by Van Reid
“Yes?” said Ephram.
“The card, Thump!”
“Yes, Eagleton!” said Thump with more volume than was natural to him. “Yes! It was what brought me out here.”
“What?” said Ephram.
“The card, Ephram!” said Eagleton. “Wanda McCintyre!”
“What?” Ephram was startled. Something in him almost resisted the logic of his friend’s thinking. “Wanda McCintyre!” he said. “Good heavens!”
“It was what brought me out here,” said Thump.
Eagleton thought back to the last words of the second act of While She Waits in Silence. He spoke them aloud. “‘ ... and rightly characterize its otherwise unexpected appearance as a silent cry for rescue!’”
“My word, Eagleton!” declared Ephram.
“Yes, indeed!” replied Eagleton.
“Thump!” said Ephram.
Thump looked grim.
“Since New Year’s Day,” said Eagleton, almost breathless. Then with horror, he looked into Thump’s eyes and added, “Or before!” He felt an absolute chill clutch at his heart and could only guess at what Thump was experiencing.
But Thump’s grim expression was taking on the rigid steel of determination. “I must find her,” he said simply.
“Yes, my friend,” said Ephram. He placed a hand on Thump’s shoulder and gripped it. “But we are with you.”
Eagleton took a deep breath. He thought last night’s fog had returned; it was hard to see of a sudden. He nodded emphatically, but was not able to speak, and so he took a few steps down the sidewalk and away from the crowd.
“Looking for someone, dear?” came a melodious voice.
Eagleton was startled from his short reverie; a woman was walking toward him from the edge of the crowd. She was not dressed as finely as the other women standing about, but she had a way of carrying herself that marked a high degree of self-confidence and a look in her eye that rather dissolved Eagleton’s. “Looking for someone?” he said, making the words mean something quite different.
“Some folk think I look a bit like Miss Tucker,” said the woman with a wink that made Eagleton jump.
“They do?”
She was very close to him, and he very nearly tugged at his collar again. She looked up at him with peculiar and potent interest, and he was taken by her sharp blue eyes and her wide and oddly attractive smile. She had a small upturned nose and expressive dark brows. She smelled rather nicely, too. He couldn’t imagine that the temperature had risen so quickly.
But why had the woman invoked the name of Miss Tucker! He had read enough books to know that covert signals and messages can be sent in many forms, and here he had just watched Miss Tucker play a role in which she surreptitiously slipped a card to the hero in hopes of rescue, just as Mrs. Roberto seemingly had slipped a card to Thump. Now there was a woman asking if he were looking for someone even as she spoke Miss Tucker’s name. Clearly Mrs. Roberto was in jeopardy, and this woman was like unto many an agent he had read about—speaking in vague phrases, but offering help to a complete stranger. She had been sent, he was suddenly sure, to lead him and his friends to Mrs. Roberto’s deliverance.
“Yes,” said Eagleton. “I am looking for someone!”
“Consider her found,” said the woman, surprised at his sudden decisive nature, and perhaps impressed with it. Her manner had dimmed slightly while she watched Eagleton’s confusion but now it blazed again. She glanced over her shoulder at the crowd and back to him. “Miss Tucker knows just what you’re looking for.”
“She does?” wondered Eagleton. He glanced about them for the actress
“I mean me!” growled the woman.
“Oh! Of course! Shall we ... I ... follow you?” he asked. He did not want to frighten her away if she weren’t expecting the entire league.
“In a manner of speaking,” said she. “But give a lady some time.”
Of course! he thought. She doesn’t want to be seen leading me if she is being watched!
“Danforth Street,” she pronounced carefully. “Two doors down from the Weary Sailor. The brown house. 12A.” She gave something like a cautious glance about her, then moved off with an odd swish to her walk.
“Danforth Street?” said a horrified Eagleton under his breath. “Good heavens! Is Mrs. Roberto in such dire peril?” He turned back to the crowd and searched for his friends. “Thump!” he called. “Ephram!”
