Christmas Stalkings Read online

  “He’ll think it’s funny, provided we don’t get stuck with a whole flock of them. As for this one—” Peter kept hold of the startling counterfeit and handed Moira a genuine twenty taken from his wallet. “Fair swap?”

  “No, really, Peter. Why should you stand the loss?”

  “What loss? This bill’s a collector’s item, it’s worth far more than the alleged face value. I’m probably gypping the college worse than the counterfeiter did.

  Drat it, Moira, this is a fantastically expert job. Look at the workmanship. Can you tell me why anybody with the talent to pull off such a magnificent fake would waste his time on a practical joke that could send him to jail?”

  “Well, no, I hadn’t thought of that. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “It might, I suppose, though I can’t think how. Look, Moira, let’s keep this between ourselves for the time being. There could be something more than meets the eye here. I’d like to check around a bit before we spread the word. Let me know if you get any others, will you?”

  “All right, Peter. I certainly don’t want to involve the college in anything shady, especially at Illumination time. You know how stories get blown up and stretched out of proportion. You’re quite sure I shouldn’t go to the president?”

  “You can’t right now, he’s gone off skiing. I tell you what, Moira: I’ll have the security guards pass on to the students a general warning about being on the alert for funny money. A big event like this, run by young amateurs, creates an ideal situation for the passing of counterfeit bills. I’m surprised the Illumination’s never been hit sooner, now that I think of it. Anyway, we’ll cope. Thank you for coming, Moira.”

  “Thank you for listening, Peter. I’m sorry to be dumping on you, but then everybody does, don’t they?”

  That was true enough. Peter had been Balaclava’s unofficial private detective ever since that great debacle at the earlier Illumination, when President Svenson had confronted him with the dire consequences of his ill-judged prank and saddled him with the job of catching the murderer.

  Peter knew he’d get stuck again anyhow, so he might as well get to work right away, not that he had the remotest idea where to start. He let the comptroller out and went back upstairs with the aberrant twenty-dollar bill in his hand.

  “Helen, what do you make of this?”

  “Of what?” his wife replied somewhat testily. “Stick your finger on this knot, will you? I don’t see why it’s always the woman who gets landed with wrapping the parcels. I’ll bet Margaret Thatcher doesn’t wrap presents.”

  “Couldn’t you have had them gift-wrapped at the stores?”

  “Of course not. You have to stand in line till your feet kill you, then they charge you an extra dollar for a piece of fancy paper and a stupid little bow. You can take your finger out now.”

  “No, I can’t, you’ve lashed it down.”

  “Oh, Peter!” Sighing, Helen freed the captive digit and yanked tight the knot. “All right, now what am I supposed to look at?”

  “Behold.”

  Peter handed her the note. She stared blankly for about a quarter of a second, then burst out laughing.

  “Where in heaven’s name did you get that?”

  “From Moira Haskins. She was here just now.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I offered to, but she said she couldn’t stay.”

  “Then why did she come? It’s not like Moira to be showing silly jokes around.”

  “She wasn’t joking. This thing turned up in last night’s Illumination takings.”

  “Are you saying somebody actually succeeded in passing Thorkjeld’s picture off as legal tender?”

  “That appears to have been the case. Unless some student worker stuck it in as a joke. Which, I must say, seems a bit subtle for purveyors of coconut cowpats.”

  “I see what you mean.” Helen picked up the magnifying glass she used for studying ancient documents from the college’s historic Buggins Collection, of which she was curator. “You know, Peter, this likeness to Thorkjeld is quite a piece of work. I think it’s actually a pen-and-ink drawing, but it reproduces the steel-engraving technique so expertly that I can’t tell for sure. As a guess I’d say the artist, and I’m not using the word loosely, may have photocopied a real twenty, cut out the medallion on the front, inserted his drawing of Thorkjeld Svenson in place of Andrew Jackson, and run it off again. You could do that easily enough if you had access to a copier that does color work.”

  “Having made his own paper?”

  “I expect this is simply a very-good quality rag-content bond that’s been dipped in tea or something and wrinkled up to make it look more authentic. It doesn’t have quite the feel of real currency, but I can see where an inexperienced student clerk with cold hands and fourteen more customers clamoring to be served might not notice, especially at night with all those colored lights around. It would have been simply a matter of picking the right time and place. But why Thorkjeld?”

