Vane Pursuit

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “In Sasquamahoc, Maine, naturally. You don’t think I’m going to sit here twiddling my little pink thumbs and let another Praxiteles Lumpkin weather vane melt down before I’ve even got to take a snapshot of it?”

  “But you can’t drive all that way by yourself!”

  “I certainly can, but what makes you think I’m going to? Daniel Stott’s off at the pork breeders’ convention and Iduna will jump at the chance to go with me. We can stay with our old buddy Catriona McBogle. She was a visiting author in South Dakota when I was librarian there. We both boarded with Iduna. That was while Iduna was still Miss Bjorklund, the buggy-whip magnate’s daughter,” Helen explained to Swope.

  Catriona McBogle was the name that caught the reporter’s attention. “Isn’t she the woman who writes all those goofy books? What’s she doing in Maine?”

  “Writing more goofy books, I expect. She loves it there. Cat says you can be as insane as you please and nobody pays the least bit of attention. Iduna and I had better take the Stotts’ car, don’t you think, Peter? You’ll want ours to go detecting in.”

  “I could rent one if you’d be more comfortable driving ours.”

  “Borrow the Fane and Pennon staff car,” Cronkite offered through a poorly concealed yawn. “I can ride my bike.”

  “Cronkite, why don’t you forget about your bike for a while?” said Helen. “Go upstairs, take a shower, and get some sleep. Peter, find him some towels and pajamas. I’ll be up to change the bed as soon as I’ve finished my coffee.”

  “Sit still, I can manage. Come on Swope, you’re dead on your feet.”

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I’ll just get back on my bike and—”

  “Fall off the other side. You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”

  “Well, if you’re—”

  Another yawn interrupted whatever Swope was going to say. Peter took him by the arm and steered him stairward. Helen was thinking seriously about another swallow or two of coffee when the telephone rang. Old Henny Horsefall was on the line.

  “Helen? Got a new wrinkle for your weather vane story.”

  Henny’s yarn went on for quite a while. The gist of it was that everybody but himself and a few of the youngest children had gone off to the fire—some to join the volunteer firemen, some to help out at the Red Cross canteen, some to gawk from a safe vantage point. He’d finally got the kids to sleep, but he himself had stayed outside, on the qui vive for any stray ember that might find the way to their hillside.

  None had, not surprisingly, but long about ha’past one he’d heard a noise out by the barn. He’d hotfooted it over there and be cussed and be damned if there wasn’t two grown men up on the roof fiddling around with the weather vane. He’d had the hose nozzle in his hand so he’d guv a squirt and a holler, then run in for the old over-and-under and fired a blast out the kitchen winder.

  By the time he’d got back to count the corpses, they’d made theirselves skeerce, didn’t leave no ladder nor nothin’. He’d set up till daylight waiting but nothing else happened. The pig and rooster were still where they’d been ever since Praxiteles Lumpkin helped Henny’s great-grandfather put them there.

  But Henny had got to thinking. So this morning, soon as he and the kids got through milking, the younger men being still at the fire and the ones who’d straggled home too beat to find the cows, let alone the teats, he’d called up old Gabe Fescue. Gabe was the one who owned that other weather vane Helen had took the picture of, the cow kicking over the bucket. After hearing Henny’s story, Gabe had gone out to take a gander at it, and be further cussed if the dern thing wasn’t gone, slick as a whistle. Didn’t Helen think that was the damndest, and what did she think Peter would think?

  “I expect he’ll think pretty much what you and I are thinking,” she told him. “The fire made a good excuse to go crawling around people’s roofs and somebody who knew what those weather vanes are worth took advantage of the chance. That’s terrible, Henny. It’s hard to believe anybody would stoop so low.”

  “Seems to me they had to climb pretty high.”

  “Oh, Henny! You know what I mean/But that’s a point to consider. You say you didn’t see any ladder, so how did they get up on your barn? That ridgepole must be upwards of forty feet high, isn’t it?”

