Something the Cat Dragged In

by Charlotte MacLeod

  But times had changed. You couldn’t even buy paregoric now without a prescription. Ungley couldn’t have been getting drugs on campus because Thorkjeld Svenson would have discovered and personally annihilated any pusher who dared to come within miles of the college. It was more than doubtful he’d be able to buy them around the village. While Fred Ottermole might be a trifle dense in some directions, he wasn’t that kind of fool.

  As for the Balaclavian Society and its crazy rules that seemed expressly designed to keep anybody from joining, that could conceivably be a horse of another color. But Banker Pommell and Lawyer Hodger and Congressman Sill and Lutt the former soap tycoon? The mind boggled.

  Goulson interrupted Shandy’s musings by appearing with a modern camera that bristled with automatic exposers and focusers. “She’s all loaded and rarin’ to go,” he explained. “And I brought my wife’s Instamatic, too, just in case. She’ll have convulsions when she gets the film developed. It’s supposed to be the Garden Club’s Autumn Flower Festival, but she’s got a couple of shots left on the roll, so I figured what the heck?”

  Inspired perhaps by memories of his father, he proceeded to take a number of exposures, from various artistic angles, of the unlovely spectacle on the embalming table.

  “Save some film,” Shandy told him. “We ought to get a shot or two of the wound after we wash the blood off. Got a basin or something?”

  “Leave that to me. It’s all in the day’s work, as we say in the trade.”

  Goulson brought hot water and a sponge, and deftly cleaned the back of Ungley’s head. “Say, Professor, you think there’s something peculiar about the way he died, don’t you?”

  “Well, Goulson, you’ve seen a lot more cadavers than I have. What do you yourself think?”

  “I think Fred Ottermole’s going to find himself wishing he hadn’t been in such an all-fired hurry to write this one off as an accident, since you ask me. I’m also wondering why Dr. Melchett was ready to swallow that yarn about the harrow without doing a complete examination.”

  Goulson stripped the covering sheet partly away, leaving Ungley’s body bare to the waist. “See what I mean? Now, you’ve seen that harrow and so have I. It’s nothing special, just an oldtime what they call a peg harrow that some blacksmith slung together out of a heavy roller and a bunch of iron spikes. I shouldn’t be surprised if it was one of the Flackleys out at Forgery Point who made it, but that’s neither here nor there. What I’m getting at is, those spikes are fairly close together. Now, I’m not saying Professor Ungley couldn’t have tripped and fallen backward like Fred claims, and bashed that hole in his skull on one of the pegs. What I do say is, how come we don’t see any bruising any place else? How did he manage to fall that hard and hit that one peg and none of the others?”

  “That’s an astute observation, Goulson. I’m also wondering why the hole made by a straight, round spike wouldn’t be somewhat smaller and neater than this,” Shandy replied, thinking of that loaded fox and what it might do with plenty of muscle behind it. “What I’m mainly thinking is that we’d better get both Melchett and Ottermole back here and find out whether they might not care to reconsider their assumptions. Sorry to put you out like this, Goulson, but that’s your penalty for being more intelligent than your neighbors.”

  “Shucks, Professor, it’s no trouble to me. Makes a break in the daily routine, as you might say. Embalming can be lonesome work. I’ll see if I can raise Doc Melchett on the phone right now.”

  He had no luck. Dr. Melchett was at the hospital seeing patients and wouldn’t be available till after lunch.

  “Then we’ll just have to wait,” said Shandy. “No sense in getting Ottermole over here by himself.”

  “In that case, I’d better slide the departed into the refrigerator, to keep him nice and fresh. Can I offer you a cup of coffee, Professor?”

  “Thanks,” Shandy told him, “but I have a class in about three minutes. See you later, Goulson.”

  Chapter Six

  SHANDY COULD MOVE FAST enough in a pinch. He even managed to stop at the chemistry lab and leave his envelope of rust scrapings with Professor Joad before getting to class on the dot. No doubt he taught well enough, but when a couple of students came to ask questions afterward, he had some trouble fishing his brain for relevant answers. The only thing really on his mind was, “What the hell shall I do next?”

