The Grub-and-Stakers Pinch a Poke Page 10

  Jenson was a most unhappy man, that much was clear at a glance. He was standing listening to Sergeant MacVicar, running his hands through his frosty mane but forgetting to look leonine. As the sergeant finished explaining what had happened, Jenson simply stood there staring at him. Then he shook himself together, much as Andy McNaster had done.

  “What a dreadfully shocking thing to happen! Where is the dear fellow now? My daughter will want to go to him at once. Dittany, have you broken the news to Wilhedra?”

  Of course she hadn’t, why on earth should she? “I didn’t think it was my place to,” Dittany answered rather curtly.

  “No, of course it wasn’t.” Jenson clutched another fistful of hair. “What am I thinking of? But you say Carolus is in no great danger, Sergeant?”

  “I can say naething on that count, sir, until I receive an official report from the hospital.”

  “He cussed a lot while they were getting him out the back door on the stretcher,” Dittany volunteered to make amends for her brusqueness. “That’s always a healthy sign, don’t you think?”

  Sergeant MacVicar gazed down on her corkscrew curls with an indulgent eye. “Nae doot, lassie.”

  He was lapsing into his old habit of regarding her as a wee, fatherless bairn. She really ought to go and get out of this pinafore, but she couldn’t bear not to hear what Jenson might have to say about the cartridge.

  Sergeant MacVicar must be anxious, too. He lost no time getting to the point. “Noo, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep, I understand the gun McNaster fired belongs to you.”

  “You’re quite right, Sergeant. It’s an old Smith & Wesson that came from my collection of theatrical memorabilia. As it happened, I’d carried the gun myself when I played Jack Rance in The Girl of the Golden West. The four blank cartridges I brought along with it were left over from that production. Is that what you wanted to ask me? I’d like to get back to my daughter.”

  “In guid time, Mr.-Thorbisher-Freep. How long had yon cartridges been in your possession?”

  “Far longer than I like to think. Twenty years at least, perhaps nearer thirty. But they worked perfectly all right at rehearsals, Sergeant.”

  “They made lovely bangs,” Dittany confirmed.

  “Aye,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “I misdoubt they banged louder than new ones. The powder would hae dried out and gained rather than losing strength. Am I no’ correct, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep?”

  “I should not presume to judge, Sergeant. My stage manager at the time got hold of the cartridges somewhere and showed me how to load the gun, which I’d bought originally not to use but simply as a collector’s item. I was told it had been carried on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’s first European tour in 1887. This may have been Bill’s own gun. The initials W.F.C. are engraved on the butt, as you see, though I realize they’re no positive guarantee of authenticity. However, I’m sure you’re not interested in historical footnotes just now. My point is simply that my knowledge of firearms has never progressed beyond that one small experience.”

  “You’ve ne’er used the gun for target practice?”

  “One doesn’t need target practice to shoot off a blank, Sergeant. I do know that much. And I know the difference between a blank cartridge and a live bullet.” Heat was creeping into Jenson’s pear-shaped tones. “I can assure you the four blanks I turned over to the Traveling Thespians’ property man were in fact blanks. Don’t ask me how Andrew McNaster got hold of that bullet he shot my good friend Carolus Bledsoe with. I can only tell you he didn’t get it from me.”

  Sergeant MacVicar favored the wealthy collector with an Augustan nod. “Weel spoken, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep. Tell me noo, did you yoursel’ handle yon four cartridges, before you gave them to Roger Munson?”

  “Handle them? What an odd question. But yes, as a matter of fact, I did. The blanks were in the gun, you see, and I didn’t much like the idea of leaving them there while I was carrying it around. I know so little of firearms, I thought perhaps they might all explode at once if I hit a big pothole or something. The roads are in wretched condition this time of year, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you. Anyway, however unnecessary it might have been, I unloaded the gun and put the cartridges in a box with cotton around them. That’s what I normally do with any small item from my collection if I take it anywhere.”

  “And when you took them out, did you happen to notice that one of the cartridges was heavier than the others?”

  “No, I can’t say that I did. Why should it be? On account of the powder’s shrinking, as you mentioned earlier?”