18. Mr. Parkman’s Bones
Following the afternoon chores and sometime before the call to supper, Mister Walton and Sundry were left to their own devices for an hour or so, during which interval they acquainted themselves with their rooms and dressed for dinner. Having put on a fresh shirt and trousers, but yet to don his tie and jacket, Mister Walton sat down at the desk in his room and began to compose a letter to Phileda McCannon. There was a surprising amount of news to relate, considering he had seen her off at Brunswick Station only that morning.
Dearest Phileda,
I seem to have accumulated some knowledge regarding pigs since I saw you last, if one is to judge expectations of folk here in Bowdoinham, where Sundry and I will be staying until tomorrou.
Mister Walton proceeded to tell of his day, hoping that Miss McCannon would not consider that he had run counter to her directive regarding the fellowship of interesting people. It was of particular importance that he communicate the dismal state of the patient in question and the insistent attitude of the Fern family.
There was a knock at the door and Sundry poked his head in. “Hello, Mister,” he spoke, and the rest of his long form entered after.
“I am writing Phileda,” said Mister Walton, looking up from his work.
“Best to confess up front, I always thought,” opined Sundry.
“Yes,” drawled the portly fellow, the spark of humor in his eyes lighting an otherwise dull expression. “It is difficult to communicate the serious nature of Hercules’s case,” he confessed.
“A glum pig is something best heard about in person,” agreed Sundry. He wandered Mister Walton’s room, readying his employer’s bed and laying out his nightclothes.
Mister Walton sighed, returning to his letter. “I was not cognizant of the four temperaments as manifest in barnyard creatures before this morning.”
“I once knew a cow that had a very refined sense of humor.”
Mister Walton waited to hear more, and, when he didn’t, he asked, “Is that your uncle’s cow that could tell the weather?”
“No,” said Sundry. “I don’t think that cow was funny at all.”
Mister Walton let this go with a small chuckle, but wondered about this droll bovine at supper while stories went round the table. He and Sundry quite amazed and delighted their hosts with diverting renditions of the adventures they had shared in the past ten months, and Mister Walton even forced a great whoop of laughter from the seemingly staid Aunt Beatrice with his remembrance of Maude the bear and how she caused an uproar by attending, unannounced, an indoor concert in the town of Damariscotta.
“What a marvelous supper,” said Mister Walton when the party had adjourned to the parlor.
“I dare say Mrs. Fern has met the challenge since I first flinched at eating one of our animals,” said Mr. Fern with some pleasure in the claim.
“I dare say it hasn’t harmed you,” said Mister Walton.
“I am fortunate to be able to entertain such eccentricity, Mister Walton. If not for a considerable bequest from my uncle, I would be forced to feed my children in accordance with societal norms.”
“You seem to have used your inheritance for other people’s children as well,” suggested Mister Walton.
“The school, you mean.” Mr. Fern waved this intended praise away. “Once a pedagogue, always a pedagogue,” he said with a rueful laugh. “Truthfully, I have always believed that I must aspire to good works with my inheritance, as my uncle’s wealth was earned in the service of a base master.”
“Oh?” Mister Walton was startled to hear it.
“It isn’t a dishonorable trade,” said Mister Walton.
“My husband is a follower of Neal Dow, Mister Walton,” said Mrs. Fern, meaning that he was a member of the Temperance Movement.
“Ah,” said the portly fellow, remembering Johnny Poulter’s characterization of the farmer. “But your uncle and his tavern were not.”
“He was a bit of a rogue, Mister Walton,” said Mr. Fern. “A scoundrel.”
“Percy was an honest taverner, Vergilius,” said Aunt Beatrice with some stiffness. She and Mrs. Fern were embroidering, and the old woman looked up from her work, peering over her glasses at her nephew. “You shouldn’t bite the hand that has fed you,” she advised.
“Yes, well, God rest his soul, he did right by me, it’s true.”
“There have been great men in our history, besides,” continued the aunt, “who weren’t afraid to take a drink.”
“I dare say, they would have been great men if they hadn’t tipped a bottle,” said Mr. Fern.
