“And we’ll use them if we have to,” said Childe, articulating with the greatest care. “Don’t push us.”
“You’re a pack of fools. Spit those things out,” Ensign Blaise ordered.
They faced him, not moving. It was Iduna who coped. Stepping up to Peru, she held out her hand, palm up.
“Come on, John Doe. Spit it out like a good boy.”
The shaggy creature stared wildly into those commanding blue eyes. Then, with something like a sob, he spat.
“There you are, all better. Good boy.”
He might have been a pet sheepdog. Iduna gave him a quick pat on the beard and went on to the next. And the next, and the next. Four awesome white pellets lay, spit-soaked, in her soft, rosy palm. She faced Roland Childe.
“Give it up, Roland.”
He spoke through clenched teeth. “I stand on my oath.”
“You’ll do as you’re told.”
Iduna reached around and fetched him a sound buffet between the shoulder blades. His mouth snapped open, the object he’d been nursing in his cheek flew out. She caught it on the fly.
“A lemon jellybean!”
Iduna passed it around for all to see. “You four-flushing little snotnose! You’d have let those four young idiots kill themselves so you could lie your way out without having them around to contradict you. I declare to goodness, if I had a Bjorklund buggy whip with me right now, I’d sure as heck use it to take a few strips off your good-for-nothing hide.”
SIXTEEN
AFTER THAT, THEY HAD no trouble getting the four bears to talk. The trouble was, neither Peru, Argentina, Colombia, nor Venezuela had anything much to say. Peru admitted he’d enrolled in the school under Paraguay’s orders, filtered through Roland Childe, known to them as Brazil. They all admitted Paraguay was a person, not a place. They took it for granted Paraguay was a man instead of a woman because they were the sort who naturally would. They had a general idea that the rendezvous was supposed to take place in or around New Haven, Connecticut, because Brazil had shown them on the chart what route they were intended to take. However, they didn’t know whether or not Brazil had been telling the truth. That lemon jellybean had left them all pretty shaken.
As for the weather vanes, those had been unloaded from the Ethelbert Nevin as soon as she crashed. A cache had been dug out with knives and hands in the only patch of diggable soil they’d been able to find on the islet. Peru showed Iduna his blisters, perhaps in the hope of getting another pat on the cheek. Instead, she took the heartless position that it served him right and he ought to have known better than to get mixed up with a nasty creature like Brazil in the first place.
By the time they’d got through the interrogations, the Coast Guard boat had been coming up to Hocasquam. Ensign Blaise had radioed the local sheriff that he had a gang of pirates aboard in custody; so when they docked, they were met by quite a posse. The prisoners were being taken to Thomaston State Prison for safekeeping until charges could be properly filed.
Catriona rather hated to leave the scene of action, but she was anxious about her cats. She changed back into her still-clammy running pants and sweatshirt, thanked Ensign Blaise for the loan of his dress uniform, and disembarked with Guthrie Fingal, who’d grown deeply concerned about his barn as soon as he learned Miss McBogle was going home. Iduna and her picnic hamper, to the regret of the engineer and the quartermaster, went along with them.
Helen was not to be budged. “I’m sorry, Cat,” she said, “but I can’t possibly leave this boat until we’ve gone back and collected those weather vanes.”
“And I’m not leaving Helen,” Peter added. “I hope you don’t mind putting up with us a while longer, Ensign Blaise.”
“Not at all, Mr. Shandy. Happy to have you aboard.”
Catriona didn’t try to argue the Shandys into quitting the chase before it was over. “Then you’d better take my car keys. Iduna and I can ride home with Guthrie. You’re sure you know your way back from here?”
“We’ll find you,” Peter assured her. “You’d better not wait supper for us.”
As it happened, though, the Shandys had their traveling time shortened considerably. They’d barely pulled away from Hocasquam Head when Ensign Blaise got an SOS about some fighting lobstermen and had to rush off in a different direction. So Helen and Peter had the thrill of being picked off the deck by helicopter and airlifted back to where Ethelbert Nevin had been wrecked.
