The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain (3 page)

“But nobody’s arrow has a black band around the shaft,” said Sergeant MacVicar. He was a past president of the Male Archers’ Target and Game Shooting Association and ought to know if anyone did.

“Somebody’s does because if I’d been two feet taller it might have parted my hair for me,” Dittany insisted. “Don’t you think we ought to get back there as fast as we can?”

“M’yes, that would appear to be the judicious course. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just ask Mrs. MacVicar to step in and mind the phone.”

This was no big deal since the police station was situated in what might otherwise have been the Mac Vicars’ front parlor.

Mrs. MacVicar entered, having first shed her apron, for she was punctilious about maintaining the dignity of her husband’s office, shook her neat and comely head, and urged all speed as naturally she was avid for further information.

“Some hunter from the States, no doubt,” was her theory.

Mrs. Mac Vicar tended to lay any local disruption of law and order to hunters from the States, of whom in fact Lobelia Falls had very few. “And you say it was Minerva Oakes’s boarder who found him?”

“I said it was a new man from the Water Department,” Dittany replied in surprise. “I’ve no idea where he lives. I don’t even know his name.”

“Frankland,” said Mrs. MacVicar promptly. “Tall, broadshouldered chap about thirty years old with an affable though somewhat unpolished manner. Curly reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, ruddy complexion, clean-shaven-“

“And a weak stomach,” Dittany finished to show she wasn’t entirely unobservant. “He was being sick all over the mountain.”

“Ah, well, your average layman is not hardened to vile atrocities,”

said Sergeant MacVicar as if he were in the habit of finding bodies on the station doorstep with the morning paper.

“Mother, see if you can get hold of Dr. Peagrim and explain that he’s wanted up there as soon as possible. We’ll be on the lookout for him.”

He accoutered himself with handcuffs and a number of other things he couldn’t imaginably need, bowed Dittany into the police car, and off they roared, although not very far, as it was necessary to get out and walk once they reached the periphery of the Hunneker Land Grant. Frankland ran down to meet them, looking a shade less green by now, and managed to lead Sergeant MacVicar to the corpse without further upheaval. Both men appeared to take it for granted Dittany would either go on home or cower beside the backhoe, but she tagged along a discreet step or two in the rear, wishing she hadn’t been quite so rude about the now demised Mr. Architrave.

When she saw the form spread-eagled on the ground, though, she lost any sense of personal concern. It simply wasn’t real, that fat black dummy with the black-banded shaft sticking out a few inches between the shoulder blades.

“John was a heavy-set man and he has on a thick overcoat,”

mused Sergeant Mac Vicar, “yet the arrow went through him like a hot knife through butter. That was not done with a dainty lady’s bow.” He smiled a bit at the one Dittany was still carrying, though in fact it was no paltry weapon. “A hunting bow with at least a 60-pound pull and probably more, I should say. It would take a strong man to draw that.”

“Not necessarily,” Dittany started to argue. “I know some women who-” She shut up. This was no time to advertise any friend’s prowess.

“And you saw no sign of anybody, Mr. Frankland, if I am correct in calling you so?” the sergeant inquired politely.

“That’s right, Frankland. Most people call me Ben. No, the only sign of life I saw was that arrow that just missed us over by the backhoe. I expect Miss Henbit told you about that, eh?”

“Yes, she did, and where is the arrow now?”

“It’s still in the ash tree,” Dittany replied. “It went in pretty deep. I noticed because I’m so used to chasing arrows,” she half apologized because after all it had been rather brave of Ben Frankland to go over that ridge not knowing what he’d find, even if he perhaps hadn’t then realized how dangerous a longbow can be.

Sergeant Mac Vicar shook his head. “Anybody who shoots no better than that has no business out here. What puzzles me is why he shot more than once. Did you make no outcry?”

“I yelled my bloody head off when that arrow zinged past us,” said Frankland.

“And Ethel barked and I’m sure I must have screamed,” Dittany added. “We hadn’t been exactly silent beforehand, either.

We were having a few words about whether he should be digging up the wildflowers.”

“Ah,” said Sergeant Mac Vicar. “Then it would seem that the miscreant shot poor old John first, by accident or so we must piously hope. Hearing voices in the distance, he then loosed a second arrow in the hope of frightening you off so that he could escape unseen.”

