The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain Page 12

  “Maybe the glass deflected the arrow,” Frankland suggested uncomfortably.

  “There is a fresh chip knocked out of a stone in the foundation, directly below the spot where Dittany was sitting. We may, I think, assume that was done by the arrow. Glass would not have deflected an arrow traveling with enough velocity to break stone. At the very least we should find a starring of cracks radiating from a noticeable point of contact, and we do not. Thus one might conclude that this was another random shot such as the one that narrowly missed you two on the day John Architrave was killed.”

  “But you don’t jump to conclusions, Sergeant MacVicar,” said Dittany.

  “I do not, and on sober reflection I am thinking those would have had to be two almost preternaturally serendipitous random shots.”

  “Huh?” said Frankland.

  “He means you couldn’t shoot like that by accident unless you did it on purpose,” explained Dittany, who was used to Sergeant MacVicar.

  “Precisely,” said the sergeant. “The first, or what we may deem the first arrow by virtue of its paramount importance as well perhaps as its having been loosed before the others, spitted John as neatly as a chicken on a skewer. The second arrow, or that which we have tended to regard as the second arrow, was not aimlessly loosed to fall to earth one knew not where but did instead plant itself neatly in the trunk of a not very large tree close to but not dangerously close to the spot where you were. Again it has been conjectured that the shot was meant to frighten you away, but in fact it served to call your attention to reckless shooting in the area and led to your discovery of John’s body perhaps considerably sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

  “Now,” Sergeant MacVicar went on, warming to his hypotheses, “we have another of these theatrical black-banded arrows striking this house directly beneath a considerable expanse of lighted window at which could be seen two well-defined sitting targets. That somebody could be potting at such a window without malice aforethought is almost unthinkable. That it could have been done on purpose yet with such total ineptitude would lead one to ponder the reason anyone might employ a weapon he didn’t know how to use.”

  “Oh, I see what you’re driving at,” said Frankland.

  “Good. The most credible conclusion, you comprehend, is that the archer is by no means without skill. The window was meant to be missed. The shot may have been intended to call your attention to something you were meant to see, in which case it appears thus far to have failed of its purpose. It may have been, conversely, an attempt to distract your attention from something that was happening elsewhere and may in fact have done so although we do not yet know what that something might be.

  “In view, however, of the petty persecutions to which you have already been subjected, not excluding today’s episode of the ill-placed automobile, I am inclined to think that the purpose of this shot was to heighten the atmosphere of ominous portent. Does that supposition appeal to you, Dittany?”

  “Not much.”

  Who’d want to keep scaring her like this without hurting her, except someone who hadn’t minded plugging old John Architrave but drew the line at young Dittany Henbit? Somebody who perhaps thought she’d seen more than she had that day on the Enchanted Mountain? Somebody Ethel knew well enough not to bark at if she’d sensed that person’s presence out behind the house tonight, and wouldn’t have gone charging after if she’d caught a familiar scent the day Architrave was killed. Somebody who could move quietly and confidently on well-known terrain, even in the dark. Somebody who could shoot accurately enough to put an arrow close but not too close. Somebody like Minerva Oakes, for instance, or Zilla Trott or practically anybody else she’d ever gone roving with.

  But the Wallaby-McNaster forces were working the nasty tricks department, surely. None of her friends could be hand in glove with that lot, because they were all slaving their heads off to defeat Andy McNasty’s foul purpose.

  And how could any of them do otherwise without attracting suspicion? As it was, not everybody had leaped full armored into the breach. Joshua Burberry, for instance, had barely lifted a hand to help with his wife’s campaign on the paltry excuse that he had to write a paper for the conference he’d be attending with his father right after the party. And Dittany squirmed a bit as she recalled how Samantha herself had balked at running against Sam Wallaby until she was strong-armed into it, and how puzzled Hazel and Dittany had been that the unflappable Samantha could get into such a flap about a mere family party when she’d tackled so many bigger jobs without turning a hair. Suppose Joshua had got involved with McNaster out of misplaced philosophy or something?

