The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (22 page)

“You’re not coming to the funeral yourself?” Matilda asked him.

“No, I’m too new an employee. It would look pushy if I showed up. Besides, I have other things to do. Now I’ve got to get hold of the MacVicars. You two had better scoot over to Arethusa’s as soon as you’re dressed and find something appropriate for Matilda to wear. And for Pete’s sake, Clorinda, don’t get carried away.”

“Dearie, when did I ever?”

Osbert cast a despairing glance at Dittany. Dittany fixed a glittering eye on Clorinda. “You’ll be fine, Mum,” she said. “Put on your nice brown suit. Matilda can wear that black Pola Negri dress and coat Arethusa got for the last Hearts and Flowers convention, and the black toque with the spotted veil that goes with the outfit: Only take off the ostrich plumes and that big rhinestone clip.”

“But dear, the plumes and the clip are what give it the pizazz.”

“Pizazz is inappropriate for a funeral. And nix on the purple eye shadow, in case you were about to ask. Bring Matilda back here after she’s dressed so we can drink her in. By the way, Matilda, when you walk over to Arethusa’s, be sure to let that purple cloak billow out around you the way she always does. And stay right with Clorinda every minute. Now, not to hurry anybody but you said the funeral’s at ten, which doesn’t give you a heck of a lot of time to get ready. So move it!”

M
ARGARET MACVICAR HAD BEEN
only too pleased to oblige. She was waiting in the Monks’ kitchen when Clorinda came back with a somberly chic Daughter Matilda in tow.

“Do I look all right, Dittany?” she asked with a slight quaver in her voice. “The dress fits pretty well, don’t you think? But it’s not exactly me, is it?”

“Yes, it fits fine and no, it’s not, which is precisely the effect we’re trying to convey. You look just exotic enough in an indefinable sort of way to reassure the guilty that you’re not really you and to make your relatives think there’s something about you they can’t quite put their finger on but it’s certainly an improvement over a purple gingham wraparound.”

“They’ll put it down to shock and grief,” said Margaret MacVicar, pulling on her own black gloves and picking up the car keys. “We’d better get cracking, then. Don’t worry, Osbert, we’ll take good care of Matilda. I do hope Donald turns up something on that car today. He’s had no luck whatever so far. You
are
going to help him, aren’t you?”

“Yup,” said Osbert. “I shouldn’t be surprised if I help him quite a lot.”

“What are you going to do, old pard?” Dittany asked him as they watched the three women drive off to the funeral, Matilda a little too svelte in Arethusa’s black ensemble, Margaret trim and sensible in heather tweeds and a gray fedora, Clorinda more or less demure in brown with a little brown-and-beige hat that should have been decorous enough but somehow managed to convey the impression that it was a fried egg.

“When you say ‘you,’ you mean of course ‘we,’ ” Osbert replied. “Last night I dreamed about a herd of green ostriches that all had their beaks stuck in a big bucket of plaster of paris. Get your glad rags on, gal. I think it’s an omen.”

“Darling, you do have the most intriguing subconscious mind. I see exactly what you mean. How glad am I supposed to be?”

“Maybe you could wear that pregnant prairie princess outfit with your mother’s red hat.”

“So I could and so I shall. In fact it’s about the only thing I can get into these days. If these kids get any bigger, I’ll have to steal Arethusa’s cape away from Cousin Matilda. Are we taking Ethel?”

“Why not? She may add just that extra
je ne sais quoi
.”

“Oh, she’ll do that, all right, but there’s no earthly use expecting her to bite the kidnappers, if that’s what you had in mind.”

“Nope, that’s not what I had in mind at all. Shall I put the butter in the fridge?”

“Do. And the bread in the breadbox and the jam pot in the pantry and feel free to carry out any other spot of titivating that strikes your fancy. I’ll be down as soon as you’ve finished the dishes.”

True to her word, Dittany reappeared in a short while wearing her blue denim tent with the red-edged ruffles and the red cartwheel hat. Ethel was already out in the wagon, eyes aglow and tail athump at the prospect of blazing new trails. Osbert put on his buckskin vest, his Stetson hat, and his silver concho belt, and they were ready to roll.

Dittany was not at all surprised to see Osbert taking the Lammergen road; green ostriches with their beaks set in plaster could mean only one thing. She was enchanted by the flamingos.

“Darling, they’re lovely! You didn’t tell me about the flashing red taillights.”

“I didn’t know,” Osbert replied. “Those must have been a fresh inspiration. They do lend a certain cachet, don’t they?”