“But why bother? We never dreamed Mr. Architrave had been shot. If it hadn’t been for that other arrow coming at us, we wouldn’t have known anybody else was up here.”

“John may have cried out when he was struck.”

“If he did, we didn’t hear him.”

“Ah, but the bowman would not know that, would he? Being on the opposite side of the ridge, eh, he would have heard John more loudly and you more softly, if you catch the drift of my argument. It would not occur to him that with you the reverse would be true. The only other explanation that occurs to me is that the hunter never knew he’d hit John and was merely shooting at random for practice, which it would appear he sorely needed. But in that case, why did he not go looking for his arrows?”

There was an uncomfortable little silence. The three of them looked at each other, then Sergeant Mac Vicar said in a firm departmental tone, “In any event it was none of our folk. Nobody in Lobelia Falls has arrows like these.”

“If you want my opinion for what it’s worth,” said Frankland, “it was some drunk who came up off the highway.”

He gestured at the ribbon of asphalt that stretched from the back side of the Hunneker Land Grant toward the distant horizon with nothing to break the monotony but a farmhouse or two. “Probably saw what looked like a deserted area and thought he’d get in a spot of quiet poaching. Mr. Architrave had said he’d meet me here, as I mentioned to Miss Henbit, and I’d been wondering where he was. It must have been just that he came up one side of the ridge while I was on the other. With that squatty build and his black overcoat, I suppose a person might have mistaken him for a black bear if they didn’t look too hard, eh?”

Sergeant MacVicar nodded profoundly. “That might well happen.”

“So the hunter could have shot him sort of accidentally on purpose as you might say, then maybe got excited and let off a wild shot just for the heck of it, heard us yelling and realized what he’d done, and hightailed it out of here.”

“You did not hear a car drive off?”

“Not that I recall, but we mightn’t have noticed with the highway not all that far away. Anyway, Miss Henbit and I were both sort of in shock for a second there, I guess, after that arrow came at us. Then we chewed the fat about her holding the dog while I went to see what was up, and I took my time getting over the ridge, I don’t mind telling you. I was none too keen on stopping another of those arrows like the tree did. And when I spotted Mr. Architrave, I-well, it hit me right in the guts, if you want to know. I guess I didn’t put up much of a show as a hero, eh? Anyhow, as soon as I could pull myself together, I went back and asked Miss Henbit to go for the police.”

“As was right and proper,” said Sergeant Mac Vicar. “This is exactly how you found John? You didn’t try to move him?”

“God, no!” Frankland mopped his face again. “I wouldn’t have touched him with a ten-foot pole. I could see there was nothing to be done, though I suppose we should have got a doctor anyway.”

“A call is out for Dr. Peagrim,” Sergeant MacVicar replied rather grandly. “If Mrs. Stumm has not started her twins, he should be along any time now. Your theory has merit, Mr.

Frankland. I shall examine the terrain for clues. It would be advisable for you to suspend any further activity in the area for the time being.”

“Yes, but what’s this activity for?” cried Dittany. “Mr. Architrave gave Mr. Frankland a plot plan with red dots on it where leaching tests were supposed to be done. Can you imagine why?”

Sergeant MacVicar pondered, then shook his majestic head. “I cannot. John explained nothing to you, Mr. Frankland?”

“No, just told me to bring the backhoe up here and dig where the dots were. I figured it wasn’t my place to ask questions, being new on the job. I thought maybe he’d tell me when he met me here. Say, you know, he must have heard me trying to jockey that darned backhoe up the slope. I wonder why he didn’t come over. Of course he wouldn’t have known which spot I meant to dig at first. See, he’d given me this plot plan.”

Frankland pulled out the map of the Hunneker Land Grant for Mac Vicar’s inspection. “I was just starting to work on this spot here when Miss Henbit came along and told me I was acting in violation of the Conservation Committee so I decided I’d better lay off till I’d made sure I wasn’t in the wrong place, though I didn’t see how I could be. If Mr. Architrave had come over I could have checked with him. Might have saved his life, eh?”