  But why suppose anything of the sort? Dittany realized she was in no shape to think straight now. After a hot bath and a good long sleep, maybe her brains would unscramble. At the moment she could barely find words to thank Sergeant MacVicar, who was promising to detail a member of his doughty force to guard her slumbers through the night, and Ben Frankland, who was promising to order a new gasket for the sump pump. She bade them a frazzled farewell and went upstairs to draw her bath, only to find that Hazel had left twenty-three heads of lettuce in the tub to crisp for Samantha’s party.

  Perhaps Patrolman Bob or Patrolman Ray maintained nocturnal vigilance or perhaps he conked out in the porch swing and let the Archer of the Black Band bombard the house at will. Dittany neither knew nor cared. All she was aware of was that far too soon it was Saturday morning, Ethel wanted out, and she herself ought to be over at the bandstand setting up tables for the bake sale.

  She hurled an anathema at the lettuces in the tub, spongebathed as best she could in the bathroom sink, and put on heavy wool pants and a Fair Isle sweater. She was soothing her nerves with a mug of tea when Ben Frankland hauled up to the back door driving Minerva’s big old station wagon.

  “Hi, Dittany. Mrs. Oakes told me to swing by and pick up all those cakes and pies people have been leaving here for sale. I thought you’d be champing at the bit to get started.”

  “Aren’t you the merry little jokester?” she snarled. “Since you’re so full of beans, you can start lugging out whatever’s on the pantry counter except those ten dozen cupcakes with the yellow frosting. They’re for the Burberrys’ luncheon and not to be trifled with. Trifle! I mustn’t forget those three bowls of trifle in the fridge. And the roll of white paper to cover the tables.”

  Therese had worked out a neat floor plan for setting up the bake sale but it never got implemented. By the time Ben and Dittany got to the bandstand, donors were already flocking around with paper plates and old stationery boxes full of coconut drop cakes and butterscotch meringues. Therese was frantically trying to price the goods while fending off would-be buyers.

  “We can’t start yet,” she protested. “Dot Coskoff has to bring us some silver from the bank first so we can make change.”

  So they squeezed the tables in as best they could among the providers and the provender. The bandstand was not the world’s most convenient place to fit anything into being dodecahedral in shape and only about twelve feet in diameter. Aesthetically it was delightful, built of wrought iron in the Later Prince Albert style, repainted in its original colors of white, pink, green and gold every third year by the Loyal Order of Owls, and standing on its own tiny plot smack in the middle of Queen Street.

  Nobody who wanted to get much of anywhere in Lobelia Falls could avoid passing the bandstand, so that was the ideal spot to hold any sort of fundraiser. Local custom decreed that any group so inclined should post its intention on the library’s community calendar under the appropriate date. The first name down got the honor.

  Therese had dutifully checked, found as she’d expected that there were no other takers for the last Saturday in March, which would usually be too insalubrious for any event but a snowball fight, and written down the bake sale with no thought of being challenged. Dittany did get a small jolt when she happened to spy a large baby-blue car heading down Queen Street but McNaster didn’t try to
ram the bandstand or anything so she went on tacking clean white paper covers to the banged-up folding tables. This was no time to dither.

  Though Dot Coskoff was still sorting dimes and quarters, though it still lacked fifteen minutes to ten when Mrs. Gumpert mounted the bandstand steps with a lavish donation of pumpkin spice cakes, the slavering hordes could be held back no longer. Therese wisely shelved the witty little speech she’d planned to declare the sale formally open and contented herself with refereeing the first battle over who got to buy the pumpkin cakes.

  Business was all that could be desired and often a bit more. Poundcake and gingerbread were there one minute, gone the next. Date squares and fudge brownies melted away like the snows of yesteryear. Even Sam Wallaby sauntered over to purchase a frosted cake in the shape of a bunny rabbit with coconut fur and pink jelly-bean eyes. Roughly seven and a half minutes after Wallaby had gone off with his bunny, Ormerod Burlson, Sergeant MacVicar’s left-hand man, waddled up full of bluster and self-importance.

  “Who’s in charge here?” he roared.

