Aunt Dimity Digs In ad-4

by Nancy Atherton

  Bundled bulkily in a brown duffel coat, Jasper Taxman raised his crowbar to greet me as the Mini splashed across the slick cobbles. Peggy Kitchen had evidently ordered Mr. Taxman to dismantle the platform he’d built for the rally that never was, and Mr. Taxman had, as usual, obeyed. The rain streamed from his coat as he pried another board loose and tossed it aside.

  Lilian welcomed me with a batch of lemon bars still warm from the oven and a pot of herbal tea to chase away the chill. I welcomed the opportunity to conduct a silent taste test. Her lemon bars were tangy, I decided, but mine were sweeter. I recalled the heap of sugar Dick Peacock had shoveled into his medicinal tea and concluded that if he judged the final contest, I was a shoe-in for the blue ribbon.

  It was surprisingly easy to clear Annie of the burglary without mentioning Petronius’s grave. I told Lilian that Annie and Francesca disagreed on many things, but both shared a strong aversion to archaeology.

  “It’s a superstition they picked up from their father,” I said, knowing Francesca would forgive me. “If Annie had taken the pamphlet, she wouldn’t have hidden it. She’d have brought it straight to Adrian, just to get rid of him.”

  We heard the front door open and close, then the rustle of an umbrella being shaken. A few moments later the vicar came into the library, carrying his wet shoes in one hand. He placed the shoes on the hearth to dry, then settled into his armchair to hold his stockinged feet to the fire and sip a cup of tea.

  “I’ve just returned from the Emporium,” he announced. “There’s something wrong with Mrs. Kitchen. I’ve never seen her looking so subdued.”

  “Maybe she feels let down,” I offered. “Her whole campaign to oust Adrian from the schoolhouse was a waste of time.”

  “A storm in a teacup,” the vicar agreed. “Thank heavens she’ll soon be gone. I must say that I feel sorry for the residents of Little Stubbing. They don’t realize that their peaceful days are numbered.”

  “Before I forget . . .” I took Holding Fast from the padded envelope and handed it to Lilian. “This is the pamphlet I mentioned on the phone, the one Dr. Finderman sent on from the collector in Labrador.”

  “How interesting,” said the vicar, leaning forward in his chair. “It’s remarkably similar to the pamphlet that was stolen, isn’t it, my dear?” The vicar paused before repeating, a bit more loudly, “My dear?”

  “Yes, Teddy,” said Lilian distractedly. “Remarkably similar.” She crossed from the couch to her worktable and began searching through her papers. I noted with amusement that she’d added the collected works of Peggy Kitchen—the harvest-gold flyers trumpeting the festival, the petition, and the rally—to the rest of the historical documents.

  The vicar rose from his armchair and went to stand behind his wife, who was examining the pamphlet with a magnifying glass. “What is it, Lilian?”

  “It may be nothing,” she said. “But I would value Lori’s professional opinion.”

  I crossed quickly to the table as Lilian pushed aside everything but Peggy’s flyers and Holding Fast. She switched on her work lamp, then stood back.

  “Am I imagining things?” she asked. “Or am I seeing yet another striking resemblance?”

  I opened Holding Fast to the title page and compared it to the flyers. “ They’re all printed in Caslon—that’s a style of type introduced in England in the early eighteenth century. It’s been popular ever since. But I don’t see . . .” I hesitated, then reached for the magnifying glass.

  I bent low for a closer examination. “It’s not just the same typeface,” I said. “It’s the same font—the same set of type. Look . . .” I pointed from the H in Harvest to the H in Holding. “The crossbar’s got the same hairline fracture. The Fs are identical as well. See?” I tapped the words Festival and Fast. “Same faded serif, where the type’s worn down. And there’s a matching nick in two of the lowercase Ts.”

  I passed the magnifying glass to the vicar. Either Lilian had sniffed out the biggest coincidence in the history of printing, or Peggy Kitchen and Cornelius Gladwell had used the same font for their printing projects. Jasper Taxman had mentioned that Peggy had no photocopier, but it hadn’t occurred to me to ask if she used a Victorian printing press instead.

  “What happened to Cornelius Gladwell’s personal possessions?” I asked, turning to Lilian.

  “I believe they were auctioned off.” She rifled through a file box. “Yes, here it is,” she said, pulling out an index card covered with handwritten notes. “They were auctioned off by Harmer’s Auction House in 1901.”

