Vane Pursuit

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “You can believe him, Ensign. My wife and her friend Miss McBogle had gone into the cabin for—er—personal reasons. My wife was just coming out when she saw the man who appears to be the leader of the group knock Tilkey down with some kind of club. One of his henchmen helped him throw Tilkey overboard while another took Tilkey’s place at the wheel. The men then overpowered my wife and Miss McBogle and chucked them after Tilkey. Mrs. Stott jumped of her own accord.”

  “Mrs. Stott’s the big blond lady?”

  “M’yes. A wonderful woman. She even remembered to take the picnic hamper with her.”

  “No kidding! I wouldn’t mind getting shipwrecked with her. Can we offer you anything, gentlemen? A cup of coffee to warm you up?”

  “Mrs. Stott was talking wistfully of tea.”

  “We’ll make sure she gets it. See anything yet, Higgins?”

  “Not yet, sir.” The lookout didn’t turn his head.

  “According to the helicopter pilot’s bearings, we shouldn’t be much longer. If this bunch are your pirates, they didn’t get far. They probably tried to go too fast in the fog.”

  “My wife says they were trying to outrun an irritated whale. They’d fired at the creature, apparently to stir it up so it would go after their victims in the water and finish them off. Instead, the whale started chasing the boat.”

  “Whales are a darn sight smarter than some people, if you ask me.”

  After that, nobody said much until the lookout reported, “Coming up on the starboard bow, sir.”

  “Can you make out any details?”

  “I can see the boat. Her bow’s stove in. Looks as if they ran her on the rocks at high speed.”

  “Any people?”

  “One man. I think it’s a man. And four black bears in camouflage suits, looks like.”

  “Those are the guys,” said Guthrie Fingal. “Cat told us they looked like bears. So now what do we do?”

  “So now you go below,” Ensign Blaise told him. “And you stay in the cabin until I send for you to come on deck. Not to be rude, gentlemen, but that’s an order.”

  Peter was not loath to obey. He hadn’t cared for the idea of being shot at in the darkening woods night before last, and he was reasonably sure he’d like it even less on an open deck in bright sunshine. Besides, he was getting hungry. That bite of jam tart hadn’t been particularly sustaining. Guthrie followed Peter without demur. Perhaps he didn’t care for being shot at, either; or perhaps the sea air was sharpening his appetite, too.

  They found the three women lunching at a table in the main cabin, showered and shampooed and dressed in dry lendings. Garments would be too specific a term, Peter decided, though Catriona did look handsome and even chic in Ensign Blaise’s dress uniform. She’d washed her hair and tied it back with what appeared to be somebody’s spare shoelace; drying tendrils softened the somewhat too well defined lines of jaw and cheekbone.

  Helen, on the other hand, reminded her husband of a chicken trying to struggle out of the egg. She was engulfed in a navy blue pullover that might have fitted better on Guthrie, and somebody’s work pants with the legs rolled up into tire-sized lumps so they wouldn’t drag on the floor.

  When it came to outfitting Iduna, the crew had obviously not even tried. She’d fashioned herself a caftan out of two government-issue blankets and a great many safety pins. The two men at the table with her were too busy gazing at her with gleams in their eyes and no doubt lust in their hearts to keep their minds on their food.

  Peter himself was inured to those wheat-colored curls, those innocent blue eyes, those blush-suffused cheeks, that sweet-cream complexion, that cupid’s-bow mouth with the dimples at the corners, those voluptuous arms tapering into dainty hands and rose-tipped fingers. To men who had to cruise around day after day with nothing but an occasional whale to look at, though, the effect of that much woman all at once must naturally be fairly overwhelming. He hoped they wouldn’t decide to shanghai her and spoil Dan Stott’s homecoming banquet.

  He’d intended to sit next to Helen, but the engineer had beaten him to her. He’d expected to find fish on the menu, but it appeared the doughty lads and lasses of the Coast Guard preferred pasta primavera. No matter, it was good. He ate with one ear cocked for sounds of gunfire and commotion on deck. He didn’t hear any. He ate his piece of lemon pie and drank his coffee. He was wiping his lips when the crewman who’d acted as lookout entered the messroom and requested that Mrs. Shandy, Mrs. Stott, and Miss McBogle please go up on deck. He didn’t invite Professor Shandy and Fingal, but he’d have had a hard time trying to keep them from going.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Helen wished she hadn’t eaten. She should have realized what could happen to a woman’s stomach when she had to stand facing a group of men who, until a moment ago, had been comfortably sure they’d put her and her friends safely away in Davy Jones’s locker.