  “Therese Boulanger,” said Dittany, who happened to be nearest.

  Burlson inched his belly among the tables to where Therese was bagging chocolate chip cookies with the light of profit gleaming in her lustrous dark eyes. “Sorry, Therese. I’ll have to close you up.”

  “Ormerod Burlson, are you out of your mind?” gasped Therese. “What are you talking about?”

  “Can’t sell food in the bandstand. Against regulations.”

  “Since when? What regulations? Everybody’s been holding bake sales here since Hector was a pup, and nobody ever got stopped before.”

  “Well, I’m stopping you now. Get that stuff out of here or I’ll have to arrest the lot of you.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dittany Henbit wedged her slender frame in between them, hands on her hips and blood in her eye. “Now you listen to me, you old jelly bag. If you think we don’t know who put you up to this just because Sergeant MacVicar took his wife shopping over to Scottsbeck and isn’t here to fire you as you richly deserve, you might as well think again. Sam Wallaby panicked when he saw how much money we were making, didn’t he? So he buttonholed you and threatened to shut off the beer for the Policemen’s Picnic this year if you didn’t put a stop to it fast, right? And if that doesn’t constitute bribery and corruption of a public officer, suppose you tell us what does, eh? If you want to arrest somebody, why aren’t you over there enforcing the anti-litter law?”

  Dittany pointed over to Wallaby’s where, sure enough, a pimply weed on a Suzuki was in the very act of tossing an empty beer can down in the already littered parking space that had so hideously replaced the magnificent old black locust trees. “And furthermore your own wife Maude just brought these cookies, so that makes you an accessory before the fact and don’t think I won’t tell the judge so if you try dragging us into court. You just trot yourself back to Sam Wallaby and tell him to take his keg of beer and pour it over his head because that paunch of yours is big enough already, or I’ll sick Maude on you.”

  Ormerod Burlson was not an abject coward or an absolute fool. He beat as dignified a retreat as the circumstances would allow, not forgetting to impound one of his wife’s cookies as evidence. As things turned out he’d done the Grub-and-Stakers a favor since the incident only served to attract even more attention to the sale. People were having to stand in line to get into the bandstand and the crowd below was six deep. Caroline Pitz was down among them handing out campaign leaflets like mad, Samantha herself being at the town dump where any serious campaigner must be on the Saturday morning before a local election.

  Dittany was wondering whether she ought to rush over to Ye Village Stationer and ask Mr. Gumpert to whip off a few hundred more fliers when an unmarked van with Manitoba number plates chugged down Main Street, made a fast swing around the bandstand and slowed where the crowd was thickest. A hidden hand opened the tailgate. Out leaped a huge, evil-smelling, rotten-tempered billy-goat.

  Without so much as waiting to be introduced, the goat started butting right and left, knocking down children who cried, women who screamed, men who yelled terrible words. Attracted by the odor of goodies, he butted a path straight up into the bandstand and had his unattractive muzzle buried in a marshmallow frosted devil’s food cake before anybody quite realized what was happening.

  “Get out! Shoo! Scat!” Dittany grabbed Therese’s umbrella and belabored the beast around the horns and neck. Either the goat was too tough to care or Dittany, as a paid-up member of Friends of Animals, was inhibited from hitting hard enough. In any event he paid no attention whatever but finished the chocolate cake, leaving a mess of crumbs on the table, for goats are not fastidious eaters, and went on to a plate of hot cross buns.

  “Do something!” Opinion on that point was unanimous, but nobody knew what to do. The goat was so very large and so very mean. He butted Dittany, he butted Therese, he butted Dot Coskoff and almost upset the money box, he butted anybody and anything that got between him and the food. He knocked over a table and upset a banana cream pie in order to get at a tray of wheat germ and eggplant muffins that had been contributed by Zilla Trott and were not among the better sellers. The goat appeared to relish the muffins and was looking around for more when a youngish, slimmish, blondish man nobody in town had ever seen before vaulted over the bandstand railing, wrestled the goat to a clean fall, and trussed its feet together with the belt from his gray flannel slacks.

