The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Aye, and what of yon Bledsoe? Did they keep him at the hospital?”

  “Yes, but they said he could leave tomorrow morning if no symptoms develop.”

  “What kind of symptoms?” Dittany wanted to know.

  “They didn’t say. Lockjaw, blood poisoning, heart failure, whatever. I’m supposed to call in the morning and see if Carolus needs a lift.”

  “Why you? Can’t his own people collect him?”

  “He seems to be quite alone in the world, now that he’s divorced. When they asked for his next of kin, he just shook his head. It was rather pathetic,” Roger added. He wasn’t given to sentiment as a rule but no doubt succoring a man with half his middle toe shot off established some sort of bond.

  Dittany shook her own head. “Carolus is practically engaged to Wilhedra Thorbisher-Freep, Roger. Her father told us just a little while ago.”

  “Is he, i’ faith?” remarked Arethusa, who’d finally emerged from the girls’ locker room with her Merry Widow over her arm. “Osbert, I want to go home. Now.”

  “Then why the heck don’t you?” her nephew replied politely.

  “Churl! I require transportation.”

  “Moulting mavericks, that’s right! You’re fresh out of boyfriends aren’t you? How is it back there? All cleaned out?”

  “Nobody’s left, it’s neat as a pin, and there’s nothing to eat.” Arethusa whirled on Sergeant MacVicar, her huge, dark eyes flashing sparks. “Stap me, sirrah, do you mean to keep us here all night?”

  “That’s a very good question, Arethusa,” said Mrs. MacVicar.

  Even the sergeant himself had to concur. “Aye, leddies, it is, and my answer is no. Your nephew and his wee wifie hae invited us all to breakfast, Arethusa. We can most advantageously resume our endeavors to get at the heart of this matter then. Nine o’clock was the hour you set, gin memory serves me, Deputy Monk.”

  Osbert looked mildly surprised but didn’t contradict him. The wee wifie gave her husband a less than adoring glance, but didn’t say anything, either. If Sergeant MacVicar remembered the time as nine o’clock, then nine o’clock it would be, and that was that. Not half past anything. They’d just have to wheedle one of the Munson boys into driving Archie and Daniel to the airport.

  “Nine o’clock will give the cast members time enough to eat their breakfasts, give their testimony, and meet their respective spouses at church in time for services,” Mrs. MacVicar pointed out.

  Sergeant MacVicar raised his eyebrows. Dittany understood.

  “Mrs. MacVicar’s coming, too, you know. She has to. She’s bringing the eggs.”

  “Then all is settled and I’ll say nae mair. Noo, Margaret, let’s gang awa’ hame.”

  Of course none of them left immediately. Any group of people who’ve been doing anything complicated together always have to do a little extra puttering around before they call it quits. At last, however, the last piece of scenery was stowed in the basement, the last prop carried out to somebody’s car, the last discarded program picked up and stuffed into a wastebasket, and the somewhat complex system of shutting off all the lights figured out. Roger Munson made sure everybody was out, then locked the gym door. The premiere performance of Dangerous Dan McGrew was now another item in the Thorbisher-Freep collection of theatrical memorabilia.

  But the melodrama was still going on. Dittany rolled out of bed about half past seven the next morning, aghast that she’d slept so late even though she’d have preferred to sleep a few hours longer. She leaped in and out of the shower, dragged on a pair of black wool pants chosen to blend with Ethel’s shed fur, and added her most colorful top to lift her spirits, should that be feasible. She let Ethel out and was thinking she absolutely must wake Osbert and phone the Munsons, even though she hated the thought of getting them up, when the phone rang. It was, as she’d expected, Archie.

  Now came the moment of truth and she didn’t have the faintest idea what to tell him. That didn’t much matter, though. She got no farther than “Oh Archie” before he interrupted.

  “Look, Dittany, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have got you up so early for nothing. I know you must be worn out from last night and itching to get us off your backs so you can relax. But the thing of it is, Daniel doesn’t want to leave.”

  This time she only managed an “Oh.”

  “Daniel’s absolutely riveted by Lobelia Falls,” Archie babbled on. “He says he’s already seen better melodrama here than they’ve had on the theater circuit in ages, and he’s not budging till the final curtain. Can you possibly bear us awhile longer, Dittany?”

