The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “I beaned him with a tomato, if that’s what you call an assault. Any ex-wife in my position would have done the same.”

  “Other ex-wives would hae conducted themsel’ wi’ dignity an’ propriety, Mrs. Bledsoe. What were you doing backstage at the gymnasium last night?”

  “Who says I was there?”

  “I do, for one,” Dittany told her. “You poked your head into the girls’ locker room while we were dressing. I recognized you from the opera house. I was the piano player, you know, and I’d been watching you all evening.”

  “So what if you were? How was I supposed to know it was the girls’ locker room? I was looking for the loo. The fact that I happened to have a package of itching powder in my hand at the time was merely an amusing coincidence.”

  “Amusing to whom, for instance?” asked Osbert.

  “Your question is irrelevant and immaterial,” Mrs. Bledsoe retorted, “since I never got to use the itching powder.”

  “Was that because you happened to catch sight of Jenson Thorbisher-Freep’s old six-shooter lying on the props table? Recognizing it as the one he’d carried when he played Jack Rance, because it’s unthinkable Jenson wouldn’t have told you if he ever got the chance, and deducing that it carried a blank cartridge Andy McNaster was going to shoot at your ex-husband, did you or did you not decide to play an even merrier prank and substitute a live bullet for the blank?”

  “I don’t carry live six-shooter bullets around with me! Even if I did, how was I to know Andy was going to fire the gun at Carolus? I left the dress rehearsal before the shooting began, as Little Mary Sunshine here should be able to tell you since she’s so darned observant.”

  “You could have lurked in the vestibule,” Osbert insisted.

  Mrs. Bledsoe sneered. “Planting stink bombs, maybe? I suppose you’ll try to hang that on me, too.”

  Chapter 19

  “ER-HM.” SERGEANT MACVICAR wasn’t about to let the situation get out of hand. “Mrs. Bledsoe, what is your relationship wi’ Andrew McNaster?”

  “That chiseling two-timer? Whatever he says about me, it’s a lie!”

  “Then it’s no’ true that yours has been a mere acquaintance based solely on Mr. McNaster’s business connection with your former husband?”

  The ex-Mrs. Bledsoe goggled. “Is that what Andy says?”

  “I’m spiering the questions, Mrs. Bledsoe.”

  “Oh. Well, sure, that’s true. Certainly it’s true. Why shouldn’t it be true?”

  Mrs. Bledsoe fumbled in her handbag. The others watched her nervously, but all she brought out was a lipstick with a little mirror attached to it, which she proceeded to use in the customary manner.

  “I’ve barely laid eyes on Andy since Carolus and I split up,” she told them, speaking through clenched teeth and holding her lips stiff so she wouldn’t smear her paint job. “I went away to nurse my broken heart. But then Carolus started trying to get funny about Auntie’s property, so I came home to Scottsbeck.”

  She slammed the lipstick back in its case and hurled it into her handbag. “I’ve seen Andy once in the shopping mall to say hello to and that’s all. We were right outside the Cozy Corner Tea Shop and he never so much as offered to buy me a sandwich,” she added so pettishly that it would have been almost impossible to doubt her word.

  Nevertheless, Sergeant MacVicar shook his head. “You saw Mr. McNaster both Friday and Saturday nights of this past week, Mrs. Bledsoe.”

  “Only in the play,” she protested. “That doesn’t count.”

  “You didna happen to meet him backstage yestreen before the performance, near the props table?”

  “I was never near the props table! That’s entrapment, buster, and you needn’t try to pull it on me because I know my rights, eh. I went in through the wrong door, is how I happened to be backstage. So I went back out the same way, walked around to the front entrance, and bought a ticket in the lobby. I realized I’d made a mistake from not knowing the building, you see, and didn’t want to be accused of gatecrashing. A lady such as I would find it extremely painful to be the focus of an embarrassing public scene, as even a clod like you must realize.”

  Mrs. Bledsoe drew her minks about her and gave the sergeant a particularly haughty stare. He responded with a kindly nod.

  “Oh aye, I ken fine how embarrassed you’d be. So you hae nothing to tell us about Andrew McNaster save that he’s a two-timing chiseler.”

