The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “I also realize she’ll try to make us look like a pack of rats when we start trying to give a poor, lorn widow the heave-ho.” Dittany slapped a platter of salad on the table and went to call Osbert.

  “Dinner’s ready, darling.”

  “So soon?” The typewriter slowed to a trot, then a walk, then Osbert tied it to the corral fence and came into the kitchen. “You here again, Aunt Arethusa?”

  “An affectionate nephewly greeting, i’ faith! Can you never say anything pleasant?”

  “If I must. That color looks good on you.”

  “My Peruvian blouse?”

  “No, your Coleman’s Mustard.”

  “Schoolboy humor. Pah!”

  “Yes, Aunt Arethusa. I suppose you’ve scoffed all the pickled onions as usual.”

  “Dittany, how can you tolerate this graceless lout?”

  “With the greatest of ease.” Dittany dropped a kiss on Osbert’s cowlick and helped him to the biggest piece of chicken before his aunt could grab it. “Did you have a productive morning, darling?”

  “Great! I rustled a whole herd of yaks.”

  “A parlous geste,” sneered his aunt, “since there are no yaks nearer than Tibet. I’m not even sure there’s a Tibet any more, the way they shove boundaries around these days.”

  “If they move boundaries, why can’t they move yaks?” Dittany asked reasonably. “Lettuce, darling?”

  “Don’t ask him that,” cried Arethusa. “He’ll take it as an invitation to further displays of lewdness and lechery.”

  “Really, Arethusa, you do have a prurient streak in you. Have some lettuce yourself. It cools the blood.”

  “It doesn’t cool mine,” said Osbert recklessly. “Now that Aunt Arethusa’s brought up the subject, darling—”

  “I have not. Unberufen!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You can’t go around unsaying things at a whim. And you needn’t try to make us think you can speak German just because you once ate a bratwurst, either.”

  “Shall we talk about something uncontroversial?” said Dittany.

  Arethusa shrugged, racked her brain for a moment, then obliged. “What’s happened to that creature you optimistically refer to as a dog? I haven’t seen it around lately.”

  “Poor Ethel’s suffering the pangs of unrequited love,” Dittany told her. “She’s fallen for a woodchuck who lives over on the Enchanted Mountain; one of those strong, silent types. I’ve told her it can never be, but you know how girls are. She just won’t listen. She comes dragging home every so often for something to eat, then goes back and flops down beside the woodchuck’s burrow. When it comes out, she starts making mournful noises, then it bounces off, playing hard-to-get. I’m hoping passion runs its course before cold weather sets in and the woodchuck decides to hibernate. We may have to go out and build an igloo around her. Speaking of building, I wonder why that roofer goes around whomping on shingles under an alias.”

  “Possibly because his aunt bullied his parents into naming him Osbert,” said her husband. “What roofer?”

  “The one who either has or hasn’t fixed that leak in the skylight at the museum. He turned up this morning wanting his gear.”

  Osbert paused in the act of buttering a slice of brown bread to regard his mate with thoughtful eyes. “He did, eh? Under an alias, you say? What alias?”

  “Actually I’m not sure about the alias,” Dittany admitted. “I’d assumed his name was Brown because he drives a brown truck with Brown the Roofer painted on it, but maybe he bought out Brown’s business and hasn’t got around to repainting the truck or something. Anyway, he’s an old buddy of Mr. Fairfield who used to borrow money and not pay it back under the name of Churtle.”

  “Thus proving we should neither a borrower nor a lender be,” said Arethusa with her mouth full of lettuce. “I wonder if Churtle is a derivation of ‘churl’?”

  Osbert did the only sensible thing and pretended he hadn’t heard. “How did you find out Brown was Churtle, darling?”

  “I was out on the porch over there, cleaning up some walnut side chairs Grandsir Coskoff’s first wife’s mother brought with her when she immigrated from Grand Rapids. At the behest of the Empress Evangeline, I may add.”

  “Of who?”

  “He means whom,” said Arethusa, finding the last pickled onion and chomping it triumphantly.

