The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Gee, that’s right,” said McNaster in a tone of deep contrition. “His aunt might be worrying, too. Can’t let that happen, can we? Here, let me lift the bags for you.”

  After that, there wasn’t much Dittany could say except, “Thank you.” She said it and left as quickly as she could manage among the welter of shopping carts, baby carriages, and drivers who couldn’t make up their minds whether they were coming or going. When she sneaked a look in the rearview mirror, she saw Andrew McNaster standing next to his baby-blue Lincoln, gazing after the pickup truck with an expression on his face she could only describe as enigmatical.

  At least that was how she described it when she got home and told Osbert about this strange encounter. His reaction was adverse.

  “Enigmatical, eh? The low-down sidewinder! Darling, I don’t think I care for having large, handsome older men with less than dubious reputations giving you enigmatical looks in parking lots.”

  “I wasn’t all that ecstatic about it myself, darling.”

  “And trying to lure you into dens of vice.”

  “The Cozy Corner Tea Shop isn’t exactly a den of vice, darling.” Now that it was too late, Dittany was wondering if perhaps she should have accepted. “If I’d gone, I might have been able to find out what he’s up to.”

  “Huh, and have him slip knockout drops in your Lapsang souchong and shanghai you. Dittany, promise me faithfully you won’t try any more detecting on your own. At least not with Andy McNasty. I couldn’t stand to have you abducted.”

  “Don’t worry, darling, I’d hate it myself. Samantha Burberry says there’s absolutely nothing more horrible than being tied up in a filthy cellar and not being able to get to the bathroom.”

  “It’s even worse if the cellar’s got fleas in it.” That was the cheery boom of Miss Hunding Paffnagel, bouncing downstairs fresh and raring to go after her nap in the spare bedroom. “Happened to me once in Cuzco, I never did figure out why. My abductors set me free after a while and we all went out to a café for a tequila. Me scratching my head off, of course, but so were they. Speaking of which, how about stepping over to the inn? I’d like to buy you folks a drink.”

  “We don’t patronize the inn,” Osbert told her stiffly.

  “Oh, sorry. Religion?”

  “No, McNaster.” The word came savagely grated through his teeth.

  “Who’s McNaster?”

  “The ornery cayuse who owns it. He just tried to seduce my wife at the supermarket.”

  “Do tell,” said Miss Paffnagel. “Then where do we go for a drink?”

  “There’s beer in the fridge,” Dittany told her, “and whiskey in the pantry next to the cookie jar. The wine’s down cellar on the shelf with the green tomato relish and I think that funny-tasting liqueur Bert brought on his last visit’s on the dining room buffet behind the cruet. Bert’s my stepfather. He travels in fashion eyewear.”

  “How chic. Do I help myself or wait to be served?”

  “Whichever you prefer. Osbert makes lovely marmalade old-fashioneds.”

  “I think I’ll settle for a cold beer. Unless you happen to have any chicha co-pah or pulchu in the house?”

  “Sorry. I could step next door and borrow a cupful of Jane Binkle’s homemade damson gin, if you like.”

  “Thanks, beer will be fine. You folks going to join me?”

  Since it was, after all, their beer, they thought they might as well. Dittany was getting out some tumblers when the phone rang. Arethusa was on the line.

  “That’s odd,” said Osbert. “What’s she calling for? Usually she just barges in.”

  This time, to their astonishment, Arethusa wanted them to go to her house. “Pour l’amour de Dieu,” she entreated, “come and have supper with us.”

  “Whom were you planning to have cook it?” Dittany asked warily.

  “Cease the snide innuendo, chit. It’s all cooked. Don’t expect anything fancy, just potage au cresson, coulibiac de saumon en croûte, and a modest vacherin aux framboises for dessert.”

  “Well, I suppose we could eat a sandwich before we come. But, Arethusa, we have a house guest, too. She’s the lady with the purple dress.”

  “Then tell her to put it on and buzz along. The more the merrier. Which is to say, the less otherwise, si tu comprends.”

  “I comprend. All right, we’ll be along. When do you want us?”

  “Maintenant. Toute de suite. Vitesse, vitesse. Je suis au bout de ma rope.”

  There was a click, then silence. Dittany hung up, too.

  “Arethusa’s invited us all to supper.”

