The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (16 page)

Osbert therefore offered to fry Caroline Pitz an egg. She thanked him but refused on the grounds that she had to go tell the other trustees and besides she’d already had a muffin with her husband. Osbert wished her happy trails and began to fry eggs, one for Dittany and two for himself. Dittany decided she wasn’t quite up to a fried egg this morning so he ate all three along with a few slices of toast and a good deal of marmalade. Thus fortified, he wiped a few crumbs off his mouth, took a tender farewell of his beloved, and went out to start the car.

As he drove over, to Lammergen, Osbert could not but reflect again that this had been the route taken—only of course in the opposite direction—by the late VP Nutmeg in that ill-fated attempt to outrun his assassins. It wasn’t all that much of a road: one lane either way and full of crooks and bends. This had really been an unlikely place to conduct a running gunfight at high speed. He wished he’d gone with Sergeant MacVicar to have a look at those two bullet-riddled cars. He could understand how the car Mother Matilda’s husband drove had got so many holes in it, because there’d been one passenger to drive and one to shoot, but how had Charles McCorquindale managed to pock the other car all by himself?

Judging from what he’d seen of the Lammergen police force yesterday, Osbert didn’t think he ran much risk of getting arrested if he tried a little experiment, so he speeded up as much as he dared. As he’d expected, he needed both hands and all his attention just to keep the car on the road. To have stuck his head out the window and taken potshots at a pursuing vehicle would have been futile at best and suicidal at worst. And worst was what would most likely have happened.

If Charles had waited for his attackers to draw alongside, which in itself would have been awfully perilous on this narrow road, he might have got in a few shots, but the odds were that they’d have potted him first. So many holes in his car and only that one bullet hole in his back suggested he must have managed to keep fairly well ahead of them all the way.

It was very puzzling. Reviewing the bizarre events of the past two days, Osbert writhed with impatience to the extent that a person could safely writhe while driving the Lammergen road. He supposed they’d made some progress yesterday, but he didn’t feel any sense of achievement because he still didn’t know whether Quimper Wardle was alive or dead.

If it had been the done thing for Mother Matilda’s employees to go out of the factory for their noonday meal, he might have taken a swing over around Bottomless Mere to see whether anybody had floated to the top since yesterday. As Reginald Monk, Director of In-House Security, though, he could hardly go galumphing off in defiance of company rules and setting a bad example to the rest of the staff. Jumping jackrabbits, why did everything have to be so dad-blanged inscrutable?

Osbert had to park on the street again because he’d forgotten to ask Mother Matilda for a pass to the parking lot, but that was all right. He wasn’t yet officially on the payroll anyway. Again he went in through the main door, gave his name to the girl at the desk, and was again ushered into Mother Matilda’s office by the mincemeat magnate in person.

She was looking pretty wan and that black apron wasn’t helping any, but she straightened her spine, thrust out her manly chin, and looked straight at him over the tops of her granny glasses.

“Well, Mr. Monk, what have you to report?”

“I have conclusive evidence that Quimper Wardle was not what he represented himself as being,” Osbert replied. “As I suggested yesterday, his letters of recommendation were faked. He never worked for the well-known manufacturer of Worcestershire sauce. He was never Honorable Secretary or even a member of the Royal Society of Anchovy Buyers. In fact, it’s entirely possible he was never an anchovy buyer at all.”

“What? Why, that unprincipled scoundrel!” Mother Matilda’s cheeks, which a moment ago had been virtually ashen, were now suffused with a not very becoming shade of purple. “I cannot believe I was so badly taken in.”

“Oh, Wardle was a wily one,” Osbert replied. “Not being accustomed to perfidy among your peel buyers, you naturally wouldn’t have been apt to see through his malicious machinations.”

“No, come to think of it, I don’t suppose I would,” Mother Matilda admitted, beginning to fade a little. “I was brought up to think of mincemeat making as an honorable profession, followed by honest people. I suppose Wardle deliberately traded on my innocence. My sainted granny must be turning over in her grave! These are terrible times, Mr. Monk.”

“But in your granny’s day, she’d have had to worry about the grocer’s putting sand in the sugar and trouts in the milk,” Osbert pointed out.

