Something the Cat Dragged In

by Charlotte MacLeod

“That man who did my good friend Gunder Gaffson out of the only decent piece of development property left in Lumpkin Corners. For your information, Professor Shandy, Gunder Gaffson’s brought more tax dollars into this community than all the Horsefalls ever hatched. Apparently they don’t teach the simple facts of life at that highbrow college of yours.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Lutt, we’re rather big on the simple facts of life. How do you personally like your tax dollars, for instance? Fried, boiled, or fricasseed? The simple fact of life is, people don’t eat tax dollars. They eat food, and you can’t buy food unless you have land to grow it on.” Shandy was losing the struggle to keep his temper, and didn’t care. “How do you think anybody’s going to stay alive when the farmland’s all developed out of existence and there’s no clean water to drink or air fit to breathe?”

  “I won’t have that filthy, un-American environmentalist talk in my house!”

  Lutt was a really amazing shade of magenta now, deepening to blue-purple around the jowls. Rather like a sunset over Mount Agamenticus on a hazy evening in July, Shandy thought. He bowed slightly to Mrs. Bugleford.

  “Then I’ll take my leave. Might I just ask one or two non-environmental questions before I go, Mr. Lutt?”

  “No.”

  Shandy went on regardless. “You attended the Balaclavian Society meeting this past Wednesday night, did you not?”

  “Get out before I call the police.”

  “I am the police, Mr. Lutt. That is, I’m on—er—temporary assignment to Chief Ottermole of Balaclava Junction for the purpose of investigating Professor Ungley’s murder and—er—subsequent events. Ottermole has a reciprocal assistance agreement with your Chief Olson, as you can easily verify by picking up the telephone and calling the police station.”

  Shandy hoped Lutt wouldn’t do it. He had not been on cordial terms with Olson during the Horsefalls’ troubles, and had no reason to believe time had yet healed the breach. He didn’t even know if Ottermole had been exercising his sense of humor with that Detective Shandy routine they’d fed Bertram Claude last night. In any event, he’d managed to bring Lutt up short.

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” the former bubble baron was growling.

  Edna Jean Bugleford snatched at the chance to save her own face.

  “There you are, Lot. Why didn’t you give me a chance to speak up before you started biting my head off? What makes you think I’d have stood here talking to him if Edna Mae Ottermole wasn’t my own late husband’s brother’s daughter?”

  The housekeeper’s reasoning might have been a tad obscure, but her words appeared to carry some weight. Perhaps Lutt was remembering the soapsuds fiasco during which he’d blustered himself out of a job. His color began to fade, though his eyeballs continued to bulge.

  “In answer to your question, Shandy,” he snapped, “I did attend the meeting Wednesday night. Will that be all?”

  “Not quite. When did you leave?”

  “When the rest did.”

  “Who went first?”

  “I don’t recall. We left in a group.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Got into my car and drove home.”

  “Where was your car?”

  “In front of the post office.”

  “Did you offer Ungley a lift?”

  “No. He preferred to walk.”

  “When did he last tell you he preferred to walk?”

  “I don’t remember. We all knew Ungley preferred to walk.”

  “Then none of you offered him a ride?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Did you see Ungley start walking back to his flat?”

  “No.”

  “But he’d have had to pass the post office, in front of which you say your car was parked.”

  “He may have. I didn’t notice. I was hunting for my car keys.”

  “Ungley was an old man. He walked slowly.”

  A flicker of a grin flitted across Lutt’s doughlike face. “I’m no spring chicken, either. Maybe I hunt slowly.”

  Shandy let that pass. “Can you tell me what order you drove off in?”

  “Order? I don’t understand you.”

  “Yours wasn’t the only member’s car on the street, was it? I understand the Pommells had theirs, for one. Did they start off before you did?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “What about Twerks and Sill? Did they ride or walk?”

  Lutt stuck out his lower lip, thought that one over for a while, then shook his head. “I don’t remember. Sometimes they ride, sometimes they walk. Hodger walked, I believe. He lives just across from the clubhouse and can’t drive anyway on account of his arthritis. Yes, I’m quite sure Hodger walked home. He was crossing the street, I think, when I drove off. Or maybe he was just getting ready to. He moves very slowly. What difference does all this make? I told you we left at the same time, near enough as makes no difference.”