Sergeant Mac Vicar perched a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles on the impressive Highland sweep of his nose and studied the map. “You were apparently at the indicated place, but I am as puzzled as Dittany with regard to John’s reason for sending you here. Mrs. Mac Vicar’s Cousin Maude’s oldest son Clinton has endeavored without success ever since last June to get a percolation test done on some land he wants to build on and others have similar tales of woe stemming from John’s dilatory habits. You must know, Mr. Frankland, that, while Lobelia Falls has thus far rejected a town sewer as being pretentious and citified, we are very strict about proper septage and leaching beds. Percolation tests are an essential prelude to any construction project, but as no construction would ever be planned up here, John’s reason for ordering these particular tests eludes me. I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that poor old John, whom we have always valued more for the rectitude of his character than for the strength of his intellect, had finally, as my irreverent grandson would put it, popped his cork. Dittany, would you be good enough to explain to the ladies at the club that Mrs. MacVicar is unavoidably detained on official business?”

“Oh my gosh!” gasped Dittany. “What time is it?”

“Half past two. You are on the Tea Committee this month, and you have already been late twice in a row.”

Sergeant Mac Vicar’s cork, at least, was firmly in place. Dittany sped for Applewood Avenue without even pausing to say good-by.

The house on Applewood Avenue had become Dittany’s more or less by default when her mother remarried and moved to Vancouver. Her new stepfather had offered to include his wife’s only offspring in a package deal, but Dittany had refused. She was very fond of Bert, but she had no desire to move.

Whereas the former Mrs. Henbit had always been a goer, Dittany herself was a natural-born stayer. Lobelia Falls was where she belonged. From the time she could remember, she had participated wholeheartedly in community life. At five years of age she’d pranced around the kindergarten’s field day maypole with a pair of pink crepe paper butterfly wings pinned to her yellow organdie back. At eight she’d marched with the Brownies in the Dominion Day parade. At eleven she’d picked up discarded Molson’s Ale bottles and Hatfield’s Potato Chip wrappers for six hours without a break during the Girl Guides’ Annual Roadside Cleanup Day. At fifteen she’d whanged a mean glockenspiel in the regional high school band.

Dittany had been proud and honored to join the Grub-and stake Gardening and Roving Club as a third-generation member.

She’d honestly meant to be a credit to the organization but she was, after all, her mother’s daughter and the former Mrs. Henbit’s best-laid plans tended to gang agley as often as not.

This had been one of those agley days. Dittany had started out to be beautifully organized. She’d remembered she was on the Tea Committee even before Mrs. Mac Vicar called to remind her.

She’d prepared dainty sandwiches on thin-sliced date bread, filled with cream cheese and walnuts plus a dash of horseradish for zest and a sprinkling of paprika for color. She’d trimmed the crusts, carved her creations into neat triangles, and packed them between layers of biodegradable waxed paper in a Crawford’s biscuit tin. She’d set the tin in the fridge to keep the sandwiches fresh.

She’d washed her hair and fluffed it with one of the four blow-dryers her mother had bought her in moments of forgetful benevolence. She’d thought of plucking her eyebrows but quit after a couple of experimental tweaks because Dittany was no masochist. Anyway they were so light a brown they didn’t show much. Dittany’s coloring was all betwixt and between: her hair more blondish than brownish, her eyes more green than blue, her complexion more fair than not, more peachy than pinky. Her face might never have launched a thousand ships, especially not on Lake Ontario, but it was a face most people would rather see than not.

She’d got herself slicked up in the aforementioned camel-hair slacks and a matching cashmere pullover, being small and slim enough to wear such garments without bulging except where she was supposed to bulge. She’d added Gram Henbit’s gold chain and watch, which didn’t tell time anymore but was quite lovely to look at. Then she realized she’d done all these things hours too soon, so she’d dutifully sat down to stap Sir Percy’s buttons until she couldn’t stand that any longer. Then she’d gone for that catastrophic walk and now here she was with paw prints all over her clothes and huge questions in her mind and no time to do anything about either.

She dashed into the house, grabbed her biscuit tin, and raced to the public library where meetings were now held since one member had resigned in a huff because she was forever being asked to have the group at her house and another had quit because she never got asked at all. She arrived one step ahead of the lecturer who was to present a program, with colored slides, on Larkspur and Lepidoptera, and flung herself into the tiny, inconvenient kitchen.