  “I was referring to Mrs. Fairfield, our self-appointed head honcho. Anyway, this roofer hauled up and told me he’d come for his ropes and buckets. So naturally I told him he couldn’t have them till Sergeant MacVicar said he could. That led to a discussion of our recent fatality, which in turn led to Mrs. Fairfield’s charging out to stick her oar in. She reared like a spooked mustang when she saw the roofer and called him Frederick Churtle, among other things.”

  “How did she know he was Frederick Churtle?”

  “Because Frederick and Peregrine—”

  “Who? And don’t go yammering ‘whom,’ Aunt Arethusa. I refuse to get involved with the accusative case.”

  “Mrs. Fairfield got involved like anything,” said Dittany. “As to Peregrine, that was her husband’s first name. Doesn’t it make you feel a little better about Osbert?”

  “Nope. I rather like Peregrine, as a matter of fact. It makes me think of buzzards soaring above the buttes.”

  “It would,” snarled Arethusa. “What about Peregrine, Dittany?”

  “He and Frederick Churtle were pals from their cradle days and remained so for some time after the Fairfields were married, despite Evangeline’s conviction that Churtle was a drunk, a waster, and a rioter away of his substance. Also a rioter away of Peregrine’s substance, as she learned to her expressed chagrin. Fred kept hitting Perry up for loans and never paying them back.”

  “But perhaps he had debts of honor?” Arethusa suggested.

  Osbert snorted. “I never could figure out why it was so dad-blanged nobler in the mind to pay your gambling losses by cheating the baker out of his bread money. And don’t bother trying to explain. I want to hear the rest about Perry and Fred.”

  “Well,” Dittany went on, “the mooching continued for some unspecified length of time. Then Mrs. Fairfield, who also makes me think of buzzards over the buttes, vowed she’d put a stop to it. Fred got into a really bad scrape and nicked Perry for five thousand dollars to bail him out. Mrs. Fairfield couldn’t stop her husband from forking out, but she did make Fred sign a note for the money. Thereupon, he vanished into the sunset and never resurfaced again until this morning, by which time the statute of limitations for getting her cash back must have run out.”

  “Maybe that’s why she was so miffed with him.”

  “I suppose so, but it does seem to me that if I happened to bump into an old pal of my husband’s on the eve of his funeral, I’d want to bury the hatchet for auld lang syne. I mean, wouldn’t you think having Fred Churtle show up would recall those halcyon days when Perry and Vangie were still lovestruck young kids? Not that I can visualize Mrs. Fairfield as a blushing bride, but there it is.”

  “There what is?” demanded Arethusa, licking mustard off her fingers. “Tea and cookies, perchance?”

  Thus reminded of her duties as hostess, Dittany got up to clear away the plates and fetch dessert. Osbert sprang to help her. They happened to meet in the pantry by the cookie crock, so it was some time before they got back to the table where Arethusa sat gathering her brows like gathering storm, nursing her wrath to keep it warm, as Sergeant MacVicar would indubitably have observed, given the opportunity.

  “Does Sergeant MacVicar know about Churtle?” Osbert wondered, perhaps catching that same hint from his aunt’s by now well-gathered brows.

  “Need you ask?” said Dittany. “He came along right after Churtle left and give Mrs. Fairfield the third degree. She’d offended his sense of decorum by going to work instead of staying at Minerva’s nursing her tear-tortured eyeballs. She offended mine, too, though I know it’s mean to say so. I think she was
bending over backward not to be a burden on anybody, for fear we’d get fed up and give her the heave-ho.”

  “Meseems she was taking a great leap forward to let us know she intended to intimidate us into keeping her,” Arethusa retorted less charitably. “That reminds me, I must alert Minerva to invite the rest of the board to tea.”

  “Arethusa,” cried Dittany. “Do you mean you made up all that about Mrs. Pennyfeather and the shrimps on toast and whatnot? How could you?”

  “Silly question. I always can. However, there was a modicum of truth to my remarks. I’d seen Mrs. Pennyfeather at the market buying shrimp for old Deacon Hayes. She told me he likes them better than anything else since he cracked his upper plate and doesn’t dare chew hard, and she was having him over this noon because it’s his birthday. As Mrs. Fairfield was going to be there at eleven, I knew they’d ask her to stop and eat with them. The Pennypackers couldn’t turn anybody away from their table if they had only one crumb to divide among them. And if by ‘how could you?’ you mean, ‘why did you?’ I should think the answer was obvious.”

