Punch With Care

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  Jennie called him back as he started for the car.

  “I don’t know as it matters any, Asey, but I do keep wondering about Sylvester! Seems’s if I couldn’t get him off my mind. After all, he lives right over there at the point—”

  “What?” Asey demanded. “At the point? I thought he lived over Skaket way!”

  “Oh, he did till a few years ago, when they took over so much land for that radar station thing. Took his, too,” Jennie said. “He owns a couple of acres right next the Douglasses, so he come over and built him a little shack there. Folks said he only did it to inveigle Douglass into buyin’ his land up at a high price, but for all I know, that was only talk. No, if Sylvester still lived over in Skaket, Asey, I wouldn’t think so much about him. But his being right there, as you might say—”

  “Gives you,” Asey said, “food for thought. Huh, it gives me food for thought, too! Golly, if I could only just figure out one thing! Well, maybe I can if I stick at it long enough! I’ll be seein’ you—”

  She called him back again.

  “When’ll you be home?” she asked anxiously. “And don’t you think you hadn’t better go off alone? Shouldn’t you take someone ‘with you, like the doctor—or me?”

  “I’ll be back soon,” Asey assured her. “I’m just goin’ to see Aunt Mary. You might scare up somethin’ for me to eat later, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Over at the point, he parked on the lane leading to the Douglass’s house, and then got out and walked through the pine woods to the house.

  His new roadster was on the turntable where he’d left it—shining almost as garishly in the moonlight, he thought, as it did in the sunlight. The Douglass’s beachwagon was parked beyond it, and beyond that was a small convertible coupe—Layne’s car, no doubt.

  Walking closer to the house, he stood in the shadow of the lilacs and peered into the lighted living room.

  Harold and Louise were busy playing gin rummy, their faces as grim and set as if they were about to take a beachhead from a landing barge. Layne sat by the table, turning the pages of a magazine. Aunt Mary, Asey decided with some annoyance, must have come home and gone straight to bed. He’d noticed a light in an upstairs bedroom.

  Noiselessly, still keeping in the shadow of the lilacs, he made his way around to the rear of the house, and stood and looked reflectively at the Lulu Belle and the little engine, drawn up by the tiny, box-like station.

  The whole place seemed even quieter than it had that afternoon during that strange period when everyone was somewhere else. The house, neat and white in the moonlight, had that same tomblike silence about it. The rolling marshes were just as forlorn—and even a little sinister with that slight mist rising from them and curling off over to the pines. You had to strain your ears to catch the pounding sound of the surf on the outer beach.

  “An’ it’s all wrong, somehow!” he murmured to himself. “It bothers me—”

  Was that the sound of footsteps in the woods near the station, or was he imagining things?

  He’d never know, he thought, whether he’d actually heard anything or not, for the Town Hall clock suddenly started to peal out ten o’clock, and on its third stroke, an assortment of church clocks started to chime in with it.

  Asey leaned back against an apple tree.

  What had tipped someone off to planting that bud vase on Elizabeth Shearing? What was the reason for that sudden action? What was it that had set someone going? Or was it all the work of the mentally agile Miss Shearing and her bull-dozer mind?

  Folding his arms, he settled back against the tree and considered Miss Shearing until another clock, the little station clock, started belatedly to chime ten.

  Asey drew in his breath sharply and stood up as straight as if a bucket of ice water had suddenly been poured down his spine.

  “Just about three an’ a half minutes late!” he said out loud. “Golly, maybe what I been thinkin’ isn’t so crazy after all! I think—yessir, I know I’m right about that!”

  13

  CUMMINGS WOULD TELL him he was stark staring mad, Asey decided. And Cummings would have every right to.

  “If only I could hitch that up—”

  He took a step forward toward the Lulu Belle, and then stopped short.

  There ‘were footsteps, and they ‘were behind the station.

  Going away from the station, he amended. Someone bad been behind there, as he’d thought a few minutes before, and now someone was leisurely leaving.

  As if he were walking on eggs, Asey set out after the person.

  In something less than sixty seconds, he discovered that the person was a man.

  A tall, gangly man.

  In short, it was Sylvester!

