The Grub-And-Stakers Quilt a Bee (5 page)

“I find that remark to be in decidedly poor taste.”

” ‘Ods bodikins, you’re a fine one to talk. Nattering away about what a pest Mrs. Fairfield is and sparing not so much as a passing sigh for the greater tragedy; namely and to wit, that we are again without a curator and I, forsooth, am stuck with the churl’s task of supervising this misbegotten moth hatchery. Wherefore all this detective garbage, i’ faith, when there can be but one explanation for the nefarious deed? Killing poor old Fairfield was an artful ruse of my arch rival, that caitiff knavess, Lydia E. Twinkham, to divert my attention from literary composition and give her the regency romance field all to herself.”

“Barring the fact that Lydia E. Twinkham is eighty-three years old and residing in a nursing home at Lesser Gimbling-in-the-‘

Wabe, I can’t think of a likelier explanation. Quick, grab the ladder.

They’re coming down. Stop wiggling it, for Pete’s sake.”

Despite Arethusa’s assistance, the two men got down all right.

Osbert came second, carefully latching the skylight after him.

“What did you find, darling?” Dittany asked, hugging her beloved to make sure he was intact.

“Deputy Monk has ascertained that Brown has in fact completed what appears to be a first-class job of leakproofing the skylight,” Sergeant Mac Vicar kindly informed them, Osbert’s lips being for the moment otherwise employed.

“Stap my garters,” Arethusa exclaimed in disgust. “Is that all?”

“It cannot be lightly dismissed, Miss Monk. Since Brown must know the work was done properly, why has the gear not been taken away?”

“Need one ask?” cried Dittany. “Brown works for McNaster.

McNaster’s been slinking around here trying to worm his way into our good graces so he can pull another of his nasties, and now he’s done it. Can’t you imagine what Mr. Fairfield’s death will do to our membership drive? People will say the museum’s a public menace.

We won’t be able to raise the money to keep it going, and he’ll grab it.”

“Doucely, doucely,” Sergeant MacVicar cautioned. “The gear may have been left simply because Brown has no immediate use for it elsewhere and this is as good a storage place as any. Nevertheless, the fact should not be overlooked, nor should that fragment of gray yarn Deputy Monk found. When I myself performed the melancholy task of examining Mr. Fairfield’s lifeless corpse, I observed a snag on the back of the gray cardigan he was wearing.

Of course it could have been done some while back.”

“No chance,” said Dittany. “The sweater was brand-new. He was showing it off to me yesterday morning. He told me his secretary had given it to him as a farewell present because he was coming up here among the icebergs and igloos. We were laughing about it.” She suppressed a sniffle and said briskly, “So if the wool matches the cardigan, that proves he was shoved off the roof.”

“That would indicate he had been on the roof, Dittany. For what purpose he went there, whether freely or under duress, would still remain to be discovered. However, it would give us sound reason to pursue the investigation. Do you not agree, Deputy Monk?”

“I do.”

Osbert’s words reminded Dittany of their wedding day. She gazed up at her husband with, as Miss Lydia E. Twinkham had often expressed it, stars in her eyes. Arethusa gave them both a look and went off to brood among the antique carpet beaters and pokerwork mottoes of which fate, by this sinister turn, had again made her acting custodian.

Sergeant Mac Vicar, however, remained to strike while the iron was hot. “Dittany lass,” he said, “can you remember who was in the museum this afternoon?”

“Well, myself and the Fairfields, of course. And a plumber Andy McNaster sent over. I think he might have been from those Fawcetts in Scottsbeck who run the advertisements about bringing your faucets to Fawcett, which makes no sense whatsoever, because what you have to do is bring the Fawcetts to the faucets.”

“A point well taken. Can you describe the plumber?”

“Not too well. He was squatting down with his head under the kitchen sink when I saw him. Sort of middle-aged and fattish with a dark blue jersey on, if that helps any. Oh, and he had a bunion.

The side of his left shoe was slit and his sock was hanging out, sort of. White with pink stripes. Rather sissy for a plumber, I thought.”

“Ah, yes. That would have been Cedric, sometimes whimsically referred to as Cold-Water Fawcett on account of his habitual pessimism.”

“I’ll bet Mrs. Cedric is a Hot-Water Fawcett. She keeps him in it, and that’s why he’s depressed.”

“As to that, I could not say.” Sergeant Mac Vicar was always careful about spreading gossip, on account of his official position.

