“She expected to have no trouble getting them back,” Sergeant MacVicar replied. “She assumed that without the letter you would never guess they had any hidden meaning.”
“She didn’t know Osbert,” Dittany rejoined proudly.
Zilla was still fretting. “I still can’t see why she beaned old Perry. He wanted the fly as much as she did.”
“Aye,” the sergeant answered, “but he wanted it to display at the museum and enhance his professional reputation. I misdoubt she had other notions.”
“Darn right,” said Dittany. “She’d have sold it and lived the life of Riley on her ill-gotten gains. She must have realized that the brazen theft of an important artifact was the one thing she’d never bully Peregrine into going along with. In spite of the fuss she put up, I expect Mrs. Fairfield was tickled silly when I took the bees away. If her husband had seen them, he’d have shown me Henriette’s letter. Then she’d either have had to kill us both on the spot or miss her chance at the fly. But whatever possessed her to burgle our house the very next night, do you suppose? Couldn’t she wait? I’m sure she’d bagged the letter as soon as she clobbered old Perry.”
Osbert shrugged. “How’ve you been sleeping lately, Minerva?”
“Like a rock. My stars, you don’t mean she drugged me twice?”
“I make it thrice. No doubt Mrs. Fairfield had some painkiller for that broken wrist and bunged it into your camomile the night after she killed Peregrine. I think her big rush was because she’d recognized Miss Paffnagel at the museum, even though she said she hadn’t. She knew Hunding and Perry must have been having an old home week, which meant Hunding had seen the letter.”
“As in fact she had,” Dittany put in.
“Yes, dear. Mrs. Fairfield didn’t know if Miss Paffnagel was still around town and didn’t get a chance to find out because Aunt Arethusa strong-armed her into going to your tea party. I expect the quilt pieces were mentioned over the crumpets and Mrs. Fairfield found out they hadn’t yet been shown around, so she figured she still had a chance to get to them before Miss Paffnagel did. But she struck out because we didn’t have them. And then that next night, after the funeral, Miss Paffnagel and the Jehosaphats barged in here telling how they’d just seen the pieces at Aunt Arethusa’s. She must have been frantic at that. So she made sure you all had a slug of camomile tea, counting on the liquor they’d drunk to give the sedative an extra kick, which it certainly did, and burgled Aunt Arethusa.”
“Only of course that didn’t work, either,” said Dittany, “because by then we’d taken them back. And Arethusa woke up and thought she was a higher being, so she had to scram. Then yesterday they had that big row and Mrs. Fairfield must have figured this was her last chance, so she went back and conked Arethusa so hard she—she—I must say she doesn’t handle frustration in a very adult way. And Miss Paffnagel hadn’t even read the letter Perry showed her, so it was all for nothing. There’s irony for you.”
Minerva shook her head, wincing at the pain. “Not for me it isn’t. I’ll tell you one thing, this is positively the last time I let a stranger set foot in my spare bedroom.”
“Huh! I’ve heard that one before.”
Zilla’s snort must have roused the woman in the bed. Mrs. Fairfield stirred, groaned, and opened her eyes. “What are you all doing here?”
“We came to tell you we’ve found the fly,” Dittany chirped.
“The fly! No, you couldn’t!” She recollected herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nonsense, wumman,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “We have the letter you stole from the museum and concealed in this verra room after you killed your husband and disposed of his body by means of Frederick Churtle’s rigging in a vain attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. We have further evidence of your heinous crime, and I have the offeecial duty to place you under arrest for murder in the first degree as well as breaking and entering in the nighttime with aggravated assault on the person of Miss Arethusa Monk. I will now proceed to read the formal charge in accordance with the laws of Lobelia Falls and the Government of Canada and in the presence of these witnesses. You will then dress yourself under the surveillance of Mesdames Oakes, Trott, and Monk while I guard the door and Deputy Monk nips over to get the official police vehicle in which we shall convey you to the lockup.”
“You can’t do that. I’m a sick woman.”
“You are not. You are merely feeling the aftereffects of the drugged camomile tea you drank in order to give yourself an alibi after you got back from pounding Miss Arethusa Monk over the head with your plaster cast. She is now conscious and will no doubt take pleasure in identifying you as her assailant.”
“She couldn’t have seen—I mean, I wasn’t there.”
“Do not trifle with the law, Mrs. Fairfield. You reek of her spilled perfume and there is pink fuzz from her carpet all over your shoes.”
“And to think I used to wish Mrs. Poppy would vacuum under the beds,” Dittany marveled. “My gosh, Minerva, I just remembered. You’re the last of the Architraves. What are you going to do about the fly?”
“I’ll think about the fly when my head clears. The main thing now is to start piecing that quilt before the excitement dies down. You’d better—oh, there’s the phone now.”
“I’ll get it.”
Dittany ran downstairs but was back in a jiffy. “That was Therese, yelling for reinforcements. She says Andy McNaster’s baying at the door with a mushy get-well card and an armload of red, red roses. Sorry to break up the pinching party, folks, but I’ve got to go.”
“Oh well,” said Osbert philosophically, “at least he’s not a woodchuck. Give Andy a nephew’s blessing for me, darling. Only for Pete’s sake don’t invite him to supper.”
Author’s Note
Lobelia Falls, its people, and their doings are all fictitious. However the esprit de corps among the Grub-and-Stakers is typical of garden club members in general. Like Niagara Falls, they are a vast international source of natural energy, wondrous to behold in action, and adaptable to many useful purposes.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1985 by Charlotte MacLeod
cover design by Mauricio Díaz
978-1-4532-7759-1
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The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee Page 21