“Oh, I know! I know! And stones in the raisins and the butcher weighing his thumb along with the lambchops. I suppose there’s no more chicanery around than there’s ever been. It’s just that I’m minding it more because—I’m sorry, Mr. Monk. I’m trying to be brave, but—”

“I think you’re being brave as anything, Mother Matilda,” Osbert put in before she could get herself all worked up. “Now, before I get into details about what happened yesterday, would you mind taking a look at this? I should explain that it’s a copy of a note I found in Wardle’s pocket. The original was scribbled in pencil on a sheet of yellow paper torn from a memo pad that had ‘VP Lemon Peel’ printed on the top.”

Mother Matilda adjusted her granny glasses and studied the scrap Osbert handed her. “Why, this is Lemon’s share of the mincemeat recipe! You say you found it in Wardle’s pocket?”

“I said I found the note of which this is a copy in Wardle’s pocket. His trousers were discovered, along with a green jersey his landlady has identified as one he often wore in his off-hours, lying on the bank out at Bottomless Mere. We may surmise that this means Wardle was the one who debagged your VP Lemon Peel and was swift enough to extract the formula card, copy down what it said, put back the card, and make his escape while VP Lemon Peel was still struggling to get the typewriter cover off his head and pull his pants up. On the other hand, that may be what we’re meant to surmise, but that’s not what really happened. You see, Mother Matilda, there’s so much we don’t know yet.”

“Then we’d better find out pretty darned quick.” Mother Matilda flipped the switch on her intercom. “Imogene, get all the VPs into the conference room. I’m calling a meeting.”

“How soon, Mother Matilda?” asked Imogene, whoever she might be.

“In three minutes, and don’t let them give you any excuses”

“Yes, Mother Matilda.”

Mother Matilda stood up and straightened her apron. “Come along then, Mr. Monk. You’re Reginald today, right?”

“Right,” said Osbert.

“Here’s the folder with those references you wrote. Do you need to brush up on what you said about yourself before we go into the meeting?”

“No, I can remember.”

“Good. This way, then.”

Mother Matilda ran a taut ship, no question about that. VPs of various descriptions were already flocking into the conference room, a spacious yet cozy apartment with portraits of four Mothers Matilda on the walls and gingham cushions on the chairs. They all looked at Osbert with ill-feigned curiosity but refrained from asking who he was. Mother Matilda clearly intended to tell them in her own good time and wouldn’t thank them for trying to hustle her.

She took her place in the big rocking chair at the head of the table and motioned Osbert to the seat at her right. It struck him that this must have been where Charles McCorquindale used to sit and he felt a qualm, but only a momentary one because his attention was suddenly demanded elsewhere.

“Demanded” was the operative word. VP Citron would have been an impossible sight for any red-blooded man or even a fairly anemic one to overlook. She wouldn’t have let them.

It was not that the tall, curvaceous, satin-cheeked, emerald-eyed redhead came straight out and shouted, “Hey, you new chap with the cowlick! Over here!” VP Citron wasn’t fastening those Persian pussycat eyes on his blue ones with intent to lure, she was merely emitting some kind of invisible rays that bent his entire quotient of ions and positrons in her direction.

Osbert supposed a person could build up an immunity sooner or later. Some of the older male VPs weren’t even reeling in their seats. He himself, as a writer, was naturally intrigued by this phenomenon, and able to analyze his own reactions quite dispassionately. For the first time he was gaining an insight into the modus operandi of the genuine, natural-born femme fatale.

This must be how Aunt Arethusa was able quite involuntarily to enslave men so diverse as Archie, the intellectual aesthete and agent extraordinaire, and Andrew McNaster, the former crooked contractor and cobra fancier who was now in the movies, starring as the Sultan of Sneer. Being her nephew, Osbert of course had a built-in immune system that worked fine on Aunt Arethusa. Apparently it didn’t function so well where vice presidents of mincemeat factories were concerned. He must discuss the phenomenon with Dittany when he got home. On second thought, he mustn’t.

The mere thought of his lawfully wedded wife, however, was the charm that unwound the spell. Osbert was now able to view VP Citron objectively as just another gorgeous woman with a somewhat excessive amount of sex appeal and no doubt a superior talent for buying citron or Mother Matilda wouldn’t keep her on the payroll. When she was introduced as Nissa Eveready and acknowledged his acquaintance with a three-hundred-watt smile, he didn’t so much as blink.