  She’d peeked out at them a moment ago from the companionway, just as she’d done aboard the Ethelbert Nevin. They’d been relaxed enough then, laughing and chatting with the crewmen on deck. Now the four bears were lined up shoulder to shoulder, their faces fish white above their beards, their eyes popping from under their fright wig hair, their mouths making red O’s among the wild black fuzz as if they all wanted to say something and couldn’t make the words come out. Helen felt an unwanted pang of sympathy for them. She wouldn’t be able to speak, either.

  But she’d have to. Lieutenant Blaise was saying in a no-nonsense way, “Mrs. Shandy, can you help us identify these men?”

  It was the calm self-assurance on Crewcut’s face that loosened her tongue.

  “I certainly can. That beardless man who’s so obviously engaged in trying to think up a plausible lie is the one who thought he’d killed Eustace Tilkey. The man second from him, with the nick in his left nostril, picked up Eustace’s feet and helped to throw him overboard while that tall one in the middle took over the wheel.”

  “You watched this from the cabin, you said?”

  “Yes. I’m quite sure they didn’t notice me watching. The cabin windows were so dirty it would have been hard for them to see in. I didn’t know what else to do, so I thought I’d better just go out and take my seat as if nothing had happened. They didn’t interfere. But then Cat—Miss McBogle— came out. She was naturally surprised to see one of the passengers at the wheel and asked him where Eustace was. I couldn’t actually hear above the noise of the engine, but I assume that’s what she said. He answered, but I couldn’t see his lips on account of the beard. Cat said something else, then the first murderer—my husband says his name is Roland Childe—”

  That rocked him. He lost his self-satisfied smirk for only a second, but that was long enough. The bears quit staring at Helen and stared at their leader, then at each other, clearly jolted.

  Ensign Blaise was interested. “Then you know this man, Mr. Shandy?”

  “No, but I met a relative of his who told me enough about him to make a positive identification. There’s a strong family resemblance between them, though I’ll have to apologize to the relative for saying so. Childe comes from Clavaton, Massachusetts, and is wanted in Balaclava County for arson, grand larceny, and manslaughter. Not to usurp your authority, Ensign Blaise, but if you happen to have any manacles and leg irons kicking around the brig, this might be an opportune time to trot them out. Er—sorry to interrupt your testimony, my dear.”

  “Not at all, Peter. While we’re on the subject, I trust these men were all searched for weapons before they were brought aboard.”

  “Not to worry, Mrs. Shandy,” Blaise assured her. “We explained the regulations about unauthorized weapons aboard a U.S. Coast Guard vessel and impounded four knives, two sidearms, a rifle, and a hand grenade Mr. Childe was carrying. He explained it as a souvenir of his wartime experiences.”

  “How sentimental of him.”

  Helen was relieved to see that the crewmen who’d appeared to be standing idly by were now closing in on the five m
en. She hadn’t realized belaying pins were still issued, although she was well aware of the Coast Guard’s venerable tradition. In 1790, George Washington had approved the revenue cutter service that predated the United States Navy. A Coast Guard cutter had captured the first American prize in the War of 1812. Another cutter, the Harriet Lane, had been attached to a squadron of naval vessels sent to Paraguay in 1858.

  And that was what had been nagging at her all this time about Guthrie Fingal’s wife. Almost the last professional act Helen had performed before she’d left California to come back east and marry Peter, though that hadn’t been on her agenda at the time, had been to assist a student researching a paper on Francisco Solano Lopez.

  To Helen, the most interesting part of the search had been finding out about Lopez’s beautiful, intelligent, almost but not quite indomitable mistress. Irish-born, French-educated Ella Lynch had been christened Elisa Alicia, married at fifteen to a French army officer named Xavier Quatrefages, handed over by Xavier to his commanding officer three years later.