  “That would make no detectable difference in the weight, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep. Has it ne’er entered your ken that there exists sic a thing as a wad-cutting bullet?”

  “A wad-cutting bullet? No, that’s a new one on me. What do they look like?”

  “They look like blank cartridges. The cardboard wad on top is not the same color, but that can easily be got around. The one feature impossible to conceal is that the wad-cutter weighs more than a blank because it has a bullet concealed inside the cartridge casing.”

  “Then I’d have noticed,” said Jenson. “I have a highly developed sense of touch. Collectors do, they say. Maybe that’s why we collect, so we can have lots of pleasant things to fondle. And I handled the cartridges quite a lot, actually. First I took them out of the cylinder one by one, you know, and laid them in the box, as I said. Then I took them out again one at a time, to load the gun. Finally, having been assured it would be safe to do so, I loaded the one remaining blank into the Smith & Wesson before I brought it over here this afternoon. By that time, you see, I’d had plenty of chances to get used to the heft of them. It’s absolutely impossible I wouldn’t have felt the difference if that last cartridge weighed more than the others had.”

  Sergeant MacVicar nodded. “I incline to the same opinion, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep.”

  “Then how could Carolus have been shot? Unless somebody took out the blank I put in and substituted one of those wad-cutting bullets you speak of. By mistake, I’m sure. Some youngster playing in the gym could have fired off the gun, then realized he might get in trouble for wasting the blank. So he ran home and got one of his father’s bullets, not being able to tell the difference. You all have guns over here, I expect.”

  That just showed how much Jenson Thorbisher-Freep knew about Lobelia Falls. Dittany expected Sergeant MacVicar to set the man straight, but all he said was, “Nae doot Roger Munson will be able to cast light on the matter when he gets back from the hospital. Noo, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep, could you tell me just for the record what you did after you dropped off yon gun and left here?”

  “Yes, of course. Dear me, this reminds me of the time I played Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Let’s see, I came over this morning to break the sad news about the opera house. I’m sure you know all about our olfactory disaster, so I shan’t go into that. Once I saw how ably the Traveling Thespians were coping with the emergency, I took Miss Monk out to lunch. That was at Dittany’s suggestion, actually, but of course the pleasure was mine. Where is our lovely heroine, by the way?”

  “In the girls’ locker room unhooking her Merry Widow, I expect,” Dittany told him. “She had to be grilled, so she’s late getting changed.”

  Jenson winced. “How painful you make it sound. I hope Arethusa’s not unduly upset by what happened to Carolus?”

  “That depends on how you define unduly. We’re none of us any too happy about it.”

  Except maybe Roger Munson because he liked nothing better than a situation he could rise to, but Dittany thought she wouldn’t say so in front of Jenson Thorbisher-Freep. Why didn’t the old gasbag quit nattering about Arethusa and finish what he had to say? She really was ready to drop, and poor Osbert must be asleep on his feet. She hadn’t heard a yip out of him since they came backstage. Now he was leaning against her as if she were a gatepost, not that she minded.

  “So then you brought Arethusa back to the gym,” she prompted to
get Jenson back on the track. “That was just after half past one, as I recall. You stood talking to Carolus for a while, then you left.”

  “Thank you for refreshing my memory.” Jenson was looking pretty shopworn, too. “I’m flattered that my movements made so deep an impression on you in the midst of so much turmoil. As you say, Dittany, I left. My object in talking with Carolus had been to find out whether he’d be able to attend a little tea my daughter was planning in order to celebrate his debut as a leading man. However, it was obvious by then that he couldn’t get away, so I went home to tell Wilhedra she’d better postpone her tea party.”

  “Miss Thorbisher-Freep and Mr. Bledsoe are good friends, then?” Sergeant MacVicar asked almost as innocently as if he didn’t know.

  Jenson Thorbisher-Freep smiled. “I think you might say so, Sergeant. Strictly between us, they’re only waiting for this regrettable lawsuit over his divorce settlement to be done with before they announce their engagement. Carolus’s former wife is a woman of volatile temperament, as you may have heard, and they don’t want to provoke any public scenes from her like the one we were treated to at the dress rehearsal. By the way, I must compliment the Lobelia Falls police force on the superb job your man Burlson did in averting a possible repeat of last night’s episode.”