And VP Citron didn’t like that a bit. The emerald eyes narrowed, the ruby lips tightened. The curvaceous hips twitched, the luscious bosom heaved. The very checks of her green gingham wraparound seemed to murmur, “Grab on to my hook, you poor fish!” Osbert gave her a polite, impersonal nod and turned his attention to VP Cider.

This was Mother Matilda’s pillar of rectitude, the Sunday school superintendent who’d got zonked in the storeroom doing a quality check. VP Cider was sitting next to VP Citron but he didn’t seem to have his receiving apparatus turned on, either. His eyes were steadfastly on Mother Matilda and his regard showed, in Osbert’s private opinion, something more than the customary chaste and tepid respect of a VP for a P. Osbert wished to heck Dittany or even Aunt Arethusa could be here to evaluate the gaze; Western writers couldn’t be expected to know much about unrequited passion.

But was VP Cider’s passion, if this was indeed passion and not just gas pains from too much quality testing, altogether unrequited? Osbert would be gum-swizzled if Mother Matilda wasn’t returning Cider’s gaze and if the expression on her strong, manly countenance was not, for one fleeting moment, that of a hooked fish.

The hairs in Osbert’s cowlick prickled the way they often did on occasions when he’d thought of a particularly interesting new dilemma to throw the king ostrich into, or when he’d caught hold of the business end of a tangled skein he’d been trying to unravel in his capacity as Deputy Monk. Was VP Cider a business end? Had Mother Matilda’s professions of grief for her late husband been mere sand in the sugar of deception? Was the allegedly dreadful business of the stolen formula nothing more than an elaborate ruse to rid her of VP Nutmeg so that she could put a new kind of spice into her private life?

Then who in fact were Mother Matilda’s accomplices? Was VP Cider in on the doings? Had Wardle been her hit man or her dupe, or both? Had she been a party all along to his deceptions? Had she set Wardle up to be exposed once Charles McCorquindale had been got out of the way, and had she then disposed of her henchman as ruthlessly as he, or whoever had been with him, had gunned down VP Nutmeg?

That was an ugly thought, but Mother Matilda was by no means a pretty woman. Button her into a trench coat with the collar turned up, slap a felt hat on her head with the brim turned down, take off that silly apron and cover her lower extremities with a man’s pants and a man’s shoes, and who’d be able to tell the difference?

Osbert realized that he was goggling worse than VP Cider. He wrenched his eyes away from Mother Matilda and glanced around the table. VP Cloves had just come in and taken her seat. She must be the last of the lot, Osbert assumed from the fact that all the chairs were now full. In size, though, she was by no means the least.

Osbert thought VP Cloves must be a relative of Mother Matilda. She had that same granite chin, the same big-boned physique, the same large hands and probably the same oversized feet, though he hadn’t noticed them when she’d entered the conference room and he didn’t suppose it would be according to protocol for him to stick his head under the table and look. It was too late anyway, Mother Matilda was calling the meeting to order.

“I expect you’re all mad at me for disrupting your morning’s work,” she began abruptly, “but you’ll just have to lump it. I needn’t tell you that we’ve had some pretty outrageous things happening around here lately.”

She glanced down at her black apron, then faced the room again. “What’s done can’t be helped, but I’ve had all I’m going to take, and I’m putting a stop to it here and now. I want you to meet our new Director of In-House Security, Reginald Monk. Stand up, Mr. Monk.”

Osbert felt this was laying it on a bit thick because he’d already been getting a thorough looking-over from the assembled VPs. Anyway, he stood as she bade him, glad that he’d worn his blue suit and trying to look formidable.

He must not be succeeding any too well because Mother Matilda went on, “I know he doesn’t look like much but that’s part of his strategy. Mr. Monk comes highly recommended. In fact, he’s already done some important work for us. Tell them what you’ve found out about Quimper Wardle, Mr. Monk.”

By now, Osbert was quite used to talking about Quimper Wardle. He gave a crisp, businesslike report, dwelling on the forged credentials and the lemon peel formula and leaving out the really interesting stuff like Mrs. Phiffer’s pinwheels and the popcorn-eating ducks. It was gratifying to see their somewhat contemptuous smiles change to respectful concern.

He’d rather expected a babble of questions when he’d finished speaking, but none of the VPs said a word. It was Mother Matilda who retook the floor.