“So does mine,” said Peter. “Do you want to go along to your cousins’ place and get settled, or would you rather come straight to the inn and wait for them there?”
“Seeing as how they don’t know I’m coming because I forgot to call and let them know, I expect I’d better try ‘em at the house.”
“What if they’re not around?”
“Won’t matter a particle, I know where they hide the key. Anywhere along here’ll be fine, Professor. I’ve put you to enough trouble already. I can hoof it the rest of the way.”
“It’s no trouble at all, Mr. Tilkey. I have nothing special to do, I’m just killing time waiting for my wife, and she won’t be coming till tomorrow. There’s no sense in your walking in the rain and getting all soaked. Which way?”
“Well, if you’re sure I’m not putting you out any. Keep on the way we’re heading till you come to the church, then take a right up the hill and it’s the big yellow house with the cupalow. The road’s paved, in case you’re wondering.”
Peter nodded. A big yellow house with a cupola, not that any Mainer would pronounce it as it was spelled, meant that there must have been money in the Wye family for quite a while. Nobody was building that kind of house anymore, and not many could have afforded to build them back when those great wooden arks were fashionable among the elite. In earlier times, much of Maine’s wealth had come from lumber or shipping, Peter didn’t know what kind of money there was in tourmaline mining and he didn’t think it was any of his business to ask.
The rain still showed no sign of slacking off as they dipped down into Pickwance. There was more traffic here than they’d been seeing along the way. Pedestrians hunched over under umbrellas were crossing the main street, more concerned about avoiding the puddles than getting run down by some motorist temporarily blinded by a fan of muddy water thrown up from a vehicle going the opposite way. Peter crawled along with his windshield wipers going at high speed until he spied the church, a typical white-painted clapboard building with a modest steeple that contained a bell and provided parking space for a black-faced clock with gilded numerals and a weather vane in the shape of a banner.
“Here’s where we turn,” Tilkey’s reminder came a bit late, Peter was already slowing down, waiting for a very wet spaniel to make up its mind whether or not to risk the puddles in the road. At last the disgruntled person at the other end of the leash picked up the dog and lugged it across, squirming and yapping, Peter was free to turn.
Down at the business end, houses were set close together. As they climbed the steeply snaking road, the dwellings sat farther apart. Finally they got to the big yellow house with the cupola, standing snobbishly alone on the crest of the hill, surrounded by a couple of acres of lawn, or what passed for one, made up of anything green that could be kept mown short and interrupted here and there by ornamental shrubs that were overdue for pruning and not getting any.
The Wye place might not quite attain the status of a mansion, but it didn’t miss by much. Previous owners must have kept the place up the way it ought to be, but now signs of neglect were beginning to show. Damned shame to let it go this way. Peter could see no evidence that the Wye brothers were around, but that didn’t appear to bother Tilkey. He thanked Peter for the lift, took his plastic-covered Sunday suit out of the back seat, jerked his chin in farewell, and walked around to a side door. This must be where they hid the key, Peter waited long enough to make sure his erstwhile passenger had got in out of the rain, and drove back to the inn.
The temperature had dipped, not a great deal but enough for somebody, most likely Mrs. Bright herself, to have lighted a wood fire in the small front room that served as lobby, registration area and sitting room. Wicker chairs drawn up around the fireplace offered a warm welcome to guests who might not feel like holing up in probably chilly bedrooms. Peter went upstairs to get rid of his raincoat, freshen up a little, and take a therapeutic sip or two from the pint of Scotch that he’d brought along for medicinal purposes. As he’d expected, the bedroom that he’d thus far found pleasant and comfortable was now definitely on the dank and gloomy side. He picked up a book he’d brought along because he thought he ought to read it and hadn’t yet opened because he had a premonition that it would be duller than ditch water, and went back down to the lobby.
He might have known. He’d no more than made his choice of the armchairs, switched on the one puny table lamp, and adjusted its shade so that he could see to read when he was addressed by what he’d taken for an afghan thrown down in a heap at the far end of the one sofa.
