The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Wait a minute, Carolus. You said your kit was already packed. Did Roger open it?”

  “He opened the suitcase to get my robe and pajamas out, but I don’t believe he opened the shaving kit. Why should he?”

  “I don’t know.” Osbert lifted the lid of the suitcase, fished around under a clean shirt, and pulled out a small zippered case that matched the bag. “Is this what you want?”

  “Yes. If you’ll be kind enough to help me to the bathroom—”

  Osbert hesitated. “This is going to sound pretty silly, Carolus, but I think it mightn’t be a bad idea for me to take this kit outdoors and open it there. Using those lazy tongs Dittany’s grandfather had for when his lumbago was acting up. Do you remember where we keep them, darling?”

  “Hanging in the cellarway next to the wire carpet beater,” Dittany told him. “Darling, that case isn’t hissing, by any chance?”

  Osbert held the kit to his ear. “No, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. I’m probably being foolish.”

  “Better you a fool than I a corpse,” Carolus replied grimly. “Go ahead, Osbert. Open the damned thing anywhere you want except here. God, I feel like a trapped rat.”

  “I’ll get the tongs,” Dittany said. “Osbert, why don’t you throw the kit out the window? If there’s a bomb inside, it will go off when it hits and you won’t be running the risk.”

  “Sound thinking, dear. Is there anything breakable inside, Carolus?”

  “Just some after-shave lotion. I don’t care, go ahead and chuck it.”

  “I’ll aim for a snowbank.” Osbert opened the window, leaned out, and lobbed the kit neatly into a high drift out by the road.

  “No bang,” said Dittany. “That’s a hopeful sign, but you’d better put on those extra socks anyway.”

  She got him bundled up against almost any contingency except total immersion; which wasn’t likely to happen anyway, and watched in apprehension from the top of the front steps.

  Osbert approached the shaving kit much as he had the cobra. It took some fiddling to get the case wedged firmly enough into a cleft branch of the lilac bush so that he could get a grip with the tongs on the zipper tab, but Deputy Monk was not one to back away from difficulty. Satisfied, he backed off, extended the lazy tongs to their full length, grappled with the zipper, and tugged.

  Crack! He leaped back as Dittany yelped, then retracted the tongs and stared in semi-disbelief at the object that had attached itself to the bottom gripper.

  “Roistering rattlesnakes, it’s a rat trap! And the spring bar that’s supposed to snap down over the rat’s head has been filed to a sharp edge and smeared with something or other.”

  “Cobra venom, I’ll bet.” Heedless of the cold and her thin shoes, Dittany was out on the path now, craning her neck for a better look.

  “Or else plain old-fashioned rat poison mixed with molasses to make it stick,” Osbert suggested. “I expect the idea was for the sharpened wire to slam down and cut Carolus’s fingers open when he reached into the kit, so that the poison would enter the bloodstream. If it is poison, of course. It might just be something nasty like lye or itching powder. Come on, darling, let’s get back inside before you catch pneumonia.”

  “Don’t forget the shaving kit. Carolus will want his razor.”

  “He’d better use mine till we find out what that stuff on the wire is. Some of it might have dropped off.” But Osbert retrieved the kit from the lilac bush anyway. “We’ll keep this for evidence. Gosh, I don’t much look forward to telling Carolus what we found.”

  “He ought to be darned glad you found it instead of him,” said Dittany. “I’m betting Sergeant MacVicar isn’t going to relish what his wife will say when we call him away from his tea. But we should, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, no question. He’ll want Carolus’s permission for a thorough search of his flat. Some ornery coyote is anxious to see Carolus Bledsoe dead, pardner.”

  “This coyote’s more than ornery. Crazy as a coot, if you ask me. Tarantulas and bullets and cobras and rat traps right and left! It must be that goofy ex-wife, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Carolus says not.”

  “So what? Men never know anything about women. Except you, dear.” Dittany kissed Osbert’s cowlick as it emerged from his parka. “Go ahead, call the sergeant. I’m going to take a prowl through the freezer and see if I can’t find something for supper besides baked beans.”

