The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (15 page)

Dittany, too, was trying not to listen. “I must say I’m getting a wee bit fed up with the Bleinkinsop twins,” she confided to him sotto voce. “I thought Siamese twins would be fascinating to know, but they’re just people, like anybody else. Anybody who’s not fascinating, I mean.”

“I understand, darling,” he answered. “It’s too bad you didn’t get to meet Zingbert Angelus. There’s kind of a subtle fascination about Zingbert. Nothing you can put your finger on, but it’s there all right. Zingbert’s one great guy to drag a mere with, I can tell you that. Mrs. Phiffer’s pretty fascinating, too, in her own way. She wants you to drop over and see her flamingos as soon as she finishes putting their neckties on.”

“My stars and garters, darling, you have had an interesting day!” murmured his wife. “What do you say we stick Mum with the dishes and go someplace where I’ll be able to hear you tell me all about it?”

“Sure thing, pardner. How about the police station? I ought to report to Sergeant MacVicar anyway. You’d better put on a few of those knitted bed jackets or something before we go, though. It’s getting a bit nippy out.”

“I’l1 wear that big pink-and-purple shawl Zilla crocheted. She meant it for a carriage cover but her crochet hook got the bit between its teeth and stampeded on her. That’s the only thing I’ve got that still meets in the middle.” Dittany raised her voice to attract the chatters’ attention. “Mum, may I wrench you away from the Bleinkinsop twins for a moment?”

“Yes, dear, of course. I was just telling Arethusa that Ranville—”

“Mum! Osbert and I are going down to see Sergeant MacVicar. Will you be wanting the car tonight?”

“No, Arethusa and I thought we’d spend a quiet evening right here making peanut brittle. Assuming there are any peanuts lying around that you have no other plans for.”

“Sorry, Mum, we’re fresh out. I’ve got walnut meats in the pantry, if you’d care to make fudge instead.”

“Or penuche,” Arethusa suggested.

“How about walnut brittle?” said Clorinda. “I’ve never heard of anybody’s making walnut brittle. That would offer a new challenge.”

“So it would,” said Dittany. “We’ll leave you to meet the challenge, then. Ready, darling?”

Osbert said he was, so they went, taking Ethel with them for the ride. Sergeant MacVicar and his wife were pleased to receive all three and greatly intrigued by Osbert’s report.

“Then it’s your belief, Deputy Monk,” said the sergeant, “that Wardle was one of the two who effected the demise of Cousin Charles, and has done away with himself in a fit of remorse.”

“I don’t know whether it’s my belief or whether it’s just the belief Wardle wants us to believe,” Osbert replied. “Dittany, did Archie ever call back this afternoon? I meant to ask you back at the house, but what with all the static in the background, I forgot.”

“As who wouldn’t, dear? And I meant to tell you but I thought it might be better to wait till I could make myself heard. Besides, I wasn’t too sure how you’d feel about letting Mum and Arethusa in on the doings. The gist according to Archie, and I’m quoting so you needn’t waggle your eyebrows at me, Sergeant MacVicar, is that Wardle’s story about the anchovy business is a lot of codswallop.”

“Aha!” cried Osbert. “Then I was right about the forged references.”

Dittany nodded. “You couldn’t have been righter, precious. The well-known manufacturers of Worcestershire sauce have never heard of Quimper Wardle, much less written gushy letters about him. The address on their alleged letterhead is actually that of a rather sinister tobacconist’s shop which does a tidy business on the side as an accommodation address for persons of low repute.”

“And the Royal Society of Anchovy Buyers?”

“They do not list him as a member and wouldn’t have made him Hon. Sec. in any case because that’s a hereditary post which can only be held, one gathers, by somebody who’s swum upstream from the primordial anchovy egg. Archie says the Society was pretty darned sniffy about the whole business. They’re determined to sue Wardle if he ever floats to the surface. So, whoever he was or may still be, Quimper Wardle’s a phony as you suspected all along. I hope the twins inherit your brains, dear.”

“I hope the girl twin inherits your adorable little nose, sweetheart,” Osbert replied with at least equal fervor.

“Arh’m,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “Might we not get back to the subject at hand?”

“Sure, Chief,” Osbert replied. “Er—what was it?”

“M’well, even assuming that yon Wardle, whatever his real identity, may in fact have hurled himself into Bottomless Mere in a fit of remorse over his ill-doings, we are still faced with the dilemma of who was his accomplice. We must e’en suppose that the raid on Mr. Gumpert’s store was prompted by your aunt’s cryptic remark about the ream of plain white paper and the jeweled dagger, must we not?”