The cache was a cinch to locate; they easily spotted the disturbed soil over which a few slabs of rock had been unconvincingly arranged. The two suitcases, the creel, the tackle box, and the camera case turned up only inches below the surface.
“Didn’t kill themselves digging,” Peter grunted.
“They thought they’d be back to pick up the loot as soon as they could steal another boat,” said Helen. “Beasts! Well, come on, Peter. Open the cases and let’s see what we’ve got. I’m almost afraid to look.”
She needn’t have been. All three of the most recently stolen weather vanes were there, neatly wrapped in the Balaclava County Fane and Pennon. “Too bad Swope isn’t here to take a picture,” Peter remarked, but Helen didn’t pay any attention. She was busy checking Praxiteles Lumpkin’s masterpieces for possible damage.
The man in the tub had sustained a slight bend in his brush, but that could easily be put to rights. The cow kicking over the bucket must have suffered rough handling; the bucket was going to need a bit of restoration. Guthrie Fingal’s lumberjack was in A-one condition. Helen gloated.
“Look, Peter, he’s got a squirrel sitting on his head. When I took the photographs, I thought it was just some kind of funny hat.”
“Wearing a squirrel for a hat is probably an old Maine custom. What’s this stuff in the fishing creel? By George, Helen, look at this. They were planning to disguise the Ethelbert Nevin.”
Peter unrolled the piece of painted canvas he’d found and spread it out on the ground. It had been cut to fit the boat’s upper transom and bore the artfully worn and battered letters:
GUY LOMBARDO
ROCK
Which “Rock” had been tastefully obliterated.
“Clever,” Helen remarked. “There are plenty of ‘Rocks’ around. Its home port could be anywhere. And here’s another strip of canvas in the tackle box with a lot of numbers on it, to cover up the real registration. And a pot of glue in the camera case. I suppose they thought they were being too clever for words.”
Peter held the strip of numbers up against the side of the boat. “Made to order, antiqued to match the rest of the hull. These weren’t done in a minute, my love. I wonder how they got the pieces to fit so perfectly.”
“They had someone measure the boat and take pictures.”
Helen could have explained about Elisa Alicia Quatrefages then and there—and perhaps she should have—but the helicopter pilot was anxious to get them back to Hocasquam. He’d radioed for another detail of police to be at the landing place to receive the contents of the cache, which would have to be impounded as evidence. She’d have to tell then, but she needed to talk to Peter first. Guthrie Fingal was, after all, a very old friend of his.
“Too bad you’ve got a car to pick up,” the pilot said hospitably as they were setting down. “I could have delivered you right to your own back yard.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Peter. “We’ll take a rain check.”
“And hope to God we never have to use it,” he added after they’d got away from the helicopter.
They handed over the two suitcases, the creel, the tackle box, and the camera case and got a receipt. Helen impressed the policemen with the importance and value of that which was being intrusted to them. They promised to take extra good care of the cow and the bucket, the man in the tub, and the lumberjack with the squirrel on his head. Somewhat relieved, she got into the car.
“Shall I drive, dear? You must be sick of it after coming all the way from home and then having to rescue us and th
e weather vanes.”
“You’ve been through more than I have, my love. Allow me to handle the chest thumping this time around.”
After the usual preliminary fumbling in a strange car, Peter got the key into the ignition right side up and they started. This time he took it slowly. He needed to be alone for a while with Helen just as badly as she wanted time with him. They wound up pulling off the road into a lay-by and winding their arms around each other like a pair of amorous teenagers.
“So, Peter, what have you been up to?” Helen spoke a little bit breathlessly, as well she might, all things considered. Peter cleared his throat.
“M’well, my dear, I spent last night in the company of another woman.”
“How nice for her,” Helen replied politely. “Would you care to elucidate?”
“It would give me the greatest pleasure to do so.”
Leaving out some of the hairier bits about bullets and bogs, Peter told his tale. He had not expected Helen to be other than appalled, and appalled she dutifully was. Naturally, she was also intrigued.
“What a remarkable woman! Is there any hope of my ever getting to know her, do you think?”