  “I was only repeating what my ex-husband told me when he found out Andy was turning over a new leaf. That’s hearsay evidence and not allowable in court, in case you didn’t know.”

  Sergeant MacVicar nodded again. “I thank you for the free legal advice, Mrs. Bledsoe. Would there be any information concerning Mr. McNaster that you could give us of your own pairsonal knowledge?”

  “There would not and I wouldn’t anyway because I don’t like your face.”

  Mrs. Bledsoe looked around, presumably for something to throw, but Osbert and Archie closed in on her and she went back to being haughty. “I shall now wish you a very good evening and take myself off.”

  “One moment, Mrs. Bledsoe,” the sergeant reminded her. “There’s still a wee matter of a disorderly conduct charge to be dealt with.”

  “Oh, pooh to disorderly conduct. That was just a bit of good, clean fun. Deputy Monk isn’t going to press charges now that he understands my tragic situation.”

  “Like heck I’m not,” Osbert insisted. “I don’t understand the situation at all. You came waltzing in here uninvited and started chucking lemons around like confetti at a wedding, just because I wouldn’t let you go upstairs and commit bodily assault on your ex-husband, who’s in a pretty fragile nervous condition already.”

  Mrs. Bledsoe sneered. “From what, pray tell? There’s never been anything fragile about Carolus’s nerves from my personal observation. And believe me, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe.”

  “Have you ever observed Carolus after he’s been the victim of three and possibly four separate murder attempts within a span of less than twenty-four hours?”

  “Four murder attempts? What are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Carolus isn’t finding it particularly funny, Mrs. Bledsoe, and neither are we. Would you mind telling us what you’ve been doing all day?”

  “I rose early for morning prayers and breakfast with my cousin the Reverend Leviticus McLazarus, at whose house I’m temporarily residing. Also present were his wife Zilphah, their sons Amos and Nahum, their daughter Keren-Happuch, and their exchange student M’Bwongo M’Bwungi. After breakfast, we all went to church together and stayed through the coffee hour, after which we returned to the parsonage for a light collation. We sang a few hymns around the melodeon, then went back to the church to attend a concert presented by the Young People’s Group, assisted by members of the Sunshine Choir. We again returned to the parsonage, where I helped my cousin’s wife prepare Sunday high tea, of which we partook en famille, and I’m due at evening service in half an hour so you’ll really have to excuse me. Cousin Leviticus will be dreadfully upset if I fail to show up because I’m in jail for disturbing the Sabbath peace. Cousin Leviticus is very big on the Sabbath.”

  “How did you ever escape to come here?” Dittany asked, as well she might.

  “I’m comforting the afflicted and doing good to him who despitefully used me,” Mrs. Bledsoe explained. “This was Cousin Leviticus’s idea, not mine.”

  “Do tell. Which of you thought of the lemons?”

  Mrs. Bledsoe simpered. “Those were an inspiration of the moment. I happened to pass a convenience market that was still open, and it came to me in a flash.”

  “Clever you. But how did you know Carolus needed comforting? Was it on the morning news broadcast about his toe getting shot off?”

  “I wouldn’t know about the news, but it’s certainly being broadcast. I heard about Carolus right after service, from one of my cousin’s parishioners who happens to
be an emergency room nurse at the Scottsbeck Hospital. It was an agonizing moment for me, I can tell you. Cousin Zilphah was right beside me shaking hands, and I almost fractured my upper lip trying not to smile. Who’s murdering him?”

  “We were hoping you might be able to enlighten us on that point,” said Dittany.

  “You mean you were hoping I’d break down and confess. I wish I knew myself, I might be able to drop the person a few helpful hints. But if anything occurs to me, I’ll let you know right away. May I go now, Sergeant? I’ll come over first thing tomorrow if you want, and polish Mrs. Monk’s stovepipe as an act of humility.”

  “Aye, go.” Sergeant MacVicar sounded awfully tired. “Just don’t get any more inspirations, Mrs. Bledsoe, such as leaving town without due notice.”

  “I’ll hae a sharp word wi’ yon Scottsbeck police chief,” he added after Mrs. Bledsoe had taken her leave. “She was supposed to have been kept under observation.”