  As soon as he could decently escape from the classroom, he went. Rather, he started. He’d barely got one foot over the threshold when he was confronted by what the less discerning might have mistaken for a rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex. Shandy didn’t even flinch, but merely remarked, “Hello, President. What’s eating you?”

  Thorkjeld Svenson merely jerked his massive head in the direction of his own sanctum. “Office.”

  Shandy followed. The presidential reception room was empty, the secretary having gone to lunch. Nevertheless, Svenson closed and locked his inner door before he ordered, “Sit.”

  “If it’s about Ungley,” Shandy began.

  Svenson barked, “No.” There followed a brief silence, during which the president appeared to be mentally damping the fires under his interior lava dome. Then he uttered again.

  “Claude.”

  “Claude who?”

  “Not Claude who. Who Claude. Bastard. Congress.”

  “I understand, do I not, that you’re referring to State Representative Bertram G. Claude, that smarmy son-of-a-bitch who’s tried to vote down every pro-agriculture bill that’s been presented since he managed to buy his way into the State House.”

  “Urrgh.”

  “What about him?”

  “Wants to campaign here.”

  “Is he crazy? Our students would rotten-egg him straight out of the auditorium,”

  “No.”

  “But drat it, President—”

  “Can’t let it happen.”

  Thorkjeld Svenson fumed in silence a moment longer, then waxed, for him, loquacious. “Claude’s running against Peters.”

  “For U.S. Congress. I know that. He must be out of his mind. Peters is a good man. Claude couldn’t beat him. Nobody could. Peters has been Balaclava’s man in the House of Representatives ever since Hector was a pup.”

  “Longer. Lacks charisma.”

  “What the flaming perdition do farmers need with charisma? Peters always votes on our side, doesn’t he? He’s introduced more sound farm legislation than anybody else there, hasn’t he? He fought like a tiger to get that agricultural aid program for small farmers through Congress, didn’t he? And he got it passed over the President’s veto, moreover. Peters may lack charisma, but he sure as hell doesn’t lack intelligence, integrity, or guts. Claude’s a yammering idiot, and a vicious one at that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what’s your problem? President, Balaclava Agricultural College stands for something in this congressional district. If we come out one hundred percent solid for Peters as we’ve always done before—”

  “We’ll lose the election for him. We’ve been suckered, Shandy.”

  “What?”

  “That goddamn silo. Only time we ever accepted donations. Big fund drive. Public-spirited citizens of Balaclava County. Money pouring in from all directions. Pictures in Balaclava County Weekly Fane and Pennon. In one of ’em myself. With that blasted woman who started it all.”

  “I know,” said Shandy.

  How could one forget? The spectacle of Thorkjeld Svenson beside that dainty slip of femininity had looked like King Kong posing for a casual family photograph with Fay Wray. Shandy and his crony Timothy Ames had laughed themselves sick over it. “She was a Mrs. Somebody. Smith? Smythe? Smath?”

  “Smuth. Ruth Smuth. One of those women who head committees. Urrgh! Sieglinde never heads committees.”

  Sieglinde Svenson had a big enough job on her hands heading Thorkjeld, but Shandy didn’t say so. “Well, what about Ruth Smuth? She doesn’t come into the suckering, does she?”

&nb
sp; “Hell she doesn’t. She’s Claude’s campaign manager.”

  “Christ! But she wasn’t when we built the silo. Damn it, that was five years ago. She wasn’t involved with Claude then.”

  “No. I checked her out, damn it. Checked the whole blasted committee. Not a smell of politics about one of ’em.”

  “So where’s your problem?”

  “She claims she was. Claims she told me at the time. Damn liar. If I’d ever so much as suspected Claude was behind that, silo, I’d have ripped it off its foundation and bashed him over the head with it.”

  “M’well, that might still be a solution.”

  “Too late,” croaked Svenson. “Goddamn it, Shandy, she’s put me in the same pants-down position as one of those poor slobs who picks up some respectable-looking woman along the road with a sob-story about car trouble, and then gets nailed for blackmail when she rips off her clothes and starts yelling rape. If we give Claude the horselaugh and come out swinging for Peters, she threatens to plaster that silo all over the papers, CORRUPTION ON CAMPUS. TURNCOAT SVENSON SECRETLY TAKES CLAUDE FUNDS WHILE ENDORSING PETERS. By the time they get through spreading that kind of muck around, poor old Sam Peters will look like something the Mafia dragged in.”

