Figure Away

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  “What do you care?” Weston said as the roadster turned back towards town. “Anyone can catch bluefish, Asey.”

  Chapter 2

  Shortly after five o’clock that same afternoon, Asey strolled into the Town Hall by the rear entrance.

  Except for occasional thumpings from the basement, the noises had stopped and the crowds dwindled to handfuls. The vacuum cleaners and the waxing machines had done their duty nobly; everything was spick and span, gleaming with an anticipatory polish. Weston had got back onto his job, too. The bulletin boards were covered with schedules in his neat writing, listing every angle of every committee assignment for the entire week.

  Grinning, Asey paused to read through the orders of the Welcoming Committee, for whom there was apparently to be never a dull moment. Upjohn’s Merrymakers, instruments under their arms, jostled past him to their bus. The captain of the coast guard station called out a greeting as he herded a detachment of Boy Scouts into his big-tired beach truck.

  Asey waved and strolled on down the hall to the Women’s Club Parlor. Years of experience with the decorations of church fairs, suppers, and similar entertainments told him that the room was Done. He tried to make his survey impartial, but the results still left him with an intense dislike for crepe paper in quantity, and still wishing that Billingsgate had chosen for its official colors some other shades of blue and yellow.

  Only a few women lingered in the parlor, and they were too busy packing up tack hammers and aprons, and trying on huge blue and yellow rosettes in front of the mirror, to notice his presence.

  He was about to speak to one of them when a girl, a stranger to him, approached him in the corridor. She was a tall girl, good-looking in a dark way, and probably a summer person, he decided from her smartly cut blue overalls and jacket. Bill Porter’s wife Betsey had some like those, and he and Bill had howled at New York’s prices for faded denim.

  “Mr. Mayo? Aunt Sara Leach sent me to—”

  “I was huntin’ her,” Asey said. “Has she gone?”

  “Yes. She said she thought you might want her, and I told her I’d wait and take you over to Briar Path.”

  “Thanks, but my roadster’s here. I can—”

  “But she said I was to be sure to take you,” the girl persisted. “She said that you were to leave your roadster at the garage.”

  Asey nodded. Aunt Sara Leach had some information for him, and she didn’t want everyone to spot that famous roadster at her door.

  “Okay. Thanks- God A’mighty, what’re those women doin’ over there? They just got them quilts up on the wall, an’ now they’re yankin ’em down an’ cartin’em off!”

  The girl smiled. “They’ve got the effect,” she explained, “and now they’re needed. There’s a tremendous blanket and quilt shortage, what with the tourist trade, and all the old settlers coming back in droves.”

  “You mean to tell me,” Asey said, “they’re goin’ to hang them old quilts up to show’em off by day, an’ then rip’em off to take home at night?”

  “That’s their solution. Half the antiques for the exposition are in a state of flux. And no watchmen to look after all that valuable stuff, either. Why, anyone could come in and twitch a quilt off the wall, or make off with a lustre pitcher. Mary’s nearly insane. She thinks it’s crazy.”

  “Mary?” Asey asked.

  “Or, I forgot. I’m Jane Warren. I’m staying with Mrs. Larkin Randall. Mary, that is. My godmother. And her daughter Eloise. Look, take your car to the garage, and I’ll pick you up there.”

  After issuing firm orders at the garage that nothing was to be touched on the Porter roadster, Asey climbed into the girl’s battered beach wagon.

  “Newcomers to town, huh?” he asked as they rattled along.

  “I am, more or less, but Mary and Eloise have lived here a couple of years. They run the antique shop, in Pleasant Valley. You know.”

  Asey nodded. He had never even heard of the place, but probably the town was remaining itself for Old Home Week.

  “Like antiquin’?” he asked conversationally.

  “Filthy business,” the girl said bitterly. “All work and no pay. Antiques are all right, if you can afford’em, but I can’t be convinced that wormholes make a thing of beauty out of a broken-down kitchen chair. Mary says,” she braked to avoid hitting a car and trailer that shot out of a side road, and Asey never learned what Mary said. “Damn the tourists, everything’s overrun with them already! I say, isn’t Aunt Sara a grand old girl? She may be eighty, but she’s a dynamo. Was she born here? I always wondered.”