  Both missions were crowned with success. By the time Dittany emerged from the cellar with a package of frozen leftover turkey, a plastic container of giblet gravy, a bag of broccoli, and some passion fruit ice cream she’d bought in a spirit of scientific research and hadn’t yet found occasion to try, Osbert had Sergeant MacVicar with him in the kitchen, holding Gramp Henbit’s lazy tongs and shaking his head over the rat trap.

  “A vicious machination, indeed. Carolus Bledsoe would hae lost a finger or two, belike. An’ perchance his life, gin yon sticky substance smeared on the wire is what you conjecture it to be. Aye, Deputy Monk, a diabolical mind is at work here.”

  He fished his eyeglasses out of his breast pocket, perched them halfway down the majestic sweep of his nose, and scrutinized the rat trap more closely. “Supersnapper, eh. Not a brand wi’ which I am familiar. The trusty auld Ratsbane has aye been the favorite around these parts.”

  “Then if we can find a shop that sells Supersnappers instead of Ratsbanes, we may be able to trace the person who bought the trap,” said Dittany.

  “It’s a possibility, but a weary and belike fruitless task it may prove to be.”

  Sergeant MacVicar returned his spectacles to his pocket and picked up the plastic bag in which Osbert had stowed the shaving kit. “We may be able to get some fingerprints off this wee poke. Dittany lass, you did me a guid turn when you showed the perspicacity to marry this bright lad.”

  “I did myself an even better turn.”

  Osbert grinned and blushed and gave his wife, though not the sergeant, an affectionate squeeze. “And here I’d been thinking I was the lucky one. We’ll get married again tomorrow, Chief, if you think it’ll help the case along. Is there any chance of getting that wire analyzed today?”

  “We can try. My daughter-in-law will nae doot be willing to drop off the trap at the chemistry teacher’s hoose on her way home frae bringing the eggs. Hae you a stamp pad in the house?”

  “Two of them,” Dittany told him. “One green for getting out the Grub-and-Stakers’ newsletter, one black on general principles. What do you want stamped? Oh, I know. Carolus Bledsoe’s fingerprints.”

  “Aye, lass, they’ll be on the kit along wi’ Deputy Monk’s.”

  “Would ordinary typewriter paper do to take the fingerprints on, Chief?” Osbert said. “That’s what we have mostly.”

  “I dinna see why not.”

  They experimented on Osbert and found typewriter paper worked just fine. Then they had to take the pad and paper upstairs, explain to Carolus about the rat trap in the shaving kit, and get his fingerprints, also. Finally they had to fetch him a tot of brandy, antibiotics or no antibiotics. Even a lawyer could take only just so much in the way of being assassinated without beginning to fray around the edges.

  Chapter 17

  OSBERT HAD MADE A thorough search of Carolus’s luggage to make sure there were no more booby traps and was playing cribbage with the patient to settle him down. Dittany was in the kitchen, wondering whether she ought to defrost that whole big lump of turkey or just hack off enough for the three of them and put the rest back in the freezer, when Arethusa blew in with Archie in tow.

  “What happened to Daniel?” Dittany asked her.

  “He’s gone where the woodbine twineth.”

  “Could you be more specific? There’s a fair amount of woodbine around, you know.”

  Since Arethusa appeared to be more interested in the turkey, Archie took over the explanation. “We stopped at the inn for a drink with Andy, and found out two of the kitchen helpers
had got into a fight. They’d been throwing crockery and knives and both of them were rather impressively cut up. So Andy had to drive them over to the hospital to get stitched together, then go back to stir the soup and make the salads, the cook being by now short-handed and the usual biggish Sunday night supper crowd expected. Daniel stayed on to help Andy. He had to do a fair amount of KP in the army, he says, so he’s handy in a big kitchen. Arethusa and I decided to leave them to it and walk over here. It’s a lovely evening for a stroll.”

  The day had been bleak and raw at its best. As the light failed, the temperature had dropped and the wind picked up. Archie must have a fairly serious case.

  “I’m glad you came,” Dittany replied as a thoughtful hostess must. “I was wondering whether to plan on you for supper.”

