The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain

by Charlotte MacLeod

  Chapter 18

  PREOCCUPIED WITH HER WOES and the desperate need for a tissue she’d thought she had in her coat pocket and couldn’t seem to find, Dittany did not at first realize she was not alone in her grief. Then a comforting hand lay on the sleeve she’d been about to wipe her nose on in lieu of anything more refined. A warm voice said, “Hey, Dittany, what’s the matter?”

  She sniffled a mighty sniffle and croaked, “Hello, Ben. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, if you really want to know. I sort of thought you might be somewhere along about here. I mean, it’s sort of our special place, eh?”

  “Aw, come on. Don’t tell me you can’t remember.”

  Still unable to find the tissue, Dittany plied her free coat sleeve until she could get the tears out of her eyes and see where, in fact, they were. “Oh. It’s where we got shot at, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah, and I grabbed you in my arms and—darn it, Dittany, you might have remembered.”

  Now that he mentioned it, she did remember. There was still a bruise on her wrist where he’d seized it and jerked her off her feet, and another where her behind had hit the backhoe. That had been a tender moment in one sense, but hardly the sort one cared to jot down in one’s diary and mark with a baby-blue satin ribbon. If Ben thought those fading contusions heralded the start of a romantic relationship he must either remember something that had escaped her notice in the confusion of the moment or else be indulging in a spot of wishful thinking.

  Anyway it was sweet of him, she supposed, only she did wish he’d chosen a time when her nose wasn’t running. Furthermore this boulder wasn’t big enough for the pair of them and if he kept nudging her over like this, she’d land on her bruised remembrance. Unless by some chance he was planning to clasp her to his bosom in what Lex Laramie would describe as a manly embrace.

  She had an uneasy feeling Ben was about to do just that when another male voice said, “Here, Dittany, take my bandana. What the hell do you think you’re up to, Frankland?”

  “Why the hell don’t you get lost, Monk?” came the ungracious reply. “This happens to be a private conversation.”

  “Stuff it,” barked the new Osbert. “Ma’am, if this ornery coyote has been annoying you with his unwelcome attentions—”

  “Oh, put a sock in it, eh?” Dittany blew her nose violently on the bandana, which was not a flamboyant red but a modest blue. “I’m crying because I’m tired and cold and my feet hurt and we can’t find Samantha Burberry and why the heck don’t we all quit yelling at each other and go have a drink?”

  “Whatever you say, Dittany,” said Ben, and took possession of her left arm.

  “At your service, ma’am,” said Osbert, and took her other arm.

  Traveling under heavy escort had its advantages. As Ben and Osbert each appeared determined to outstride the other, Dittany found herself being skimmed along barely touching the ground. This odd method of locomotion was great for the feet, which were indeed excessively fatigued, though a strain on the armpits. Anyway they reached Applewood Avenue a good deal faster than she would have done under her own steam and she managed to get the kitchen table between her two knights-errant while she got out the whiskey and three tumblers.

  “Here, drink up and shut up while I find us something to chew on.”

  Both men leaped to assist her but she snarled so ferociously, “Sit down,” that they fell back in their chairs and sought nepenthe in Seagram’s.

  “Say, Dittany,” Ben ventured after he’d spent a few moments glaring in silence at Osbert Monk, who merely gazed back with the stern detachment of one who has looked long on distant horizons, “you’ve been rustling the grub for me a lot lately. How about letting me take you out to the inn for supper, eh?”

  “The inn?” shrieked Dittany. “I wouldn’t set foot in that den of iniquity if you roped and hog-tied me. Sorry, Ben, I’m sure you meant well but maybe you don’t know Andy McNasty owns the place.”

  “Well then, is there a place around here McNaster doesn’t own? Or how about driving over to Scottsbeck?”

  “Ben, I can’t go anywhere. If Samantha hasn’t turned up by eight o’clock, I’m going to march myself over to Candidates’ Night and deliver her speech myself.”

  “But you can’t!”