  “What?” cried Osbert. “Is she hallucinating?”

  “No, but she’s talking a lot of French. I think it’s because she can’t stand any more of—er—that is, she has the Fairfield’s nephew and his wife staying with her, you know, and she—er—thought it would be nice to—er—”

  “In other words, she’s trying to—er—”

  Osbert couldn’t manage to come straight out in front of Miss Paffnagel and say Jehosaphat and Berthilde must be driving his aunt nuts and Arethusa was attempting to ease her burden by inflicting her uninvited house guests on them and their uninvited house guest.

  Well, why not? Miss Paffnagel could entertain the Fairfields with tales of her adventures among the artifacts with their late uncle, while he and Dittany snuck off to the hammock on the back porch and caught up on their experience-sharing and Aunt Arethusa did the dishes. Besides, Arethusa was a first-class cook when driven to it. There were worse ways of beguiling an evening, and Arethusa would certainly see to it that Dittany and Osbert experienced one of these in the near future if they failed to rally now in her hour of need. Accordingly, they went; although not until after Miss Paffnagel had drunk her beer and eaten a peppermint.

  As it turned out, the peppermint was superfluous. Over at Arethusa’s, they were well into the aperitifs, sitting in the big, cool living room with the curtains drawn against the late afternoon sun. Jehosaphat Fairfield, a small man who looked in the dim light almost frighteningly like his late uncle, was in fact having a Molson’s. His wife was drinking rum and grapefruit juice, though she didn’t appear to be in need of the extra vitamins. Berthilde, interestingly enough, was a strapping woman built along much the same lines as Evangeline Fairfield and having a similar breadth of jaw, although Dittany was relieved to note her gums were decently covered by an amplitude of lip.

  Arethusa was so glad to see the newcomers that she even kissed her nephew. “Come in, come in. Soyez les bienvenus. Have a drink. And what a charming dress you have on, Miss Paffnagel, if I may venture an expert opinion. Reminds me of one I’ve seen somewhere quite recently.”

  “On me, I expect.” Berthilde snapped on a table lamp beside the chair she was sitting in. “See?”

  Her dress was identical to Miss Paffnagel’s down to the last chartreuse and turquoise squiggle.

  “My stars and garters,” gasped Dittany. “What a coincidence. It means you both have lovely taste,” she added quickly.

  That was a line her mother had once used to good effect in an even more critical situation at a church supper. Everybody laughed politely, especially Miss Paffnagel and Berthilde Fairfield, to show what swell sports they were. Arethusa, who could be a gracious hostess if she kept her mind on what she was doing, fetched Dittany a glass of white wine and invited Osbert to belly up to the bar for a shot of red-eye, but he decided on beer instead.

  Miss Paffnagel asked for rum and grapefruit juice because she always made it her policy to sample the native beverages when on a field trip. She gave them a learned little discourse on how the Inca used to make chicha mascada. This involved getting all the old men and women together to chew (or gum) balls of malt, which they then added to the other ingredients while still warm. On occasion, several pounds of raw beef were also thrown in, and the container was buried six or eight feet underground for several years.

  Dittany thought this sounded like the right thing to do, until Miss Pa
ffnagel went on to explain that they then dug it up and drank whatever was by that time in the jar. It was with no great appetite that she went to dinner.

  Like any housewife sitting down to an inviting meal she hasn’t had to cook herself, however, she found her interest piqued by the chilled watercress soup and by the time they got to the elegant coulibiac of salmon and rice in its coffin of puff pastry, accompanied by a first-rate pouilly-fuissé, she wouldn’t have called the Queen her cousin.

  Arethusa’s dining room, like the rest of her house, was furnished in the regency style, running to delicate chinoiserie, spindly-legged chairs, and hints of Brighton Pavilion, notably in the gilded crocodiles holding up the glass-topped table. Diners sometimes found them off-putting, but Berthilde Fairfield was not the nervous type, and the reptilian pedestal merely inspired Hunding Paffnagel to tell an amusing anecdote about her encounter with a man-eating alligator on the upper Amazon.

  As for Jehosaphat, he sat saying little and tasting his food in the gingerly fashion of one who ventures alone into strange, dark places. Dittany wondered, odd though the notion might seem, whether he was mourning his departed relative.

  “I expect you’ll miss your Uncle Peregrine,” she said to him kindly.