“The nickname ‘Hot-Water’ is generally applied to Harold, second eldest and most choleric of the seven Fawcett brothers.”

“The rest of the Fawcetts are just drips, I suppose, if they work for McNaster.”

“That is a somewhat unfair assumption, Dittany. All the Fawcetts are well skilled in the craft of the artifex plumbarius. You say Andrew McNaster sent Cedric Fawcett to the museum? Voluntarily and of his own free will?”

“Such is my understanding. This Cold-Water Fawcett just waltzed in and said, ‘McNaster sent me over. What do you want plumbed?’ or words to that effect. Mrs. Fairfield asked him who was supposed to pay and he said it would go on McNaster’s tab. So she figured what the heck and got him started in the kitchen.”

“This was not the first time Andrew McNaster had volunteered such assistance?” Sergeant MacVicar knew perfectly well it wasn’t, needless to say. There were no flies on Sergeant MacVicar.

Dittany shook her head. “Au contraire. We’ve got so used to having some stranger wander in with a bag of tools and say he’s from McNaster that we don’t even swoon with astonishment any more. We still keep an eagle eye on whoever it is, naturally, because none of us would trust McNaster any farther than we could throw a horse by the tail. Mrs. Fairfield ought to have cleared the plumber with one of the trustees before she told him to go ahead, but that’s not her way.”

There she went again. Dittany hastened to make amends. “Not that you can blame her for getting a bit restive about wanting to move into her own place. You know how it is when you’re somebody’s guest, no matter how nice they are. Minerva would never let on for one second that she was sick and tired of having the Fairfields under foot, but a person can read between the lines.

Unless they’re Arethusa’s lines, which you often can’t read at all,”

she added, for she was still miffed at her aunt-in-law. “The Munson boys were painting woodwork in the birthing room.”

“The Munson boys, eh? That would be Edward and Albert?”

“No, Eddie and Dave. Bert was offered a parttime job at the paint store in Scottsbeck because the Munsons have been throwing so much business its way this summer. They just finished painting our house, you know. They’re doing the museum for half price out of the goodness of their hearts. They’d be home now, I expect, if you want to grill them. This isn’t Roger Munson’s be-pals-withyour-kids night, is it?”

“No, this is the Male Archers’ practice night,” sighed Sergeant MacVicar, who’d have been there himself, were it not for the untimely demise of Mr. Fairfield. “Roger will be at the butts with the rest of the men.”

The rest of the men included virtually every adult male in Lobelia Falls except Osbert Monk, who was being privately tutored by his wife and showing great promise that he, too, might one day qualify for membership.

“Then Eddie and Dave will be with their father, won’t they?”

Dittany suggested kindly, for she could see which way Sergeant Mac Vicar’s heart was yearning.

“No chance. They are still in the intermediate class, which meets tomorrow evening. They may, to be sure, be practicing in their own back yard,” the sergeant added in a brighter tone, for hope springeth eternal and a man might still get in a shot or two with a borrowed bow before it became too dark to see the target.

His father, who’d served in the Nova Scotia Highlanders, had known a song about that. As they marched down the street in loose formation, Sergeant MacVicar found himself crooning, “I canna see the tarrget. Oh, move the dom thing closerr. It’s ower far awa’.”

Arethusa, who happened to be nearest, turned her vast and fathomless dark eyes upon him in great amaze. “You’re in merry mood, sirrah, for a man with a probable murder on his hands.”

“It makes a change, Miss Monk,” was the sergeant’s succinct reply. “And you will oblige me by keeping that under your mumchance also, eh?”

“Fear not, man capitaine. My lips are sealed. What a wonderful line! I must use it sometime.”

Arethusa lapsed into one of those brooding fits that meant some duke or baronet was about to be pinked in the jabot as soon as she could get back to her desk. Sergeant MacVicar, too, had wherewith to brood on. Dittany and Osbert strolled ahead, a slender blue sleeve slipped around a tall beaded-buckskin back and a long tan arm wound protectively around a small blue cardigan.

Each occupied with thoughts of varying natures, they none of them spoke again until they reached the Munsons’ back yard.

There, sure enough, they found Dave and Eddie industriously plugging away at a plastic-covered target set against piled-up bales of hay. Well-bred youths that they were, the brothers parked their bows against a bale and came over to shake hands.

“Evening, Miss Monk. Evening, Dittany. Evening, Sergeant MacVicar. Howdy, Osbert. We figured you’d be along sooner or later.”

