Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  There was a series of hugs and greetings, and Sticky opened a coat closet where we each gently tossed our overnight bags. “It’s so good to see you, Sticky, old boy!” said Sir Haughty, hugging the man hard.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Haughty. All of you. I’m very glad you’re ALL here. Please, have a seat. Dinner will be ready soon.” As we settled, he ducked back into the kitchen. I hung by the open archway, watching him. Something didn’t feel quite right to me. He seemed bubbly and energetic, just like I remembered him, but it wasn’t quite the same. I also sensed that he was nervous, almost frightened, jittery and agitated. He opened and closed the oven door, then did it again and adjusted a dial, then placed something into the sink. Of course, his health was likely part of the awkwardness I felt. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to such news. He came back out and took my arm to guide me to the seating area. “You simply must introduce me to your new friends, Helena.” When Sir Haughty had introduced me all those years ago, Sticky’s response was, “That’s a capital name! Simply capital!” For a moment, I was sadly nostalgic.

  “I’d be happy to,” I said. I did all the repeat introductions first, just to refresh his memory, then added, “this is Nitro, our medic and chemist, and our newest member is Sylvia Pendragon. She’s great with strategy and tactics, and has been with us almost six months.”

  Sticky bowed and kissed Sylvia’s hand. “A pleasure, my dear.”

  Sylvia blushed from the attention. “Likewise. Your home is lovely, sir.” I think she appreciated that he did not inquire about her eye patch.

  “Oh, I’m not a sir. There will be no sirring on my account. You must all call me Sticky. I insist.” He finally sat in one of the chairs, although Sir Haughty and Badger had elected to stand, leaning against the nearest furniture. “I do hope your flight was without incident. You must be so tired from your travel. I do apologize for the lateness of the meal.”

  “Nonsense,” Sir Haughty answered. “The lateness is our fault, not yours. We got plenty of rest on the plane, old chum. We can be here for you as long as you need us.”

  “Splendid. Splendid.” At that point, a buzzer sounded in the kitchen. “Ah, that’s dinner. Haughty, would you show them into the dining room while I get the first course?”

  The dining room was on the other side of the staircase. A large room, with about fifteen square tables lined up to one side. Wooden chairs were upended on most of them, but in the middle of the room, four of the square tables had been pushed together to make a long dining table covered with white linen cloths, identical wooden chairs placed all around it. Although the overhead lighting was sufficient, short, thick candles also burned in the center of each table. We sat, leaving the chair at the head of the arrangement for Sticky, with Sir Haughty, having the honor of best friend, taking the foot of the tables, closest to the lobby, except for Agnes and Avis, who followed Sticky into the kitchen and insisted on helping serve. The three of them came out carrying multiple bowls of salad and placed one at each sitting. There were condiment trays at each end and at the middle of the tables. The dishes were gleaming white with a single red rose in the middle, and the silverware continued the rose motif with engraved roses on the handles. A red linen napkin was folded into a rose on top of each plate, and there were wine goblets and drinking glasses for each of us.

  Sticky emerged again with two bottles of white wine and began to pour it into the goblets. He was enjoying this, I saw. He even got a little theatrical, lifting the bottle high to create a long stream of wine into each goblet without splattering or spilling a single drop. He was in his element. It was what he was born to do. It’s what he’d chosen to do with his life. I relaxed a little, feeling less like an intrusion, less like a burden, even though he was running around like mad getting everyone served. He was smiling. It was like he’d been waiting weeks, or even years for people to serve, like the enchanted dishes and flatware in Beauty and the Beast. He finished, then surveyed the table with a serious and practiced eye.

  He and the twins had brought out everything. There was a stargazy pie with four pilchards peeking out of it, dumplings and kippers, and Scotch eggs. Finally, Sticky brought out a large bowl of something I didn’t recognize. “What is that?”

  “Boiled cauliflower,” he said. “In a normal world, there would be cheddar cheese in it, but I didn’t have any. Listing our menu as cheese-free seems to be good for business. I haven’t had cheese in, oh, must be nine years now.” He searched for a place for the large bowl.