  “Not to me,” said Osbert.

  “It is to me, now I think of it,” said Dittany. “Have another cookie, Arethusa. Osbert, you’ll be interested to know Mrs. Fairfield claims she saw that woman in the purple dress Dave Munson mentioned.”

  “Dave said the dress was blue.”

  “He also mentioned green and purple, if you recall. Mrs. Fairfield said it was purple with a chartreuse and turquoise design on it.”

  “Sounds god-awful, eh. Did she say who the woman was?”

  “No, she only noticed the dress. I think it must have been a stranger from the inn, unless somebody we know has a new dress nobody’s heard about yet, which hardly seems likely. Arethusa, whom do we know who’d buy an outfit that color?”

  “Almost anybody, if it was a big enough markdown. Me, for instance. How do you think Sir Percy would look in a rich purple velvet suit and a turquoise satin waistcoat?”

  “And a chartreuse periwig? That’s a thought. Maybe the woman was really Andy McNasty in drag.”

  “What for, egad?”

  “Casing the joint in the interest of fell designs and evil machinations, one would naturally assume. We’ll find out sooner or later, no doubt.”

  “Zounds! You don’t think it was McNaster who heaved Mr. Fairfield off the roof?”

  “Pourquoi pas? Andy knows about roofs, or ought to. Furthermore, Frederick Churtle does his roofing work.”

  “Aha! The plot thickens. You baked these cookies a soupçon too long.”

  “Osbert likes them nice and crunchy.”

  “But then I still have my own teeth,” said Osbert. “What does Sergeant MacVicar intend to do about the woman with the dress?”

  “He was about to ask his wife if she knew who owned one like it. If she didn’t, which I find hard to believe, he was going to send a posse over to interrogate Petsy Poppy.”

  “He is? I could—”

  “Not on your life you couldn’t. You’re a married man now, in case the fact had momentarily escaped your memory.”

  “Darling, you can’t possibly imagine I have any fell designs on Petsy just because I once interviewed her in line of duty.”

  “Duty, forsooth!” His aunt emitted a particularly nasty snicker. Dittany gave her a look.

  “Lay off, Arethusa. Darn it, I wish you hadn’t roped me in for this tea party at Minerva’s. I keep having guilt pangs about not showing Mr. Fairfield those quilt pieces. If I hadn’t taken a notion to go up attic in the first place, the poor old coot would probably be alive now.”

  Osbert wasn’t having any of that. “Darling, if somebody was planning to murder Mr. Fairfield, whatever you did or didn’t do can’t have made a particle of difference one way or the other.”

  “It makes a difference to me,” snapped Arethusa. “Quit nattering and go fetch those pieces. Pronto, as this semiliterate lout would no doubt put it.”

  Dittany gave her another look and went to get the wooden box. Arethusa, who had due respect for fine handwork even if she had none for her otherwise celebrated nephew, washed her hands free of pickle juice before she started turning over the exquisite scraps of satin and velvet.

  “Lovely, lovely. Just look at this golden bumblebee. It reminds me of something, though I can’t think what.”

  “The birds and the flowers?” Osbert suggested.

  “Gadzooks, you randy rake, meseems I liked you better with inhibitions.”

  “Fiddle, Aunt Arethusa. You thought I was a wimp.”

  “If by wimp you mean milksop, cotquean, or whey-faced mollycoddle, you could be right, though the correct expression might be that I disliked you less. The point is moot, since I’m stuck with you regardless. Getting back to this bee, have you ever seen a more impressive bug?”

  “It’s got one black antenna and one yellow,” said Osbert. “I wonder why.”

  “Perhaps because whoever did it ran out of black or, as the case may have been, yellow thread and didn’t feel like running out to get some more,” Dittany suggested. “There’s a whole swarm of bees, it looks like. Mrs. Fairfield thought the bride, who evidently never got to be one, may have belonged to a sewing circle called the Busy Bees. Or else her name was Betsy or Beatrice.”

  “Or Bedelia, Belinda, Bertha, or Bathsheba,” Osbert added helpfully.

  “Berengaria, more likely,” said Arethusa. “Hola, here’s a brown baby bee. Or is it a wood louse?”