  “Moira suggested it could be because the students would assume he belonged there.”

  “She’s probably right. How many of these have been turned in?”

  “Just this one so far, that Moira knows of. She’s going to let me know if she gets any more. I’m wondering whether I ought to take this along to the state police, in case the bills are being passed elsewhere.”

  Helen shook her head. “That seems hardly likely, don’t you think? To me, this looks more like somebody having a quiet little snicker at the college’s expense.”

  “It also looks like one hell of a lot of work for a secret snicker,” Peter replied, “but I have to admit that’s how it strikes me, too. Can you think of anybody on the faculty who knows how to draw and goes in for being inscrutable?”

  “Dr. Porble enjoys a private joke”—Porble was the college librarian and Helen’s alleged boss—”but he can’t draw for beans. He can’t even doodle. He simply writes down the Dewey Decimal Code for whatever he happens to be thinking about but isn’t going to tell you; then he smiles that sneaky little smile of his and scratches it out.”

  “You don’t happen by any chance to have a pen-and-ink portrait of the president in the library files that Porble might have used?”

  “We have a few mildly scurrilous caricatures, but nothing that could even remotely pass for a steel engraving. You know what, Peter? I’ll bet you a nickel this was copied from the photograph on that program the art department got up to celebrate Thorkjeld’s twenty-fifth anniversary as president of the college.”

  “The one Shirley Wrenne took, that makes him look like Zeus hunting for a likely target to hurl his thunderbolt at? By George, Helen, I think you’re right. What happened to that program? We had a copy of it around here somewhere, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, but I took ours over to the library. The one we had in the files disappeared.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I couldn’t say. That particular file doesn’t get much attention as a rule. If the program had been a bunch of hog statistics, Dr. Porble would have been on it like a hawk. Want me to go over and get our copy back?”

  “No, don’t bother, I have to go out anyway. I promised Moira I’d speak to Security about issuing a general ukase on keeping an eye out for counterfeit money, for whatever good that may do. Are we dining at home, or would you like some handsome and dashing he-man to sweep you off your feet and take you out for a pizza?”

  “La, sir, I’m just the bundle-wrapper; you’ll have to ask the buder’s permission. Let’s see how we feel when the time comes.”

  Helen didn’t abominate the Illumination the way Peter did, she couldn’t be feeling the same frantic urge as he to get away from the crowd and the racket. Well, what couldn’t be cured must be endured. There was always the faculty dining room to fall back on, provided its staffers weren’t all off catering a marsh-mallow roast or some other unspeakable orgy. Peter gritted his teeth, put on his old mackinaw and his rubber-soled
boots, and went forth to brave the surging tide of festivity.

  The security office was up toward the back of the campus; Peter would have enjoyed the stroll If he hadn’t been constantly beset by husky students in those infernally whimsical elf suits, giving rides to bundled-up tourists on bright-red hand sleds with curlicues on their front runners. He managed to find both sanctuary and Sylvester Lomax inside the small brick building, showed Moira’s find, and explained his errand. Sylvester permitted himself one quick snort of glee, then buckled down to composing a stern memorandum.

  In the face of such efficiency, Peter didn’t feel disposed to loiter making small talk; so he went back to the library and satisfied himself that the portrait on the bill could in fact have been drawn from the photograph on the program. There’d only been about five hundred of them printed, he supposed, and not more than half of those taken home and tucked away wherever people were wont to keep their useless junk. That would limit the field, but not by much.

  He fiddled around the library for a while, dropped in at the greenhouse to check on some experimental seedlings, then moseyed back to the Crescent. He found some gratification in the sight of Purvis Mink, one of Sylvester’s henchmen, passing out memos to the kids in the gingerbread houses; but little consolation at watching the harried kids give them cursory glances and stick them back among the piccalilli jars. He might as well go home and see if Helen had any more knots to be tied.

  The next morning, Moira Haskins was on his doorstep betimes, looking fussed and bothered. “It’s happened again, Peter.”

  “You’ve found another?”

  “No, two. You did speak to Security?”

