Wrack and Rune (13 page)

“Helen, do you believe in Viking curses?”

“Of course. How many sausages?”

“Pay attention, drat it. This is serious business. Six. Eight. Well, maybe three or four to start with. These are excellent pancakes, by the way. My compliments to the cook. Aren’t you having any?”

“Oh, is the cook allowed to eat with the master of the house? I may just toy with a sausage, now that you mention it.”

Helen fixed a plate for herself and sat down across from Peter. “In the matter of curses, by which I assume you refer to the fact that Cronkite Swope, whom I deduce from the comparative nattiness of your attire—I do like blue on you, Peter—that you’re about to visit, is supposed by half the people in Balaclava County to have fallen prey to it—where on earth was I? Oh, you asked me if I believe in curses. Certainly they work, if you believe they do. I mean, if you’d managed to convince yourself that Orm Tokesson really had it in for you because you messed around with his runestone, you might very well steer your motorbike into a fallen branch or whatever without consciously meaning to, and lay the blame on poor old Orm instead of admitting that your conscience was bothering you for having almost wiped out Henny Horsefall’s farm. Mightn’t you?”

“So you think Swope was punishing himself for inciting to riot.”

“Why not? If one were the vindictive type, one might say he had it coming.”

“One might indeed. But how would you square these alleged guilt feelings with the fact that Swope was charging around in high glee all evening, taking pictures and burbling about what a story that brouhaha was going to make? I submit, madam, that while Swope, who appears to be a decent enough youngster, no doubt had some qualms about what was happening at the Horsefalls’ and was doing his best to make amends, he had no reason to feel guilty over having hauled off a competent piece of journalism, which is what he gets paid for doing, and in fact felt none.”

“A hit man might haul off a competent murder for hire and feel some guilt about it,” Helen argued, helping Peter to another sausage. “Subconsciously, anyway.”

“If he had that kind of subconscious, he’d choose a different profession,” Peter replied with his mouth full. “Anyway, I’d be happy to know it was Swope’s subconscious mind and not somebody horsing around with his motorbike that landed him in the hospital. Did Grace Porble happen to mention whether he’s allowed visitors?”

“No, but I could phone the hospital and find out.”

“So you could and so you shall since you’re on this helpful helpmeet kick today, but you might as well finish your breakfast first. The odds are they won’t tell you anything anyway. They never do.”

“This is not my breakfast but my lunch and I’ve had all I want, thank you. Naturally I shan’t bother to ask anything but his room number. Then you can go straight on up instead of having to stop at the desk and be told you can’t. That’s what I always do.”

“God, women are unscrupulous.”

“Yes, dear. More coffee?”

“Just half a cup. I ought to get going. Er—were you about to call about that room number?”

“With never a scruple, my love.”

Helen went to the telephone and was back in a minute with a note in her neat librarian’s handwriting. “There you are. I wrote it down so you won’t forget. Give him my regards. Does he have family to run errands for him and whatnot?”

“Madam, you speak in jest. His mother is Mrs. Lomax’s late husband’s own cousin, who is related to Henny Horsefall’s great-niece by marriage. Her name, if I recall correctly, is Bertha. He also has two brothers who work in the soap factory, so if you were entertaining any notions of rushing over there to soothe his poor orphan brow, you might as well shelve them. I expect the relatives are lined up in rows over there, flipping coins to see who get first whack at soothing.”

“Oh, shucks! Then I may as well flounce off in a huff to the Buggins Collection. Will you be home to dinner?”

“As of now I see no reason why I shouldn’t. At that time you may soothe my poor orphan brow, if you so desire.”

“You overwhelm me with kindness, sir.”

Helen gave him a kiss on the forehead for practice. Then they rinsed the dishes, shoved them into the dishwasher, and left the house together. Helen walked up the hill to the library and Shandy stepped across the street to see how Tim was getting on. He found his old comrade still eating breakfast and being lovingly fussed over by his young daughter-in-law for having stayed out so late.

“It’s all your fault, Professor Shandy,” Laurie pouted. “You led him astray, and I expect you’re here to do it again. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the pair of you.”

“You’ll think of something, no doubt,” Shandy replied. “I just wanted to tell—Tim hook up, will you?”