  “Why can’t I? I wrote it, didn’t I? Now I’m going to throw some bacon and eggs in the pan. After we eat, we can go back to hunting. She’s got to be somewhere.”

  “Yeah, like for instance Saskatchewan. Dittany, I hate to throw cold water—”

  “Then don’t,” barked Osbert. “Dittany, park yourself at this table and have your drink. You’re plumb tuckered out, not to mention beat to the socks. I’ll cook the bacon and eggs. They’re the only things I can cook,” he added with wistful candor. “Is this the frying pan you use?”

  “No, take the big one hanging by the stove.”

  Dittany abandoned the fight to stave off this ill-timed onslaught of gallantry and tried not to notice how Osbert was dribbling egg white all over her stove while Ben cut her cheese enough to sustain a starving wolverine and kept trying to ply her with more whiskey than she could handle in a month.

  “Come on, Dittany, it’s good for what ails you.”

  “If I take one more sip I’ll be drunk as a skunk. Go get some plates and things out of the pantry if you want something to do. The bread’s in the breadbox and the butter’s in the fridge. And if you’re going to open those pickles, for Pete’s sake hold the jar right side up. How are those eggs coming, Osbert?”

  “Just about set. How do you like yours?”

  “Any way I can get them. I’m starved.”

  “I’ll have mine flipped, Monk. Without breaking the yolks,” Ben added vindictively.

  “You’re just saying that because you think I can’t do it.”

  Osbert essayed the all but impossible task and proved to Ben’s unconcealed glee that he couldn’t. He did achieve a drinkable pot of tea and managed to get the bacon and eggs on the plates with no serious mishap. They ate in an atmosphere somewhat less charged with male hostility, or so it seemed to Dittany, who was by now pleasantly numbed with fatigue and whiskey. As the hot food sobered her up and restored her vigor, though, she began to chafe at the bit again.

  “Eat up, you two. We’ve got to get back on the trail.”

  “Dittany, at least half the town must be out hunting for Mrs. Burberry right this minute,” Osbert reminded her gently.

  “I don’t care if they’ve flown in a regiment from Toronto. I have this premonition that one way or another I’ll Wind up having to track her down myself. I suppose it’s because every last thing that’s been done since I caught Ben digging up the Spotted Pipsissewa has somewhat wound up in my lap. Now who’s at the door? Go see, will you, Osbert? It’s probably your Aunt Arethusa wanting to borrow a butt of Malmsey.”

  She was wrong. It was Sergeant MacVicar, looking a good deal more self-satisfied than the circumstances would appear to warrant.

  “Have you found Samantha?” Dittany gasped.

  “No,” he replied, “but I have found a gasket that I believe will fit your sump pump.”

  “Who the heck cares about gaskets at a time like this? Anyway, Ben said he’d order one.”

  “He has not yet done so, however.”

  “Some information network you’ve got around here,” grunted Frankland, a bit red in the face. “I thought I could pick one up over in Scottsbeck, but I’ve been so busy around here—”

  “Ah, yes. So have we all, and there is still work to be done. Put on your coats, if you please. Deputy Monk, you are prepared for active duty, I trust?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Osbert smartly, stuffing the last of his bacon in his mouth and doing a fast cleanup job with a serviette.

  “Him a deputy?” Ben Frankland snorted.

  “Mr. Monk most kindly volunteered to be deputized on the grounds that he could charge off the experience as research and thus no
t require to be paid out of town funds. He has already done admirable work.”

  “Such as what, eh?”

  “Tracking down a material witness, for one thing.”

  “Somebody who knows where Samantha is?” cried Dittany.

  “No, somebody who has provided information concerning the death of John Architrave.”

  “You mean you know who took those pot shots at Dittany and me?” Frankland clenched his large fists. “Wait till I get my hands on him!”

  “You will perhaps not feel so eager when you hear the name of the culprit.”

  Dittany felt sick to her stomach. Then it must be Minerva Oakes. Whom else around here had Ben had time to get fond of? She did happen to think of one other person he seemed to have warmed up to pretty fast, and put on her storm coat before he and Osbert could start fighting over which of them got to hold it for her. “Never mind that now,” she snapped. “Where are you taking us?”