“Time will tell, my love. I have a hunch Miss Binks may not be so unsociable as she claims to be, but she’ll require careful stalking. Books, I think, would be the most useful bait. You might try laying a trail of Turgenev, Tennyson, and Trollope and sneak up on her when she gets to Barchester Towers. And now, my love, what is it you’ve been keeping back from me about your own adventures?”
“I thought you’d probably notice. It’s something I don’t think you’re going to like much. You did know Guthrie Fingal’s married?”
“I’d had a general impression to that effect. But—er—recent developments had led me to believe I may have been mistaken.”
“You noticed that too, did you? Peter, I’m dreadfully worried. Cat was totally desolate when Ben died. That was about fifteen years ago and she’s never looked at anybody since, as far as I know. Or hadn’t, evidently, until she moved to Sasquamahoc.”
“What prompted her to come here?”
“The old upstream syndrome, I suppose. All things come home at eventide. Cat was born around here somewhere. In a smelt shack during the February freeze, she claims, but I suspect that’s hyperbole. Anyway, Cat’s only peripherally involved as far as Guthrie’s wife is concerned. The big thing right now is that Mrs. Fingal calls herself Elisa Alicia Quatrefages.”
“Am I supposed to clutch my brow and swoon? No doubt the name Elisa Alicia Quatrefages is fraught with dire import, and no doubt I ought to know what it imports, but I’m damned if I do.”
“The only import I know is that it was the married name of a woman better known as Ella Lynch, who played a key role in Paraguayan history around the eighteen sixties. Paraguay appears to be the code name of the person to whom Roland Childe and his crew are supposed to deliver the weather vanes.”
“But drat it, Helen, that doesn’t necessarily mean the two are connected.”
“Then consider the fact that Eustace Tilkey told us Guthrie Fingal’s wife had been hanging around Hocasquam Cove recently, taking photographs of the Ethelbert Nevin. According to Cat, she’s an artsy-craftsy type who makes doodads and whatnots for the New York boutiques and goes off by herself for a good part of every month, ostensibly to peddle her wares. Would you care to make the connection yourself, or shall I make it for you?”
“Spare yourself the effort, mine own. However humble my powers of ratiocination, the effort is not outside their compass. The question now arises, how the flaming perdition are we going to tell Guthrie?”
“I should say the larger question is whether Guthrie already knows.”
“Impossible! Guthrie Fingal’s a decent man.”
“Whom you haven’t been in close contact with for umpty-seven years.”
“So what if I haven’t? Can a leopard change its spots?”
“Is Guthrie a leopard? I said you weren’t going to like it, Peter.”
“And you’ve never been more right. I don’t like it, not one damn blasted bit. Why should Guthrie have burned down his own barn in order to steal his own weather vane?”
“Not to be contentious, darling, but the barn was only damaged, not destroyed. Moreover, we have to address the question whether the barn and the weather vane do in fact belong to Guthrie or whether they’re the property of an independent institution controlled by a board of trustees. Do you honestly believe Guthrie could simply have climbed up and got that weather vane, lugged it off and sold it to the hypothetical wealthy collector, and pocketed the proceeds for himself without exciting some kind of remark?”
“No, and I don’t believe pigs can fly, either,” Peter retorted sulkily. “I suppose I have to concede you the doodad maker, but I’ll be eternally hornswoggled if I’m going to throw Guthrie in after her. So what do we do now?”
“Sit tight and see what develops, wouldn’t you think?”
“How tight were you planning to sit? I’ve been hoping we might get back home tomorrow.”
“So have I. When I said sit, I didn’t necessarily mean sit here. Now that we’ve got the police involved, I don’t see what we’re likely to accomplish by hanging around Sasquamahoc, anyway.”
“Did you tell that aggregation of fuzz about Elisa Alicia Quatrefages? I don’t recall hearing you.”
“I’d intended to,” Helen admitted, “but the officer who was asking the questions never gave me a chance. You heard him. Whenever one of us tried to interject something he considered extraneous, he’d start yelping ‘Just give me the facts, ma’am,’ like an old Jack Webb rerun. So I decided I might as well not try. It did seem awfully tenebrous trying to pin a rap on a woman I’ve never met, just because she happens to use an unusual name.”