  Ella had had a brief romance with a Russian who set her up in Paris as a courtesan of the highest rank, been annexed at nineteen by the Paraguayan general who intended to become an emperor, and was reputed to have been the undeclared ruler of both Francisco and Paraguay until he fought his last losing battle against the Brazilians in 1870.

  She had buried her lover with her own hands under the mocking eyes of Brazilian soldiery. Ella had been thirty-seven then. It had taken her almost another twenty years to die, starved and penniless, on a thin, dirty mattress in a Paris lodging house.

  Ella had borne four sons to Francisco. Pancho, the eldest, had been stabbed at her side by a Brazilian corporal. She’d scraped out his grave with her bare hands, too. Helen didn’t know what had happened to two of the four, but she knew biographer William E. Barrett had talked with a lady who’d been married to a third and had borne him two daughters. There might be other grandchildren, even great-grandchildren. Ella had also reared as her own a daughter of Francisco’s born to another woman. Legally, she’d been forced to remain Elisa Alicia Quatrefages until the day she died, even though by some legal sleight her long-ago husband had been able to divorce himself from her, without divorcing her from him.

  And what a time to be remembering all this! Now fully in command of herself, Helen gave the young ensign a smile and a nod.

  “Thank you, that’s most reassuring. As I’d started to say, Mr. Childe and his accomplice picked up Miss McBogle by the wrists and ankles.”

  “They didn’t knock her out first?”

  “No. Mr. Childe had tossed overboard the bludgeon he’d used on Eustace. I expect he was confident he and his four trained bears would be able to overcome three defenseless women without it. Needless to say, he was right. When I tried to make them let go of Miss McBogle, the two men who hadn’t yet taken any part in the fracas—those two on the end—grabbed me by the wrists and ankles, too. The four of them started swinging us both back and forth. They counted one… two… three, then they chucked us as far as they could.”

  Ensign Blaise winced. “Did the man at the wheel take any part in these attempted murders?”

  “Objection, Ensign.” Roland Childe was getting his aplomb back. “Attempted murders strikes me as pretty strong language to describe what was nothing more than a little maybe ill-judged horseplay. We’d have pulled the ladies right out again, but this big whale came up behind us and started chasing the boat. The stout lady there got hysterical and jumped overboard, then our man at the wheel panicked and shoved the engine full speed ahead before I could stop him.”

  The only way to handle so blatantly stupid a liar was ignore him. Helen went on as if she hadn’t heard. “To answer your question, Ensign Blaise, the man at the wheel did not participate in the attempted murders.”

  “Did he make any effort to stop those who did?”

  “Not so you’d notice it. He stood there laughing his head off. They were all laughing.”

  “What about you, Miss McBogle? Do you agree with Mrs. Shandy’s account of what happened?”

  “I agree with as much of it as I’m in a position to agree with,” Catriona replied. “I didn’t see the attack on Eustace Tilkey. As Mrs. Shandy explained, I was still below when that happened. When I saw the bear at the wheel, I asked him where Eustace was, and he said he’d gone up front to look for whales. That didn’t make sense to me. I could see Eustace wasn’t on the cabin roof and you know how big the foredeck of a lobster boat is. Besides, the Ethelbert Nevin’s was all cluttered up with luggage they’d brought on board with them.”

  Catriona hesitated, then went on with her tale. “I sung out but Eustace didn’t answer. Then I guess I said something like, ‘I don’t see him.’ Smiley here said, ‘Go look for him,’ or words to that effect. He grabbed my wrists from behind and somebody else got me by the ankles. I was too busy trying to bite Smiley’s arm to notice which bear that was, but you can trust Mrs. Shandy for the facts. She’s a librarian and never gets anything wrong. Iduna, you’re the one who saw everything. Tell him.”

  So Iduna told. It would have been impossible for anybody not to believe her. As she repeated what she’d gleaned from her lipreading, the stink of fear off the four bears became almost nauseating. Even Roland Childe was looking the way somebody might if a cuddly pet guinea pig made a sudden savage leap for his jugular.

  “And I certainly hope you brought those suitcases Cat mentioned back with you, or Helen’s going to raise the roof.”