  “Eh? Oh, no. Not particularly, I don’t suppose. Not that I wasn’t fond of him, you know. It’s just that we never got together very often. Still, I suppose I sort of knew he was there, wherever he happened to be at the time. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll miss him.”

  “Nonsense, Jehosaphat,” said his wife crisply. “Why should you?”

  “Yes, Berthilde.” He essayed another nibble at his coulibiac. “At least it means we can sell the Reo now.”

  “Rio as in Rita?” Osbert inquired, his mind flowing naturally in a south-of-the-borderly direction.

  “No, Reo as in horseless carriage,” Jehosaphat explained. “A 1924 touring sedan, to be precise. It belonged to my father and Uncle Peregrine when they were young fellows. That is to say, it belonged to their father, but he let them drive it sometimes, so they had a sentimental attachment for it, which is only natural, I suppose.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jehosaphat,” said Berthilde as the Monks had been rather expecting she would. “What’s natural about grown men mooning around after an old automobile? It’s no good to anybody taking up space in our garage all these years. If your uncle was so attached to the Reo, why didn’t he offer to pay a little rent for it once in a while? If it had been left to me, I’d have sold the miserable thing long ago. Antique cars are bringing good money these days, though don’t ask me why for I can’t tell.”

  “But it wasn’t ours to sell, Berthilde. Not all of it, anyway.”

  “Nonsense, Jehosaphat. I never did believe that yarn about your father’s bequeathing his half of the Reo to his brother Peregrine. It wasn’t in the will.”

  “But that could have been because father never made a will, Berthilde. I felt bound to honor his wishes in case he meant to if he had, you know that. I had my integrity to think of.”

  “Humph. I trust your integrity won’t extend so far as to give your Aunt Evangeline half of whatever we get for selling the Reo.”

  “Oh no. I’m sure Dad wouldn’t have put Aunt Evangeline in his will. Anyway, she’ll have Uncle Perry’s pension from the museum.”

  “No she won’t,” said Miss Paffnagel with some satisfaction. “It stopped at his death. Vangie will just have to buckle down and scratch for herself like the rest of us lone females.”

  “But she’s got a job here in Lobelia Falls,” cried Jehosaphat, sounding as if his integrity was beginning to act up again.

  “In point of fact, it was your uncle we hired,” said Arethusa. “Your aunt merely came along for the ride, as one might say.”

  “But you’ve been working her like a dog ever since she got here,” Berthilde argued. “She told us so herself. She said Mrs. Monk here kept her slaving away in a hot, filthy attic all afternoon the very day Uncle Peregrine died, and how he got killed was Mrs. Monk left the windows open. He had to go up and close them later on, which probably gave him a heatstroke, which is why he fell out. Not that I’m holding it against you, Mrs. Monk, but that’s what Aunt Evangeline said.”

  “Nor does it surprise me a jot,” Dittany replied. “Want me to help carry out the plates, Arethusa?”

  “Yes,” said Arethusa. “You might bring in the dessert plates while you’re at it. And the dessert. And the tea and the coffee. Also the after-dinner mints. I put them in the fridge because I was afraid they might get dizzy from the heat and hurl themselves off the sides of the bonbonnière.”

  Hunding Paffnagel snickered. Berthilde and Jehosaphat exchanged uncertain glances. Osbert got up to assist Dittany, but his aunt grabbed hold of his buckskin vest and hauled him back.

  “Sit down, you unprincipled rake. Stap me, can’t you control your lusts in front of company? You wouldn’t believe this, Mrs. Fairfield, but he was a beguiling rogue at the age of four. I have a snapshot of him in his little cowboy suit somewhere or other. Remind me to dig it out and show it to you before you leave here punctually at eight forty-five tomorrow morning so I can get back to work.”

  Berthilde took the hint, if such it could be called, cheerfully. “I know just how it is. I’m a working gal myself. I travel in needlework supplies, which is how I happen to be here now. Miss Jane Fuzzywuzzy’s Yarnery over in Scottsbeck is one of my best customers. When I checked in with Jehosaphat night before last, he told me Aunt Vangie had called about Uncle Perry and he thought he ought to come, so I said all right, I’d join him, and here I am.”