“Good afternoon, Professor Shandy. Elva tells me you’ve been off to visit some friends in Sasquamahoc. I hope this rain didn’t spoil your ride.”
This was no more than Peter should have expected, but what the hell? He might as well be bored stiff by Claridge Withington as by an author who could convolute a sentence more intricately than any of those whom Mark Twain lampooned so wickedly in “The Awful German Language.” He put down his barely opened book, steeled himself for the lesser evil, and responded as cordially as he could manage without undue strain.
“No, the rain didn’t start until I was on my way back. I’d had lunch with an old friend who’s connected with the forestry school.”
Withington’s eyes lit up. He flung off the afghan and dragged himself to a proper sitting position. “That wouldn’t have been President Fingal, by any chance? I had the privilege of chatting with him a few years back, at a colloquium on the uses and abuses of Maine’s forests, in which a friend of mine participated. I myself, needless to say, was merely an interested member of the audience but there was coffee and so forth afterward, which gave me a chance to let the president know how impressed I was by his incisive and pertinent remarks.”
Which would have been short, snappy and maybe somewhat acerbic in spots, Peter surmised. He admitted that the friend he’d visited was in fact Guthrie Fingal and was thereupon treated to a playback of what Withington had said to Fingal and what the president had said in reply, which must surely have been a damn sight less than Withington remembered. Withington wound up with a fervently expressed hope that Professor Shandy would convey greetings from a grateful admirer at his next meeting with President Fingal and followed up with in-depth questions as to whether the two learned gentlemen had enjoyed their luncheon and if they would be meeting again in the not-too-distant future.
“I expect so.” Peter decided he might as well volunteer the information rather than put Withington to the bother of wringing it out of him. “I may see him tomorrow, as a matter of fact. My wife will be riding up to Sasquamahoc with her friend Catriona McBogle. I’m going to meet her at Catriona’s sometime around noon and bring her here. Mrs. Bright may have mentioned to you that Mrs. Shandy will be staying at the inn overnight.”
“For the purpose of seeing Frances Rondel’s lupines,” Withington filled in neatly. “I hope for Mrs. Shandy’s sake that this storm hasn’t already battered them all down. According to the NOAA weather forecast, however, this storm is supposed to have blown itself out to sea by morning, so you ought to have fine weather for your drive tomorrow. As should Mrs. Shandy and her illustrious friend.”
Withington smiled as benevolently as though he’d taken personal charge of the weather and custom-tailored it to his new acquaintance’s particular needs. “I had the privilege of hearing Miss McBogle speak last summer in Orono at a symposium to which a fellow guest from the inn here drove me. Rather a distinguished guest, I may say. Perhaps you and Mrs. Shandy may have had the good fortune to see Alexandria Baxter in her starring role as Lizzie Borden in Forty Whacks. Will you ever forget that breathtaking moment when she picked up the ax and just touched the tip of her finger to its freshly sharpened blade? I still get the shivers thinking of her tiny, secret smile. Miss Baxter went to Orono incognita, of course, not wishing to steal the spotlight from Miss McBogle, although the long black widow’s veil that she’d donned to hide her face did attract a good many curious glances.�
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“I can see where it might have,” said Peter. “Er—I don’t suppose Miss Baxter brought along her ax?”
Mrs. Bright’s star boarder thought that one over, then decided on a tiny, secret chuckle. “No she didn’t, somewhat to my disappointment. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if one or two axes showed up at our big event tomorrow morning, however.”
“Oh?” Peter didn’t try to hide his yawn. The long drive, the drumming of the rain on the lobby windows, the hypnotic effect of the burning logs in the fireplace were conspiring together to put him to sleep. “What big event?”