  “So you did. And what did you think of Ungley’s speech?”

  “What the hell—” Lutt pulled himself up short. “I should hardly care to express my ignorant opinion in front of an educated man like you.”

  “Hodger tells me he spoke about inkwells,” Shandy said with calculated guile.

  Lutt didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said noncommittally, “Professor Ungley had a fund of knowledge on many subjects. His death is a great loss to the Balaclavian Society.”

  “No doubt.” Had Lutt slept through Ungley’s talk, as Twerks apparently had done, or was he playing stupid for some other reason? “You’ll have to start casting about for someone to replace him,” Shandy remarked. “Getting rather shy on members, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, we always have applicants. Edna Jean, is my dark gray suit pressed? I’ll need it for the funeral. Call Goulson and find out if they’ve set a time yet. Are we through here, Shandy? I have other calls on my time, in case that hadn’t occurred to you.”

  “My brother-in-law’s a very busy man,” Edna Jean recited as if she’d had plenty of practice telling people so.

  “Then I’ll thank you for your—er—courtesy,” Shandy said, and left.

  He must be even sleepier than he’d thought. It didn’t occur to him until he was out on the Balaclava Road that Lutt had in fact not told him one damn thing about what happened after the club meeting, or where he’d gone after he’d left that abortive Claude reception last night.

  Chapter Twenty

  SHANDY KNEW BETTER THAN to go back for another try. He’d made himself about as persona non grata at Lutt’s as he could have without committing a nuisance on the carpet. Maybe Ottermole would be able to get Edna Jean Bugleford alone and pry something more out of her on the strength of his family connection.

  Anyway, and Shandy winced at the prospect, there was still one member of the Balaclavian Society to be called upon. At least he shouldn’t have much trouble getting Congressman Sill to talk. That old blowfish might not be so quick to recognize the apparently notorious Professor Shandy, either. Sill had always been too full of himself to bother much about anybody else. The big question was whether he’d be at home or out recruiting another goon squad to storm the college.

  There was something to be said for interviewing a pack of septuagenarians. They were more apt to be at home than college students. Congressman Sill was. He came to the door himself, with a pair of pince-nez as worn by Woodrow Wilson dangling from a black cord in one hand and a badly dog-eared copy of the Congressional Record for March 1957 in the other. It was about time he got himself some new props.

  Shandy made due obeisance. “Good afternoon, Congressman. I hope I haven’t interrupted you in the midst of something important.”

  “You have, but no matter. We public servants are used to being interrupted.” Sill flourished the Congressional Record with a great fluttering of pages. “Press, I take it. Which paper do you represent?”

  The old walrus must be blind as a bat without those pince-nez. Wi
th them, too, like as not. That was a stroke of luck. “I’m with an independent news service,” Shandy improvised.

  “Ah yes, to be sure. Too bad you missed my press conference this morning.”

  Good God, had Sill actually called one? He must be even loopier than popular opinion made him out to be. Shandy essayed another fast prevarication.

  “Transportation problems. You know how it is. Now that I’m here, maybe you wouldn’t mind giving me a short private interview? I understand you’ve been right at the heart of everything that’s happened around here during the past couple of days.”

  Sill tapped lightly with the pince-nez on one of his chins. “Well, now, I’m not sure I’d say right at the heart, exactly. Finger on the pulse is how I like to think of it. My fellow citizens depend on me to keep a finger on the pulse of government for them, as you’ve no doubt been aware. But come in, come in. Mustn’t keep you standing in the cold. Loula! Loula! Drat the woman, where is she?”

  “Up here in the bedroom, where I’m paid to be,” shrilled a voice from over the stairs. “What do you want now?”

  “We need some drinks down here.”

  “No, really,” Shandy protested.