“Vergil,” chimed his wife in a musical, if definite note. Clearly this was not the first time that the subject had been raised in the Fern parlor.
“I beg your pardon, Auntie,” said Mr. Fern, catching himself, with his wife’s help. “Mister Walton, Mr. Moss, forgive an obsessive dislike on my part. Some will think me fanatic.” He chanced a look in his wife’s direction but Mrs. Fern was back to her needle and thread.
“I wouldn’t refer to my late brother as a scoundrel, Mister Walton,” said the elderly woman.
“Of course not,” said Mister Walton, a little embarrassed to be in the middle of these semantics.
Mrs. Fern gave her husband a quick glance.
“Percy was a rascal, certainly,” said the aunt.
“Oh?” Mister Walton laughed with gentle surprise.
Mrs. Fern looked up from her work again, and other heads in the room came around. Madeline, who had conscripted Sundry’s assistance while she wound a skein of yarn into a ball, fell off her task, and they both watched and waited for Aunt Beatrice’s unexpected pronouncement to bear fruit.
“You’ve probably never told anyone about Mr. Parkman’s bones, Vergilius,” said the old woman.
Mr. Fern cast an eye about the room. “I don’t think I have,” he said.
Mrs. Fern had altogether left off her work now; she folded her arms and considered her husband with an expectant expression. Sundry did his best not to look too inquisitive but cast a glance over his shoulder.
“I venture that I will have to now,” added Mr. Fern, and there was a noticeable sense of relief throughout the room. Mr. Fern stared with some energy into his hands. “My grandfather, who indulged in tobacco, Mister Walton, would say this was a ‘two pipe tale.’”
“You intrigue me, Mr. Fern,” replied Mister Walton.
Mr. Fern took a long breath. To begin with, he did not look very interested in telling his tale, but he soon warmed to it. Mrs. Fern smiled at Mister Walton and would later express her gratitude to the portly fellow for distracting her husband, however fleetingly, from his worries.
Mr. Fern said, “My uncle conducted his business on the Phippsburg peninsula some years ago. His tavern was the Oak and Dory, as he had brought his worldly possessions to that place in a wagon, the body of which had been fashioned from an old boat. The wagon was stationed beneath a grand old oak, beside which he built his tavern, and the two devices were made plain upon the sign above his door. He was a canny businessman, my uncle, but circumstances were thus that a few years after he opened the Oak and Dory he was in danger of losing much of his business to another house.
“From the hamlet ofWinnegance, there are two roads that will take you past Phippsburg to the village of Sebasco, one to the east, one to the west. It was on the western side that my uncle built his tavern; another fellow, by the name of Benjamin Crate, offered rest and sustenance to the wayfarer at his ordinary, the Elm and Eagle on the eastern road.
“My uncle’s difficulties began with the arrival of the railroad in Bath, several miles inland from his establishment. It was decided among the town fathers that the roads needed improvement; and, to be specific, that a single route from the extremity of the peninsula to Bath should be widened so that the people of Sebasco and Small Point might have easier access to the railway. Have I proved accurate, thus far, Aunt Beatrice?”
“I will tell you if you veer,” she promised.
“So you see the problem, Mister Walton,” said the host.
“It seems to me,” said Mister Walton, “that your uncle was in rivalry with the Elm and Eagle to have the widened path pass his own door.”
“That is exactly so, sir, and very perceptive of you.”
“But Daddy,” said one of the little girls, “who is Mr. Parkman?”
“You will see,” said the father. “Or hear, at least.”
“And what about his bones?” asked Madeline.
“In time.”
“Will any of us be able to sleep after we’ve heard this?” wondered the mother.
“Will any of us be able to if we don’t hear it?” revised Madeline.
Mrs. Fern returned to her embroidery, smiling softly.
“As it happened,” continued Mr. Fern, “there was no obvious choice between the two roads. If you looked at the map you would see that the road to the east is straighter and even a bit shorter; look at a census and you would see that the western road was the more populated.