  “Nobody would embroider a wood louse on a bride’s quilt,” Dittany objected. “Except possibly her younger brother. I think that’s meant to be a worker bee. They’d want one to fix the queen’s tea, I expect. Speaking of which, hadn’t you better phone Minerva and let her know she’s giving a party?”

  “Gadzooks, yes. Better still, you call her. I have to go home and embroider a gown for Lady Ermintrude.” Arethusa scooped the quilt pieces back into the box, stuck it under her arm, and left.

  CHAPTER 11

  “SHE’S GONE LOCO,” SAID Osbert. “I knew all that garter-stapping would catch up with her sooner or later.”

  Dittany kissed the tip of his nose. “Darling, why don’t you go rustle another yak while I call Minerva?”

  “Yes, darling. That worker bee had one red whisker.”

  “How nice. I hope Arethusa doesn’t put those quilt pieces down some place and forget where. We’ve got to get started on that quilt while people are still feeling sympathetic. I’d better find out if Minerva wants me to—oh, is that you, Zilla? Where’s your buddy? Well, holler out and tell her to leave the weeding for another day. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s giving a tea. No, just the trustees. You, me, Hazel, Therese, and Arethusa. And Mrs. Fairfield, of course. Should I whomp up a batch of—oh, they have? Yes, naturally they would.”

  She turned to Osbert. “Zilla says everybody’s been bringing cakes and things. What, Zilla? No, the tea was Arethusa’s idea and I must say I think it’s a good thing to do. No, of course Mrs. Fairfield isn’t prostrated. She was over at the museum throwing her weight around all morning, and now she’s at the parsonage eating shrimp wiggle. Look, here’s the drill. When she gets back to Minerva’s, make her lie down for a while. Then you and Minerva escort her to the funeral parlor. Visiting hours are two to four, then seven to nine. Get her back to the house as soon after four as you can make it. Some of us will be over there early to fix the tea. Right. Over and out.”

  She hung up. “There, that’s settled. Now I’ll give Hazel and Therese a buzz.”

  “Just a second, darling,” said Osbert. “I’ve been thinking. Dave Munson said he saw that woman in the purple dress sometime during the middle of the afternoon, didn’t he? Three o’clock or thereabout.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “And what time was it when you and Mrs. Fairfield came downstairs?”

  “Around a quarter to five, I know the Munson boys were gone by then. Darling, I see what you’re getting at. If that woman wasn�
�t messing around down cellar all that time in her good dress, what the heck was she doing?”

  She and Osbert stared at each other for a moment, then Osbert said, “I think I’ll step around to the station.”

  “Yes, why don’t you? See if Mrs. MacVicar’s come up with any word on the dress.”

  Dittany suspected the solution to that particular enigma lay in the end-of-summer markdowns. She herself hadn’t been around to the sales. She’d been too busy at the museum, and she had a closetful of gorgeous new clothes anyway, now that Osbert had found something to spend his money on. But it simply wasn’t possible none of her friends had seized the chance to pick up a bargain or two. Even the home sewers would have joined in the hunt, because they’d all been too busy running up school clothes for their kids or curtains for the museum to make anything new for themselves. In truth, Dittany would have gone herself, sudden affluence or no, if she’d had the time. There was still the thrill of the chase. She gave a moment’s wistful thought to clearances of yesteryear, then got at the dishes.

  These done, she began wiping around with a sponge. Next thing Dittany knew, she was housecleaning full tilt. Theoretically, Mrs. Poppy now came every week instead of only twice a month as in the pre-Osbert period. What it boiled down to, however, was that Mrs. Poppy thought up twice as many reasons why she couldn’t come at all. So things did tend to pile up. Dittany refused to admit to herself that Mrs. Fairfield’s snide crack had been the propellant for this burst of domesticity, but she knew such fits didn’t take her often and it was well to make the best of them when they came.

  Besides, cleaning was good therapy. By the time she wrung out her mop and hopped into the shower, Dittany found herself positively looking forward to the lemon squares, macaroons, and brandy snaps at Minerva’s. She put on a lovely sheer black crepe frock she’d bought in Ottawa on her honeymoon, added a black cartwheel hat and a pair of white shortie gloves circa 1955 that her mother had left behind when she’d embraced Bert and the life of a fashion eyewear salesman, and went downstairs.