  “Bet you’re on pins and needles, though,” Miss Paffnagel quipped. “Must get kind of prickly.” She guffawed at her own wit.

  Berthilde didn’t mind that, either. “Oh, I’m sharp as a needle myself, or so they tell me. You ought to hear my sales talk. When it comes to spinning a good yarn, I’ve never been worsted. That’s what our division manager said at the last sales meeting.”

  “Cute of him.” Arethusa neatly suppressed a yawn. “Do you go in for stitchery yourself, Mrs. Fairfield?”

  “Lord, yes. I needlepoint like an absolute fiend sometimes. Don’t I, Jehosaphat?”

  “Like a fiend,” her husband confirmed. “Put a needle in her hand and there’s no stopping her.”

  Arethusa turned to Dittany with a smile of desperation. “Then I expect Mrs. Fairfield would like to see those embroidered quilt pieces you found in the attic at the museum. Let’s see, was that before or after her husband’s aunt came barging along to see what you were up to?”

  “After,” said Dittany. “I remember distinctly because that was when the forty-seven mice jumped at me and I was too unmanned to unwrap the box they were in. Or should I say unwomaned? So I really didn’t mind her butting in and taking over as usual. Anyway, her hands were clean because she hadn’t been doing anything, and mine were filthy. What did you do with them, Arethusa?”

  “They’re upstairs. I’ll get them as soon as we’ve had our dessert. In the meantime, you can be clearing the table so we’ll have a place to spread them out. I haven’t had a chance to study them properly, myself.”

  “Come to think of it, neither have I.” Therefore, Dittany obeyed without demur. While she lugged out plates and cups, however, she brooded on the odd coincidence of having shared a vacherin with two women of much the same size and build, wearing identical purple dresses.

  She also brooded a bit on Miss Jane Fuzzywuzzy’s Yarnery, it being situated right next to the Cozy Corner Tea Shop whence she might or might not have been abducted this afternoon. Now that she’d met Berthilde and Jehosaphat, she wondered if perhaps she’d been oversqueamish in passing up Andy McNasty’s invitation to imbibe that hypothetical dose of knockout drops. Of course Osbert would have been dreadfully upset, the cellar very likely would have had fleas in this hot weather, and she’d have missed letting Arethusa do the cooking for a change. Dittany dwelt fondly on those fresh raspberries in the meringu
e tart for a moment, then dragged her mind back to Berthilde’s purple dress.

  After Hunding Paffnagel’s story of her visit to Peregrine Fairfield, they’d all naturally assumed it had been her back both Dave Munson and the dead man’s wife had seen. Maybe it was, but then again, maybe it wasn’t. Berthilde had, by her own account, been in the area, and she knew her husband’s uncle was working at the Architrave. Maybe there’d been another coincidence.

  As to why Berthilde would have wanted to kill Peregrine, Dittany could only conjecture. It seemed unlikely the niece-in-law would have gone to the bother of boosting him through the skylight and chucking him off the roof just to get that old Reo out of her barn, but one never knew. She removed the last dish from the table, wiped the glass top free of crumbs, and remarked to the gilded crocodiles, “Okay. Ready for your next course?”

  CHAPTER 18

  “LOVELY, LOVELY, LOVELY,” ARETHUSA was singing to herself as she laid out the dainty scraps of silk and satin and velvet. She’d switched on the silk-shaded brass sconces around the dining room for better viewing of the charmingly imagined, expertly embroidered motifs, and the gilded crocodiles were grinning up through the glass as though even they were enjoying the sight.

  “What a shame the quilt was never made up,” said Berthilde. “I don’t know when I’ve come across finer specimens of needlework.”

  “Maybe the Architrave’s lucky it wasn’t,” Hunding Paffnagel remarked. “As a quilt, it might already have been worn out. This way, you still have it fresh as the day it was put away, though I personally would be awfully careful how I handled those bits of taffeta. Silk’s apt to split on you when it gets old.”

  “True, i’ faith,” said Arethusa. “They should be backed with cambric or something before we start putting them together; I’ll do that.”

  “Can you, Miss Monk? I’d say it’s a job for an expert.”

  “I am an expert. Stap me, dost think I lack the womanly skills just because I can also execute a faultless lunge, parry, or riposte? Take that bee perched on a thistle, for instance. I can back it so that one would swear the surface was never touched by human hands.”