  Shandy nodded. “I hate to say it, President, but I’m afraid you could be right.”

  “I’m always right,” Svenson replied with his accustomed modesty, “except when I pull a blooper, and then it’s a lulu. Damn it, Shandy, you’ve got to get us out of this. I’m not asking for myself. I don’t care if they make me look like a horse’s crupper, but if Sam Peters loses his seat in Congress to a twerp like Claude, the country’s whole damn agricultural situation could be in even worse trouble than it is now. The fate of the nation is in your hands, and what the hell are you going to do about it?”

  Shandy scratched the thin spot on the back of his head. “Good question. When’s this son-of-a-bitch Claude clamoring to pollute our atmosphere?”

  “Tomorrow night. This Smuth woman just sprung it on me half an hour ago. Think fast, Shandy.”

  “Jesus, President!” Shandy shook his head, then obediently plunged into thought.

  “As far as sabotaging Claude’s speech is concerned,” he said at last, “that would be a cinch. It’s the repercussions we have to worry about. Now, don’t start yelling. I don’t mean we can’t do it, I just mean it has to be done right. There’s also the matter of Ungley. That could be whipped up into another juicy scandal unless I go along with Ottermole and Melchett, and let it get swept under the carpet.”

  “Ungh? What about Ungley?”

  “Unless I’m farther off base than I think I am, Ungley was murdered somewhere in the general vicinity of the Balaclavian Society’s clubhouse sometime after eleven o’clock last night.”

  Shandy explained what he’d learned so far, while Svenson sat looking like an iceberg formed of frozen gloom. At last the president heaved a sigh that blew a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary halfway across his office, and shook his iron-gray mane.

  “Ungley was one of ours, Shandy. We didn’t want him, but we can’t disclaim him. If we go along with a cover-up, the Claude bunch will be at our throats. If we make a stink, they’ll turn it into a worse one. We’ll do what’s right and the hell with ’em. Come on, let’s eat.”

  They walked down to the faculty dining room in silence, Svenson glowering sideways at Shandy every few steps to make sure he was thinking. It was an enormous relief to the smaller man when they walked in and spotted Helen Shandy sitting at a table by herself, seeking surcease from her duties as assistant librarian for the Buggins Collection. Peter kissed his wife with a shade more enthusiasm than was appropriate in so public a place and took the chair beside her. Svenson flung himself into the one opposite. To everyone’s surprise, it didn’t shatter under the impact.

  Helen noticed the tension and tried a spot of light conversation. “Peter, how did you make out with Mrs. Lomax? Or have I phrased the question indelicately? One never knows nowadays.”

  “You haven’t or I didn’t, as the case may be. I’ll give you a full report later. What’s new at the library?”

  “Poor Dr. Porble’s in grave danger of spraining his upper lip from trying not to look smug.”

  “What’s he got not to be smug about?”

  “According to scuttlebutt among the stacks, Dr. Porble’s tried on several occasions to join the Balaclavian Society because he thinks he ought to, and has been blackballed each time for reasons nobody can fathom. You’d think they’d positively leap at the chance to have the college librarian as a member.”

  “And no reason was ever advanced for their failure to pounce?”

  “None. Dr. Porble always thought Professor Ungley was keeping him out. He came in as librarian shortly before Professor Ungley retired, and found the professor had some books he’d been keeping out for ages and ages. Being a new broom, Dr. Porble went out on the sweep and made Professor Ungley bring the books back. They say Ungley never set foot inside the library again, and kept Dr. Porble out of the Balaclavian Society as a form of revenge. It all sounds like a plot for Donizetti to me, but you know how people are.”

  “Urrgh,” said Svenson.

  “Indeed we do,” Shandy interposed before catastrophe could ensue. “So now Porble thinks he can join that moribund mélange of malingerers. Why in Sam Hill would he want to?”

  “Don’t ask me, but you know Dr. Porble. He’s not one to back down when he’s set his mind on something.”