  Sill waved his objection aside. “Nonsense, my dear fellow. I know what it’s like, in and out of airports, rushing to meet deadlines, rushing back to meetings, rushing here, rushing there, grabbing a sandwich on the run, catching a nap when you can. How much sleep did you get last night?”

  “Not much.” Shandy welcomed the chance to tell the truth for a change.

  “Then sit down and rest yourself, my boy. Loula!”

  “Quit pestering me, can’t you?” came the shriek from above. “It’s on the sideboard, as you ought to know better’n anybody else. I’m changing her bed, for the cat’s sake! Should have done it this morning, but you kept me standing around down there waiting for that crowd of reporters who never showed up.”

  Sill faked his indulgent chuckle rather well. “You’ll have to make allowances for Loula. She likes to think of herself as a character. Faithful old servant, you know. A vanishing breed. Yes sir, a vanishing breed. My wife’s an invalid and needs a lot of care. We have another woman who comes in at night, but Loula does most of the nursing. Loula knows her work. Yes, Loula’s good to my wife. So I forgive and forget.”

  Sill waddled over to get the drinks himself, pouring a long time from the bottle and not bothering with fripperies like ice or water. “There you are, sir.” He handed Shandy one of the almost-full glasses. “That’s how we take it in Balaclava Junction.”

  The hell it is, Shandy thought. He went through sipping motions, then found himself a chair next to an overgrown rubber plant. It looked healthy enough and didn’t have a liver to worry about.

  While Sill was laving his tonsils for the interview, Shandy slopped whiskey into the plant pot and looked around. The Balaclavians were a well-heeled organization, that was for sure. Lutt’s house had been the very model of a soap magnate’s turn-of-the-century mansion. Twerks’s endless yards of Buchanan tartan carpeting must have been woven to order and cost a mint. Pommell clearly wasn’t one to stint. Ungley, although he’d lived modestly enough, had left that astounding legacy.

  Shandy couldn’t recall whether Warren G. Harding and his Duchess had done any major redecorating during their brief stay in the White House. If they had, he thought, the result might have come out somewhat like Sill’s place, only in better taste and not so flossy. All this parlor needed were a few gold-plated cuspidors.

  And that was interesting. Sill neither toiled nor span. In fact, he hadn’t done a damn thing for over thirty years, as far as anybody around Balaclava Junction, including Mrs. Lomax, had been able to find out. Yet here he was, living like one of the Teapot Dome financiers, running up travel expenses, shelling out for round-the-clock nurses and expensive liquor. Those newspapermen who hadn’t been here this morning would slit their throats if they ever found out what they’d missed. Shandy ran his eye over the labels displayed in such profusion on the sideboard and wondered if perhaps he’d been a trifle precipitate in treating that rubber plant to so much of this superb Bourbon.

  Either the Sill family fortune or that of the invalid wife must have been pretty darn lavish, or else the ex-congressman was less of an idiot than he appeared. Maybe he’d been hauling down substantial fees as a lobbyist all these years. Being a professional pest oughtn’t to be beyond his talents when he did it so well for nothing. Maybe he was on the payroll of the CIA or the FBI. That was an interesting conjecture. Shandy essayed another sip of his Bourbon.

  “Now,” said his host, the amenities observed and the preliminaries taken care of, “what did you want to ask me?”

  The Bourbon it was that spoke. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who strangled Ruth Smuth.”

  Sill put on the pince-nez and glared over their tops. “If I knew, young man, I assure you I wouldn’t be sitting here chatting. I’d be taking prompt, effective action to bring the malefactor to swift and certain justice.”

  Well, he’d brought it on himself, Shandy reflected as Sill continued to assure him, according to the late James Michael Curley’s formula for successful public speaking. First, Sill told him what he was going to tell him. Then he told him. Then he told him what he’d already told him. All told, it took quite a while. Sorted out, it boiled down to the conclusion that Sill in fact had nothing of importance to tell.

  Knowing he’d hate himself for doing it, Shandy risked another question. “Could you tell me what was the last time you saw Mrs. Smuth after that demonstration at the college broke up?”

  “Let me pause a moment to refresh my memory.” Sill refreshed his drink while he was about it. “Ready for a refill?”