  “Also for drinks and hors-d’oeuvre,” Arethusa assured her. “Where’s that useless nephew of mine, forsooth?”

  “Upstairs entertaining our invalid. Carolus has been asking for you, by the way. He got shaved on purpose when we said we more or less expected you here, so you’d better go up.”

  “For how long, prithee?”

  “That’s between you and your conscience.”

  “Stomach,” Arethusa corrected. “What time are you planning to serve?”

  “Anon.”

  “And as to the drinks?”

  “Help yourself. You know where we keep the liquor. Archie, what would you like?”

  “Let me fix them.”

  Archie bounded out of the chair he’d barely got settled in and followed Arethusa into the pantry. That was where Osbert had proposed to Dittany on the strength of a four-day acquaintance. She watched with interest to see whether Archie was going to beat Osbert’s time, but evidently he wasn’t quite that beglamored yet. He came out after only a minute or so, carrying a whiskey and two sherries. Arethusa followed with a plate of crackers. Both acted content enough, but neither showed that stunned and starry expression which betokens a rapid-fire betrothal.

  “Archie’s going to stay here and keep you company,” said Arethusa, taking the two sherries from him and handing one to Dittany. “I’ll send Osbert down to set the table. You did say the turkey would be ready in half an hour or so?”

  “Actually I didn’t, but it probably will be. Ask Carolus what he wants to drink that isn’t alcoholic.”

  “Silly wench. If it isn’t alcoholic, Carolus won’t want it.”

  Arethusa took a sip of her own sherry and went upstairs, carrying a separate plate of crackers and a hefty wedge of cheddar to tide her over. Archie gazed after her like a lovelorn whippet.

  “You know, it seems totally incredible that a woman like her could be Osbert’s aunt.”

  “Osbert often finds it so,” Dittany agreed. “You don’t mind if we eat supper here in the kitchen? We always do, when it’s just family.”

  “Not at all.” Archie proved his point by sitting down again. “Agents count as family, pretty much. This Bledsoe fellow, has Arethusa known him long?”

  “Only since she was crowned reigning queen of the roguish regency romance. They happened to sit together on the plane coming back and he gave her his smoked peanuts. But it wasn’t the start of something beautiful, if that’s what you’re wondering. Don’t you remember Jenson Thorbisher-Freep mentioning this morning that Carolus is going to marry his daughter?”

  “Did he really? I must have been thinking of something else at the time. So the fact that Bledsoe happened to be playing Arethusa’s husband in Dangerous Dan has no bearing whatsoever on their real-life relationship.”

  Archie, who’d shown no appetite hitherto for the cheese and crackers, now helped himself to a lavish handful. “Merely the easy camaraderie of the stage,” he amplified, spraying a few crumbs in his eagerness to get his point across. “Just a couple of ships passing in the night.”

  “That seems to be the drift,” Dittany agreed. With a what-the-heck gesture, she dumped the rest of the turkey into the pan. “Has Daniel said anything yet about the play?”

  “Not the kind of anything you mean. He’s talked a great deal about acting techniques and so forth, mostly with Andy. Arethusa rather seems to prefer to talk with me.

  The poor, deluded fish, Dittany thought sympathetically. The only person Arethusa genuinely enjoyed talking to was herself. What she’d probably been doing all day was lolling around with a queenly smile playing about her ruby lips, letting Archie natter on as he pleased while she spun herself yet another sugary fantasia about her dauntless though often boring hero, Sir Percy, and his pea-brained light of love, Lady Ermintrude; which she’d subsequently write down and expect Dittany to type for her. Archie burbled on about Arethusa’s astonishing depth of understanding while Dittany allowed a queenly smile to play about her lips and wondered whether to serve noodles, rice, or potatoes with the turkey.

  Noodles, she decided, those were quickest. She was in the pantry trying to discover whether in fact she had any on hand when Archie interrupted himself to remark, “Somebody’s at the door, Dittany.”

  Roger Munson with the Chinese checkers board? No, Roger knew better than to come calling just at suppertime. Dittany started to wipe her hands on her apron, realized she wasn’t wearing one, took a quick swipe with a paper towel instead, and went to find out who it was. She found herself staring at a solid mass of black wool broadcloth.

