Vane Pursuit

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Without wasting a word, this latter-day counterpart of Rima the Bird Girl picked out a wrench and a screwdriver from the cache and began fitting the pieces together. In two minutes by Peter’s count, both machines were ready to roll. Miss Binks perched Audubon’s Field Guide to the Birds conspicuously in the wire basket that hung from the tandem’s front handlebars and nodded to Peter.

  “Professor, you and I will wheel Daisy Belle out to where the ground becomes flat enough to ride on. Mr. Swope, take charge of the two-wheeler.”

  By now, both men would have followed her anywhere. They passed the vast cellar hole, still half-filled with charred wood and debris, struck an overgrown but passable drive, mounted their bikes, and after a few preliminary wiggles, were off.

  Peter had never ridden a tandem before but he caught on fast enough. Miss Binks assigned him the rear seat, so all he had to do was stay on and keep pedaling. At first Cronkite lagged behind them. Once they were out on paved road and he knew which way to go, he swooped ahead, though not so far ahead as he’d have been able to go on a newer, faster bicycle. That was according to plan, they didn’t want to lose each other.

  The day was hardly begun. Not many cars were on the road. The first one that passed them honked its horn, and Peter’s heart stopped. Miss Binks waved gaily and it went on.

  “Amusing how drivers always honk at tandems, don’t you think?” she called back over her shoulder.

  Evidently she and her aunt had run into this sort of thing often enough before. Peter quit holding his breath; he was even beginning to enjoy the ride. Maybe he and Helen ought to buy Daisy Belle from Miss Binks, at a vastly inflated price. This amiable troglodyte seemed to have no use for money right now, but there might come a time when she’d be glad to have some cash on hand.

  In any event, he’d have to make some kind of return for her incredible hospitality. But what could one give a woman so totally self-sufficient? Imported wines? Exotic teas? She’d probably turn them down, like Calvin Coolidge in his boarding-house days spurning fresh strawberries because he was afraid they’d spoil his taste for prunes.

  Helen would think of something. He wouldn’t talk about Miss Binks to anybody else; her fear of anthropologists was probably well grounded. But it was inconceivable that he wouldn’t tell Helen. Damn shame Helen wasn’t home now; she could have come after him and Swope in their car, and there’d have been no chance of a leak.

  Hiring a car or a taxi would be too risky. Peter didn’t want to get himself and Swope talked about, either—not until they’d managed to put that pack of wolves at Woeful Ridge safe in the zoo. They’d have to call somebody they knew.

  Cronkite Swope’s relatives were preoccupied with their own woes, and apparently all his neighbors had gone sour on the Swopes. His connections at the Fane and Pennon were no good; they couldn’t be trusted to keep Miss Binks out of the paper. Peter ran through his own list of possibles.

  The hell of it was, so many of his close friends had gone away on holiday jaunts as soon as classes ended. Dan Stott was off to his pig conference. President Svenson had taken his wife and their two youngest daughters to Sweden. Jim Feldster would come like a shot, but his wife would have the whole story and then some spread all over Balaclava County in no time flat. The Jackmans had left with their four youngsters on a camping trip nicely timed to coincide with the blackfly season. The Porbles and Goulsons were celebrating their respective daughter’s and son’s engagement with a joint sightseeing tour to the Library of Congress and Arlington National Cemetery. Peter’s best friend, Timothy Ames, was in California dandling his newest grandchild on his knee. Tim’s daughter-in-law had gone with him. But Tim’s son Royall was at home, and Roy was a good scout. He’d call Roy Ames. Now if they could only find a telephone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Maybe they’d needed their disguises, maybe they hadn’t. At any rate, nobody tried to riddle the three cyclists with bullets, run them off the road, or even stop to pass the time of day. Peter and Miss Binks rendezvoused with Cronkite at a patch of conservation land just outside Whittington and managed to find a big fallen pine with a capacious hollow under the roots where Daisy Belle would have a fair chance of lying undiscovered until they could get back to reclaim her. They even spotted a Blackburnian warbler and made good use of the bird book and Peter’s binoculars.

