“Too bad,” Uncle Homer said. “She never quite recovered from Father’s death. Grieved constantly, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know. In fact, I don’t believe it. Not for an instant.”
“It’s quite true. Literally wasted away. Mrs. Crump, I believe, was considering a diet of sex and oatmeal.”
“Homer, you’re an unmitigated ass. Always were and always will be. Who in tarnation are you talking about?”
“Who’s dead?” said Uncle Homer, suddenly wary.
“Mrs. Crump.”
“Mrs. Crump!”
“Certainly. I keep telling you. Went instantly. Dropped over like that.” Dr. Quinn snapped his fingers to illustrate the way Mrs. Crump had dropped over. “She and Crump were having tea at the time.”
Uncle Homer, who had gone cold with the thought of an unfortunate possibility, felt himself warming up again. After all, one did not, whatever else one did with it, put oatmeal into a cup of tea.
“How sad,” he said. “And what a shock to poor old Crump, having her go just when they were having tea.”
“Tea,” said Dr. Quinn, “and oatmeal cookies.”
Uncle Homer, now having hot and cold flashes, wished desperately that he had his stick back to lean upon.
“Did Crump,” he said, “have oatmeal cookies too?”
“I think not. Crmup is a man of low tastes, admittedly, but he hardly shared Mrs. Crump’s depravity in such matters.” Dr. Quinn’s eyes narrowed and he leaned toward Uncle Homer as if he were going to ask him to stick out his tongue. “Are you suggesting foul play on Crump’s part?”
The last thing Uncle Homer wanted was to suggest foul play on the part of anyone, and so he made haste to deny it.
“No, no. Nothing of the sort Where is Crump, by the way?”
“In the library. I’ve been trying to talk some sense into him. The man’s a mule, that’s what. An absolute mule.”
“Crump’s an obstinate old devil. I’ve always said so. What’s got his back up now?”
“The autopsy. He absolutely will not listen to reason on the subject.”
“Autopsy!” The horror of that prospect was instantly discernible in Uncle Homer’s voice. “What’s this about an autopsy?”
“I want one. A woman drops dead, you want to know why. Especially if she’s as big as a circus horse and twice as strong. I suspect her liver. I’d give a farm for a good look at that woman’s liver.”
“Well, I’m not a doctor and have no professional opinion, but it seems to me that dropping dead over a tea cup would make you suspicious of her heart.”
“Nonsense! That’s just the kind of addleheaded assumption I should have expected from you, Homer. There’s far too much of that sort of thing. Everything’s blamed on the heart. Someone drops dead, blame it on the heart. Doctors are expected to scratch out a death certificate and forget it. Take the easy way out. I maintain that the heart is often innocent. Something else is frequently to blame. Frequently.”
“Crump refuses his permission?”
“Adamantly. He’s balking like a mule, I tell you. Do you think you could make him listen to reason?”
“No, no. No chance. Crump and I are not on easy terms.”
“Try. Come on in the library and give it a try. Weight of opinion, you know. It might have some effect.”
“My opinion would weigh on the other side.”
“What’s that? Homer, I hope you are not even a bigger ass than I thought.”
“Crump’s right. Why do you want to butcher the damn woman?”
“Damn it, Homer, an operating room is not a slaughter house. We’d patch her up as neat as hemstitching.”
“Nevertheless, I can’t see any justification for your morbid desire to go poking around inside of her. It’s abnormal.”
“I just told you. I want a close look at her liver.”
“Leave her liver in peace. That’s my advice.”
“You know what you can do with your advice, Homer. Why the devil am I standing here wasting time with you? What do you want? Tell me immediately why you are here.”
“I came to call on the Crumps, that’s why.”
“Nonsense. Why should you call on a dead woman?”
“How the hell would I know Mrs. Crump was dead? To the best of my knowledge, she was in top condition.”
“Did you come here to create trouble, Homer? I warn you that it won’t work.”