  “Harmer?” said the vicar, laying aside the magnifying glass. “Isn’t that the name of the fellow who used to own the Emporium?”

  “Yes,” said Lilian. “His father owned the shop before him and conducted auctions as a sideline.”

  “He must have kept the Gladwell printing press for himself,” said the vicar. “It’s probably in Mrs. Kitchen’s back room right now.” He chuckled. “Just imagine, keeping the old thing running all this time . . .”

  Lilian returned the card to the file box and glanced at her wristwatch. “Why don’t we pay a visit to Mrs. Kitchen’s back room, Teddy? There’s plenty of time before evensong, and I’d like to find out if Mr. Harmer’s father bought anything else belonging to Mr. Gladwell.”

  “Like his papers?” I asked, following her train of thought. “Do you really think that the other nine copies of Disappointments in Delving might be in Peggy’s back room?”

  “It would explain why Dr. Finderman hasn’t been able to locate them,” Lilian said reasonably. She switched off the work lamp and headed for the hallway. “Apart from that, I have a small score to settle with Dr. Culver. He’s been very polite about it, but I’m quite certain that he thinks Teddy and I invented the Gladwell pamphlet in order to pacify Mrs. Kitchen. It would please me greatly to prove him wrong.”

  Moments later, we were bundled in raincoats and heading down Saint George’s Lane for the Emporium. I would never have admitted it to the Buntings, but I was thrilled at the prospect of getting a peek inside Peggy’s back room.

  We’d gone no more than ten yards from the vicarage when we ran into Miranda Morrow hastening up the lane toward Briar Cottage. Mr. Wetherhead limped along behind her, planting his cane with care on the rain-slicked road and glancing over his shoulder. When he saw me, he turned scarlet and quickly lowered his gaze.

  “Well met,” said Miranda. Raindrops spangled her ankle-length black cloak and slithered down Mr. Wetherhead’s aluminum cane. “George and I were just about to ring you.”

  “Why?” I said.

  Miranda’s eyes danced as she replied, “We’ve had a daylight encounter with Brother Florin.”

  “You’ve seen him again?” I exclaimed.

  “I’m sorry to say that we have.” Mr. Wetherhead seemed very much annoyed. “If I’d known about the burglary, I might not have made such a stupid mistake. But it seems I let my imagination run away with me.”

  “Brother Florin?” said the vicar. “Who is Brother Florin?”

  Miranda cocked a beckoning finger. “Come along, Mr. Bunting, and I’ll show you.” Without another word she led us to the edge of the square and pointed toward Kitchen’s Emporium.

  “There he is,” she said. “Large as life—and I don’t mean afterlife.”

  “Oh my God,” I murmured as Jasper Taxman fastened the hood on his duffel coat.

  26.

  “Don’t try to skate around it,” Mr. Wetherhead said heatedly as Mr. Taxman listened calmly to our accusations. “I’d know the shape of that coat anywhere. It’s exactly like Paddington Bear’s.”

  “Sorry, darling, but the hood’s quite unmistakable,” Miranda added.

  “You burgled our home?” said Lilian wonderingly.

  “I don’t understand,” said the vicar. “Why would you, of all people, steal the Gladwell pamphlet?”

  Mr. Taxman shouldered his crowbar and peered up at the sky. The rain splashed the lenses of his brown-rimm
ed glasses and trickled down his impassive face like falling tears. “Come in,” he said, nodding toward the door of the Emporium.

  The jangling sleigh bells gave our arrival a deceptive air of normalcy. Heads turned as we entered the shop, and at least one conversation trailed into silence. Sally Pyne left off chatting with Mr. Barlow, and Emma looked up from scratching Buster’s ears, but I scarcely noticed them. I couldn’t take my eyes off Peggy Kitchen.

  The vicar had described her as subdued, but to me she seemed virtually extinguished. Her madly glittering eyes were dull, her skin was gray with weariness, and she climbed clumsily from her stool behind the cash register, like an elderly woman uncertain of her strength. I looked uneasily at Jasper Taxman. Had he done this to her? Did she know of his betrayal?

  She took in our varied expressions and said to Mr. Taxman, “Is something wrong, Jasper?”

  “Yes,” he replied, with his usual economy of words. He brushed his palms together, then placed them firmly on the countertop and faced Peggy Kitchen. “I stole the Gladwell pamphlet,” he said quietly. “I am the burglar.”

