The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain (24 page)

“It was a piece of luck for Frankland or Ford or whatever his name is that Dittany happened along,” Zilla observed.

“Yes, Dittany couldn’t have been more perfect. I mean not so perfect that a chap would ever find her monotonous to be with, but-I mean, I know you’re not supposed to say more perfect because perfect either is or it isn’t, but-“

“But Dittany made an ideal witness to Ford’s trick,” Sergeant Mac Vicar kindly interposed, “thus providing him with what appeared to be an excellent alibi. Quite unintentionally, to be sure.”

“Well, naturally,” said Osbert. “I mean it would appear natural that any man would wish to shield such a rare flower of youth and beauty from any and all perils, particularly arrows whizzing past her adorable little noggin. Ford was doing no more than a woman might reasonably expectI mean a woman like Dittany-I mean, oh, heck, you know what I mean. Like that it wouldn’t look odd or unexpected for him to shove her in behind the backhoe out of harm’s way and tell her to stay there while he went and did his fake chest-thumping act, making believe he was facing deadly peril and all that garbage when in fact he was hiding the bow and rolling up the fishline.

“After he’d got the evidence hidden, he pretended to discover Mr. Architrave’s body, which of course he knew perfectly well had been there all the time. He himself had shot Mr. Architrave while they were wandering around looking for spots to dig perk test holes. He’d have been better off to wait till Mr. Architrave picked a spot because, from what I can gather, the old man, however dumb he might have been, would never have been stupid enough to dig up the only patch of Spotted Pipsissewa in Lobelia County.”

“That is a telling point, Mr. Monk,” said Sergeant Mac Vicar.

“John was perhaps not a particularly quick man, nor indeed a particularly wise man, but he was a fundamentally decent man.

Moreover, he was a man who had intimate personal acquaintance with every inch of land in Lobelia Falls. John would have known where the Spotted Pipsissewa grew. He would not have countenanced its being disturbed, molested, or uprooted despite the fact that he had allowed himself to be duped, gulled, or perhaps I should say catspawed by Andrew McNaster into doing percolation tests at the wrong time of year on land where no tests should have been done at all.”

“I wonder how McNaster managed that,” mused Roger Munson.

“We believe John was persuaded by means of a spurious legal document prepared by a member of the legal profession from Scottsbeck who is, I fear, no credit to his time-honored profession and will, I trust, prove but a broken reed when Mr. Ford retains him as counsel in the hope of escaping the just penalty for his heinous and perfidious crime. Mr. Ford, I am now going to charge you formally with the murder of John Architrave. I shall ask Miss Dittany Henbit to take down the exact verbiage of my charge in her excellent shorthand while each member of this assemblage pays careful attention. As my capable assistant pointed out a moment ago, we wish to leave no legalistic loophole through which you may able to effect an escape.”

Thereupon Sergeant Mac Vicar proceeded to charge Burton Ford, alias Benjamin Frankland, as thoroughly as any prisoner has ever been charged. Dittany typed her shorthand notes in triplicate and passed the transcriptions around for everybody to read and sign, which everybody did in due order. The prisoner was led to the patrol wagon. En route he most injudiciously took a swipe at Osbert Monk. Mr. Monk was thus forced in selfdefense, as everybody clamored to testify, to land a right to Ford’s jaw that left Bob and Ray gazing back at him in awe and reverence even as they dragged their captive away.

Mrs. Mac Vicar, who had been unable to suppress a beam of wifely adoration as she watched her husband so nobly acquit himself in his official duty, recovered her wonted dignity and thanked Dittany for a lovely evening. She again -congratulated Samantha on her triumph at the polls, expressed proper sentiments anent public servants and their responsibilities to the citizenry they represented, and took her leave.

Gradually the guests drifted off, Minerva Oakes being comforted by Zilla Trott on the loss of yet another boarder and yet another betrayal of her hospitality and being told for the cat’s sake never to rent that room again until the applicant had been screened by some method other than Minerva’s own totally unreliable intuition. Samantha and Joshua stayed until the last, shaking every hand offered with true political finesse. Then they both kissed Dittany and went home.

“Good heavens,” Dittany remarked to Ethel, “we’re alone.

How strange!”

Then she heard a diffident cough from the pantry.

“Er-Dittany?”

“Osbert! I thought you’d gone off with Arethusa.”

“I-er-came back. I thought I’d just like to-er-visualize how those two cookie crocks might look. Side by side, that is. I mean, close together. I mean”-Osbert hitched up his clothesline, took a few deep breaths, and clasped Dittany to his manly bosom -“like this.”

“Osbert,” Dittany murmured into his shirt front, “about this house. Would you really like to live here?”

“Is there a better place?”

“You’re quite sure you wouldn’t want to change anything?”

“Only the name on the mailbox,” he cried with a romantic fervor even Sir Percy would have been hard put to emulate. “Oh, Dittany!”

First timidly, then boldly, his lips explored the little dimple at the corner of her mouth. “Did anybody ever tell you your cheek is like the bloom on the yucca or Spanish bayonet?”

From somewhere far, far away a voice could have been heard to remark, “Well, stap my garters!”

Dittany and Osbert heeded not the voice. Arethusa could go stap her own gaiters. They had far more interesting things to do.

In Aprille with his shoures soote, Hazel got to frost little pink and white cakes. In May, Gram Henbit’s wedding dress was shaken out of its blue tissue paper wrappings and a very jittery young author bought himself a new belt. In June, the Munson boys were hired to paint a house. And thus (as Chaucer and Miss MacWilliams might have wound up the tale) with alle blisse and melodye, hath Osbert Monk y-wedded Dittany.

(continued from front flap)

Alisa Craig was born in Canada,

where this book is set, and she lives

today in Massachusetts. She is also the

author of A Pint of Murder.

JACKET BY PETER BAUCH

AUTHOR PHOTO BY GRACE DESJARDIN

Printed in the U.S.A.