He tapped his friend’s shoulder and motioned to the switch on Tim’s hearing aid.

“Oh, sorry, Pete.”

“Daddy Ames,” cried Laurie, “do you mean you’ve been turned off and I’ve wasted all my nagging?”

“It’s a waste of time anyway, honey. You haven’t the temperament. Too bad you never got the chance to take lessons from your late mother-in-law. Now, there was a woman who understood the fine art of driving a man up the wall. What’s happening, Pete?”

“Young Swope’s taken a spill off his motorbike. Apparently it happened shortly after we left the Horsefalls’ last night. Anyway, he’s at Hoddersville General. I thought I’d take a run over there and try to find out how it happened. Do you want to come along?”

“Not specially. I was thinking I ought to see Henny.”

“Roy and I will take you,” said Laurie. “Roy told me he’d be back to pick us up after the funeral, so he ought to be along any time now. I still haven’t got to see that runestone, you know. By now I must be the only person in the county who hasn’t. You had quite a night of it, didn’t you?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if they’re also having quite a day,” Shandy replied. “No doubt there’s another mob using the funeral as an excuse to gate-crash. Then I’ll meet you over at the Horsefalls’ after I’ve been to Hoddersville.”

He went down and got his own car, and drove over to the hospital. Thanks to Helen’s cunning, he was in Swope’s room before he could be barred from going there. He found the patient swaddled in plaster and bandages, with two black eyes and Merthiolate-daubed scratches where the skin was allowed to show, but awake and reasonably cheerful.

“Hi, Professor. It sure is nice to see somebody who doesn’t want to jab a needle into me.”

“What’s the score, Swope?”

“I’m supposed to have a concussion, along with lacerations, contusions, a busted collarbone, a pulled tendon in the off hind hock, and the
Fane and Pennon’s
brand-new Polaroid camera smashed all to heck and gone, for which I’ll probably be docked a week’s pay. Not much left of my bike either, they tell me.”

“From the look of things, you’re lucky there’s that much left of you. What happened?”

“Search me. The last I knew, I was bumbling along, not going very fast because I was beginning to feel sort of bushed by then. Besides, I didn’t have my helmet on.”

“Why not?”

Shandy had a clear mental picture of Swope coming back at the head of the Lolloping Lumberjacks, his head encased in a beetle shell of turquoise-blue plastic complete with chin guard and safety goggles.

“I couldn’t find it. I know I had it earlier, but when I went to leave, it wasn’t hitched to the bike where I usually hang it when I take it off. I don’t know if I laid the helmet down someplace and forgot where I put it, or if some jerk swiped it for a keepsake. Anyway I looked around for a while but didn’t have any luck, so I thought what the heck and started off without it. Which reminds me, if you happen to know a girl from the college who wears hockey shin guards, a chest protector, and a fencing mask and has eyes sort of like limpid pools of night, if you get what I mean, would you mind kissing her for me?”

“Er—any special reason why?”

“Because she probably saved my life, if that’s good enough for you. See, she also had one of those velvet riding caps with the hard inner linings. When she saw me bareheaded she said anybody who rides a bike without a helmet is nuts, and stuck her cap on my head. I didn’t even have time to say thanks because the bus was leaving and she had to run for it. The doctor thinks I must have gone straight over the handlebars, and if I hadn’t been wearing that cap they’d have had to put my skull back together with Elmer’s glue.”

“Good God! I shall certainly find out the young woman’s name for you and—er—pass on your thanks in a suitable manner, if my wife doesn’t object too strenuously. But getting back to your accident, if you don’t mind talking about it, you say you were bumbling along feeling—er—bushed. Could you have dozed off?”

“I doubt it. I wasn’t the least bit sleepy, just beat. I mean, gosh, that had been the most exciting night I’d ever put in, better than the flood at the soap factory, even. I was still keyed up mentally, thinking about how I was going to write up the story and trying to remember all the different things that had happened because there hadn’t been any time to make notes. Besides, I had to stay alert because I was having a little trouble with my headlight. I don’t know what was the matter, but every so often it would kind of flicker.”

“A loose connection?”