“Well, I can see that there is no use in talking any longer with you. You’re as obstinate as Crump himself. I’ll just go into the library and offer my condolences and be on my way.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. Crump is contrary enough without your support. I am in authority here, Homer. If you know what’s good for you, you will leave at once without causing further dissention.”
So saying, Dr. Quinn turned and scurried down the hall to the library, slamming the door behind him. Uncle Homer, relieved at having his escape forced upon him, recovered his stick and scurried the other way. On the street, he turned without hesitation in the direction of Hester’s apartment. There was no doubt in his mind that Hester’s cyanide peanuts had gone astray, winding up by way of Mrs. Crump’s oatmeal cookies in Mrs. Crump’s stomach, and it was therefore fair and imperative for Hester to be informed of events with all dispatch. He had a strong and uneasy feeling that things were getting out of hand. If old Quinn were allowed access to Mrs. Crump’s liver, he might decide in the process to have an incidental look at Mrs. Crump’s stomach, and that could be troublesome, to say the least. Everything depended, indeed, upon Crump’s mulish qualities. The man must be encouraged to stand firmly on his convictions, and that was all there was to it. Unless, of course, old Quinn could persuade the proper authorities to secure a court order or something. Uncle Homer had a vague notion that this was quite possible, but it seemed to him an extreme action just to insure a look at a liver, however unusual.
At Hester’s apartment building, he took the stairs and arrived panting at Hester’s door. The response to his imperious ringing was so long delayed that he was about to give up and go away when the door was opened to reveal Hester on the other side. It was immediately obvious why Hester had been so late in reaching the door, for she had had to wake up and put on something, though not much, before coming. It was also obvious that she was not in the best of humors.
“Is that you, Uncle Homer?” she said. “I’m all out of gin, and so you had just as well go away.”
She started to close the door, but Uncle Homer neatly inserted a foot in the crack.
“Let me in, Hester. Something dreadful has happened.”
“Don’t try any tricks, Uncle Homer. You are always exaggerating and upsetting people over nothing.”
“It’s no trick, Hester. Please let me in.”
“First, tell me what has happened.”
“Mrs. Crump is dead.”
“You see? You are exaggerating as usual. What is so dreadful about Mrs. Crump’s being dead?”
“She died,” said Uncle Homer, “while eating an oatmeal cookie.”
Hester peered at Uncle Homer closely, to see if this was just an elaboration of the trick, and then she stepped back from the door, making way for Uncle Homer to enter.
“That’s different,” she said, “and may justify prompt consideration. How do you know?”
“Because I’ve just come from Father’s house,” Uncle Homer said, clearing a chair and collapsing in it. “Old Dr. Quinn let me in and told me all about it. Is it true that you have no gin?”
“Never mind the gin, damn it. Just tell me about the oatmeal cookies.”
“Mrs. Crump was eating one with her tea, and she dropped over dead.”
“Well, if that’s not the most unpredictable and absurd thing I’ve ever heard of! Who would have expected her to share the damn dog’s oatmeal? How’s Crump?”
“Crump’s unscathed. Apparently he doesn’t care for oatmeal cookies.”
“Very sensi
ble of him, I must say. Did you talk with him?”
“No. Old Quinn has him in isolation.”
“Whatever for? Cyanide peanuts may be fatal, but they are hardly contagious.”
“That’s not the point, Hester. Old Quinn doesn’t know anything about the cyanide peanuts. He suspects Mrs. Crump’s liver, and he wants to look at it.”
“You mean he wants to open her up and go snooping around inside?”
“Exactly. He’s been trying to bully Crump into giving his permission.”
“What’s Crump’s position?”
“He’s against it.”
“Quite rightly. Uncle Homer, you should have encouraged him.”
“I couldn’t get to him. Old Quinn doesn’t want him subjected to influence. He’s a tyrannical old scoundrel, Quinn is. We can only hope that Crump stands fast.”