  “To fetch Samantha Burberry, of course. Do you not realize we have but an hour to Candidates’ Night? Come, Dittany, do not loiter.”

  Sergeant MacVicar marshaled his posse down Applewood Avenue to Queen Street and took a purposeful left turn. At first Dittany thought they were heading for Ye Village Stationer.

  “Sergeant, surely you don’t mean Mr. Gumpert has her?”

  “I do not.”

  “Then Sam Wallaby?”

  “No. He insisted on having his place searched, naturally. Sam is no fool.”

  “Unlike some people I could mention,” muttered Ben. Since neither he nor Osbert was willing to let the other walk unchaperoned beside Dittany, the three of them were marching in solid phalanx behind their leader. As they passed the bandstand and the last of the shops, they began to hear faint but raucous strains from a rock band.

  “Oh, I get it. Old Blood and Guts here thinks she’s at the inn. He’s nuts. They couldn’t keep a hostage in a place like that.”

  “Please maintain a respectful attitude toward my superior officer or I shall be required to take official action,” said Deputy Monk.

  Frankland began to breathe heavily through his nostrils. Partly to prevent bloodshed and partly because the truth had hit her straight between the eyes, Dittany intervened.

  “Of course she’s not at the inn! She’s next door, in that big empty house of Mr. Architrave’s. Why on earth didn’t we think of it sooner?”

  “I thought of it straight off,” said Ben. “I even started over here after I got off work, but I overheard some people saying they’d got in and searched the place from cellar to chimney without finding hide nor hair of her. I’m afraid this is another false alarm, Sergeant.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Frankland? And who were these people you heard talking?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you that. I’ve only been in town a week.”

  “So you have. Then it is possible the information to which you allude was a deliberate attempt to mislead. I think we will proceed. Let us maintain vigilance. A guard may be posted inside the house.”

  “If there is one, I could knock his block off,” Frankland offered, “and Monk here could write about it afterward.”

  “Honestly,” said Dittany, “I don’t know what’s got into you two all of a sudden. You were pally enough Saturday night.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben, “and then he started his bloom-on-the-sage routine yesterday at the Burberrys’ while I was straining my guts out moving the piano.”

  “Not the sage,” said Osbert. “The yucca or Spanish bayonet. And I was laboring under the delusion at the time that Miss Henbit and I were having a private conversation.”

  “Both of you,” said Dittany, “stuff it.”

  Ben stilled the acrimonious retort that was obviously rising to his lips. Trying to look nonchalant, they sauntered on past the flashing neon sign that disfigured what had once been a decent little country inn, toward the Architrave house. This was another Victorian hulk like the Burberrys’ but ill kept and now wearing the bleak, deserted aspect appropriate to its present condition.

  “Ugh,” said Dittany. “It looks haunted already. Have you your jackknife, Osbert? He’s awfully clever at burglary,” she explained to Sergeant MacVicar, “or shouldn’t I have said that?”

  All the sergeant replied was, “Let’s go around to the back and give it a try.”

  They found the rear entrance, well screened by overgrown lilacs, and Osbert tried his skill on the catch. After having looked on impatiently for a moment, Ben brushed him roughly aside.

  “Okay, you’ve played long enough. I’ll smash it in with my shoulder.”

  “Do,” said Osbert.

  Ben heaved his bulk against the paneling. He had failed to observe that Osbert’s effort to open the door had already succeeded.

  As he struggled to get up off the entryway floor, he roared, “You did that on purpose,” if one can be said to roar in a hoarse whisper.

  “Of course I did,” Osbert hissed back. “You watched me, didn’t you? Did you bring a flashlight?”

  “No,” growled Ben.

  “Fortunately, I came prepared.”

  “In point of fact, the electricity is still working.” Sergeant MacVicar switched on a light, to reveal as depressing a welter of broken-down furniture, dirt, and cobwebs as the most Dickensian imagination could conjure up. “Oh, my! This will present a problem for whoever finally inherits. You will perhaps be interested to know that we have traced John’s sister. She met her demise some time back in an auto crash with the man who may or may not have been her third husband.”