  I felt a little awkward. There was no business now, but no one said anything. We all averted our eyes. “You can put that in front of me,” said Nitro, moving a condiment set out of the way to a sideboard to make room for the cauliflower.

  Finally, with every inch of table space taken, Sticky himself took his seat. “Before we begin, I want to thank you all again for coming. I know it wasn’t easy to get here on such short notice.”

  “The food looks and smells delicious,” said Roxy. Badger and Billings voiced their agreement, taking large dramatic whiffs of the lovely aromas. Clouds of steam rose from the tables, to disperse into the air above us. No one else felt that it was our place to begin, but Sir Haughty reached for a serving spoon to break into the stargazy pie.

  “Wait!” Sticky said quickly, and Sir Haughty stopped, but held onto the spoon.

  “I -- I’d just like to say a few words to each of you. I’ll try to be brief.” And he proceeded to address each of us in turn starting from his left, where I sat. “Helena, I know we’ve only met once before, but I feel I know you as well as my own sister. You, my dear, are a treasure—“

  “Sticky,” I interrupted. “Are you sure you want to -?” I noticed Sir Haughty put down the spoon to give Sticky his undivided attention. In fact, he glanced around the table to make sure everyone followed suit, nodding with his head toward his friend.

  “Absolutely. You have a kind heart, and an indomitable spirit. Billings, I know you truly appreciate your mother.” Billings nodded in acknowledgement. “You’ve inherited both of those qualities from her. God willing, both of you will see another generation or more of younger versions of yourselves.”

  “Sticky, lad, what are you--?” Sir Haughty started to say, but he either could not voice his question or deliberately stopped himself from completing it.

  “No, no. It’s not your turn, Sir Haughty,” Sticky admonished. “Bugger off. Agnes and Avis. What can I say about you? You’ve taken what to many would be a disability and turned it into a weapon. Nay, two weapons, which can never be disarmed. You are saviors and guardians and the world is immeasurably safer because of you.” He then proceeded to skip over Sir Haughty, who was waiting his turn to comment with a questioning look, and moved to the opposite side of the table. I noticed that he was taking deep breaths, as if he were trying to calm himself. “Badger. Never let your curiosity be extinguished. For the one who can find the answer need never ask any questions. And the answer can be found right in front of you.” Badger looked at the stargazy pie in front of his plate, then up at Sticky with no understanding at all in his eyes. Sticky continued, “Roxy, love. What a gorgeous creature you are. So pleasing to the eye, and equally pleasing to the mind. Sadly, someday, your looks will fade –“

  “Hey!” Roxy took mild offense, but smiled at him in jest.

  “But your mind, my dear, will stay sharp. There is no doubt your appeal, if you’ll pardon the pun,” he quipped, referring to her legal expertise, “will prove to be as long lasting as history itself. Nitro, Mr. Thackery, from what Sir Haughty has written me, your knowledge of the human body is surpassed only by your repulsion to that which it uses to survive. Some might see this as a contradiction, though it is only an indication of the civil war within all of us between what is good and what is enjoyable.” He took another deep breath. “Now, Miss Pendragon,” he said to Sylvia, who sat at his right hand. “Frankly, my dear, I know little of you. A little mystery can be a good thing. Being unknown does not make you
a stranger. It only makes you something to uncover, something to discover, something to, perhaps, recover into a friend.” Sticky licked his lips and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a bird’s head.