  “Jenson!” she exclaimed. “Why aren’t you home with Wilhedra?”

  “Well may you ask.”

  The sepulchral voice was not Jenson Thorbisher-Freep’s. Nor, for that matter, was the cloak. The inopportune visitor was unequivocally Leander Hellespont.

  “For goodness’ sake,” was her reaction. “You’re the last person I expected to see. What can I do for you, Mr. Hellespont?”

  “You can lead me to Cleopatra.”

  He stalked into the kitchen like the statue of the Commendatore coming to dine with Don Juan. When he was directly under the light, he flung back his head, contorted his gaunt visage into an expression that might be intended to depict the extremity of emotional suffering or a bad case of gastritis, and clenched his two fists against those upper breadths of his cloak under which his breast was presumably located.

  “I am dying, Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile, until of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips.”

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right house, Mr. Hellespont?” said Dittany. “Cleopatra isn’t here.”

  “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where got’st thou that goose look?”

  Archie leaped up from his chair to Dittany’s side without appearing to touch the linoleum in between. “Now look here, you—”

  “No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that! You mar all wi’ this starting.”

  “I’ll mar you with some finishing if you don’t quit insulting my client’s wife. What do you think you’re raving about?”

  “Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him do call it valiant fury; but for certain he cannot buckle his distemper’d cause within the belt of rule. What I am talking about, sirrah, is that I crave utterance with my Lady Macbeth, my Desdemona, my Gertrude, nay, e’en perchance my Iphigenia!”

  “You said you were looking for Cleopatra.”

  “O ye that have ears and hear not! I seek her in histrionic association with whom my loftiest aspirations as a thespian may yet be fulfilled. ’Twas but yestreen I did observe her strutting and fretting a wasted hour upon the stage in a paltry melodrama penned, I was told, by one who styles himself her nephew, resident of this dwelling.”

  Light began at last to glimmer. “Would you by any chance be looking for my husband’s Aunt Arethusa?” Dittany asked him.

  “Yes! Yes, i’ sooth, ’tis she!” Hellespont flung himself to his knees, letting his cape swirl artistically about him regardless of the fact that the linoleum was by now somewhat badly tracked up, and lifted clasped hands in the classic gesture of supplication. “Oh, lead me, lead me to
her!”

  Dittany shook her head. “Sorry, she’s busy just now. Mr. Hellespont, I don’t like to seem inhospitable but you’ve called at an awfully inconvenient time. I was starting to get supper on the table and I’m afraid I can’t ask you to join us, eh, because there’s just about enough to go around as it is.”

  “Food!” He dismissed the entire subject of gastronomy with a disdainful wave of his hand. “I offer food for the spirit, food for the intellect, and five percent of the gate.”

  “Ten,” Archie replied automatically as a conscientious agent naturally would. “Mr. Hellespont, are you trying to tell us you want Miss Arethusa Monk to join you in some theatrical enterprise?”

  “I will elevate her to the heights!”

  “She’s already elevated,” said Dittany.

  The actor did a commendable job of registering amused disbelief, considering that his Irvingesque features were not well adapted to levity. “Not as Arethusa Monk, surely. I’ve never come upon that name in Variety.”

  “Try the Hearts and Flowers Gazette. She’s the reigning queen of regency romance, didn’t you know that?”

  “Pah! Who does regency drama these days?”

  “Who’s talking about drama? Arethusa’s an author.”

  “A what?”

  “She writes books.”

  “Books!” He dismissed the entire subject of bibliography, too. “I will make her rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”

  “She’s already richer than she needs to be and she doesn’t dream of avarice. She dreams of being abducted by a member of the Hellfire Club.”

  “I’ll abduct her!”

  “You’ll be sorry if you do. She’ll eat you out of house and home.”

  “I will bring the world to her feet,” the would-be Pygmalion insisted, though Dittany detected just a hint of lessening fervor.

  “It’s already there,” she assured him. “Some of it anyway. Mr. Hellespont, you don’t seem to understand. Arethusa Monk has achieved a position of preeminence in her chosen sector of the literary field.”