  “But surely she can’t have been setting booby traps and abducting cobras if she spent the day getting washed in the blood of the lamb,” Arethusa protested. “And she forgot her lemons. Shouldn’t somebody run after her?”

  “We’re impounding the lemons as evidence,” Osbert told his aunt firmly.

  “Including that one stuck on the damper handle, forsooth? You’ve got fried pips all over the stove.”

  “It wouldn’t occur to you to wipe them up?”

  “And disturb the evidence?” Arethusa flung her purple cape about her. “Well, now that the show appears to be over, methinks I’ll betake myself houseward.”

  Archie leaped to her side. “I’ll walk you home!”

  “You’d better put your coat on first,” Dittany reminded him. “It’s pretty nippy out there by now.”

  “And aren’t you going to slip upstairs and smooth Carolus’s pillow for him before you go, Auntie dear?” Osbert suggested with what he meant for a sly leer, but Osbert was no earthly good at leering and it came off as an amiable grin. Arethusa didn’t notice anyway because she was already out the door.

  “Actually, we had better check on Carolus,” said Dittany. “I suppose he ought to know his ex-wife called to express her sympathy, or whatever. And Ethel’s about due for a shrubbery break.”

  “Ethel is in attendance on the invalid?” Sergeant MacVicar asked.

  “Well, we didn’t dare leave him alone after the awful things that have been happening, and she was the one who sniffed out the cobra. I only wish we could teach her to lug trays.”

  “Oh aye? I thought Roger Munson was helping.”

  “Roger’s already done more than his share. I expect Hazel and some of the others will be over tomorrow, after they’ve had a chance to rest up. Everybody’s been dead on their feet today, myself included.”

  “Why don’t you slide on up to bed, dear?” said Osbert. “I’ll see to Carolus.”

  “I might as well look in on him since I’m going up anyway. I’ll send Ethel down and you can let her out.”

  “And I shall drop a wee flea in the ear of the Scottsbeck police, then get back to the station,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “May I use your telephone on official business, Deputy Monk?”

  “Sure thing, Chief. Want me to dial the number for you?”

  Dittany left them to it and went ahead upstairs. She found Carolus and Ethel watching some dreary nonsense on the Munson boys’ television. Several cars were chasing each other through a complicated maze of alleys and highways in a reckless and inconsiderate manner. Carolus appeared to be well enough entertained, but Ethel looked bored.

  Dittany released the dog from duty, changed the water in the invalid’s carafe in case anybody’d happened to catch the pair of them napping and sneaked in a pinch of strychnine or a few typhoid germs, and went to put on her nightgown. She was propped up on two pillows reading an old Angela Thirkell to quiet her mind and dispose her to slumber when Osbert came into their bedroom, obviously perturbed.

  She closed her book. “What’s up, Deputy Monk?”

  “Sergeant MacVicar called the Scottsbeck police.”

  “And so?”

  “So they’ve been talking to some woman who lives in Andy’s apartment building. She claims she watched Andy leave the place about two o’clock this morning with a florist’s box under his arm. Sergeant MacVicar’s mad as a wet hen.”

  “Is he going to arrest Andy?”

  “I don’t know, dear. He was sounding awfully Scotch when he left for the inn.”

  “But Andy told us he spent last night there. He can get the night clerk to testify he didn’t go out, can’t he?”

  “The clerk would know whether he went past the front desk, I suppose, but there’s more than one door to the place.”

  “And Andy must have his own set of keys.” Dittany sighed. “The woman could have dreamed it, couldn’t she?”

  “She said she’d got up to make cocoa because she couldn’t sleep, and heard the outside door shut so she went to see who could be going out so late. She recognized Andy because he’s so big and burly and always walks as if he were getting ready to toss the caber. She didn’t get a good look at his face, but she said she could see his black hair and the curly ends of his mustache sticking out. It sounds awfully circumstantial, darling.”

  “Too darn circumstantial, if you ask me. She’s probably mad at him for raising her rent or something, and is trying to get him in trouble.”