“The town officers attempted to solve this riddle and when they debated themselves to a standstill, they held a special meeting and the townspeople debated themselves to a standstill. Finally, they decided that they should put the question to a vote, and, by a slim margin, the eastern road won out.”
“It must have,” said Mrs. Fern, “or there is no story.”
Mr. Fern waggled a finger in the air. “Now, my Uncle Percy,” he continued, “had a cousin, by the name of Arthur, who had, several months previous to this historic vote, set up his practice as a physician in the town of Topsham, not far away from either ourselves or Uncle Percy. Uncle Percy, in fact, helped Arthur settle in when he arrived from his schooling at Harvard, and was rather taken with a human skeleton that his cousin had brought with him in a trunk. Arthur had named the skeleton Mr. Parkman, after a professor who, according to the young doctor, had slightly less personality than these remnant bones, and he regaled my Uncle Percy with several amusing anecdotes concerning the mischief one may cause if one is in possession of such a thing.”
“I am sure that these anecdotes were instructive,” said Mister Walton, hoping perhaps to hear one or two of them. The children were aghast at the thought of these bones, and one of the little boys shivered, which made everyone but his father laugh.
“It was in the midst of June,” said Mr. Fern, “that work commenced upon the eastern road. Uncle Percy truly feared that his custom would dry up if the wider way did not pass by his door, and since the very hour of that vote he had been wracking his brains for a way to turn the course of improvement in his direction.
“My uncle surveyed the eastern route one evening, when the work had not progressed very far, and he found, not an eighth of a mile from the place where the gang had left off that day, a stretch of road confined by two low but rocky hills. Here would prove the hardest labor; great boulders would have to be broken up and rolled away, with high ledges on either side that left just room enough to accomplish the deed and no more.
“The next day, my uncle visited his cousin the doctor; and that evening, after supper—and subsequent refreshment, I don’t doubt—the two of them went for a pleasant drive down the peninsula. And anxious that he had grown lethargic in his trunk, they took Mr. Parkman along with them.”
“Oh ho!” said Mister Walton. Sundry positively beamed with the possibilities. The children looked amazed and mystified. “Oh, dear,” said Madeline. She and Sundry had lost all sense of what they were doing, and she had made a ter
rible mess of her winding.
“The doctor realized, of course,” said Mrs. Fern, “the importance of exercise.”
Mister Walton almost shouted, he liked this so well.
“The next day,” continued Mr. Fern, “in the middle of the afternoon, work on the road came to a complete halt. The gangs stood about, scratching their heads, gazing down at what several overturned rocks had revealed. It did not take long for the word to spread up and down the peninsula, but the doctor had evidently not heard of the road crew’s discovery when he appeared from around the bend. He was not on an emergency call, so he climbed down from his carriage and let himself be led to the site.
“It had taken two fairly strong men to move the rocks up the slope and back from the widening road, but when the stones had been rolled away the well-preserved skeleton of a human being was revealed. The doctor, of course, was as surprised as anyone, and he knelt down to inspect the remains with great interest.
“It was the skeleton of a man, he declared, long buried in this strange place. They were pleased to have his expert opinion, but was there a cemetery nearby? Or a single grave site recorded?”
“‘Did you send someone to ring the church bell at the mills?’ asked the doctor.
“‘No,’ replied the gang leader. ‘We only raised this poor soul an hour ago, and have been standing here talking about it since.’
“‘Yes,’ said the doctor pensively. ‘It was about an hour ago that the church bell rang.’
“‘Do you know,’ said one of the men, ‘I thought I heard something when we turned that last stone over.’
“‘That is strange,’ insisted the doctor. ‘And no one went to ring the bell and alert the town?’
“‘Upon my word,’ said the foreman, shaking his head.
“‘Strange,’ said the doctor again.
“Now, several of the workmen were sure, upon reflection, that they had heard the church bell peal at the very moment of the skeleton’s exhumation. Two of the men crossed themselves several times over, and several, not in the habit of that gesture, thought it best to attempt it just this once for caution’s sake.