  “She don’t talk it,” Asey said, “on account of goin’ to school in Boston. Her father was a senator, an’ she kind of caught the dynamo business from him.”

  “She seems to be a power here.”

  “Unbeknownst to the general populace,” Asey informed her drily, “Aunt Sara has run this town for forty years, since Jeff decided to be a politician.”

  “Run it?” the girl turned and looked at him. “Oh, I don’t think she – I mean, she’s not the least bit officious, like that Mrs. Brinley. There’s a pain in the neck!”

  “That’s the beauty of Sara,” Asey said. “But she keeps swingin’ Jeff to the majority she wants. If Aunt Sara hadn’t been for this celebration, there wouldn’t of been any. A great postmaster general was lost to the world in her. Tell me, is this week goin’ to be a success?”

  “It ought to go over.” Jane hesitated. “Everyone’s worked like a slave, and Weston Mayhew’s planned things like a time table. Mobs are coming. The radio’ll boom it – oh, what an awful pun! ”

  Asey wanted to know why. “Where’ve you been? Don’t you know about General Philbrick, the sponsor?”

  “That old ramrod on the point, in the house with all the porches, an’ iron deer, an’ fountains? That one?”

  Jane giggled. “The house that fireworks built. He’s the sponsor, didn’t you know? Every program begins and ends with fireworks. The town is lousy with fireworks.”

  Asey laughed. “I can hear old Smoothie announcin’ it. ‘Billingsgate’s Old Home Week, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience,’ ” he mimicked the golden voice of Vincent Tripp, “ ‘coming to you through the courtesy of Philbrick’s Fireworks. BOOM!’ An’ then that town song. Well, it may balance the budget, an’ I s’pose you can always r’tire to a hillside an till your ears with cotton wool. Huh. So you don’t think the week’s goin’ to work out?”

  “I didn’t say that. But you can’t ever prophesy results, can you, when you cram a lot of humanity into one spot? I mean, there’ll be cases of ptomaine, or someone’ll steal some of the antique exhibits – they’re crying for it. Or cars will smash up. And what with the fireworks, the carron oil business ought to flourish. Maybe it’ll go over, though. I’m no seer. Well, Mr. Mayo, here you are. Want me to call for you, or anything?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll manage,” Asey said. “Much obliged for the lift. ’Night, or should I say, ‘Boom-boom’?”

  The girl laughed, and the beach wagon bounced away.

  As he started up the walk to the Leaches’ white salt-box house, he caught sight of a slim erect figure in the garden beyond the elm trees. Aunt Sara waved at him.

  “It’s about time for you to show up, Asey Mayo! I expected you a week ago!”

  “Am I a crystal gazer?” Asey demanded. “How should I—”

  “You’re like your father,” Sara said, “and he had an extra sense for spotting trouble, usually a month before it happened. Asey, it’s indecent, the way you stay young. How old are you?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Asey told her, with a chuckle. “I’m old again as half, as the sayin’ goes. Sara, how do you know about these goin’s on? Wes said he was the only one that had caught on.”

  “Weston Mayhew,” Sara observed, “made a fine quartermaster, and he still does. Where did he think it began?”

  “Oily rags in the Town Hall basement. That might have been some careless workman.” />
  “But oily rags in the Women’s Club Parlor closet, tucked into the best linen, does not mean two careless workmen,” Sara said. “That means business.”

  Asey nodded slowly. “This grandstand sawin’ – is that news to you? Well, it didn’t amount to a row of pins. I lay it to that dumb relief help. Them fellers don’t know a saw from a nail, an’ they might well have used half-sawed boards. On the other hand, maybe not. But when you get to the key stealin’, an’ shotgun stealin’, an’ someone poppin’ at Weston with both barrels of a shotgun, that sort of r’moves it from the ha-ha-boys-will-be-boys class, don’t it?”

  “When Jeff and I were popped at Saturday night,” Sara snapped off two dead zinnias, “Jeff decided it was someone shooting skunks. Brinley laid his to boys, or muskrat shooters, I can’t imagine why.”

  “Wes, he thought of raccoons,” Asey said. “Then he took to broodin’, an’ called me. Know any more? Neither do I. An’ my only guess was Weesit, an’ that petered out. I find the town of Weesit ain’t a bit jealous, it’s singin’ like a lark over the tourist trade that’s spilled their way.”