  But it was high time to part. Dawn was by now fairly broken. Peter rolled down his trouser legs and gave Miss Binks back her aunt’s skirt. He kept the spacious green blouse, which looked enough like a man’s sport shirt to get by with and was long enough to conceal the indecent ravages to his nether garment. He insisted on knowing what she’d like by way of recompense, and she at last admitted to a hankering for some light summer reading, such as The Brothers Karamazov or the works of Henry James. Then she rode off on the two wheeler, still blushing from the hug and kiss Cronkite had given her in parting.

  She’d told them there used to be a supermarket up the road not far from where they stopped. Cronkite jogged on ahead, Peter followed at a gentlemanly stroll. The store was still there, with a couple of pay phones beside the front door.

  Peter told Swope why he’d decided Royall Ames was their best hope, and the young reporter readily agreed.

  “Sure, Professor, go ahead. I can’t think of anybody back home who’s speaking to me anyway except my mother and my boss, and I wouldn’t trust either one of them not to rat on Miss Binks.”

  So Peter called. Roy was awake and delighted to oblige. He said he’d be there in half an hour. Knowing Roy, Peter thought he most likely would. So there was nothing to do now except hang around. The store wouldn’t be open till eight o’clock but they could see an all-night diner, relic of a vanishing breed, up the road a little way. Miss Binks’s amaranth pancakes had been filling enough, but they did leave a peculiar taste in the mouth; a cup of coffee mightn’t go amiss.

  They walked up and had one. Cronkite decided maybe he’d stay and eat a jelly doughnut or two, so Peter walked back in case Roy came along, although the younger Ames couldn’t reasonably be expected to arrive for another twenty minutes at the least. A man might beguile the time by telephoning his wife. He’d brought Catriona McBogle’s number with him just in case. He hauled out a handful of change and dialed.

  Nobody answered. He got his money back and tried again. Still no answer. He reached Maine information and checked the number in case he’d copied it down wrong. He hadn’t.

  There was a perfectly simple, rational explanation, he told himself. The women had gone for an early-morning bird walk. Or maybe they were over at the forestry school having a sunrise breakfast with Guthrie Fingal. He got hold of information again and asked for the school’s number. Somebody answered this time, perhaps a dryad. Mr. Fingal was around someplace. Did Professor Shandy want to hold? Peter held.

  Four quarters and a dime later, Guthrie Fingal came on the line. “Pete! Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s kind of busy around here just now. We had a fire in our big barn yesterday morning and—”

  “Oh, Christ, not you, too! Did they get your weather vane?”

  “Huh? Wait a minute!”

  The wait was a good deal longer than a minute. Peter stuffed more coins into the box and kept on holding.

  “Pete? You still there? We can’t find the weather vane.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me in the least. Is Helen with you, by any chance?”

  “No.” The no sounded awfully curt. “She and Cat came over day before yesterday and took some pictures, but then they—”

  “They what?”

  “Pete, I don’t know what to tell you. She and Cat and that other woman who came with them—I didn’t meet her—” Guthrie was having a hard time. “They went whale watching in the Ethelbert Nevin yesterday morning.”

  “So? What about it?”

  “Well, it’s just that I tried to get hold of Cat last night and her hired man was there. He said the Ethelbert Nevin hadn’t come in on the tide, so he thought he
’d better drop over and feed the cats. I tried again this morning but— Now don’t get all hot and bothered, Pete. Most likely what happened was that they got caught in the fog and Eustace—the guy who runs the trips—decided to lay up somewhere overnight. Wedgwood Munce, the harbor master, is going out to look for them as soon as the fog lifts.”

  “The hell he is! What’s the bastard waiting for? I’ll be up.”

  Peter slammed down the receiver. Where in tunket was Swope? Where was Roy Ames? Where, for God’s sake, was Helen?