  And he wasn’t taking any particular care about how much noise his footsteps made. Not that he was advertising his presence by thrashing around violently, or kicking at trees, or singing loudly to himself. But under no circumstances could anyone truthfully describe his progress along the path as sneaking. To all intents and purposes, Sylvester was merely taking a little stroll before bedtime. And anyone, even Cummings, could trail him without having to think twice.

  Keeping some distance behind, Asey followed him along the curving, rutted lane, waiting until Sylvester reached the door of the tar paper covered structure that was apparently his home, before he quickened his step.

  Just as Sylvester’s hand touched the knob, Asey noiselessly appeared beside him.

  “Hi, Sylvester,” he said casually.

  “What the—my God, you scared me half to death! Who—” Sylvester peered at him. “Why, Asey Mayo! My God, so they got you out huntin’ me, have they? Went an’ put you to work findin’ me!”

  “I’m not huntin’ for you at all,” Asey said. “I just come over to see Harold Douglass on a little matter of business, but they was goin’ to bed, an’ when I heard footsteps, I wondered if it mightn’t be you comin’ home, an’ so,” he concluded, hoping that he sounded more convincing to Sylvester than he did to himself, “so it was!”

  “Asey, what they goin’ to do to me?”

  “Who?”

  “Why, folks!” Sylvester said plaintively. “What’re they goin’ to do to me for bein’ late with the Bull Moose today? What’re they goin’ to do?”

  “Nothin’,” Asey said. “They just think it’s kind of funny, your bein’ late after bein’ on time so long. If you’d take my advice, you’d make up a good yarn, like you got delayed watchin’ the sea serpent over in Bottomless Pond, or something like that, an’ they’ll just laugh, an’ it’ll all brush over—you askin’ me in?”

  “Why, sure!”

  Sylvester opened the door, lighted a match, went over to the table and lighted the old-fashioned kerosene lamp.

  The inside of the shack, Asey thought, couldn’t have been neater or better kept if Jennie herself had the care of it. The sink was free of dishes, the pump handle was polished like a mirror, the floor was swept, the white curtains were stiff with starch, and the bed was made.

  “Kind of messy in here,” Sylvester said. “Take a chair, Asey—that Boston rocker’s the most comfortable. I hadn’t much chance to tidy up today. I always say when you live alone like I do, you can’t afford to get careless. About that Bull Moose business, now, Asey! Didn’t they send you out to find me, honest? Didn’t they?”

  “No, honest,” Asey said. “I just happened to drop by the Douglass’s, like I said. Nice place you got here, Sylvester!”

  “Well,” Sylvester said with quiet pride, “I like it. Nothin’ fancy, but—hm. ’Bout time! Where you been?”

  He went to the door and let in an enormous white cat, who rubbed against his legs and purred loudly.

  “Usually meets me on the path near the station,” Sylvester went on. “I waited there for her just now—she was there all right, but she was bein’ independent!”

  “Nice cat,” Asey said. “What’s her name?”

  “Lana Turner. Great company.” Sylv
ester crossed over to a miniature ice chest and produced a tin of evaporated milk. “Great mouser. Here y’are, Lana. Fill up! Asey, ain’t they awful sore about missin’ the Quiz Question?”

  “Wa-el,” Asey said, “they were at first, but then they hunted around an’ found people that had heard it, so it all worked out. They—”

  “What was it?” Sylvester asked interestedly. “The Question, I mean. ’Course, there ain’t much chance of my bein’ called an’ asked it, me not havin’ any phone, but I always like to know.”

  “I don’t know exactly what the Question is,” Asey told him, “but the answer is coypus—easy enough for you to remember. Just think of Lana. Coypus. Look, Syl, what really did happen to make you late today?” Sylvester shook his head as he sat down at the table. “Asey, I tell you, I don’t understand it yet! I set my watch, just like I do every single day—”

  “You mean,” Asey said, “by the clock on the Douglass’s station?”

  He held his breath while Sylvester got up, picked up the cat’s empty milk saucer, and put it in the sink.

  “Thirstiest cat I ever seen! Yes, that’s it. That clock’s an old railroad station clock they got there, you know, and railroad station clocks are always right!” Sylvester said seriously. “It’s electric, too, and so there isn’t any chance of its ever bein’ wrong—an’ by golly, it never was wrong, either, all the time I’ve used it to set my old turnip by! Why, I left the point here in plenty of time, an’ I got to town early, an’ at one o’clock, why I binged her! Didn’t think nothin’ about it. Didn’t have any notion in the world that I wasn’t smack on time!”