Not that he gave a damn, but Withington flew into a tizzy. “Good heavens, Professor, don’t tell me you’ve escaped hearing about Jasper Flodge’s funeral? His lawfully wedded wife, as Lucivee has in fact turned out to be, hasn’t lost a moment getting him safely tucked away. I understand she’s already ordered a tombstone half the size of Cadillac Mountain to make sure he’s well weighted down, and set the funeral for nine o’clock sharp tomorrow morning. Seeing that you were in at the death, so to speak, you may wish to witness the obsequies before starting back to Sasquamahoc.”
Peter was wondering why in tunket he’d thought a fireside chat with this garrulous old ghoul would be preferable to sitting alone in a cold, lonesome upstairs bedroom. He found the notion of popping in on the obsequies altogether repugnant. While the very little he’d seen of Jasper Flodge alive had not predisposed him in the man’s favor, watching him die had been a shock and the aftermath a nightmare.
The earful that Peter had got from Guthrie this noontime had suggested a multitude of reasons why some one of Flodge’s victims might have thought it a good idea to drop a cyanide pill into his gravy, but who except Elva Bright or her pretty granddaughter could have managed to get hold of one? And why would either of them have been dumb enough to do it on their own family premises?
That Flodge had killed himself for the purpose of ruining the plans his wife had made for collecting his life insurance was more than Peter could swallow. Unless Flodge knew he was at death’s door anyway, which he certainly hadn’t looked to be, or was so far around the bend as to think he could kill himself with cyanide and come to life again. The possibility that he was indeed loopy to the nth degree could not be counted out. Peter remembered an incident from his own college days, when a fellow student had gulped down a handful of barbiturates, then made a movie date for the following afternoon.
Maybe Flodge had had that same inability to relate actions to consequences, which could explain his propensity for pulling dirty deals without caring who got hurt in the process, himself apparently included. If he’d really got himself into bad trouble, as his wife averred, he might have had some kind of Tom Sawyerish wish to die temporarily. Or, Peter supposed, Flodge could have got the clever idea of slipping some noxious dose into his own food in a scheme to make himself sick enough so that he could sue Elva Bright for all she had, and got hold of the wrong poison.
The hell with it. What was the sense in speculating about a situation that was none of Peter Shandy’s business? Bad enough to have that pestiferous Withington jiggling Flodge’s funeral in front of his nose like a ribbon in front of a kitten. If Withington was merely angling for a lift to the obsequies, let somebody else take him.
“Sorry, Mr. Withington.” Peter knew he sounded snappish and didn’t care. “My plans are all made, I’ll have to be on the road by then.”
If he left the inn before nine o’clock, he’d be kicking his heels in Sasquamahoc by half past ten or thereabout, but one excuse was as good as another. At least he understood now why yesterday’s stranded motorist had been so elated at the prospect of getting the last laugh on a dead man. Tilkey must have been another of Jasper Flodge’s victims. Guthrie would know, maybe Peter could ask. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. He was getting sick and tired of Flodge and his rotten schemes.
It was high time for a change of subject. Because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, Peter began relating the details of yesterday’s drive to Sasquamahoc and back, making as long a yarn of it as he could just to keep from having to listen to Withington’s voice instead of his own, starting with his brief visit to Miss Rondel, going on to the clam tacos, working his way back via the book barn to the meeting with Tilkey, thence to the Wye house and at long last to Bright’s Inn.
Had any chance-met acquaintance tried to bend Peter’s ear like this for so long a stretch, he’d either have fallen into a stupor or taken decisive action two chapters ago. Withington, however, hung upon every word, rapt and eager, now and then emitting an excited whimper like a terrier after a barn rat, torn between fear lest he miss a syllable and frustration at not getting the chance to put in his own two cents’ worth at every turn of the tale.
Accustomed to lecturing in his classroom, Peter was able to keep it up for quite a stretch. But all things must have an end; the moment he’d uttered his final syllable, Withington pounced.
“That must have been Schuyler Tilkey you picked up. He’s eaten here at the inn on various occasions with the Wye brothers. They’re cousins of his.”
“Second cousins,” Peter corrected smartly.