  “All profit and no output,” Sara said. “I know. My guess petered, too. It wasn’t much of a guess, more of a vague wondering. I thought of Slade, the artist—”

  “The communist that started the relief rumpus here a year ago? An’ all? But say, Sara, I’m sure I saw his name on the Welcomin’ Committee. That’s why—”

  “He’s a welcomer, with white flannels and a blue coat, and a hair cut.” A smile played around Aunt Sara’s mouth. “He’s subsided since I had Jeff make him permanent head of the Planning Board, on a salary. He’s a little flighty on sewage, but sound on housing. I rather think he’ll die a Republican.”

  “Givin’ him an outlet, huh?” Asey suggested.

  “In a way, but I always rather liked the fellow. He has so much spirit, it seemed a pity to waste it. I’ve had him made the town art committee, too. Did you notice our new planting, and decorations?”

  “All I noticed,” Asey said, “was the Women’s Club Parlor. If he did that—”

  “He didn’t. That was our Mrs. Brinley. We had to toss her a sop. Anyway, I didn’t think anything about Slade, under the circumstances, but I wondered if some of our artist colony, or some of the workmen imported for the county power plant, might have been at work. I called Slade over here Sunday, and talked with him.”

  “What did he have to say?”

  “At first he was so mad he couldn’t talk,” Sara said, “and then he got so mad he couldn’t stop talking. Finally he sat down and made a list of all the mental and moral incompetents we both could think of, and then he investigated.”

  Asey wanted to know how.

  “It was quite simple. All the shootings happened on Saturday night, between eight-fifteen and eight-forty-five. Practically everyone on the list was either seeing Greta Garbo at the movies, or fire fighting at one of the bluff cottages. Slade accounted for the rest. He simply stormed about it. So did Zeb Chase – Zeb’s living with us this summer. He – Asey, I hear the car coming up the lane, so I’ve got to talk fast. Don’t let Jeff know. He’s got enough to worry him. Whatever’s going on we’ve got to stop. Somehow.”

  “Wes’s made me police head, or somethin’,” Asey said. “Honorary, for the week.”

  “Fine. I needn’t have bothered about our car if I’d known that. Asey, tonight you stroll uptown and make yourself very conspicuous. Let everyone know who you are, and that you’re spending the week here, and perhaps—”

  “You mean, put on an act?”

  “Exactly.” Sara gathered up her flowers and started toward the house. “I know you don’t want to, but if this is just boys being boys, your presence will put a stop to it. If it’s serious, things won’t stop. I suppose,” she added, “you’re quite accustomed to being shot at?” Asey grinned. “While we’re on the subject, Sara, just you stick to crowds for a while, will you, until we get somethin’ ironed out? An’ don’t roam around by yourself, or putter out here in your garden—”

  “Oh, I’m armed,” Sara told him. “I’ve a nice cloverleaf Colt under the flowers in that basket you’re so gallantly carrying. I’ve had it since the year Jim Fisk was shot with one just like it. I feel very safe indeed.”

  Asey looked down at the erect white-haired figure beside him. “I s’pose you know how to use it?”

  “Dear me, after all the years I spent traipsing around with father, you ask me things like that! I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself – after eighty years, I find I’m getting awfully tenacious about life, anyway. Wait – Asey, please do be careful not to let him suspect things—”

  She pointed to her husband, just getting out of his car by the front steps. Jeff, Asey thought, grew even more regal as the years passed. He always had looked like the Portrait of a Statesman, in McGuffey’s Fourth Reader, and his side whiskers – Asey shook his head. You could only say about them that they resembled a gull in full flight.

  “Who’s the young feller in the grocer’s apron?” Asey asked.

  “With Jeff? Why, I told you. Zeb Chase. He’s here for the summer.”

  “I thought you meant old Zeb, of course – what’n time’s the son an’ heir of Chase’s Baked Beans doin’ in that outfit? I always heard he was just ornamental.”

  “He came down this spring, to fish, and it seems,” Sara said, “that he got Business. Like getting religion. That’s his story. I think myself that it’s Jane Warren and not baked beans that spur him on. He’s clerking at Matt’s. No one expects it to last. Now mind, don’t let Jeff suspect!”