  “I guess likely. Mebbe they come in one o’ them hook an’ ladder trucks that was screechin’ and’ hootin’ around all night. Can’t say I noticed any, an’ I got to admit that might be kind of a hard thing to overlook. What I think is, they must o’ snuck into the barn, dumb up into the loft an’ out that little winder in the back where the swallows go in an’ out of. There’s an old ladder nailed to the wall that my father put up once when he was doin’ some work on the roof. ‘Twouldn’t be too hard for an able-bodied feller to get up that way. I done it myself a few times when I was a dern sight sprier than I am now. They could o’ used a rope an’ pickaxe an’ them pointy things on their boots if they was too scairt to tackle it bare-handed like I done. I seen ‘em mountain climbin’ that way on TV.”

  “And they’d have had the rope to lower the weather vane by if they’d got it loose, which thank goodness they didn’t. But what a shame about Mr. Fescue’s losing his cow. I’ll speak to Peter, Henny. He’s upstairs just now, putting Cronkite Swope to bed.”

  “What’s the matter with Cronk?”

  “He’s dead beat, that’s all.”

  If Henny hadn’t yet heard the rumor about Brinkley Swope, Helen was not about to spread it. “I expect Peter will be out to see you after a while. Thanks for calling, and keep an eye on your weather vane.”

  She hung up. Peter came downstairs while she was still standing beside the telephone.

  “What’s up?”

  “Something strange.” Helen told him about Henny’s call. “He asked for you. I said I thought you’d probably drop out to see him in a while.”

  “M’yes. It mightn’t be a bad idea to check out the Methodist church, the county courthouse, and the rest of your list while I’m about it. You wouldn’t happen to remember the Flackleys’ telephone number at Forgery Point?”

  “It’s in the book. If you don’t mind, though, I’d like to phone Cat McBogle first. I think Iduna and I had better get our expedition under way right now, before that firebug moves on to Maine.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Helen went upstairs to pack. Peter sat down with the phone book and began dialing. As far as he could learn from the puzzled souls whom he sent outdoors to check on their weather vanes, none of the other Lumpkin artifacts on Helen’s list was missing. If she was right about the soap factory’s man in the tub, though—and after Henny’s call, it seemed more than likely she was—somebody had just pulled off a damned profitable night’s work.

  Others might have found it hard to believe anybody would pay thirty or forty thousand dollars for an old-time joke that time had turned into folk art. However, after the way his wife had parlayed Hilda Horsefall’s grandma’s courting sofa and a dozen or so other odds and ends into a handsome addition to the Horsefall homestead, two new trucks, some first-rate farm machinery, and the finest herd of Guernseys in the county, Peter was not about to dispute anything she told him about antiques.

  Not that he’d have doubted Helen’s word in any case; she was a librarian, and librarians were never wrong. He wished she weren’t going off without him, but he understood why she felt she ought to. Furthermore, it was probably better for her to get away from here till he could get a handle on what in tunket was happening to Praxiteles Lumpkin’s weather vanes. Mrs. Shandy’s picture-taking had stirred up a good deal more interest in them than anybody had ever shown before, except maybe Praxiteles’s lady friend, if he’d had one. These clandestine collectors, whoever they might be, might logically consider Helen their chief threat to what appeared to be shaping up as a highly successful operation.

  Peter made one last phone call, to the editor of the Balaclava County Fane and Pennon to let him know his star
reporter was catching forty desperately needed winks in the Shandy guest room. Then he decided he might as well stroll up to Valhalla, the hill above the campus where Professor Stott’s substantial house stood cheek-by-jowl with the president’s mansion.

  “I’m going to see whether Iduna wants me to bring the car around,” he called up the stairs.

  “That’s a good idea, dear,” Helen replied. “She may need some help with her luggage; her back’s been bothering her lately. I’ll be ready by the time you get back here.”

  Dan Stott had finally put his old Buick out to pasture and bought a new station wagon. Sturdy, comfortable, and capacious, this would be just the ticket for the two women to travel in. Peter felt a little better helping Iduna Stott pack in a vast picnic hamper, a beverage cooler, two suitcases, a raincoat the size of an army tent, and a coat sweater big enough to accommodate several Helens or one Iduna, as the case might be.

  “Well, that ought to hold you ladies awhile. Want me to drive as far as our house?”

  “No, I’ll do it. Helen can spell me after a while, once we’re on the road.”