  The only thing that saved his sanity was Royall Ames’s insouciance about speed limits. Peter had barely finished loading off some of this anxiety on Swope, who stood there trying to look sympathetic while licking raspberry jelly from the corners of his mouth, when Roy’s red compact car whizzed into the parking lot. They climbed aboard, fastened their seat belts, and told their tale. As agreed, they said not a word about Miss Binks. There was plenty to tell without her.

  “Holy cow!” was Roy’s reaction. “You sound like one of Dad’s old John Buchan thrillers. First the weather vane robberies and the soap works fire and now a bunch of trigger-happy terrorists practically in our back yards. How the heck did they think they could get away with an operation like that?”

  “From the look of things, they’ve already been getting away with it for two years or better,” said Peter. “They’re so well entrenched by now, that it would take a couple of regiments to roust them out. Unless the matter can be dealt with in a more—er—diplomatic manner. Or unless they decide to clear out and resettle now that they’ve been rumbled, which would be the smart thing to do. This will have to be reported, but I’m damned if I know whom to tell. What town is Woeful Ridge in, Swope?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know, Professor. I think it’s still part of Lumpkinton. But I can’t see that slob Olson handling a big case like this. Maybe the county district attorney?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Swope. Whoever it is, you’ll have to cope. I’m not sitting around here snarled up in a lot of red tape.”

  “But do we have to tell on them right away?” Cronkite protested. “Think what a scoop it would be for the Fane and Pennon if I—”

  “Went back there alone and got your head blown off? Forget it, Swope. And you too, Roy, in case you were also entertaining any notion about playing commando. You have a wife to consider.”

  “Yeah, Laurie would kill me if I went and got myself shot. Say, Peter, you don’t suppose there’s a connection between the survivalists and the weather vane robberies?”

  “I can’t imagine why there should be, Roy,” Peter answered wearily, “but that’s not saying there isn’t. I don’t even want to think about that now. I just want to get to Maine and find Helen.”

  “More than likely you’ll find her at her friend’s house wondering where the heck you are.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping, not that I want to cause her any anxiety. But it may not be a wasted trip in any case. Guthrie Fingal just told me they’ve had a fire at the forestry school and the Praxiteles Lumpkin weather vane Helen went to photograph has turned up missing.”

  “Then there’s your answer, Peter. Helen’s not out in that boat at all, she’s off tracking down Fingal’s weather vane.”

  “If you think that makes me feel any better, young man, you’re sadly mistaken. Can’t you make this sardine can go any faster?”

  An indecently short time later, Peter was in his own house, taking a fast shower, putting on trousers fit to be seen in, apologizing to Jane Austen for his past and future desertions, explaining to the Enderbles why he’d have to continue imposing on their good nature.

  Fortunately the elderly couple’s beneficence was without bounds. They wished him well, urged him to let them know as soon as he found Helen safe and sound as he surely would, and promised to keep Jane’s spirits jacked up as high as possible under the circumstances.

  Then he was in his own car, gassed up and rolling northward. He turned the radio on to keep himself from agonizing too much about where the center of his personal universe might have shifted to. Even Bach didn’t help much, but the sound served to remind him that he wasn’t alone on the road and he’d better keep a reasonable degree of attention on his driving.

  He’d turn his mind to other matters, Peter determined. But he was on beautiful Route 495, not the villainous 128, and there wasn’t the constant stream of hairbreadth escapes from sudden doom to keep him alert. He’d think about Miss Binks and her cryophilic grandfather. Helen had a penchant for the bizarre, she’d get a kick out of them.

  It was no use. He might as well give up trying to kid himself into sanity and just think about Helen. Helen dignified and businesslike at the library, Helen in the kitchen making marmalade, Helen by the fireplace with Jane on her lap, Helen self-confident and learned in her doctoral gown lecturing to an enthralled audience, Helen enchanting in rose-colored silk at the faculty ball, Helen in bed wearing nothing at all. Was there no end to this wearisome road?

  At the circle in Portsmouth he stopped for a hamburger and a cup of coffee, not because he wanted them but because he knew he ought to. The amaranth pancakes and dandelion brew had tasted better. He got back in the car and drove on. And on.