  “And now, Sir Haughty, my closest and dearest mate.” All of us were staring at Sticky now. It was clear he was trying to tell us something. His words were carefully chosen, practiced and rehearsed. I was trying to remember the exact words he said and what they could mean, but the longer I spent doing that the more I missed. I gave up and paid closer attention. “As Dorothy said to the scarecrow in that 1939 classic film, I will miss you most of all.” This was his first inference regarding his illness and its prognosis, and it knocked everything else out of our heads for a few moments. Several of us, including myself, had tears welling by now. The candle light flickered and blurred, filtered by salt water. This was too much. I blinked and cleared my eyes. Something was going on here that felt dangerous. I was beginning to assemble some of the pieces, but I didn’t have the full picture quite yet. “Francis Maxwell Haughty the fourth,” he specified. “Without you, I would not have the home I share with you tonight. I would not have known the joy of serving hundreds of wonderful human beings who enriched my life far more than I enriched theirs. I would only have the wrath and disapproval of one resentful, hateful man. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” It struck me that Sticky assumed we knew about his past with Sir Haughty. He didn’t realize that Sir Haughty had not shared their story, and at the moment the expressions of confusion on his guests’ faces meant nothing to him.

  It looked like that was going to be the end of his speech, though no one made a move to eat. Sticky paused, and took a sip of wine. “Oh, Bloody Hell,” he muttered under his breath. I doubt anyone but Sylvia and I could hear it. Her green eye met my gaze across the table as he moved on, “I’d also like to propose a toast in the form of a short prayer.” Everyone lifted their wine glass expectantly. “Lord, thank you for the blessings we are about to share. Keep us safe from,” he coughed slightly, clearing his throat,” danger. Thank you also for the friends that join me here today and may they forgive me for serving stargazy pie,” and here he coughed again, “in lieu of turducken, for which I had only the duck. My manservant was not available to go to market.”

  We all drank a sip of wine, then slowly picked up forks. Badger reached hesitantly for the stargazy pie.

  But Sir Haughty put his hand silently, but definitively, atop Badger’s to stop him. He stood, panic on his face, and shook his head, mouthing the word “no.” He looked pointedly at me and tilted his head. By then, I’d put the pieces together as well. He had more pieces than me, but I still had enough to figure it out. My abdominal cavity solidified, the metaphorical cement being mixed, poured and set in the space of a single thought.

  Rennet Butler was here.

  Chapter Three

  From Sticky’s clues, I suspected that he was hiding in the bathroom, called a loo in England, which is why he coughed before saying “in lieu.” I got Sticky’s attention to confirm this. I pointed to the doorway behind him, which was marked with both universal symbols for women and men. He nodded, clearly gladdened that his message had gotten through. Turning my hand into a pistol, I asked him if Butler had guns. Sticky held up two fingers, the two weapons he had mentioned when speaking of the twins. Then he placed his hands facing each other about a foot apart, and produced jazz hands three times. Fabulous. Two long barreled pistols with 30 round magazines. And we had precisely squat.

  I had to think fast. If I had my team surround the bathroom door while I went to flush him out, someone was certain to get shot. He was also probably listening, and too much silence would alert him. He’d escape out the bathroom window like almost every perp on TV. Using hand motions, I directed my team to go outside and surround the house, a point to the front door, then a horizontal circle in midair. At the same time, I said, “I’m sorry, everyone. Sticky, I need to use the loo.”

  “This one isn’t working, Helena,” Sticky said quickly. “There’s another upstairs and to your right, end of the hall.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be right back. Please wait for me. I don’t want to miss anything. We have so much to talk about. Don’t even speak until I get back.” That would explain the silence, since my team was already on their way quietly out the front door. Then the twins came back. In perfect synchronicity, they pointed to themselves and then to me, and moved stealthily up the stairs ahead of me. From the staircase, I motioned to Sticky to stay quiet and to move back to the kitchen to hide. He nodded and vanished.

  I allowed a little noise on the stairs, since Butler, hiding in the loo, would expect to hear someone going up. We reached the second floor and moved down the hallway. There were more stairs going up to the third floor to the left of us. We went right, down a stretch of hallway with about five doorways, two on one side and three on the other, and another doorway at the very end of the hall also marked with the symbols for men and women. The twins got there first and opened the door. It was a nice lavender bathroom, with white fixtures, lilac towels and rugs, and a lilac shower curtain surrounding a claw foot tub. A bouquet of lilacs stood atop the toilet tank. They had to be plastic. They were planted in clear glass marbles with lilac scented potpourri. There was a window in the wall next to the linen closet and the twins already had it open. Avis was looking down. “The rose trellis is within reach,” she whispered, keeping her head outside.