  Swinging his gold-knobbed cane, Jeff walked over to them. He was obviously delighted to see Asey, and he said as much.

  “And you come right in,” he concluded, “and stay to dinner.”

  “Dinner?” Asey said. “You got me for a week. I’m the official Wellfleet del’gation, or somethin’. Weston bullied me into cornin’ over an’ bein’ picturesque for the tourist trade. D’you mind?”

  “Mind? I wish I’d thought of it myself. Has he got you a badge? Well, I’ll get one, and I’ll see you have a place in the reviewing stand, and banquet tickets, and all. Wait’ll I put it on my list.” He pulled a notebook out of his pocket. “More of Weston’s ideas, these lists. Very handy. You write things down, and give the pages to someone, and forget all about it. Girl Scouts, or the Ladies’ Aid, or someone, do the hard work. For a bachelor, Weston does know how to make women work—”

  Sara took Jeff by the arm and started toward the house.

  After dinner, young Zeb Chase suggested a trip to town.

  Sara threw up her hands in horror at the thought.

  “Jeff and I are going to bed early,” she announced with a meaning look at Asey, “and get some rest. We’ve purposely not invited any company for the week, and we’ve begged out of a lot of events – old age is such a lovely excuse for not doing what you don’t want to do anyway – but there is still a lot to tire us. You go with Zeb, Asey, and see if the midway’s the gyp I think it’s going to be.”

  “Midway?” Asey said. “But I didn’t know that anything started till tomorrow.”

  “It’s a preliminary,” Zeb informed him. “To see if things work, and to give the local boys and girls a chance to see things first. We’ve got a ferris wheel, and a shooting gallery, and a place where you toss rings over electric clocks, and another where you throw darts – all good clean fun, and no fan dancers. Aunt Sara really wanted a fan dancer, but they voted her down. There’ll be fireworks, too, and the band’s giving a concert. Come one, come all. I’ll drive you up.”

  Once in the car on the way to town, Zeb grew suddenly serious.

  “Am I glad you’ve come! I know more than Aunt Sara thinks. Saturday was my night off, so I came home, and was in the living room reading when I heard the shot by the garage. Sara wouldn’t let me go out, but I slid out later, and prowled around. It was a dark night. Down by the foot bridge over the creek, I bumpe
d into someone.”

  “Who?”

  Zeb shrugged. “I chased him, and lost him – and don’t look like that! I chased him for twenty minutes. And Bill Porter’ll tell you that my only contribution to society is a 4.17 mile. Finally I went back to the house, and after I got in bed, I heard this funny laugh. God, it was awful! I never heard anything like it. It was like a loon, only – well, I can’t explain. Believe it or not, I got up and locked my door.”

  Asey nodded slowly. Weston had mentioned hearing a laugh, when he related the story of Saturday’s shooting.

  “Oh, well,” Zeb was annoyed by Asey’s silence. “Maybe it was all done with mirrors. I don’t know.”

  “What time was this shootin’ at Leaches’?”

  “Around eight-thirty. Aunt Sara and Jeff had gone up for the mail, and they planned to be home for some radio program they listen to. I was just switching it on when I heard the shot.”

  “That tallies,” Asey said. “Wes got his around eight-fifteen, an’ the Brinleys don’t know exactly, but it must have been in between the other two. Wes an’ the Brinleys ain’t so far apart, an’ it ain’t more’n two miles to Leaches’. Zeb, you keep your eye on the Leaches for me – my, my, if this is a sample – why, the World’s Fair’s a penny candle beside it!” They drew up at the brightly lighted ball park, and as Asey got out of the car, Weston came up.

  “I called up Sara, and she says you’re staying there. Look, here’s your visitor’s badge, and your police badge, and here’s a badge Lane of the state police sent along with his compliments when he heard you were going to be here. Put ’em on.” Asey surveyed them with distaste. “All? All three?”

  Weston pinned them on. “There. Now, I want you to meet General Phil- brick. He says he always wanted to ask you about the Blight case, and Vincent Tripp wants you on three programs, so—”

  “Gee, look there!” Asey said.

  Weston wheeled around to look at the street. When he turned to ask Asey what he meant, Asey and Zeb were gone.