  “But how would she have known to mention the florist’s box? She said that was what really struck her as peculiar. It wasn’t so much Andy’s going out late. She’s used to his coming and going at odd hours because the construction business gets him out early and the inn keeps him up late. Besides, he’s a bachelor and she knows what that means.”

  Dittany sniffed. “It probably doesn’t mean what she thinks it does, unless he’s been two-timing Arethusa. She’s just trying to blacken his name.”

  “I don’t think so, dear,” Osbert demurred. “She did say Andy used to be a rotten landlord, but the past year or so he’s been a saint. He even painted her kitchen and didn’t slap a penny extra on the rent.”

  “She could still be sore from all the times he didn’t paint the kitchen,” Dittany insisted.

  “Darling, I understand how you feel, but consider the facts. Andy did fire the gun, and he did have it in his possession during the entire second act. He could easily have switched the cartridges during the dance hall scene, when he was back there by himself playing solitaire and nobody was paying attention to him.”

  “But he wouldn’t have risked Thusie’s life keeping her out in the cold ever since two o’clock!”

  Osbert shook his head. “I’m not so sure, dear. That scene he put on was pretty touching, but Andy’s a first-rate actor. And the mind does tend to boggle at a grown man’s getting sentimentally attached to a cobra.”

  Dittany struggled to produce a smile. “You know what Arethusa would say to that. ‘Nonsense, it happens all the time.’ Darling, do you suppose Daniel sees through Andy’s facade of injured innocence and that’s why he keeps sticking to him like a fly to molasses?”

  “I don’t know, pardner. I did drop a word to Archie and he doesn’t know, either. He says Daniel usually prefers the companionship of tall, gorgeous, redheaded actresses who read a lot of Aristotle and Plato.”

  “That may explain why Daniel’s immune to Arethusa, but it still doesn’t tell us what he sees in Andy. Unless Andy once wronged his dear old gray-haired father in a shady business deal and Daniel’s come to seek a dire and secret vengeance.”

  Osbert wasn’t ready to buy a dark and secret vengeance. “Why should he keep trying to murder Carolus just to get Andy in trouble?”

  “Because Carolus was Andy’s accomplice back then, of course. Daniel’s out to get them both. Only how could he have switched the cartridges? There’s no way he could have gone backstage before the show. He and Archie didn’t get to the gym until about a minute and a half before curtain time. Lemuel f
rom the inn drove them over and brought them right inside the gym door. I watched him turn them over to one of the ushers. I was playing the overture then, you know, and I could see out through a crack in the curtains. I’d been wondering where the heck they were because those two front seats you saved for them were right in front of me, still empty. And Archie stuck to Daniel like glue all through the show to make sure he didn’t fall asleep from all those brandies and miss any of the lines. He’s bound and determined to get us that contract. You know Archie.”

  Osbert said yes he knew Archie but he didn’t know how Daniel could have managed to set that rat trap in Carolus’s shaving kit or stolen a cobra from Andy’s flat. “Unless he brought along a trusted confederate we still don’t know about,” he added generously.

  “A trusted confederate would stick out like a sore thumb in Lobelia Falls,” Dittany had to admit. “All right, we may as well wash out Daniel’s dire vengeance. It has to be somebody local, which brings us straight back to Andy. Dad-blang it, why couldn’t he have kept on being his old rotten self? Then at least we wouldn’t feel bad about suspecting him.”

  Chapter 20

  WILHEDRA THORBISHER-FREEP’S EYES WERE sunk into her head like two burnt holes in a blanket. Her face was a ghostly pale gray, the skin hanging from the bones in serried ranks of wrinkles. She looked, in short, awful. Dittany hoped to heck Arethusa wouldn’t take a notion to tell her so.

  The best that might be said of her was that she blended into her surroundings. The armchair she sat in was slipcovered in a once flowered chintz now faded to about the same color as her face. The bathrobe she had on might originally have been blue but wasn’t much of anything at this stage in its deterioration. The bedroom wallpaper had presumably started out light green with a Japanesey pattern of white bamboo; now the green was the color of bile and the bamboo a dirty yellow. Blotches of stain from a leaky roof failed to add much in the way of design interest. The ceiling was peeling in scabrous flakes and the carpet on the floor was no great shakes, either.