  “I’m still working on this, thanks.” Shandy decided he’d better give the rubber plant another nip in the interest of lucidity. How in thunder did the old soak manage to keep it up like this? Practice, no doubt.

  “Now, you asked me when I last saw Mrs. Smuth.”

  Still resettled himself in an armchair that had bobbles the size of Ping-Pong balls depending from its skirt. “First let me say Mrs. Smuth was a woman of impeccable character, highly respected throughout Balaclava County, and dedicated to the lofty principles for which we all stand.”

  Having so recently been given a sample of the principles Lot Lutt stood for, Shandy thought of asking Sill to explain what he’d meant by lofty. Then he thought of not asking, which was surely the wiser course. He merely nodded and made an attempt to nudge the interview along. “Was that why she managed to get you involved in the Claude campaign?”

  “Perhaps we might explore precisely what we mean here by involvement.”

  Great Caesar, was there no stopping this old windbag? Shandy found himself drifting off on the whiskey fumes, back to the time his Uncle Charlie had taken him to the County Fair. He’d been six going on seven then. Uncle Charlie had bought him a red balloon fastened to a thin stick of whippy rattan.

  Later on, Uncle Charlie had bought him a great, globby cone of pink cotton candy. While trying to deal with the candy, Peter had let go of the stick and the balloon had got away. Instead of sailing off to infinity, though, the toy had bounced along the midway, staying just out of his reach while he ran after it making sticky, futile grabs. At last, outside the India-rubber Man’s tent, he’d managed to get a sticky hand on the rattan and yank down the balloon. Was there any stick to yank Sill by, and how in Sam Hill did one get hold of it?

  “So what you’re saying basically is that you yourself were more interested in the principle of freedom of speech than in getting Bertram Claude elected to the House,” he interrupted, when he’d run out of patience.

  What Sill was actually saying, as far as Shandy could make out, was that any chance to get up and spout off in public was better than no chance at all, but he’d have a fat chance of making the old blowhard admit that. Balked in the midst of a subordinate clause, Sill blinked and paused to reflect. Before
he could get launched again, Shandy pressed his advantage.

  “Mrs. Smuth, however, was already actively involved as Bertram Claude’s campaign manager. You knew what her position was before you agreed to participate in the demonstration, didn’t you?”

  “I—hm—that is, Mrs. Smuth gave me to understand she’d been pressed into service, so to speak, as a neighbor of Congressman Claude. We stand by our own out here, sir.”

  “But if you stand by your own, why wasn’t Mrs. Smuth working for Sam Peters instead of Bertram Claude?” Shandy had the floor now, and he intended to keep it.

  “Peters was born and bred right here in Balaclava County and has supported this district faithfully and efficiently at both state and federal levels for a good many years. Claude rolled in from God knows where about five years ago, managed to get himself elected to a vacant seat on a platform of dimples and snake oil, and has already piled up the second-worst voting record in the history of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. According to a poll taken by the League of Women Voters,” Shandy hastened to add.

  He should have remembered sooner that it was Sam Peters who’d once booted Sill out of the seat now held by Bertram Claude, and that Sill himself still held the never-disputed record of first worst. While the ex-congressman was seeking inspiration in the bottom of his glass, Shandy tried a quick change of subject.

  “Getting away from Mrs. Smuth for a moment, what’s your opinion on the murder of Professor Ungley? You belong to the Balaclavian Society, according to my information. Could you say something about that last meeting? Would you say Ungley was in good spirits, or did he act worried about something?”

  “I’d say Ungley was in his usual spirits,” Sill replied cautiously. “Of course, he may have been worried. I couldn’t say. As a gentleman and a scholar, he naturally maintained a certain reserve of manner.”

  Sill liked the sound of this. He said it again, rolling it around his tongue and washing down the savory taste with another belt of whiskey. “Yes, that was it, a certain reserve of manner.”

  Shandy wasn’t letting him get away on another flight of rhetoric. “You were the last to see Ungley alive, right? You stayed to talk with him after the rest were gone, didn’t you?”