  “It might not hold the two of you. Hell, it might not hold me. And we can’t see where the thorns are in the dark,” I whispered back. I flushed the toilet.

  Avis looked up. “The trellis goes all the way up, and the roses are thinner up there.” Then she looked down again, and leaned way out, causing Agnes to butt up against the wall. “Feels really sturdy.”

  “I’ll go,” I said, pulling them back into the bathroom. I turned around and leaned out and tested the trellis myself. It did indeed feel like it was riveted to the brick every few inches. No movement at all when I pulled on it. “You two go back to the stairs and watch which way he goes when he runs. Remember, he’s got two pistols, so disarming him is job number one. But don’t be stupid.”

  “We’re never stupid,” they said in perfect unison.

  “Syracuse,” I replied, referring to a previous mission in New York in which they had run headlong into a closed sliding glass door. In their defense, it was really really clean, but the Uber dealer had escaped while they were getting eight stitches.

  “Okay,” they admitted. “We’re almost never stupid.” They gave me mock salutes and proceeded down the hall.

  I turned on the faucet to complete my ruse, let it run for a moment, then turned it off, and a few seconds later, I was clinging to the edge of the trellis twenty-five feet above the ground. I could feel a thorn digging into my left pinky.

  Slowly, I moved down the trellis. I had to find footholds first, then test for handholds one hand at a time until I could find one without thorns. The roses were thick down here, covering the entire trellis, so I wasn’t very successful at avoiding the thorns. I was pretty sure I was bleeding, though the light was too dim to really see, but knowing it was just superficial helped. I’ve had worse. Finally, I was right next to the window of the first floor loo, which was closed. I leaned over to look in and there he was. His back was to me, and he had both pistols in his hands as he listened with one ear to the door. There was probably no way to keep the element of surprise. I wasn’t going to break the window on the first try, not without Roxy’s spike heels. My Nikes just weren’t very effective battering rams. Besides that, surprise could be deadly in this situation. It could cause him to turn and fire. Basically, I wanted him to know he couldn’t escape out the window. I could try to use the fact that he didn’t know I was unarmed, but that particular bluff had its limits. As casually as I could, I reached out with my right leg and tapped the window with my foot. Unfortunately, this meant I had to lean my head the other way, so I could no longer see him.
I wasn’t sure he’d even heard it. I waited about thirty seconds, then did it again, a little harder.

  The window shot open all the way and Butler leaned out, his pistols tracking from left to right before focusing on me. I held my breath. He could shoot me dead right now. I smiled, feigning a confidence I didn’t feel at all. “You’re under arrest, Butler. Throw down your weapons.”

  Of course, I didn’t really expect him to do that, and he didn’t. “Throw down yours,” he said, cocking both pistols.

  “My hands are full of trellis,” I said. “I know it’s dark, but surely you can see far enough to verify that. You going to shoot me when I can’t even defend myself? It’s not very honorable.” He emulated Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind, and even Rhett had more honor than that, and he was a smuggler. I saw him glance downward, judging the distance to the ground. “If you jump, I’ll be on you like mold on bleu cheese,” I said. “I can cuff you before you get your breath back, pistols or no pistols.” I was lying, of course. I had no cuffs on me. And the pistols or no pistols bit was just bravado. With guys like Rennet Butler, bravado can go a long way.

  Quickly, he uncocked his pistols, tucked one under the back waistband of his black denim jeans, ducked back in, and pulled the window down. He probably locked it, but I didn’t hang around to find out. I wasn’t sure whether to go up or down, but the ground was closer than the roof, so I started climbing the trellis the rest of the way down until I could safely jump to the ground, landing softly on grass, missing a stone bench by inches, my hands stinging with tiny punctures. Shielded by shadows, I trotted around to the front of the house and back to the entry door. I noticed Billings and Badger on my way, both watching for activity. They recognized me and I waved them back. Sticky met me at the front door. “He went up the stairs,” he said. “The twins are on his tail.”