  Getting from Valhalla to the Crescent, where the Shandys lived, took longer driving than walking, since they had to circle all the way around the college. Iduna handled the wheel as nonchalantly and expertly as she did her pie dough.

  “My, isn’t it awful about that fire? What do you suppose those poor folks that worked in the mill are going to do now? Can’t even drown their sorrows at the Bursting Bubble. I heard on the news it burned right to the ground. Nothing left but a few broken beer bottles and a nasty smell.”

  “Then they’ll just have to stay sober, collect their unemployment, and pray something turns up before it runs out, I guess,” Peter answered. “At least they haven’t lost their houses.”

  “Not yet, anyway. Land knows what’ll happen if it gets so they can’t meet their mortgages. Whatever possessed that man to shoot off that darned cannon, I wonder?”

  “How do they know it was a man?” Peter asked her. “Are they even sure the cannon was fired? Did anybody see it happen?”

  “It didn’t say on the news, but they’re asking anybody who might have seen something to come forward. The trouble seems to be that there’s never much doing on that side of the factory after dark, unless something’s happening at the schoolhouse, which of course there isn’t now that classes are through for the summer and they’re closed for repairs. Going to put in a new boiler, Mrs. Lomax tells me, and paint all the classrooms. She’s got a cousin on the maintenance staff.”

  “Name me something she hasn’t got a cousin on,” Peter grunted. “One thing sure, that school’s going to need repainting now a damned sight worse than it did before.”

  “Won’t it, though? Greasy soot all over everything. I’m glad I don’t have to wash the windows. Well, at least it’ll make a few extra jobs for some of the men, not that the women don’t need ‘em just as badly. They’re going to miss being with their friends, you know. That’s the tough thing about keeping house, it’s lonesome not having anybody around to talk to. Which is one reason I started taking in boarders back in South Dakota. The other reason was that I needed the money after the buggy-whip business went bust.”

  Iduna uttered a ladylike snort of self-deprecating laughter. “I guess that’s why I’m so wrought up about those factory workers. I know how it feels to be used to cream in your coffee every day and lamb chops on the table whenever you felt like ‘em, then suddenly finding yourself with a big house on your hands and nothing much to run it on. Well, I suppose they can count one blessing. It was the Bursting Bubble that burned down instead of the schoolhouse. At least folks won’t be tempted to blow their unemployment checks on booze they can’t afford and are better off without. We saw too darn much of that back home after the buggy-whip factory had to shut down. They get depressed, you know.”

  “Can’t blame them for that.”

  “You don’t have to tell me, Peter. I was pretty down in the dumps myself after my own house got blown away by the tornado. All the family photographs, Poppa’s mustache cup and everything just gone with the wind. It’s a terrible feeling, like standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling the ground crumbling away under your feet. And now they say the remains are beginning to foam.”

  “Foam?”

  Iduna nodded. “Yup. It’s the soapsuds coming out. From all that water they’ve been squirting on, you know. Better than smoke and flames, I suppose, but they’re frothing out all over the road and people’s yards and getting into cellars and spoiling gardens. And of course the dogs and cats and kids are running out and getting soaked and tracking ‘em into the houses. They’re not nice, clean white suds, either—there’s ashes and dirt and heaven knows what mixed in. From what I saw on the morning news, it’s just one great big gooky mess over there. Everybody’s fit to be tied and you can’t blame ‘em. I bet if they ever find out who started that fire, they’ll tar and feather him and ride him out of town on a rail.”

  Peter was not happy. “What if he turns out to be a her?” he suggested without much hope.

  Iduna shook her silver blond head. “He won’t. Women have more sense. Look, there’s Helen bringing her stuff out. I declare to goodness she looks younger now than she did in South Dakota. Don’t you just love those little bitty pink sneakers? Helen always did have the cutest feet. Ready, ma’am? Your taxi’s waiting.”

  “Just about, I think.”

  Helen’s luggage consisted of one small suitcase, a few garments hung inside a plastic cleaner’s bag, and a large canvas tote bag crammed full of books. Iduna chuckled when she saw the traveling library.

  “Kind of coals to Newcastle, isn’t it, lugging books to Cat McBogle?”