  “I can bear having you stay a darn sight easier than I could have coped with getting you to the airport,” she told him frankly. “Osbert and I got our wires crossed and he’s invited the whole cast here for breakfast so Sergeant MacVicar can conduct a mass grilling. You and Daniel might as well buzz along and join the party. I’ll have somebody pick you up about a quarter to nine.”

  “Oh, that’s marvelous. Daniel will be tickled silly. You’re quite sure we shan’t be putting you out?”

  “Believe me, you won’t even be noticed in the general confusion. Just don’t expect anything fancy.”

  Such as a place to sit down or the exclusive use of a butter knife. Most of the other guests would be familiar with the traditional freewheeling Henbit-Monk style of entertaining, she needn’t worry about them. Andy McNaster and the Thorbisher-Freeps wouldn’t be, but they probably weren’t even intending to come and who cared about them, anyway? Just the relief of not having to find a way out of that airport dilemma made the prospect of getting breakfast for somewhere between twenty and thirty people, with no advance preparation seem like a relative bagatelle.

  Dittany filled Ethel’s food bowl, got out the big mixing bowl, her three remaining eggs, and a few other odds and ends, and began slapping together a triple batch of muffins. With Mrs. MacVicar’s four dozen eggs and the canned ham they always kept in the fridge for emergencies, they’d manage well even if nobody else brought anything at all.

  But people did bring things, of course; everything from jars of cream to flowers for the table. There were pitchers of juice, bowls of fruit, plain doughnuts, cinnamon doughnuts, jelly doughnuts, biscuits, rolls, sticky buns, white bread, brown bread, cheese bread, pumpkin bread, banana bread, date bread, cranberry-nut-raisin bread, and something Zilla Trott made that none of the rest could identify and nobody liked to ask.

  “If this is your idea of nothing fancy,” Archie asked in understandable bemusement a couple of hours later, “what happens when you put on a real bash?”

  “We use matching napkins,” Dittany replied with her mouth full. For quite a while, she’d been too busy scrambling eggs and frying ham for the crew to feed herself. By now, though, supply had caught up with demand and she was free to do a little browsing among the fleshpots.

  The Thorbisher-Freeps hadn’t shown up, which didn’t hurt her feelings any. Andy McNaster had, and was sitting knee-to-knee with Arethusa, watching her eat a sticky bun. Daniel was near them, watching Andy. Their faces made an interesting study. Andy’s wore the goofy expression of a man besotted with adoration. Daniel looked more like Minerva Oakes’s old cat Emmeline doing sentry duty at a mousehole. Emmeline was a truly dedicated mouser. Daniel appeared to be dedicated, too, but to what?

  Dittany had no time to go and find out. Sergeant MacVicar was standing up at the head of the dining room table laying down his napkin as if it were the Magna Carta. Hazel Munson, who’d been going around with the teapot because Hazel couldn’t bear not to make herself useful for long at a stretch, caught the last drop from the spout and tiptoed over to set the pot down on the buffet as if she’d been caught doing something mildly improper. Others paused with last bites of doughnut of muffin halfway to their mouths. This was a moment fraught with portent, and fraughtly did they view it.

  The sergeant wasted no time on preliminaries. “I needna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that a situation of deepest gravit
y has arisen. It appears that yon Andrew McNaster has been made the unwitting tool of a pairfidious plot to assassinate your fellow performer, Carolus Bledsoe. I willna waste your time wi’ idle conjectures as to why this outrage may hae been plotted. What we must try to do here and noo is detairmine who could hae switched a live bullet for the last of the blank cartridges supplied, I am told, by Mr. Jenson Thorbisher-Freep. It appears the switch could hae been made either before or after the gun was loaded by Carolus Bledsoe himsel’ and laid on the table that held various properties required in the play. Roger Munson was in charge of these, so I shall ask him to recapitulate for us.”

  Everybody knew in advance what Roger was going to say, but they all listened attentively nonetheless. Even though they’d been talking about little else ever since they got into the house and probably before, Roger’s crisp summation of the events leading up to the shooting left them with a satisfactory feeling that now they were really getting somewhere. There was a tentative movement to give him a round of applause, but it was checked as being not quite the thing under the circumstances. Sergeant MacVicar’s Augustan nod of approval was enough.