“Really? That does surprise me. I hadn’t realized. Second cousins, eh?”
Just why Withington should look so almighty flabbergasted by so trivial a piece of information about a casual acquaintance was beyond Peter’s comprehension. He drew himself a mental picture of Withington writing down the particulars on a pink card, or maybe a green one, and filing it neatly away in some pigeonhole of his subconscious mind, to be hauled up and read off to some other luckless wight during some other wearisome talkathon. Peter felt a stab of pity for Withington’s next victim, whoever that might be.
His incubus was not ready to yield the floor. “I gather that Sky, as they call him, must have come for the funeral. Naturally he wouldn’t want to miss the happy event, after what Jasper did to his second cousin. Fred, that is to say.”
“Not Evander?” Peter only mentioned the other brother’s name to keep himself from falling asleep. He wished he hadn’t, now Withington was off and running again.
“Oh, even Jasper Flodge wouldn’t have had the moxie to pull anything on Evander. Perhaps I should caution you, Professor Shandy, that Evander Wye is not a man to be trifled with. I don’t know whether President Guthrie happened to mention—”
“Yes, he did.”
That was another false step. If Peter Shandy thought he could get away with interrupting another spiel about a man to whom he’d never yet spoken a single word and had no intention of ever addressing, he might as well think again. Was he in truth collared by Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, or had he got permanently stuck with the albatross? Peter wished the chap with the loud bassoon would happen along; at least it would be a change of annoyances.
Chapter 10
“OH, THEN YOU DO know about the time Evander tried to run Jasper down with the brush cutter?”
“Well, you could hardly blame him, could you?”
Peter wished he knew what he and Withington were talking about. He did see why chasing somebody with a brush hog might not be such a bad idea under certain circumstances. His companion evidently viewed the incident from a different angle.
“Just because Jasper had called him a sissy? Not to be quarrelsome, Professor, but quite frankly I myself can’t help feeling that Evander’s reaction was somewhat excessive.”
“Everyone to his own opinion,” said Peter. “I might point out that you can’t get any great burst of speed out of a brush hog unless you’re on a steep downhill grade, which isn’t the best place to be if you’re the one driving it. Not to be contumacious, Mr. Withington, but it appears to me that Mr. Wye’s little prank might be taken as no more than a—er—symbolic gesture.”
That got Withington where the wool was short. He didn’t utter a sound for fully thirty seconds. The best he could do then was “Is that what President Fingal thinks?”
“I’ll see if I can’
t get an official statement from Guthrie tomorrow. Good Lord, is that the time?” Peter jerked himself out of the wicker armchair. “I’d better go and telephone my wife before she starts wondering what I’m up to.”
Helen was not at home, which didn’t surprise Peter any. He tried the Stotts’ number and there she was, helping Iduna to serve high tea for Catriona and a couple of hundred others, judging from the volume of sound in the background. Helen reassured him that what he heard were just a few of the big, broad, forward-thinking women from the neighborhood and that the revels would be over early enough for her and Catriona to get a good night’s sleep and be on the road by the time the lark was on the thorn. “And if you decide to go tarryhooting after more clam tacos,” she added, “be sure to leave a note on Cat’s door so that we’ll know where to find you.”
Peter said he would, tacked on a few husbandly kindnesses, and hung up the phone. While he’d been in the phone booth, customers had begun trickling into the restaurant. His stomach suggested that it might be time to think of joining them. He carried the book that he still hadn’t opened back to his room, mixed a small preprandial libation in the tooth glass from the tiny bathroom, and sipped it slowly to make sure Withington had plenty of time to get stowed away in his usual corner.
It had been Peter’s intention to sit alone at one of the smaller tables. Somewhat to his dismay, however, he found Schuyler Tilkey already there with the Wye brothers, motioning for Peter to take the fourth seat. It would have been uncivil for him not to do so, and perhaps even dangerous; he’d better not rile Evander by any act that might be considered hostile. He went.
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