  “Didn’t you hear the Town Hall clock, or any of the church clocks strikin’ one?” Asey asked curiously.

  “Wind,” Sylvester said laconically. “You can’t hear any of them things a foot away if the wind ain’t just right, or less there ain’t no wind blowin’ attall, like tonight. Besides, I wasn’t listenin’ for ’em. Don’t know what made me look over across towards the Town Hall clock as I come out of the Fire House. One-six, ’twas. On e-six? I says to myself. Ain’t never been more’n one-two or one-three before! Then Lizzie Hampton seen me an’ starts yellin’ she missed the Question, all on account of I was late with the Bull Moose, an’ what’s the matter with me, anyways! An’ then—”

  In detail, he recounted how he’d checked up on every available clock, and of his ultimate conclusion that his own watch was slow.

  ‘‘Three minutes, an’ most a half! Well, sir, I can tell you I skipped out of town so quick!”

  “How’d you skip?” Asey inquired.

  “Hitched me a ride on a truck clear to New Bedford!” Sylvester told him. “Don’t know ‘when I been so far away from the Cape before. Twenty years, I guess. I sort of had it in mind to keep right on goin’, but then I remembered I hadn’t locked up my front door, an’ who’d take care of Lana?”

  The white cat, purring furiously, jumped up on his lap at the mention of her name.

  “So,” Asey said, “you hitched back?”

  “Yessir, I hitched back. After all, there ain’t no place like home!”

  “I always feel that way,” Asey said sympathetically, “every time I get back. Say, I hear you been havin’ famous visitors out this way today!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Carolyn Barton Boone,” Asey said.

  “Oh, that woman! Her!” Sylvester said with so much force that Lana stopped washing her face and looked up at him. “That woman! Dyed hair, an’ her face all painted up—honest, I don’t know what the country’s comin’ to when women like that get into the papers, an’ folks listen to ’em, an’ think they are somethin’!”

  “Where’d you see her?” Asey asked. “Up town?”

  “No, here, at the point. I was standin’ up in a sugar line for Mrs. Winters, see,” he explained, “when I heard that Boone woman was in town—you know, Asey, there’s one thing you can say for the way they gone an’ botched things up so. An old feller like me can make a pretty good livin’ standin’ in lines for people! An’ a lot easier than quohauggin’, I must say! Well, so I heard she was in town, but nobody told me where she was stayin’ or anythin’. An’ when I got through gettin’ Mrs. Winters’s sugar, I came back here—by golly, wasn’t I surprised to see her over at the Douglasses! I recognized her right away, in that white suit of hers!”

  “Douglass was givin’ her a ride on the railroad, I s’pose.”

  Asey held his breath again and decided that this was, in its way, the most completely nerve-wracking interview he’d had.

  “Yup, he was. Say, that’s some railroad, ain’t it? Once in a while when they got a crowd there, I put on a white jacket an’ a cap he’s got, an’ take a basket over my arm an’ pretend to be a butcher for him. You know, I go up an’ down the aisle sayin’ ‘Her-shey bahs! Al-mond bahs!’ ” Sylvester’s imitation of himself being a butcher sent Lana scuttling down to the floor. “Come back you! Hop up here! Of course, mostly it’s just little peanut bars from the A & P we had lately, but they used to say Hershey bars an’ almond bars, so I do.”

  Asey had to dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands to keep himself from screaming out question after question. But he knew it would never do. Not with someone like Sylvester!

  “Guess even a person like Mrs. Boone was kind of impressed with folks havin’ a railroad in their back yard for her to ride on,” he remarked.

  “She ought to be! I bet,” Sylvester said with scorn, “I bet her grandfather never owned any railroads! I bet he never even had a ride on one!”

  “Did that really belong to Mrs. Douglass’s grandfather, like I heard?”

  “Why, sure! It’d kind of gone to seed,” Sylvester said. “You know how things got with some railroads after cars got to be so common. An’ Mrs. Douglass didn’t want it sold to the Japs for scrap, so she bought it up, an’ they had it brought down here. She thought her grandfather’d like it better that way—you know how they are about old things, so careful with Aunt Della Hovey’s stuff an’ all.”