  Once over the Piscataqua bridge and into Maine, he made great time. He did run into fog on the turnpike, but it wasn’t thick enough to slow him down. It was barely noon when a narrow strip of wood nailed to a tree by the side of the road told him he’d reached Sasquamahoc. Guthrie Fingal’s directions were a cinch to follow; there were so few roads to get lost on.

  The first thing he spotted when he’d turned at the forestry school was the burned-out barn. A tall man in a plaid flannel shirt like the one Peter had left at Miss Binks’s stood beside it, looking up at what remained of the roof. There was no mistaking that rawboned shape, that jutting chin. The red hair was faded to brown mixed with gray now, but otherwise Peter couldn’t see that his former roommate had changed much. The creases around the mouth might be deeper, but the surprised grin was the same.

  “Pete, you old warthog! Didn’t lose much time, did you?”

  Peter got out of the car, not realizing he staggered. Fingal had started walking toward the car; he broke into a lope. “Pete, take it easy! Are you all right?”

  “Certainly I’m all right.” Peter couldn’t understand why Guthrie was looking at him like that. “Just a little stiff from driving. Is there any word on Helen?”

  “I called the Coast Guard again about ten minutes ago. They’ve had a helicopter out looking, but visibility’s been zilch out over the water on account of the fog. They say it’s beginning to lift, though, so we ought to be getting some action. Want to take a run down to the cove and see if Wedgwood Munce has left yet?”

  Peter started to get back into the car, but Fingal stopped him. “Why don’t we take my Jeep? The road’s not all that great. Want anything before we start?”

  Peter shook his head. “I stopped along the road, thanks. It’s good to see you, Guth. I guess I am a little whacked out, at that. I didn’t sleep too well last night.”

  “You weren’t worrying about your wife?”

  “I didn’t know there was anything to worry about. Actually I was worrying about myself and the young chap who was with me.”

  Peter had been meaning to tell his friend as much of the story as he could. Somewhere on the way up, around Billerica he thought it was, he’d remembered why he and Swope had gone to Woeful Ridge in the first place.

  “This may not make much sense, Guthrie, but you’d better listen. There’s a fairly good chance you may be involved in what’s going on. I’m not sure when it started. How Helen and I got into it was through her getting a request from our county historical society for information about Praxiteles Lumpkin’s weather vanes.”

  As they hurtled over the frost heaves and through the potholes, Peter explained about the fire at the soap factory and what it had led to.

  “So you see, the burning of yo
ur barn follows the standard pattern.”

  “But that doesn’t necessarily mean the same gang’s responsible, if it is a gang,” Guthrie argued. “Maybe somebody else twigged on to what must be a damned lucrative racket. Cripes, we had a case not far from here a few years back where some guys pinched the weather vane off the fire station—it was supposed to be worth $35,000. They didn’t dare try to sell the thing because too many people would have known where it came from, so they held it for ransom. The town paid a thousand dollars to get it back. One guy was caught but he jumped bail. He was still on the loose last I knew. Maybe he got to hear about Praxiteles Lumpkin.”

  “M’well, that’s possible, but Lumpkin’s name isn’t exactly a household word. Until Helen tackled the project, nothing at all had ever been published about Praxiteles as far as she could discover, not even his obituary. If some member of the Lumpkin family hadn’t happened to take a few snapshots and jot down a list of people who still owned Praxiteles’s weather vanes back around the turn of the century, Helen wouldn’t have had a blasted thing to go on. The information just happened to turn up in an old file at the Clavaton Library that nobody had looked into since Rin Tin Tin was a pup.”

  “So you believe it was your wife’s research that set off the fireworks?”

  “I’m not claiming anything of the sort. I suppose, however, that I have to grant the possibility. Helen hasn’t tried to hide what she’s doing. There wouldn’t have been any point in that, since all the members of the society and no doubt a good many other people knew our college library was being asked to help get some data together. Helen was the logical staff member to tackle the project. She’s curator of a special collection which has already given her plenty of experience in historical research at the local level.”

  “Has she been getting her name in the papers?”