  No one moved. No one spoke. No one seemed to know how to react to such a preposterous declaration. It was as if the vicar had announced, quite casually, that he was the Messiah. Peggy leaned in to peer intently at Mr. Taxman, as though trying to read his lips, and Buster ran to cower between Mr. Barlow’s legs, but the rest of us simply stood and stared.

  Mr. Taxman turned to face us. “Leave your coats and umbrellas on the counter. I don’t want Mrs. Kitchen’s stock to suffer water damage.” He reached for Peggy Kitchen’s hand, led her out from behind the counter, and drew her through the small brown door that led to Xanadu.

  “Is he serious?” Emma murmured, coming to my side. “Did he really take the pamphlet?”

  “Stick around,” I told her. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.”

  I trailed behind the others as they entered the back room, but I paused just inside the doorway, feeling like a thief in King Tut’s tomb. The back room stretched before me, row upon row of gray metal shelves reaching to the ceiling, dimly lit by dangling bulbs, and burdened with wealth hitherto unimagined.

  There were rake handles, broom handles, mop handles, ax handles, buckets and pulleys and trowels. There were belt buckles, shoelaces, sunglasses, candlesticks, flea collars, diapers, and hats. Some shelves were filled with shoe boxes, others with aluminum teapots, all were crammed until they should have bent or broken. There were coils of rope, bags of peat moss, bolts of fabric, tins of paraffin—there was even a ship in a bottle.

  The main aisle was so narrow that Peggy had to negotiate it sideways, the floor so crowded that Mr. Wetherhead had to hunt for spaces in which to plant his cane. Xanadu was magnificent, a hoard beyond description.

  I heard a collective gasp ahead of me and hurried to catch up with the others. I dodged protruding butterfly nets, ducked under fishing poles, pushed aside the dangling arms of a Day-Glo slicker, and stopped short, dazzled by an incongruous, incredible sight.

  I’d reached the back of the room, an open space as neat and tidy as a dentist’s office. Lilian and the vicar stood to one side, Miranda and Mr. Wetherhead to the other, peering curiously at a six-foot-tall hand-operated printing press that must have weighed close to a thousand pounds. It was made of cast iron, with gracefully curved claw-footed legs and a walnut-clad lever above the tympan. The yoke’s decorative scrollwork bore traces of gilt paint.

  “It’s an Albion!” I exclaimed. “Is it Cornelius Gladwell’s?”

  Jasper Taxman finished seating Peggy in a worn swivel chair and turned an inquiring eye in my direction.

  “I know a man who owns one,” I explained. “My old boss curates the rare book collection at my alma mater. He’s got an Albion in his basement. How many fonts do you have?”

  “One,” said Mr. Taxman. “The gentleman who acquired the press sold the others. He saw no need to have more than one.”

  A type case rested on a workbench along the rear wall, a honeycomb of squared-off recesses filled with Caslon upper- and lowercase type, punctuation marks, and furniture for spacing. Beside it, on the bench’s level surface, lay a pair of galleys, a composing stick, a wood-handled bodkin, tubes of black ink, and reams of harvest-gold paper. An ink-stained apron hung from the Albion’s walnut-clad cast-iron lever.

  Mr. Taxman fetched a folding chair for Mr. Wetherhead, then took up a position between Peggy and the Albion. The rest of us gathered in a half circle around him. As we shuffled into our impromptu formation, I heard the faint click of a door latch and the telltale tapping of Buster’s claws on the floorboards. We would soon have company, I thought.

  “Yes, Ms. Shepherd,” Jasper Taxman began, in answer to my question, “Mr. Harmer’s father purchased the Albion from the estate of the Reverend Cornelius Gladwell. He used it to print advertisements for his auctions. Mr. Harmer showed me how to use it when I first came to Finch.”

  “You were always in the shop,” Peggy said faintly.

  Mr. Taxman looked down at her upturned face. “I wanted to be where you were,” he said. “Since you and your mother were billeted with Mr. Harmer, I volunteered to work at his shop.”

  “Billeted?” inquired the vicar.

  “Finch provided sanctuary for a number of evacuees during the war,” Mr. Taxman explained. “Mrs. Kitchen and her mother came from Birmingham, Mr. Barlow and I came from Bristol, and—”

  “And I was sent all the way up here from Plymouth.” Sally Pyne emerged from the shadowy aisle, with Mr. Barlow and Buster at her heels. “We were evacuated during the blitz, Vicar.”