  “So,” Asey said, “Mrs. Boone got a ride. She seem to be enjoyin’ it?”

  Sylvester said he wouldn’t know.

  “Douglass helped her on, an’ they went inside—I s’pose he punched her ticket—an’ then he come out an’ went into that little lean-to he’s got where he changes his coats an’ caps, an’ then Mrs. Boone hopped out an’ ran indoors. After a while, Douglass came an’ looked in, an’ then he went off to the house—after her, I s’pose. An’ then Mrs. Boone came back—an’ by golly, didn’t I want to go tell that woman what I thought of her! I don’t think much of her, if you want to know, Asey! Yessir, wouldn’t I liked to of gone an’ told her a thing or two!”

  “Why didn’t you?” Asey asked.

  “Why, land’s sakes, how could I? There wasn’t the time! I always plan on bein’ up to the Bull Moose at least half an hour early, anyway,” Sylvester said. “I got my reputation to keep up! An’ it was after twelve, then. I had to come here an’ make me a sandwich, an’ be back to town by twelve-thirty!”

  “But you couldn’t eat an’ get back to town on foot by twelve-thirty!” Asey said.

  “You couldn’t by the road, but you can the way I go,” Sylvester told him with a smile. “People always sort of get mixed up out here, thinkin’ it’s such a long ways to everywhere, an’ all these lanes twistin’ around to confuse ’em, an’ the main road windin’ so. Nossir, you just cut across lots by the shore, an’ it’s less’n a ten-minute walk for me. ’Course sometimes I get my feet wet, an’ some of the steppin’ stones are pretty barnacly an’ hard on shoe leather. But I can do it easy. You just have to know the right places to go, that’s all!”

  “So you seen her come back to the Lulu Belle—an’ then you went off!” Asey said with genuine regret in his voice. “Huh!”

  “Why, I had to!” Sylvester said earnestly. “I got a name for bein’ prompt! I got my sandwich, an’ then on the way back, I set my watch an’ h
ustled along—you know, I wonder if Douglass really did give her the ride after all, Asey! I’d of been sure to of seen the train, or heard it toot, but I never did!”

  Had Douglass returned from the house, Asey asked himself, looked at the car and thought it empty—since by then Mrs. Boone was lying on the floor, dead?

  Or had Douglass himself returned and killed her?

  “I always felt pretty sorry for ole Senator Boone,” Sylvester went on conversationally. “Him in Washington, an’ his wife kitin’ around the country, an’ him as like as not never gettin’ a good, proper, hot, home-cooked meal! I always kind of figgered that was why he voted so dumb, sometimes. No wife to look after him proper. But after I seen that dyed yellow hair an’ painted face of hers, I decided maybe he was just as well off! She sure didn’t look to me like anyone it wouldn’t be better if you didn’t have ’em around attall!”

  “Always seemed to meAsey tried to draw a line between sounding casual and owning to a conviction, “she was the sort of woman this world would be a whole lot better off without!”

  Sylvester promptly bit.

  “That’s just what I was tellin’ Amy Waters that was standin’ next to me in the sugar line! I said if all the busybody women like her was killed off in one swoop, why it’d be the best thing ever happened to this country! I said I’d like to do it myself—an’ by gum, if I’d had just a little mite more time this noon, I’d of given her a good piece of my mind! I’m not sure maybe I won’t yet, if she stays around very long. Some day I’d like to get hold of one of those women that shoots their mouths off so, an’ tell ’em a thing or two!”

  Asey looked over at him thoughtfully as he sat by the table, stroking the white cat who was curled up on his knee.

  “Wa-el,” he said, “you can’t ever tell—I mean, if you’d do any good or not. They probably wouldn’t listen to folks like us—say, Sylvester, you’d be just the feller to know! Yup, I bet you would be just the feller who could tell me!”

  “What?”

  “Jennie an’ me,” Asey said, “was havin’ an argument about ole houses tonight. I said there was a secret room at the Douglasses, an’ she said I was crazy. To tell you the truth, that’s the errand I had over here. Jennie an’ I got so hot under the collar, I said I’d just get right into my car an’ go find out from Harold Douglass!”