  “Look who’s talking,” Helen retorted. “Set these in beside that pantry Iduna’s got in there, will you, Peter? You know darn well Cat started cooking the minute she found out we were coming, Iduna. Anyway, Cat and I have the same recurring nightmare, that we’ll find ourselves stuck away somewhere without a solitary thing to read.”

  “Don’t they have a library in Sasquamahoc?”

  “That seems to be a matter of opinion. Cat says it’s eight feet square and open one afternoon a week from three to six o’clock. She does have access to the college library, but the only books in there are either about tree fungus or else the poems of Joyce Kilmer. Cat stocks up whenever she hits a bookshop and buys a lot through the mail, but it’s hard on a person with a two-book-a-day habit. Let me just run back and say good-bye to Jane.”

  “Give her my love.” Iduna settled herself more comfortably behind the wheel and checked her custom-made seat belt. “See you on Friday, Peter. Daniel’s due back Saturday noontime, and I need time enough to have a decent meal ready for him when he gets home.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be ready for one,” said Peter. He’d never known a time when Dan wasn’t. “Have a good trip, Iduna. I’d better go see if Helen has any last-minute nagging to get out of her system.”

  His true objective was to stock up on a few extra conjugal embraces to tide him over through the week, but Helen was encumbered by the phone.

  “I shan’t be here, but my husband will,” she was saying. “He’ll make sure Cronkite gets the message just as soon as he wakes up. No, no trouble at all. Please don’t hesitate to call us anytime. You’d better try to get some rest and keep your spirits up. Give our best to Mrs. Lomax and tell her she mustn’t even think of coming to us this week. You need her more than we do.”

  Helen put the phone back. “That was Huntley Swope’s wife,” she told Peter. “She called the paper trying to get hold of Cronkite and they told her he was here. She wants him to know Huntley came out of the anesthetic a little while ago and said he’d watched a soldier throw a bomb into the tallow room. She wants Cronkite to put that in the paper. I gather her object is to take the heat off Brinkley.”

  “Fat chance,” Peter grunted.

  “I know, dear, but at least it may make the poor
woman feel a little better to know she tried. She’s been sitting up all night long with her husband and sounds as if she’s worn to a frazzle. Mrs. Lomax is taking care of the children. Aunt Betsy, she called her. So you’d better not count on getting any cleaning done while I’m gone. I feel awfully mean, running out on you like this.”

  “It’s a far, far better thing you do.” Peter didn’t want to tell her so to her face, but he was relieved to know Helen would be safely out of the way for a few days. “How did Huntley know it was a soldier?”

  “Darling, how do I know? Maybe the man was carrying a flag and beating a drum. I expect Huntley was still pretty groggy when he spoke to her. He may be able to do better when he wakes up again.”

  Helen picked up the pink sweater she’d left hanging on the newel post and slung it around her shoulders. “They had to give him another shot, poor man. Mrs. Swope says they’re going to keep him sedated for a day or so, till he’s over the worst of the shock. Well, I mustn’t keep Iduna sitting there. Take care of yourself, darling. I’ve left Cat’s number on the telephone pad. Give me a ring when you find a chance.”

  “You call me as soon as you get there, just so I’ll know you made it.”

  “All right, dear. If you’re not around, I’ll leave a message with the Enderbles. Mary’s going to keep an eye on Jane. I told her you’d probably be in and out a lot. You behave yourself, young woman.”

  Helen gave the cat a last tickle under the chin and went back out to Iduna’s car. Peter stood up on the doorstep with Jane in his arms, watching them off. When his wife blew him a kiss, he waved Jane’s tail in farewell, but he didn’t smile.

  “Poor Peter,” she told Iduna as they turned out of the Crescent, “Cronkite Swope staggered in this morning looking like the wrath of God and stuck him with another detecting job. Not that Peter was in any rush to turn it down, I have to admit.”

  “Oh well, it’ll be a change from teaching,” Iduna replied comfortably. “Like Daniel going to the pig growers’ convention. Darn it, look at that. Another little kid on a bicycle, wobbling all over the road. I wish their mothers would keep ‘em in their own backyards till they learn how to ride the darn things. I always pass ‘em at about two miles an hour with my heart in my mouth. What’s Cronkite want Peter to detect? Who set fire to the soap factory?”