  All of a sudden there were heroes galore. Several men rushed up, seized the helpless animal, and dragged it off bodily to the nearby town pound, once a confinement for stray cows and horses, now maintained mostly for auld lang syne. The youngish man took off his spectacles, attempted to wipe banana cream filling off them with the tail of his shirt, put them back on still badly smeared, took a firm grip on his beltless trousers, and melted away before anybody could regain presence of mind enough to say thank you.

  “What are we going to do?” moaned Dot Coskoff. “Half of what’s left here will have to be thrown away. That dratted goat either slobbered all over it or trampled it underfoot. We’ll have nothing left to sell.”

  “Oh yes, we will,” said Hazel Munson with fire in her normally placid eye. “I’m going straight over to Dittany’s and get those ten dozen frosted cupcakes we made for Samantha’s party.”

  “But what about tomorrow?” gasped Therese.

  “We’ll make another batch after we finish here.”

  “If you say so, Hazel.” Therese sighed and went back to scraping banana cream off the bandstand floor.

  With the excitement over and the bandstand in a shambles, the crowd showed signs of drifting away. Dittany leaped up on the railing, steadying herself by one of the curlicued uprights. “Please, everyone,” she called out, “bear with us a moment. We’ll be back in business as soon as we get the mess cleaned up. Fresh merchandise is on the way. And we’ll thank you to notice that this was the second attempt in about fifteen minutes to stop our sales. Now we’re not going to name any names or cast any aspersions, but you all know what this sale’s in aid of and you’re all intelligent people, so you can draw your own conclusions, can’t you? Does anybody know whose goat that is over there in the pound?”

  Nobody did.

  “Then it looks as if we’ve got two people’s anonymous goats, wouldn’t you say?”

  That broke them up. “Atta girl, Dittany,” roared a voice from the crowd. “Say, who’s collecting donations?”

  “Well, Caroline Pitz is right behind you handing out campaign leaflets and you’ll notice they’re for the candidate who supports the park. If you have any spare cash to get rid of, you might want to hand some over to her. But the best donation you or anybody else can give is to get out on Tuesday and vote for Samantha Burberry. And bring your friends and neighbors and your Uncle Louie and Aunt Sophrony with you!”

  They were raking in the cash hand over fist when Roger Munson rushed up with a plateful of sugar cookies, not
appearing the least bit ruffled at having his regular Saturday schedule knocked into a cocked hat.

  “I’ve organized the kids into a cookie-baking production line,” he panted. “Further contributions will be along forthwith. Got to run. I’m head man in charge of ingredient procurement.”

  He took off like a rocket. Dittany, seeing that Caroline was managing fine with the collections down below, stopped to deal with the cookies. She was packaging them in half dozens when a diffident voice murmured in her ear, “Er—I was wondering what you planned to do with the food that got spoiled?”

  She looked up in surprise. The speaker was the unknown knight-errant who had captured the goat. His eyeglasses were now spotless and his trousers secured by a piece of clothesline carefully tied in a square knot.

  “I hadn’t thought,” she replied in surprise. “Why?”

  “Well, I—er—thought I might take it over to the goat. By way of apology, as it were.”

  “Why should you apologize?” said Ben Frankland, who had just returned from the pound to see if help was still needed with the tables. “Last I saw of him, he was eating your belt.”

  “Did you leave him any water to drink?” asked the strange man anxiously. “He might choke on the buckle or something.”

  “Here’s the stuff for the goat,” said Dittany, thrusting a boxful of orts at the strange man. “And I do want to tell you how tremendously grateful to you we all are, Mr.—er … Ben, why don’t you drop him off at the pound, then see if you can find out who owns the goat and who was driving the truck he got out of?”

  “Can’t right now. I promised Mrs. Oakes I’d go back and haul brush to the dump. I just stopped to find out if you want any Fig Newtons for later.”

  “Don’t even mention cookies to me! After this episode, I’m taking the pledge.”

  Ben looked so crestfallen that she added quickly, “But why don’t you and Minerva drop over about half past six and split a can of beans with me? She’ll be too bushed to cook.”