“Uncle Homer, you might have tried a little harder. This could develop into a very serious business, if you ask me. Things could become unpleasant at least, even though everything is Mrs. Crump’s own fault.”
“Somehow, if things come to the worst, I doubt that that will be the official viewpoint.”
“Well, she had absolutely no business making cookies out of Senorita Fogarty’s oatmeal. I don’t suppose you made the slightest effort to steal the cookies and bring them away.”
“How could I? They were in the library with Crump, and I wasn’t permitted to enter.”
“In my opinion, you are far too easily intimidated. At least you could have slipped into the kitchen and appropriated the rest of the oatmeal.”
“To tell the truth,” said Uncle Homer,” I didn’t think of it.”
Hester curled up on the end of the sofa with her feet under her and her knees out. She was clearly thinking fiercely about developments, and Uncle Homer, uneasily aware that he had acquitted himself with less than distinction in a crisis, waited in silence and longed for gin.
“Well,” said Hester at last, “I have had to think and act for everybody from the beginning, and it’s now apparent that I must think and act for myself. In the meanwhile, let’s hope that neither Quinn nor Crump gets hungry enough to eat oatmeal cookies.”
15
APPARENTLY NEITHER Quinn nor Crump did. Indeed, the only threat to the life of either developed naturally from their dispute over the autopsy. The former was threatened by apoplexy, and the latter was threatened by the former. Crump, however, was superb. Under the most intense pressure, his adamantine resistance to the butchery of Mrs. Crump remained unshaken, and Quinn was eventually forced to capitulate. Unprepared to commit himself to the dark suspicions that would have hauled in the cops and a court order, he put the blame on Mrs. Crump’s heart after all, and was thus deprived of a look at her liver and the chance to make a substantial contribution to the sum of medical knowledge.
On the whole, Crump took the passing of his mate with remarkable fortitude. It may be said, in fact, that he blossomed. An observant cynic would have said that he seemed to be relieved of a burden. It’s true that he behaved decorously so long as Mrs. Crump was laid out in the house, preserved for visitors in embalming fluid, but she had no sooner been transferred permanently to the cemetery than Crump emerged from his autumnal bud. There was a touch of spryness in his walk, an added sparkle to his eye. The very next morning after the last rites, he showed up in the park wearing a new sports coat with a giant check and a pair of pants with an ivy league cut. On the bench, while Senorita Fogarty frolicked on the grass at the end of her leash, he even exchanged with Hester sly nudges of the knee.
This was the same day that Junior came a cropper in the garden house. His duty there had been sporadic at best. It was onerous and unproductive, and he skipped it as often as he thought he could get away with it, which was more and more frequently as the days passed. Inasmuch as nothing was ever observed that seemed to him the least significant, all his reports were substantially the same, and it was a simple matter, he discovered, to falsify them. The passing of Mrs. Crump had made him hopeful that his espionage could be discontinued with official sanction, but he was given to understand by Hester, to whom he reported, that Mrs. Crump, alive or dead, was hardly a factor in the private sex life of Senorita and Crump’s stud.
“It must be private,” said Junior, “because I’ve never seen any sign of it. If you want to know what I think, I think Crump’s stud is an imposter.”
“Don’t be absurd. How could be a stud be an imposter? It’s against nature.”
“Well, a stud is supposed to do only one thing that I know of, and I’ve never seen him do it. I’ve never even seen him try. A stud that doesn’t act like a stud must be an imposter, that’s all I can say.”
He offered this as an irrefutable conclusion, having thought it through by the rules of logic in the form of a syllogism, but Hester was neither convinced nor impressed.
“How do you know he doesn’t try?” she said.
“I didn’t say he doesn’t. I said I’ve never seen him.”
“Maybe he’s just waiting until Senorita Fogarty is ready.”
“Damn it, you used to claim that Senorita is always ready. You know you did. It’s in her blood or something.”