“Actually, I think she mentioned the dagger first,” said Osbert, “but yes, I believe we must. Which means the store was raided by the same two rustlers who shot Mother Matilda’s husband. And if Wardle killed himself Friday night … wait a minute! If Wardle did kill himself Friday night or if somebody else killed him,” Osbert added, thinking of that wrenched-off pajama button, “he couldn’t have taken part in yesterday’s episode at all. So those two sidewinders in the trench coats would have had to be two different sidewinders.”

“The possibility had not escaped my notice, Deputy Monk. Nor had the possibility that Wardle’s untimely demise, if in fact he is dead, was not self-induced. What we appear to have run into here is, in the words of the late Mr. Churchill, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

“And we have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” said Osbert. “I’ll report to the mincemeat factory first thing in the morning.”

“Stout lad! You’re a credit to the force, Deputy. Noo then, that yon Wardle perpetrated the debagging of VP Lemon Peel would appear obvious in view of your having found what purports to be a copy of the mincemeat formula in the pocket of Wardle’s discarded trousers. You turned the document over to Chief Slapp, did you not?”

“It wasn’t much of a document, just a few words scrawled on a memo pad sheet with ‘VP Lemon Peel’ at the top. Yes, I gave the note to Slapp but I made myself a copy first. I’ll show it to Mother Matilda when I see her; she’ll know whether it’s a bona fide copy of VP Lemon Peel’s part of the recipe or another red herring like Wardle’s letter of reference. I have a copy of the suicide note here, too. Someplace.”

Like most writers, Osbert tended to accumulate oddments of paper with frequently indecipherable notes written on them. He fished out a handful from various pockets and sorted through them, pausing now and then to cock an interested eyebrow while Dittany and the sergeant waited with what patience they could muster. At last he found the one he was looking for.

“Here we are. What does that sound like to you, Chief?”

“It sounds like the pompous haverings of a silly loon,” Sergeant MacVicar replied severely, “and shows a lamentable recklessness of mind in one who purports himself to be anticipating the solemn hour. I dinna like it, Deputy Monk.”

“I dinna like it, either,” said Dittany, who had naturally been reading over the sergeant’s shoulder. “If Wardle really planned to bump himself off, why should he have bothered to stick with his alias?”

“We can’t be sure Wardle isn’t his real name, dear,” Osbert pointed out.

“But we do know he’s not entitled to the R.S.A.B. That’s an abbreviation for Royal Society of Anchovy Buyers, isn’t it?”

“Unless he meant Rotten Society of Artful Burglars, sweetie.”

“Psha,” said Sergeant MacVicar, and the Monks could not but agree with him.

“So what do we do now?” said Dittany.

“Just keep in the picture and see what develops, I guess,” Osbert replied. “Maybe I’ll be able to collect some fresh leads at the factory tomorrow. What do you say, dear, shall we go buy Ethel an ice cream?”

Ethel seemed to think that was a great idea, so they bade the sergeant a friendly good night, asked to be remembered to Mrs. MacVicar, who had by now gone off to her yoga class, and set off in quest of pistachio.

This seemed to be a night for ice cream. The walnut brittle had not been a total success; for some reason the stuff had dug in its heels and refused to harden. Therefore, Arethusa and Clorinda were trying it out as a topping, as they explained when Dittany and Osbert entered to find them up to the eyebrows in French vanilla and sticky brown goo. They offered to share, but Dittany and Osbert said no thanks, they’d just had ice cream and Ethel mustn’t have any either, since she was probably too fat though it was impossible to tell under all that shaggy black fur. Anyway, they were planning to turn in early because Osbert was fatigued from a strenuous day and Dittany was worn out just from hearing about it.

Both slept well and woke refreshed. Osbert took extra pains with his showering and shaving.

“I hink I wea y oo hoot,” he remarked as he was flossing his teeth.

“Your blue suit?” said Dittany, rightly divining what he was trying to say. “You only wear your blue suit when you go to Toronto.”

“But the only reason I go to Toronto is to see Archie,” Osbert replied quite distinctly, having by now finished flossing, “and I don’t go there anymore. You know Archie prefers to come here so he can gawk at Aunt Arethusa and heave deep, meaningful sighs which she doesn’t hear because that little pea brain of hers is off at Ranelagh chasing a rake. I don’t know why he keeps trying.”