In fact they weren’t real taillights but only plastic bicycle reflectors. With the morning sun bouncing off them, however, the effect was all an artist’s heart could desire. And here came the artist herself, looking brisk and competent in a pair of bright orange overalls. Ethel bounded out over the tailgate and rushed to make friends. The Monks’ pleasure in the flamingos’ taillights was as nothing compared to Mrs. Phiffer’s rapture at her first sight of Ethel.

“How did you
ever
? What
is
it? Let me guess. You dyed a merino sheep—no, that wouldn’t account for the ears. You dressed a bear in a bath mat? Wrong again? Then I give up. You’ve stumped me.”

“Don’t let that bother you,” said Osbert. “We don’t know, either. She just came that way. Her name’s Ethel. The one with the hat is Dittany and we’ve come to visit the prisoner.”

“But you’re not even supposed to know she’s here!”

“Is that what Mr. Wardle told you?”

“Yes. You could have knocked me over with a flamingo feather when he showed up here last night dry as a bone, with a beautiful woman draped over his shoulder. She was making odd noises.”

“Did they sound like ‘gadzooks’?” Dittany asked her.

“No, more like ‘zounds’! Though now that you mention it, I believe she did say ‘gadzooks’ once or twice.”

“Good, then she’s sticking to the script. What’s she doing now?”

“Sleeping. Is that all right?”

“It depends,” said Osbert. “We’ll have to check. Has she been awake? That is to say, has she waked up at all since she went to sleep? I assume she was awake when she got here or she wouldn’t have been making noises. And Wardle wouldn’t have been able to get her up the stairs unless she was more or less ambulatory, would he?”

“I doubt it, she’s so magnificently statuesque. Do you suppose she’d let me take a mold? I could make half a dozen life-size plaster casts and use her for caryatids. Can’t you just see her holding up a fireplace?”

“Holding up a fork would be more lifelike,” Osbert muttered, but Dittany shushed him.

“I hardly think she’d care for being molded. She’s awfully ticklish. But she is breathing, isn’t she? She’s supposed to breathe, it’s in the script.” Dittany hoped she didn’t sound so panicky to Mrs. Phiffer as she did to herself.

Apparently she didn’t. Mrs. Phiffer took the question in stride. “Oh yes, she’s breathing like anything. One might almost say she was snoring, except that it would be unthinkable for anybody so gorgeous to snore. Does she have a name? Mr. Wardle didn’t tell me.”

“That’s because he’s supposed to be the bad guy,” said Osbert. “Did he tell you to feed her only bread and water?”

“He didn’t specify. He merely hurled her roughly on the bed and shackled her to the bedpost. I thought it rather rude of him at the time but naturally I realized he had to follow his own sense of what was appropriate. He told me to keep a careful watch on her and under no condition to let her escape, which I must admit I found a bit thick; but he’s paid up his rent till the end of next week so there wasn’t much I could say about it, was there?”

“Not a great deal,” Osbert replied. “But was that all he said? He didn’t mean for you to play watchdog the whole time, surely?”

“I don’t know. He said he’d be back, but he didn’t say when. He says she’s to be treated as a relatively harmless lunatic, and that when she wakes up she’s going to tell me she’s Mother Matilda’s daughter who’s been kidnapped. It’s a lovely script! I’ve been thinking she’ll probably demand mincemeat tarts, though, and I haven’t a speck of mincemeat in the house. You wouldn’t care to run to the grocery store for me, I don’t suppose? Otherwise I wouldn’t have a thing to give her for breakfast except bacon and eggs and fried bread and fried tomatoes and maybe some baked beans on toast and a piece of pineapple custard pie and a few cookies and things.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any mustard pickles with little onions in them?”

Mrs. Phiffer shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid I don’t. That is to say, I have the mustard pickles, but I’ve picked out all the onions and eaten them myself. I always do, that’s why my husband left me.”

“I don’t blame him a bit,” Osbert burst out. “My aunt does the same thing. I’d leave her too, if I could. Only you can’t desert an aunt. At least I suppose you could, but the gesture would seem rather hollow. Sorry, Mrs. Phiffer, I didn’t mean to reopen old wounds. As for the mincemeat tarts, Daughter Matilda could have those any old time. I’m sure she’d much prefer fried bread and tomatoes and all that other great stuff you mentioned. Don’t you agree, Dittany?”