“I’ve remembered since that dogs have certain times, regardless of blood. They’re different from humans that way.”
“However they are, I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life trying to find out. Anyhow, I’ll bet that Lester got all excited and made a mistake about the whole thing. I don’t believe there’s any stud there, or ever was one.”
“You’re trying to evade your plain duty, that’s all. Of course there’s a stud. Lester saw Crump bringing him home in a cage. Why on earth would you claim that there isn’t one?”
“I’ve told you and told you. Because I’ve never seen one.”
“You said you’ve never seen him trying. Are you saying now that you’ve never seen him at all?“
“That’s what.”
“Junior, you make no sense whatever. First you say baldly that Crumps stud is an imposter, and then you say that he doesn’t even exist How can he be an imposter if he doesn’t exist?”
“Well, I don’t want to get into any debate about it, because I wouldn’t have a chance, and I know it. All I can say is that it’s damn odd, to say the least, that old Crump never ties the stud out in the backyard with Senorita Fogarty.”
“Do you know what I think? I think you don’t even know who is tied in the backyard and who isn’t. Uncle Homer has said several times that you’re doing nothing in that garden house but taking after-lunch naps, and now I’m compelled to agree, although I have held out all along for giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
This was so near the truth, even though slightly exaggerated, that Junior was prompted immediately to swear to its falsity.
“Father’s nothing but a damn liar,” he said, “and that’s a fact. He’s always saying things like that about me for no good reason, and I’m tired of it.”
“All right. You needn’t get so belligerent about it. It has just occurred to me that Mrs. Crump may have been responsible for the stud’s absence from the backyard.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Mrs. Crump, you will recall, was delicate about sex and things like that. In fact, she was literally a mass of inhibitions. She would certainly have felt that the proper place for intimacy was in the house, and probably in a certain room with the blinds pulled and the door and all the windows locked.”
“That’s true, all right. Mrs. Crump was unreasonable in such matters.”
“Crump himself, however, may be something else entirely. I have cause to know that he has recently been shedding inhibitions like mad, and there’s no reason to believe that he would impose restrictions on Senorita Fogarty that he ignores himself.”
“What cause?” said Junior, getting directly to the crux.
“Never mind what cause. It is sufficient to know that Crump will probably alter the established routine a
nd put Senorita and the stud in the backyard together. Therefore, Junior, it is more important than ever that you remain on duty. I’ll expect you to be at your post tomorrow afternoon as usual.”
“I don’t want to go. It gets damn dull in that garden house.”
“Junior, you will resort to anything to get out of doing your part. You will go whether you want to or not, or suffer the consequences. And stay awake. I warn you that I may decide to make a surprise inspection, and it will be too bad if I find you taking a nap.”
And so, under such duress, Junior had appeared in good time, shortly after lunch, at the iron picket fence at the rear of Grandfather’s property. He vaulted the fence and scooted across the yard to a huge oak tree some fifteen feet away, where he took cover. After loitering behind the trunk for a few minutes, to determine if he had been observed or not, he made a dash for the garden house, perhaps another ten feet up the yard, and plunged through its narrow entrance into its murky, octagonal protection. The garden house was small and gave Junior an uneasy sense of claustrophobia, as well as a strong feeling, should someone appear suddenly in the entrance, of being caught like a rat in a trap. He had tried once to estimate the interior dimensions, but this had quickly become far too complex for someone who didn’t have the least idea of how to compute the area of an octagon, and he had given it up in favor of napping, which was less demanding.
The walls of the garden house were constructed of diagonal slats that crossed each other in a fancy style to give the effect of loose weaving. This created little diamond-shaped apertures through which light filtered, but it was impossible for anyone outside to see anyone inside. Moreover, if the eye was applied closely to an appropriate aperture, a good view could be had of the back of the house and of the yard between. It was, in brief, an ideal post for a spy, and Junior, eye to aperture, spied in good faith for fully ten minutes.
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