  That was most disturbingly true. Shandy liked and respected Porble, but he’d found out long ago that the librarian was a remarkably stubborn man. Furthermore, a temper of surprising proportions was concealed behind his scholar’s manner. Shandy sat and scowled at the menu until the student waiter got tired of waiting and ventured to remark, albeit in a somewhat frightened tone, that the chicken croquettes were very good today.

  “I’ll have a club sandwich,” he replied perversely.

  Helen prattled on like a good hostess, clearly wondering why Peter was so abstracted and Thorkjeld so gloomy, but clearly realizing this was no time to ask. Svenson at least managed to perk himself up a degree or so by eating three helpings of the chicken croquettes which he wouldn’t have got had Sieglinde been there to stop him. They did look good and Shandy was sorry he hadn’t chosen them after all; but he reflected that his own error in judgment was a bagatelle compared to that of Thorkjeld Svenson in accepting a concrete silo, three stories high and costing some amount his overstrained mind boggled at remembering, from what had now turned out to be a hostile political pressure group.

  But how had Svenson made such an egregious blooper? If he said he’d checked, he’d most assuredly done so, backward, forward, and sideways. It was simply not credible there had been any discoverable connection at that time between Bertram G. Claude and the Silo Supporters, as they’d called themselves, though God and Ruth Smuth only knew why. So that meant either that Ruth Smuth had got involved with Claude later on and realized she was in a position to do him some good by doing the college in the eye, or else that the whole Silo Supporters’ affair had been part of some long-planned and fantastically well-covered-up ruse.

  Raising that kind of money had been no jolly task of a few amateurs spending a few hours here and there putting the bite on their neighbors. The drive had gone on for months. Shandy couldn’t recall how many, but he did remember all too clearly that the late Jemima Ames, then a flaming spearhead of all good works, had been pretty miffed about Ruth Smuth’s having grabbed the initiative away from her. There had been hot words between the two women as to which of them was going to furnish the scissors to cut open the first bag of cement at the dedication ceremonies.

  The entire fund-raising project had, in fact, taken on such a low comedy turn that even as the concrete was being poured, nobody had quite believed the Silo Supporters had actually pulled it off. Was it humanly possible that, during all those farce-crammed weeks so long ago, Ruth Smuth and B
ertram Claude had been secretly conniving toward the seat that Claude was surely going to get beaten out of on the upcoming first Tuesday in November?

  Claude had been spending a lot of money on his campaign. Shandy hadn’t been paying much attention, but now that he thought of it, it did seem he’d been turning off a lot of television commercials, throwing away a lot of pamphlets, and wadding up for fireplace kindling a lot of newspaper advertisements from which Claude’s sexy smirk flashed out at him. Sam Peters had sent out one of his usual lackluster, fact-filled newsletters at a net cost of about thirty-seven dollars, probably. That would be it for this go-round, as it had been for all the others at which Sam had beaten the pants off opponents whose names Shandy couldn’t even remember.

  Where did Bertram G. Claude hail from, anyway? He’d manifested himself in Hoddersville about eight years ago, started shooting his mouth off to anybody who could be prevailed upon to listen, and managed to glad-hand himself into the State House on the strength of some expensive dentistry, a fine taste in neckties, and a voice that would have made his fortune as a television revivalist.

  Once in office, Claude had committed every iniquity in Shandy’s glossary, voting straight down the line in favor of big money against the independent farmer, the small businessman, against the old, the small, the weak, the sick, against anybody who hadn’t a hefty wad to contribute to a rising man’s next campaign. Claude’s record on open-land preservation, on toxic-waste control, on clean air, clean water, clean anything proved that as far as he was concerned, politics was indeed a dirty game.

  Even Professor Daniel Stott of the Animal Husbandry Department, a man not easily aroused to wrath, had waxed hot in defense of the genus Sus when somebody had been so injudicious as to call Claude a swine. In Stott’s considered opinion, the district would have been far better advised to elect a sensible, well-disposed right-thinking sow or boar to the seat Claude now occupied. The local Plowmen’s Political Action Committee was said to be taking Stott’s recommendation under advisement.