  “Suitcases?” Ensign Blaise turned to the man next to him. “Pulsifer, did you see any suitcases when we picked them up?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about a big fishing creel, a camera case, and a tackle box?” Helen’s mouth was so dry she could barely articulate.

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “But the Ethelbert Nevin doesn’t look to be all that badly wrecked. Didn’t you find anything whatever on board?”

  “Yes, ma’am, we found stuff you might expect to find— spare gas cans, bait buckets, foghorn, you know. There’s a big hole in the forward hull where she ran aground, but otherwise the boat’s pretty much intact. Where would the suitcases have been, ma’am?”

  “Lashed to the foredeck. Quite securely, I should have thought. We’d been cruising most of the morning since Eustace tied them down, and they were still there the last I saw of the boat. The creel and other things were tucked under the bench in the cockpit where they should have been safe enough. How could you have missed them?”

  “We couldn’t have, ma’am. These guys must have thrown them overboard before they crashed.”

  “But why? They couldn’t have known they were going to crash until it happened. The whole point of stealing the boat was to transport the stuff they were carrying to the buyer. They must have cached it somewhere on the island for fear you’d open the cases and see the stolen goods inside.”

  “And what would this stolen cargo have been, Mrs. Shandy?” Ensign Blaise wanted to know.

  “Weather vanes.”

  “Huh?”

  “Antique weather vanes,” Helen explained, “worth a great deal of money.”

  “Like how much, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Well, Chief Mashamoquet of the Nipmuck Indians sold for $85,000 in 1986 at a legitimate public auction. We don’t know what sort of prices have been paid under the table by private collectors for stolen ones. Stealing antique weather vanes has become a highly lucrative racket, in case you didn’t know. And these are Praxiteles Lumpkin weather vanes.”

  “They’re pretty special, are they?”

  “Very special indeed, Ensign. Special enough for this man Childe to have burned down several barns and the Lumpkinton soap factory in order to conceal the fact that he and his friends were stealing them. The fact that he killed an innocent man and put a whole village out of work by destroying the factory doesn’t seem to have cut any ice with him.”

  “Why should it?” sa
id Childe calmly. “I didn’t do it.”

  “Nonsense,” said Peter, “of course you did. We have an eyewitness who described you beyond any doubt. He’s in the hospital recovering from third-degree burns, by the way, which he received trying to rescue the chap who was in the tallow room when you threw the grenade into the tank with your famous sideways flick.”

  “What are you talking about? Ensign, this is obviously a case of mistaken identity. I don’t know why these people are telling such totally ridiculous lies about me, but I’m not going to stand here and take it.”

  “Oh, I think you are, Mr. Childe,” said Ensign Blaise. “You really have nowhere else to go, do you? Don’t worry, you’ll be given every opportunity to defend yourself when the time comes. Right now, I’d like to get this business of the weather vanes straightened out. Where would they have been taking them, Mrs. Shandy? Have you any idea?”

  “Mr. Childe evidently has a rich buyer all lined up, but we’re not yet clear on whether he was taking the weather vanes there or to an intermediary. Do you happen to know where Paraguay, Maine, is?”

  “No, but we can look it up. Do we have a Maine atlas aboard, Pulsifer?”

  “Yes, sir. But I can tell you right now there’s no Paraguay in Maine, unless it’s the name of somebody’s private camp or something. I studied up on all the place names when I got picked to be on ‘So You Think You Know Maine’ last February.”

  “That’s a television quiz show,” Catriona McBogle explained to the folks from away. “Did you win, Mr. Pulsifer?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “In that case,” said Helen, “perhaps we ought to scratch Paraguay as a real place and start thinking of it as a code name. That man who piled up the Ethelbert Nevin might care to enlighten us, since he’s the only one of the five who stands a realistic chance of gaining clemency by turning state’s evidence. Who’s Paraguay, Mr. Bear?”

  “I damn well know who this guy is,” Guthrie interrupted. “Or at least I know the name that’s on our enrollment books. He’s John Doe Buck, he’s a first-term student, and he’s flunking dendrology. What are you doing in this crowd, Buck? Come on, make it easier on yourself. Who’s Paraguay?”