  Sergeant MacVicar made a noise like the final wheeze of a distant bagpipe. He wasn’t used to hearing much but complaints about Ormerod, except from owners of stray livestock. Ormerod did have an affinity with the larger quadrupeds.

  “Rm’ph. Did you leave yon revolver with the Traveling Thespians before or after you took Miss Monk to eat, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep?”

  “Oh, before. I’d brought it with me from home not knowing whether or where it might be needed later and not wishing to face a possible extra trip back and forth from Scottsbeck. Once I learned the performance would be held in Lobelia Falls, I was glad to turn the revolver over to Roger Munson. I’d have felt ridiculous toting the thing into a restaurant with me like one of our friend Osbert’s gunslingers, and I’d never have dared leave it in the car.”

  “A commendable caution, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep. And what happened after you dropped Miss Monk off?”

  “I didn’t drop her off, exactly. I came back here with her just to see how matters were progressing. I stayed for—what, Dittany? Not more than fifteen minutes at the most, wouldn’t you say?”

  “About that,” Dittany conceded.

  “By then my conscience was giving me twinges about the tea party, so I went straight home and explained the situation to my daughter. Cad that I am, I left Wilhedra to handle the cancellations, and went upstairs to take a nap. And there I stayed, reading and dozing, until our upstairs maid called me to dinner. My daughter and I dined together with the maid in attendance as usual, then Wilhedra drove me here, since she knows I dislike driving after dark. Now she’s waiting to drive me back and it really is getting awfully late, Sergeant, so if you—”

  “Indeed I’ll no’ keep the leddy waiting any longer,” Sergeant MacVicar replied gallantly. “I’ll just write you a wee receipt for yon firearm, thank you for your patience, and wish you a very guid e’en, Mr. Thorbisher-Freep.”

  Chapter 11

  “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE thinking,” said Dittany.

  “Oh aye?” Sergeant MacVicar gave her the kind of look an elderly Scot would naturally give a wee bairn who was being a pain in the neck. “Then ye ken mair than I do, lass. That a distinguished citizen like yon Thorbisher-Freep would plot a bloody vengeance against his daughter’s fiancé just because Bledsoe’s attentions hae been temporarily diverted to another and I must say far handsomer wumman is mair than I’m prepared to swallow.”

  “That’s not what I thought you were thinking. What you darn well ought to be thinking, eh, is about letting Mrs. MacVicar know what’s keeping you. Unless of course you’re prepared to sit down to breakfast in the morning and find out she’s sprinkled sugar on your porridge.”

  “She wouldna! Mrs. MacVicar is a God-fearing wumman. She kens weel that sugar on parritch is against nature and releegion.” The sergeant paused to reflect. “Howsomever, lass, as a matter o’ common courtesy, it wouldna hurt for you to step out there and kindly explain that I might be held up here yet for some wee while.”

  “Doing what?” Osbert asked, somewhat to Dittany’s surprise for she’d thought him still asleep. “Everybody’s gone home, pretty much.”

  “Aye,” said the sergeant, “an’ that presents a problem. Did it no’ occur to you, Deputy Monk, that they should all be held for interrogation?”

  “Sure it did, but how could I? They all had families in the audience waiting to drive them home. It was either let them go or start a stampede. Anyway, you’ll have a chance to grill them all in the morning. I’ve invited the whole cast and backstage crew to breakfast at our house.”

  “Osbert,” cried Dittany, “you might have told me!”

  “Oh, didn’t I? I’m sorry, dear, it slipped my mind. I think I said half past nine. Or maybe half past ten. Half past something, I’m fairly sure.”

  They’d find out fast enough come morning. What the flaming heck was she going to serve all those people? Dittany went off on her peacekeeping mission feeling pretty warlike herself. She found Mrs. MacVicar sitting alone in the gymnasium, somewhat pinched around the lips.

  “Your husband sent me out with an olive branch in my beak,” she explained. “He’s awfully sorry to keep you waiting, but he may be tied up here for another wee while. Would you like to come backstage?”

  “Candidly, I should like to go home to bed,” Mrs. MacVicar replied. However, she got up and followed Dittany through the green curtains. “Whatever is keeping him?”