  “And noo,” the sergeant went on, “who has further information to contribute?”

  “I have,” said Osbert, who’d been acting as waiter and busboy. “I think you ought to know there were some pretty harsh words passed about Carolus late yesterday in the dining room at the inn. Aunt Arethusa, do you want to tell it?”

  Arethusa was engaged with the last of the sticky buns and indicated by sign language that she didn’t.

  “How about you, Andy?”

  “I am but an unlettered building contractor-cum-innkeeper and have no gift of narrative,” Andy replied modestly. “You tell ’em, Osbert.”

  So Osbert told them, and he told them well. Skilled storyteller that he was, he saved the best line for the last. “So when I saw Leander Hellespont backstage at the gym before the performance, I couldn’t help wondering.”

  “Um ah,” said Sergeant MacVicar, which was quite a commitment, from him. “And precisely what was Leander Hellespont doing backstage, Deputy Monk?”

  “Looking for the men’s room, I guess. At least that’s where he went. I watched him to make sure!”

  “And did you wait to see him come out again?”

  “No, I didn’t have time. Somebody wanted me onstage to check the set. Anyway, I didn’t think too much of Hellespont’s showing up for the performance. I knew he was a spy from the Scottsbeck Players, and I had other things on my mind just then.”

  “Aye, nae doot,” Sergeant MacVicar conceded. “And what aboot the rest of you? Did anyone else see a tall, thin man, dressed up like Dracula frae the sound of him, wandering backstage?”

  If they had seen Hellespont, they hadn’t paid much attention to him. There’d been a number of unauthorized persons milling around before the performance. The Thespians had tried as best they could to ignore these interlopers. The cast had all been in the locker rooms nursing their stage fright and putting on each other’s makeup. The stagehands had been running back and forth doing this and that, seeing extraneous persons only as obstacles to be got around or shooed away.

  Roger Munson had kept an eye on the properties table as best he could, but Roger had been doing more running than anybody else, checking to make sure there was enough cold tea in the whiskey bottles and performing other vital missions. He hadn’t noticed any strangers backstage but he wouldn’t have been apt to. As a disciple of the higher efficiency, he’d trained himself to focus his whole attention on the task at hand.

  “So naebody has any idea how long yon Hellespont stayed backstage?” Sergeant MacVicar asked at last in a somewhat disheartened tone.

  Dittany looked at young Sammy, who in the interests of higher efficiency had seated himself beside the jelly doughnuts. Sammy looked at Dittany, caught her signal to speak up and did.

  “I can’t say how long Mr. Hellespont was backstage because I didn’t see him there, but I do know he wasn’t in the audience until about three minutes before curtain time. He took the outside aisle seat, fourth row, next to the fire exit.”

  “That’s right,” Dittany confirmed. “Sammy and I both saw him come in because we’d meant for Ormerod Burlson to take that seat. Carolus Bledsoe’s ex-wife was sitting directly in front of it. Ormerod was supposed to have picked her up at the door and ridden herd on her all evening in case she’d brought along some more tomatoes, but he evidently got sidetracked at the lemonade stand. Anyway, Ormerod still wasn’t with her then, and he certainly wasn’t anywhere near her when she came backstage.”

  Chapter 12

  “YOU SAW MRS. BLEDSOE backstage?”

  The cry came from several sets of lips, albeit not those of Arethusa who was still haying difficulty with the sticky bun. Dittany raised her eyebrows.

  “How could I have missed seeing her? Doesn’t anybody remember that woman in the burgundy storm coat and dark glasses who poked her head into the girls’ locker room claiming she was looking for the Ladies’?”

  “You mean she was the same one who threw the tomato?” shrieked Hazel.

  “None other than. Didn’t you recognize her?”

  “How could I? She startled me, popping in all bundled up like that, and I stuck the darn mascara brush in my eye. I couldn’t see a thing but midnight sable for about five minutes. Anyway, how would I have known? She was in and out so fast at the rehearsal—”

  “Actually she wasn’t,” Dittany corrected. “She’d been there all the time. Mrs. Bledsoe was that blond woman in mink sitting behind the Thorbisher-Freeps.”