  “But what happened to the child Aunt Arethusa says she was—er—” Osbert cast an embarrassed glance at Dittany, for writers of western stories are a pure-minded lot who do not lightly toss around words like “pregnant” in the presence of unmarried ladies.

  “What happened to Samantha?” she retorted, sticking tenaciously to the point from which these perverse males showed such a regrettable tendency to stray. “Let’s look upstairs. If they have any common decency they’d at least put her near the bathroom.”

  “Okay, you do that,” said Ben. “Monk here can look downstairs and I’ll check the cellar.”

  “We will all stay together,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “Who knows what evils lurk in the heart of her captor?”

  Whatever evils might lurk, they were apparently not to be molested by. They poked without interference through the hideous rooms together. The downstairs was a mess, but it at least looked as if somebody had lived there. Three of the four bedrooms upstairs were furnished only in dust and mildew. Architrave had used the fourth, and it was not pleasant to see his crumpled shirts and soiled long Johns thrown about the floor.

  The attic was hopeless: never floored over properly and strewn with junk. There was, Dittany was relieved to see, no trunk big enough to hold a body. That left only the dirt cellar and there they found Samantha, bound and gagged and thrown into the coalbin, her handsome face gray with dirt and exhaustion, streaked with tears of thanksgiving as they loosened the gag and the ropes that had kept her helpless.

  At first she couldn’t even talk, only laugh and cry hysterically at the same time. They rubbed her arms and legs until the blood was circulating freely again, then got her upstairs to the bathroom. By then, with Dittany’s help, she managed to pull herself together, drink several glasses of water to wash down the coal dust and the taste of the gag, sponge some of the grime off her face, and use, with ineffable gratitude, the facilities.

  Luckily nobody had got around to disconnecting Mr. Architrave’s phone. Sergeant MacVicar called his wife, to request that she put out an all-points bulletin to the effect that the lost had been found and dispatch Bob and Ray forthwith in the police cruiser to pick up Samantha. In the meantime Dittany rooted around the old man’s kitchen, managed to find a packet of tea, boiled a kettle, and washed a cup. The hot drink and a few stale crackers, which were all Architrave’s larder afforded, revived Samantha enough so that she could tell her story. It didn’t take
long.

  “All I know is that I’d been over returning that silver tray of Dot Coskoff’s. You know about that, I expect. I suppose I should have known better than to go out alone after dark with things being as they are, but I was still keyed up from the party and felt a walk would do me good, and I just didn’t think. Anyway, it was just around the corner. I never dreamed anything could happen in so short a distance.”

  Samantha took another swallow of the black, sweet tea. “But as I was going back up our own walk coming home from Dot’s, I heard what I thought was a child crying in the shrubbery around to the side. I thought it might be that little imp of Ellie Despard’s up to his tricks again. You remember the time Petey shinned down their porch pillars in his Doctor Dentons and almost froze to death because everybody in town was watching that Lex Laramie special on television and we couldn’t hear him yelling? So anyway, I started to look for him, then somebody clapped a hand over my mouth and started pulling on my scarf. I suppose it was the same person who’d been making the noises to attract my attention. I thought sure I was being strangled, but apparently I wasn’t.”

  “No doubt the miscreant was merely cutting off your breath so that you would lose consciousness,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “It was adroitly done. You were probably then drugged.”

  “I think I must have been, because I don’t remember anything else until I came to in that filthy coalbin with the most Godawful headache and with my hands and feet tied and that rag or whatever it was in my mouth. And after that I kept dropping off to sleep again, I believe. It’s all foggy. I’ve no idea how long I’ve been here.”

  “Approximately twenty-two hours, so far as we are able to ascertain without further information,” said Sergeant MacVicar.

  “Twenty-two hours! Then it’s Monday night and we’ve missed Candidates’ Night!”

  “No, we haven’t,” said Dittany. “My watch says two minutes of eight.”