  There was no point in not telling her now, so Dittany did. “Somebody switched the blank cartridge in Andy McNaster’s six-shooter for a real bullet, and he shot Carolus Bledsoe in the foot.”

  “Indeed?” said Mrs. MacVicar. “That seems a remarkably ill-natured prank for someone to have played. But I suppose we shouldn’t pass judgment before we’ve discovered the facts. I expect Donald is hoping something like that about myself just now. Have you ever wondered why you got married, Dittany?”

  “I’m wondering right now, if you want to know. Osbert just this minute informed me that he’s invited the whole cast to Sunday breakfast and I doubt whether we’ve got three eggs in the house. I’d intended to grocery shop this morning. Or is it yesterday morning by now? Anyway, I never got the chance and now I’m stuck.”

  “Fortunately I’m in a position to unstick you,” Mrs. MacVicar consoled her. “I don’t know whether you’ve ever met my daughter-in-law Nancy? She’s one of those incredibly talented people who can’t seem to help making a roaring success of anything they put their hands to. Last year she adopted a couple of chickens that some neighbors had ill-advisedly given their youngsters for Easter. Now she’s got a flock of thirty hens and they’re laying so fast she can’t keep up with the surplus. I’ve got four dozen of Nancy’s eggs in my fridge right now and I’m afraid she’s going to give me some more tomorrow. You’ll do me a big favor by taking the overflow off my hands. And people will bring things, too, you know. I can’t imagine Hazel Munson doesn’t already have a coffee cake wrapped up and ready to go.”

  Dittany managed a small chuckle. “I’ve got one of Hazel’s coffee cakes in the freezer myself, come to think of it. And I can make a big batch of—oh gosh, I can’t. I’ve promised Osbert’s agent we’ll take him and the man he brought with him to the airport first thing in the morning. They have to catch a plane at half past ten.”

  “Well, dinna fash yoursel’, as Donald would say. Things always work out one way or another. Oh dear, he’s going to ruin that good suit, and I just paid to have it pressed.”

  The sergeant was down on his hands and knees, crawling around the by now empty stage in what would have been an undignified manner if anybody else had been doing it. Mrs. MacVicar watched quietly for a moment, then walked over and sp
oke to him across the space where the footlights had been.

  “Donald, if it’s that unfired blank cartridge you’re looking for, you’ll find it caught in the crack where the left-hand steps don’t quite butt up against the stage. I’m surprised nobody has noticed it before.”

  “Say,” said Pierre Boulanger, who was just getting ready to leave, “I’ll bet that’s what I kicked. I remember my foot touching something and hearing it rattle across the floor while we were taking down the last flat. I looked down but didn’t see anything, so I figured it must have been a nail out of the scenery or something and thought no more about it.”

  “Where were you when you kicked it, Pierre?” asked Osbert. He must have been awake all the time, after all.

  “Seems to me I was standing right about where we’d set that little table Andy’d been playing cards on. Is that the blank, Sergeant?”

  Sergeant MacVicar had by now budged the dull brass cylinder out of the crack, using a couple of scenery nails as pincers. “So it would seem. Here we hae a .38 cartridge with its wad intact. The brass is tarnished and the wad discolored as if with age.”

  Using the nails, he slid the cartridge on to a sheet of paper from his notebook, folded the paper into a little cradle, and lifted it.

  “Frae the light weight, I judge this to be indeed a blank. Pending an affirmatory statement frae Mr. Thorbisher-Freep, we may tentatively assume this to be the fourth of his old blank cartridges, ta’en frae his gun and replaced by a deadlier missile. Nae doot we’ll discover the spent bullet imbedded in the timbers beneath this stage, and much good will it do us.”

  Sergeant MacVicar straightened up and dusted off his trousers as a small commotion heralded the return of Roger Munson. “Guid man, Roger. What’s the vairdict?”

  “Carolus lost the first joint of his left middle toe,” Roger reported. “He’s darn lucky it wasn’t worse, but it turns out Carolus has unusually long middle toes so he has to buy his shoes half a size too large. What Andy shot away was mostly empty boot, he’ll be relieved to know.”