“Absolutely, no question. Yours will be just the sort of breakfast she’ll like best, Mrs. Phiffer. She can easily get along without the pickled onions for a meal or two. But you’re sure Mr. Wardle didn’t tell you how long he meant for you to keep her here?”

“He said it would depend. He didn’t say on what.”

“You didn’t ask for further details?”

“Oh no, that would have been totally inappropriate. One simply does not ask another to explain his concept before it’s fully developed. I respect Mr. Wardle’s artistic integrity as he does mine. At least I think he does, though I must confess I found myself wishing he hadn’t shown up here alive at half-past twelve last night with a semi-anesthetized prisoner for me to look after, just when I’d put the finishing touches on his funeral wreath. It’s quite lovely, I used gilded bottle corks and a sweet little rubber duckie on a Styrofoam life preserver I’d been meaning for ages to do something with. I was planning to float the wreath on Bottomless Mere this afternoon while playing ‘Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep’ on my comb with a piece of purple tissue paper folded over it. For mourning, you know. Would you care to come and see what I’ve done?”

“We’d love to,” Dittany replied. “Is it all right if Ethel comes along, or should we shut her in the car?”

“Mercy no, just so she doesn’t wag her tail too vigorously and disturb the pinwheels. Though it might be rather interesting to see whether she could stir up enough of a breeze to set them all spinning at once.”

“Perhaps another time. Let’s see how the prisoner’s doing first, shall we? We do have to get on with the script. Daughter Matilda will be dreadfully upset if she wakes up shackled to the bedpost and we’re not there. You are thinking of her as Daughter Matilda, aren’t you, Mrs. Phiffer?”

“I haven’t quite grasped the essence yet, but I’m trying like anything. Should I go and start frying bread?”

“In a few minutes. Let’s get her free first. I must say I’m pretty miffed at Mr. Wardle for shackling her to the bedpost. That’s not how we rehearsed. She was supposed to beguile the time admiring the pinwheels and counting the ducks out back, wasn’t she, dear?”

“She certainly was,” said Osbert, “and I’m pretty darned steamed at Wardle, too. Maybe he got carried away in the inspiration of the moment, but that’s no excuse for padding his part out of all proportion. I hope he at least left you the key to the shackles, Mrs. Phiffer.”

“He wasn’t going to, but I did put my foot down on that point. Creativity is one thing, Mr. Wardle, I told him, but one can carry the divine afflatus too far, and that’s a darn sight farther than I have any intention of carrying a bedpan. So he gave me the key but he said I must be sure and shackle her right up again afterwards.”

“He had to say that,” Dittany told her, “because he’s the bad guy. But we’re the good guys, so we can let her loose whenever we want, and nuts to him. I hope she bops him with a duck as soon as she gets the chance.”

“Oh, goody,” cried Mrs. Phiffer. “I adore improvisation. You’re not planning to write the duck into the script, I hope? Wouldn’t you find it more aesthetically satisfying just to leave a duck sitting where she can get at it handily and see what develops?”

“A brilliant suggestion,” said Osbert. “You wouldn’t happen to have an expendable duck around here, by any chance?”

“Flocks of them. I’ll just nip out to the garage and see what’s available. You can go straight on up if you want, she’s in Mr. Wardle’s room. Goodness knows what the neighbors are going to think about that.”

“Surely you weren’t planning to tell them?” Dittany protested.

“Naturally not, but you know what neighbors are like. Oh, here’s the key in my pocket. You’d better take it with you in case she’s awake and needs to you-know-what before I get back with the duck.”

Mrs. Phiffer darted off, Ethel frolicking gaily at her heels. Dittany watched them out the door.

“You know, darling,” she mused, “this could be the start of something beautiful. Arethusa’s going to feel perfectly at home with Mrs. Phiffer.”

“Maybe she’ll want to stay!” For a moment Osbert looked hopeful. Then his face fell. “On the other hand, though, she may invite Mrs. Phiffer over to Lobelia Falls and we’ll be stuck with all those flamingos. Come on, we’d better go see how she’s doing.”

Mrs. Phiffer had made further changes in the decor since Osbert was last here. The stairwell was now hung with dozens of pinwheels on long strings, his own among them. He pointed it out with thinly veiled smugness.

“I made that one.”

“Yours is much the nicest,” said Dittany. “I must say, dear, it was awfully clever of Mr. Wardle, whoever he may be, to bring his prisoner here. Mrs. Phiffer’s probably the one person in the world who’s loopy enough to accept such a scheme without question and sane enough to help him carry it out. But how did you guess she would?”