaced. Oh, and the signature was Henriette. I do remember that, because it was the only word I could decipher.”

“In French and signed Henriette,” said Dittany. “That surprises me. I never heard of any Architrave marrying a Frenchwoman.

Then again, I never heard of any Architrave not marrying a Frenchwoman. Minerva would be the one to know.”

“Ask her,” said Osbert. “Anyway, I think we ought to stroll down to the museum and collar that letter as soon as we’ve finished eating. More steak, darling?”

“No, you finish it. I was thinking maybe I could con you into buying us an ice cream later at the drugstore. We don’t have any dessert, unless anybody would like a plum.”

“What happened to all those cookies?” Hunding asked brazenly.

“Guess.”

“Oh. Well, take it as a compliment to your cooking. Isn’t anybody going to eat that last piece of steak?”

“Feel free.”

Osbert loaded the meat on Hunding’s plate. Dittany had had vague thoughts of saving it for Ethel, but she supposed she ought to have known better. How long were they to keep shoveling groceries into this human disposal unit, anyway?

“What’s new with Sergeant MacVicar?” she asked Osbert, knowing he’d understand what she really meant.

He shook his head. “I haven’t heard a yip out of him all day. I suppose I ought to have checked in with the station.”

“What for? He’d have hollered fast enough if he’d wanted you.”

“That’s true. The sergeant wouldn’t interrupt my work for idle chatter. He knows I have a wife and dog to support. Not to mention freeloading droppers-in. Like my aunt, I mean,” he added hastily, for Osbert wouldn’t have wanted to offend Miss Paffnagel even if she did eat up every last one of his molasses cookies.

“Mighty mavericks, Dittany, do you realize Aunt Arethusa isn’t here? We’ve actually got through a whole meal without her. Do you suppose she’s sick?”

“Maybe she’s eating up the leftovers from last night,” said Dittany, but she didn’t believe it. Considering that Hunding Paffnagel had been of the party, it seemed unlikely there’d been any leftovers. More likely, Arethusa had by now heard so much flak about her alleged mistreatment of Evangeline Fairfield that she was afraid to step outside her own door for fear of being stoned to death by some misinformed hothead. Dittany ventured that hypothesis and added that perhaps they’d better stop by on their way to the museum and see if Arethusa was all right.

Osbert vetoed the suggestion. “I’d back Aunt Arethusa against a howling lynch mob any day. Let’s do the museum first. I want to get my hands on that letter.”

But the letter was not to be got. They searched the desk and found several other letters, none of them of any great interest.

They found a crocheted chamber pot cover, a bunch of old photographs of men in hunting garb with dead deer strung up on poles between them, of boys swimming unselfconsciously naked at the old swimming hole, of ladies looking proud in new Sunday bonnets, and of tots looking miserable in corkscrew curls and starched dresses. They found a half bushel or so of notes in Mr. Fairfield’s fussy handwriting and the usual odds and ends that accumulate in desk drawers. Nowhere did they find a piece of paper written on in French with faded brownish ink and signed Henrietta Dittany picked up the telephone and called Minerva.

“Hi, c’est moi. Is Mrs. Fairfield there? No, I don’t want to talk to her. I want you to ask her what she did with a letter written in French and signed Henriette. The paper’s yellowed with age and slightly foxed. Yes, foxed. No, that doesn’t mean drunk. It means those brown spots old paper gets. Mrs. Fairfield will know, if she knows anything whatsoever, which I-all right, Minerva, we won’t go into that now. Look, I don’t care if she’s prostrate. Go unprostrate her. She had no business taking anything from the museum in the first place. No, go ahead. I’ll wait.”

Minerva must have gone but was back in a minute or so to say Mrs. Fairfield didn’t know anything about any foxed letter signed Henriette and wished to inquire whether this cruel persecution would ever cease.

“Horsefeathers,” said Dittany, “and tell her I said so. You might also tell her she’d better rack her brain about that letter because Sergeant Mac Vicar can persecute a lot more effectively than I can.”

She listened to a few more sputters, then said, “Good night,”

and hung up.

“Sounds as if Minerva’s a bit upset, eh,” Osbert remarked.

“You might say that. So am I. Darling, if Mrs. Fairfield hasn’t got that letter, who has?”

“Don’t look at me,” cried Hunding. “If I’d taken it, would I have told you about it in the first place?”

Maybe, Dittany told herself, if Miss Paffnagel thought old Perry had already been showing the letter around to other people. Osbert, however, seemed to accept Hunding’s protest.