“And even more tenebrous to pounce on the woman’s husband just because he happens to have part of his barn left,” Peter made the mistake of pointing out.
Helen gave him a weary look. “If you say so, dear. Let’s go.”
They found their way back to Sasquamahoc with no trouble. Catriona, Iduna, and Guthrie were all three sprawled in deck chairs on the side lawn, each with a tall glass full of ice, lime, and no doubt one or two other things. They hailed the Shandys with delight.
“Did you find your windmills?” Cat shouted.
“Weather vanes,” Helen corrected.
“Whatever. Did you? Where are they?”
“We did. They’ve been impounded as evidence by the constabulary or the horse marines or whoever those seventy-three authoritarian figures were who met us at the dock. We got helicoptered, by the way. Ensign Blaise had to go and break up a lobster war. Don’t ask me what the lobsters were fighting about because I haven’t the faintest notion.”
“Unworthy of you, Marsh. Want a drink?”
“Yes, but I’m going to get bathed and changed first. Peter can stay and fill you in on the details. He hasn’t had the chance to do any proper visiting yet, poor dear.”
Helen dropped a kiss where her husband’s bald spot was soon going to be and went along into the house. Peter fell gratefully into the lawn chair Catriona hauled up for him, and waited for Guthrie to bring him his drink.
Whoever built this grand old house had known how to pick a site. Peter enjoyed its simple squareness, and he liked the way it sat. After all that choppy water, he found it refreshing to look at rolling hills and open meadow. So many black-eyed Susans told him Catriona McBogle’s fields would be the better for a few loads of top dressing, but he had to admit their bold orange-yellow stars struck a cheerful note of contrast among the demure white oxeye daisies and the blue-purple cow vetch.
He obliged with the details, got his drink, took a few sips, and set the glass down beside him on the grass. Raising it to his lips was getting to be too much of an effort. So was holding up his eyelids. When Helen came out, clean and colorful in a flowered print sun dress, she found her husband asleep and the other three close to
it.
“Well, this is a lively party, I must say. No, Guthrie, don’t get up. I’ll finish Peter’s drink. Half is plenty for me anyway, or I’ll be dropping off like the rest of you. Cat, what about letting Peter and me take us all out to supper? Is there a halfway decent restaurant anywhere handy?”
“No, there isn’t and, no, you can’t. We’ll scare up something in the kitchen. You’ll stay, won’t you, Guthrie?”
“Thanks, Cat, but I’ve been gone quite a while already. I’d better be moseying along, they’ll be expecting me back at the school. Helen, you and Pete won’t take off in the morning without giving me a chance to say good-bye, I hope?”
“We wouldn’t think of it,” she assured him. “I shouldn’t be surprised if Peter dropped over for a little visit later on, assuming we can get him awake to eat his supper. You’ll be around, won’t you?”
“Oh sure, I’ll be there. I don’t stray far from home base, as a general rule.”
“His wife’s the traveler in the family.” Catriona must be annoyed because Guthrie wouldn’t stay to supper, Helen decided; otherwise, she wouldn’t have brought up a tender subject. “Where’s she off to this trip, Guth?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? New York, I guess. I quit trying to keep track of her long ago. Well, see you later, folks. Thanks for the drink.”
SEVENTEEN
IDUNA GAVE HER SILVER gilt curls a compassionate shake. “If that’s women’s liberation, I’ll take raspberry. Imagine a wife having no more consideration than to go off for weeks at a time and not even tell her husband where she’s going. I’d no more do that to Daniel than I’d order him to get up and cook my breakfast for me.”
“Peter usually fixes mine,” Helen admitted, “but I know what you mean, Iduna. I wouldn’t do a disappearing act either, if I could help it, and I certainly wouldn’t want Peter to do it to me. Not to criticize your friends, Cat, but the Fingals must have rather a strange marriage.”
They were all in the huge kitchen now, watching their hostess pull food out of the air with the practiced ease of all hostesses who live in country places and have scads of visitors in the summertime. Catriona probably didn’t mean to set the platter of cold roast chicken down on the table with quite so hard a thump.
The Luck Runs Out Page 16