“Archie knows faint heart ne’er won fair lady, dear.”

“But why should he want to win Aunt Arethusa? What the heck does he think he’d do with her after he got her, answer me that? I just wish he could have seen her last night, slopping that stringy caramel stuff all over her chin. It was enough to turn your stomach. Oh, sorry, dear. Shall I bring you some orange juice?”

“No, I’m all right. I’ll go down and put the kettle on while you get titivated. You might as well make a good impression on your first day, even if they do put you into gingham rompers after you get there.”

Dittany had the tea made and was sitting at the kitchen table reading yesterday’s paper, which she hadn’t got around to doing before what with one thing and another, and Osbert was just bouncing into the room all dressed up in his blue suit, when they had a caller. It was not the Binkles this time, but Caroline Pitz. She was terribly upset, which wasn’t like Caroline at all.

“What’s the matter?” asked Dittany. “The Architrave hasn’t burned down?”

Caroline lived directly across the street from the museum, so naturally she’d have been the first to know. She shook her head.

“Not burned. Robbed.”

“You’re kidding!” said Osbert.

“But what about Mr. Glunck?” cried Dittany. The curator lived in the museum where a previous curator had met an untimely demise, so Dittany’s concern was natural. “They didn’t—he wasn’t—oh gosh! We’re not short another curator, are we?”

“No, but Mr. Glunck’s had an awfully uncomfortable night. They bopped him on the head with an artifact and tied him to the bedpost. Roger Munson just found him.”

“Roger Munson? What was he doing at the museum?”

“Delivering a coffee cake,” Caroline replied. “Mr. Glunck’s been looking a bit peaked lately. Hazel thinks it’s because he doesn’t eat right, so she sent Roger with the cake and her key.”

Hazel Munson, like Dittany and Arethusa, was a trustee of the Architrave Museum. Naturally she had her own key because one never knew. “Hazel told Roger just to go in and leave the coffee cake in the kitchen in case Mr. Glunck might be sleeping,” Caroline amplified.

That would have been quite likely and nobody would have thought the less of the curator for doing so. The Architrave wasn’t scheduled to open until ten o’clock and it was well-known that Mr. Glunck often sat far into the night authenticating artifacts.

“Roger arrived at precisely thirteen minutes past seven,” Caroline went on. “He leaves for work at twenty-three minutes past, you know, and of course he didn’t want to upset his schedule.”

Dittany and Osbert both murmured, “Of course not.” Roger Munson’s schedule was as inviolate as a vestal virgin.

“When Roger went out to the kitchen, he heard funny noises from the bedroom. So he went in and there was Mr. Glunck all trussed up with bedsheets. Roger got him loose and came to get me because he couldn’t wait any longer. So I went over and fixed Mr. Glunck some hot tea and cut him a piece of the coffee cake and then we looked around. As far as we could tell, the only thing missing’s that jeweled dagger from the Thorbisher-Freep Collection of Theatrical Memorabilia that somebody or other played Macbeth with.”

Dittany nodded. She and Mr. Glunck both suspected the dagger to be an artifact the collector had picked up not from the estate of a distinguished actor but from some gimcrack souvenir shop. They only left it on display as a sop to the feelings of Wilhedra Hellespont, née Thorbisher-Freep.

“Maybe the burglars thought those were real jewels,” she said, “but the dagger’s just a silly tin thing with hunks of colored glass set in the handle. Old Jenson Thorbisher-Freep tried to pretend they were—Osbert! A jeweled dagger! Caroline, did you see any plain white paper around?”

“Funny you should mention that, Dittany. Mr. Glunck had bought a ream of white duplicator paper that he was planning to use for running off lists of the Architrave’s exhibits. He hadn’t even got around to unwrapping the package, but the burglars had ripped it open and strewn the paper all over the office floor, just the way they did at Mr. Gumpert’s. Sergeant MacVicar’s over there now, rubbing his nose like anything.”

O
SBERT WAS TORN.

On the one hand, he ached to be with Sergeant MacVicar at the scene of the latest outrage, rooting through the artifacts for the essential clue. On the other hand, he’d committed himself to showing up at the mincemeat factory on the dot of half-past eight and time was getting on. Mindful of the way he’d got stuck yesterday envying the ducks their cheese popcorn, though, and not knowing where he might wind up today, he had no intention of leaving home without his breakfast.