  “I thought the mink one was Wilhedra.”

  “There were two minks.”

  “Well, I only remember one,” Hazel insisted rather huffily.

  Hardly anybody else appeared to have noticed a second fur-bearing biped at the opera house Friday night. They’d all been too preoccupied trying to remember what they were supposed to do, as was right and proper.

  “Then I guess I must have been the only one,” Dittany had to concede. “I had a perfect lookout post, you know, back there on the piano bench with not much to do when I wasn’t playing. I’d had my eye on the woman off and on all evening, wondering who she was and what she’d come for. I saw her stand up but of course I had no idea she was going to throw the tomato till it was too late to stop her. I recognized her right away when she came into the locker room.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something?” Desdemona Portley demanded.

  “How could I? You were all so dithery by then, you’d have gone up like a bunch of skyrockets. Carolus had already told me he’d hired an off-duty policeman to ride herd on her in case she had any bright ideas about getting into the act tonight, so I just snuck out front and enlisted Sammy here to make Ormerod do his job. But if Mrs. Bledsoe had already got hold of the .38 and changed the bullet—oh, why didn’t I speak up before it was too late?”

  “Darling, you mustn’t blame yourself,” Osbert protested. “Chucking a tomato is a far cry from putting a live bullet into a gun that you know is going to be fired point-blank at somebody’s chest. Why didn’t I jump on Leander Hellespont when I found him backstage? He’s a darn sight likelier prospect than Mrs. Bledsoe.”

  “But she bopped Carolus with a ham and macaroni casserole.”

  “Hellespont uttered threats in public. You heard him yourself.”

  “So did I,” said Andrew McNaster. “And I should of decked him then and there, eh, but I stayed my hand on the paltry grounds that it wouldn’t be good for business. Mea is the culpa.”

  “Hold, sirrah,” cried Arethusa. “Tua is not the culpa, forsooth. If your nobler nature hadn’t prevailed, Carolus Bledsoe would by now be a well-ventilated corpse. The culpa is mea for having accepted his invitation to dinner when he was already engaged to Wilhedra Thorbisher-Freep.”

  “But how were you supposed to know he was when he never said?” Dittany reminded her. “Anyway, he wasn’t. Jenson told us th
ey’re waiting till after the lawsuit gets settled. Isn’t that right, Jenson? Oh gosh, I wonder if we have any eggs left.”

  It had occurred to her that she was talking to a man who hadn’t been present a moment ago and still wasn’t fed. “Is your daughter with you or over at the hospital soothing Carolus’s fevered instep?”

  “Neither,” Jenson replied sadly. “Poor Wilhedra’s at home soothing her own fevered instep. She took a tumble on the stairs this morning, which is why I wasn’t able to get here sooner. The doctor assured us that it’s only a nasty sprain, but he insists she’s to stay off the foot for at least a week and maybe longer. He’s given her something for the pain and I’ve left her in the maid’s care just long enough to come here and let you know that the Traveling Thespians have been unanimously though still unofficially declared the winners of the Thorbisher-Freep collection of theatrical memorabilia.”

  “Oh, that’s marvelous!” Everybody put on a dutiful show of being tremendously excited by the news, though in fact nobody was. Winning the contest seemed terribly unimportant compared to seeing a fellow player barely miss being shot to death in their midst. Perhaps Therese Boulanger summed up their feelings best when she said, “But you’ll eat something now you’re here?”

  Jenson seemed surprised that she could end the rejoicing so readily, but he agreed. “Perhaps a cup of black coffee if you have any left. It’s been an extremely trying time all around.”

  As Therese fetched the coffee, Hazel asked Jenson sympathetically if he wouldn’t like a doughnut to go with it. Roger, though, was more solicitous for his ex-patient.

  “Then what about Carolus? Hasn’t anybody been over to see how he’s making out?”

  Jenson shook his silver mane. “Not to the best of my knowledge. My daughter and I intended to go, of course, and I suppose I could swing by the hospital for a few minutes on my way home. But I do want to get back to Wilhedra. We’d already promised the maid she could have the day off to attend her great-nephew’s christening and I can’t very well insist she change her plans. You know what the servant problem is these days.”