“If in fact you were expecting to see me, why did you not come and seek me out?” the sergeant inquired, rather absentmindedly because he was eyeing the target.

“And do you out of the chance to get in a few shots?” That was Dave, younger and brasher of the two. “You’d better use Ed’s bow.

It pulls a little stronger than mine.”

“M’ph.” Struggling not to look too gratified, Sergeant Mac Vicar picked up the elder brother’s bow, fitted an arrow to the string, and sent it, as he knew his small audience expected him to, straight to the center of the bull’s-eye. Dave handed him another arrow, which he placed dead left of the first, close enough for the flights to touch but not so close as to ruffle the feathers. The third landed the exact same distance to the right, the fourth directly above, and the fifth precisely below.

“Not bad shooting” was the consensus of the group. Sergeant Mac Vicar returned a slight nod.

“I have done worse and will again, I doubt not. Now, lads, tell me what I came to hear.”

“About what happened at the museum this afternoon, right?”

said Eddie.

“Insofar as your memories serve. You were painting woodwork in the birthing room, Dittany tells me.”

“Yes, only Mrs. Fairfield doesn’t like having it called that any more, I don’t know why. It isn’t as if she had anything to worry about. I mean,” Eddie flushed, for it was one thing to bandy words among his compares and quite another to do so in front of Sergeant MacVicar, “I don’t suppose she’ll be moving into the museum now.”

“That is for the trustees to decide,” said the sergeant. “Our concern is with Mr. Fairfield’s last hours. Can you cast any light on his movements?”

The brothers exchanged shrugs. “Gee, I’m afraid not,” Dave answered. “I don’t think he so much as stuck his head in the door all day. He didn’t seem to be all that interested in how the place was coming along, the way Mrs. Fairfield was. She’d be popping in and out every five minutes to see if we were finished yet and how come the job was taking so long, eh. Mr. Fairfield just sat in the back parlor sticking labels on stuff people brought in and making notes on little cards. Cataloging the exhibits, he called it.”

“Why shouldn’t he?” Eddie said. “That’s what it was. Dave’s right, though, Sergeant. We knew Mr. Fairfield was around because we could hear his wife talking to him about one thing and another, but I can’t recall laying eyes on him the whole time we were there.”

“And how long was that?”

“All day, just about. It must have been close to nine o’clock when we started, because we’d been out to the lake early.”

“Indeed? Were they rising well?”

“Not too bad. We got a few smallmouth bass. Dave hooked on to a three-pounder but I guess his tackle was too light.”

No doubt Dave had actually struck too soon, as he often did, but esprit de corps ran high among the Munson brothers.

“Anyway,” Eddie went on, “we worked till maybe a quarter to twelve, then we went home to dinner and got back at half past, or near enough as makes no difference. We knocked off at half past four. I know that, because we’d promised to go over to Scottsbeck and pick up Bert after he got through at the paint shop. He’d left us the car to go fishing.”

The Munsons had been having car problems. Bight now, schooled in efficiency by Roger and goaded to frugality by the mounting costs of higher education, the family was making do with one vehicle. Sergeant MacVicar didn’t need to have that explained to him, of course.

“Now, during the course of the afternoon, who was in the museum other than yourselves, the Fairfields, and Dittany?”

“Mrs. Boulanger brought over some gingerbread and lemonade, which was darn nice of her. That was maybe twenty past two. A plumber came to work in the kitchen right after she left. The fat one from Scottsbeck who goes around looking as if his dog just died. He was still working when we came away. At least I think he was working. He had the sink pipes out and his tools strewn around.”

“And was there anybody else?”

“That other woman, Ed,” Dave prompted.

“What other woman?”

“You know, the one who came in the back door.”

“I thought that was Mrs. Fairfield.”

“Mrs. Fairfield wouldn’t have come to the back door, Ed. She was already in the house. This was somebody else.”

“If you say so. I wasn’t paying any attention.”

“What did this woman look like, David?” Sergeant MacVicar prompted. “Did you see her well enough to recognize if you saw her again?”

On that point, Dave was not helpful. He thought he might have caught a glimpse of a blue dress or skirt or something she was wearing, but it might have been green or purple. He hadn’t been interested. Dave was off women these days, having had his heart temporarily broken by a redhead from Burketon Station. He didn’t mention the redhead, but naturally everybody in town knew about her and thought Dave Munson well rid of a giggling chit who couldn’t even hit the black at twenty lousy feet.