  Mr. Taxman didn’t flinch at the intrusion. He simply motioned for the newcomers to join the circle. He must have known that it was pointless to exclude them. Whether Mr. Taxman liked it or not, what was said in the back room would soon be broadcast to the farthest reaches of Finch.

  Mr. Barlow spoke up. “You used to be back here all the time, Jasper, poking around Mr. Harmer’s shelves. I used to think you were wheedling extra rations.”

  Sally snorted. “I could’ve told you he was sweet on Peggy. Trotted after her like a lapdog—like Buster follows you.”

  The acerbic comment didn’t fluster Mr. Taxman. “I spent most of my waking hours back here,” he agreed smoothly. “It wasn’t as well stocked then as it is now.”

  “ There was a war on,” Mr. Barlow reminded him.

  Mr. Taxman nodded. “As you say, Bill, it was wartime and most of the shelves were bare. Had it been otherwise, I might have overlooked the box of papers Mr. Harmer’s father acquired when he purchased the Albion.”

  We watched with an air of expectancy, like children at a magic show, as Mr. Taxman opened the doors of a cupboard beneath the workbench and withdrew from it a wooden box the size of a picnic hamper. He placed the box atop the workbench and lifted the hinged lid. When he turned to face us, he was holding a slim pamphlet bound in buff-colored wrappers.

  “Mr. Gladwell’s pamphlets,” he said, “helped pass the time on winter days when few customers came to the shop.” He handed the pamphlet to Lilian. “I found this one particularly intriguing.”

  “Disappointments in Delving.” Lilian read the title aloud, then turned, almost reluctantly, to the colophon. “The first of ten numbered copies.” She looked sadly at Mr. Taxman. “You took this from my husband’s desk the day Dr. Culver arrived in Finch.”

  Mr. Taxman lowered his eyes but said nothing.

  “How did you know where to find it?” I asked.

  “Annie Hodge came into the shop last Sunday, on her way home from the vicarage. She’d just picked up her pay packet.” Mr. Taxman turned to Peggy Kitchen. “Mrs. Hodge came to me, because she knew you wouldn’t let her cash a check.”

  “Always had it in for Piero’s family,” Sally muttered.

  Mr. Taxman ignored the interruption and continued speaking directly to Peggy. “Mrs. Hodge heard you on the square, berating Dr. Culver and his assistants. She said
you were wasting your breath because the vicar would soon have Dr. Culver out of the schoolhouse. When I asked what she meant, she said that Mr. Bunting had on his desk a booklet that would force Dr. Culver to abandon his proposed excavation of Scrag End field.”

  The vicar emitted a forlorn sigh. “You knew, of course, the contents of the booklet.”

  “I had nine copies of Delving in my possession,” said Mr. Taxman, gesturing toward the wooden box. “It was reasonable to assume that the tenth had been left in the vicarage. I determined, therefore . . .”

  The high point of Mr. Taxman’s account of the burglary was his close encounter with Christine Peacock, who’d nearly run him down in her mad flight back to the pub with Grog. He hadn’t noticed Sally or Katrina in the meadow. As he described the difficulties of reconnoi tering the overgrown garden in the dark, Mr. Wetherhead clucked his tongue in self-disgust.

  “ That’s why you were bobbing and weaving?” he said. “Because of the weeds?”

  “ There were holes, as well,” Mr. Taxman pointed out, “and some extremely vicious thistles. After I’d circled the vicarage twice,” he continued, “to assure myself that the Buntings had retired, I ducked into the concealing shrubbery and entered the library through the French doors.”

  “I thought you’d disappeared,” Mr. Wetherhead said glumly.

  “There, there,” said Miranda, patting his shoulder. “It was a very misty night.”

  Mr. Taxman resumed. “I took the pamphlet from your desk, Vicar, and brought it to my cottage. The following day, I placed it in the box with the others.” He smoothed his tie, then looked around the half circle of expectant faces, like a schoolteacher awaiting questions.

  “Why, Jasper?” Peggy Kitchen’s voice trembled not with indignation but with bafflement. “Why did you want me to think the festival was ruined?”

  “I had to prove to you that Finch still needs you,” said Mr. Taxman. “I hoped your battle with Dr. Culver would reawaken your fighting spirit.”