“I suppose so. I should have stopped to make sure the bulb was in tight, but it was so darn late and the road was pitch dark and I was afraid if I started to monkey with it, it might go out altogether. Besides, I hadn’t far to go. I live with my folks, just over in Lumpkin Upper Corner. So I figured I’d push along with my fingers crossed and catch a little sack time, and check it out in the morning when I could see what I was doing. But then I—”

Cronkite shook his head. The movement must have caused pain, for he winced and shut his eyes. “I don’t know what happened. The bike just went crazy.”

“And you haven’t the slightest idea why?”

“Orm. That’s all I can—”

“I’m sorry, sir.” An irate nurse had appeared. “You’ll have to leave. This patient is supposed to have absolute rest.”

“Then why didn’t you put a ‘No Visitors’ sign on the door?”

“We left instructions at the reception desk. Naturally we assumed people would have sense enough to stop and ask before they came up.”

So much for Helen’s foolproof system. Shandy slunk off in ignominious retreat.

E
XCEPT FOR THE MINOR
wound to his dignity, Shandy didn’t mind being kicked out of the hospital. He’d got the information he’d come for and Swope didn’t appear to be in any grave danger. Bless that child with the riding cap, whoever she might be. Thorkjeld Svenson would know.

As to how Swope had come to take that header off his bike, the president wouldn’t be able to tell, but Shandy could take an educated guess. The time, the place, the circumstances, the malfunctioning headlight, and the missing helmet were at least one coincidence too many.

To be sure, there’d been plenty of vandalism last night. Shandy himself was not altogether guiltless in that regard, considering how many headlights he personally had tampered with. However, Swope’s bike wouldn’t have been a particularly vulnerable target, one might think. In the first place, the reporter had hardly been off it except for the time he’d spent riding around on the tractor taking pictures. That had been some time before dark. Long afterward he’d been scooting back and forth from hither to thither, rallying the Lumberjacks, trying to find strategic placements for them and their horses, chasing off trespassers who were making particular nuisances of themselves, rushing down to see how things were progressing at the runestone, rushing back to the scene of action at the farm, rushing up to the house to phone late developments to his editor, since the
Fane and Pennon
was evidently preparing an unheard-of double extra for that week. He couldn’t have taken the bike into the house, of course, but it would have been left inside the protective circle of geese.

And that gave one something else to chew on. Among the gooseherders were not only Marie and Jolene but also the Lewis woman whose son Henny had originally accused of doing damage around the farm and an assortment of other Horsefall youngsters and oldsters, including the incredibly well preserved and maybe slightly crazy Miss Hilda. They’d have had a better chance than anybody else to get at the bike.

That didn’t mean one of them had done the dirty work. Anyone at all might conceivably have managed to reach out and give the headlight a little twist in passing, just enough to loosen the bulb or wire and cause that blinking Swope had found so bothersome. As to the helmet, that could have been taken only very late in the evening. Otherwise, Swope would have missed it before he set out for home. By then, no doubt, he’d have been as punchy as the rest of the defense squad even though he insisted he wasn’t. Those helmets were cumbersome things to be wearing on a warm night. Maybe the young reporter had taken the thing off to cool his head or swat a mosquito that had worked its way inside, or simply because he couldn’t stand its weight any longer. Stealing the helmet and twisting the lamp could have been a sudden chance somebody saw and grabbed. Engineering the accident would have meant simply getting down the road Swope was about to take a little bit before him, and having something handy to grease the road with.

As Shandy drove slowly up the road toward the Horse-falls’, he had no trouble finding the exact spot where the crash had occurred. Bits of glass and metal still glittered at the sides of the road where they’d been swept after the wreck. He parked and got out.

By bending over and squinting along the macadam, he could see the remains of an oil slick. One might naturally assume it had come from the smashed bike, and no doubt that was what whoever poured the oil there had counted on. Shandy had ridden a wide enough assortment of vehicles himself over the years to know what hitting a slippery patch unexpectedly could do to a two-wheeler. The place chosen was ideal: a tricky wiggle at the bottom of a gentle incline. Swope would have picked up a little more speed going down than he realized. He’d have swung his handlebars, expecting to take the curve, and been over them headfirst, just as he’d said, the instant his front tire hit that oiled surface.