  “I did, and Purvis Mink passed out notices. Whether the guards came around again later to warn the kids on the evening shift, I couldn’t say, but I expect they did. There was an awful mob last night, though, as usual. Short of setting a guard at each booth to examine every bill as it comes over the counter, I don’t see how in Sam Hill we’re going to catch the passer.”

  “It does look like just one person, doesn’t it? I don’t know whether that makes the job easier or harder. Talk about needles in haystacks! Well, I must get down to the bank. Do you think I should speak to the manager?”

  “I don’t know, Moira. I’ll talk with the guards and get back to you.”

  “Thanks, Peter. It’s good of you to help. Oh, your cat’s going out.”

  “That’s all right, she won’t go far; Jane’s not one for getting her feet wet. Besides, she hates the crowds even worse than I do.”

  No visitors were about this early. Students were still picking up yesterday’s litter, resanding the iced-over paths, replacing burned-out light bulbs on the overworked Christmas trees, taking care of the myriad details that must be seen to before the onslaught began anew. It was oddly peaceful. Peter stood for a moment watching the small tiger cat pick her dainty way down the front walk, stopping every few steps to give each white-stockinged paw an angry shake. She wouldn’t stay out long. She never did. He went into his tiny first-floor office and began correcting exam papers.

  Helen had gone up to the library; the phone didn’t ring once; the sounds from outside hadn’t started to build. Working along in semi-silence, Peter found his task only mildly tedious. He must have been at it for upward of an hour before it occurred to him that tourists were arriving, but that Jane was not Where in tunket had she got to? Surely he’d have heard if she’d asked to come in, Jane had her family well-trained. In some perturbation, he got up and went to the door.

  Jane was not on the stoop, nor yet on the walk. She, the dedicated house cat, was over on the green. She, the snob who shunned all lesser felines, the timid soul who wouldn’t even go back across the Crescent to visit her own mother at the Enderbles’, was leading a squad of raucous felines in a concerted attack on the third gingerbread house.

  Oddly enough, this wasn’t the stand that sold the hot dogs and hamburgers, which might have made some sense. It was the one that dispensed the gingerbread men, the taffy apples, the popcorn balls, and the coconut cowpats. Even as Peter watched, nonplussed by the cats’ frantic clawing and scrambling, a grandmotherly-looking woman picked her way among them and purchased three coconut cowpats, one for each of the two moppets who clung to her coat, and one that she stowed in her capacious handbag, perhaps to take home to Grandpa. The little girl slipped hers out of its waxed-paper wrapping, took an experimental nibble, rewrapped it, and stowed it carefully in the pocket of her snowsuit The little boy ripped the paper off his and took a large bite.

  Peter shuddered. So, oddly enough, did the boy. He made a terrible face and dumped the rest of the cowpat on the ground. Immediately the cats pounced on it, gentle Jane the first to spring. This was too much for Peter. Hatless and coatless, he dashed across to sort out his own cherished pet from the yowling, scratching heap, getting himself rather lavishly lacerated in the process, but managing to secure a fragment of what the little boy had thrown away. The fragile flower of felinity did not take rescue kindly, she wanted that cowpat.

  Jane fussed all the way home, but quieted down once she got in the house and went off in a corner to sulk. Peter took his so painfully obtained fragment into the kitchen, laid it out on the saucer, pulled it apart with a couple of toothpicks, and studied it carefully. The texture was fibrous, as he’d expected, and not all the fiber was coconut

  He worked loose a fragment of the alien substance, sniffed at it, tasted it with utmost caution. He was not surprised by what he discovered. He applied healing ointment to his more spectacular wounds, tried to placate Jane, who only spat and growled, and went back to the third gingerbread house. The other cats were still fighting over the crumbs, a few were trying to climb up on the counter and being shooed down. The few early visitors were gawking in wonder, the workers were looking nonplussed.

  “I don’t know what’s got into them,” stammered the youngest student, a young woman whose eyes were wide and whose mobcap was sadly awry. “They’ve never acted like this before.”

  “I expect they’ve never had occasion to,” said Peter. “Who brought in the latest batch of cowpats?”

  The girl stared at the pile on the counter, her two workmates stared at her. Peter looked at all three. Balaclava was not a large college. Faculty and students got to know each other pretty quickly; if not by name, at least by sight.

  The chap in the stovepipe hat was one of Peter’s own seniors. He came from Maine, lived in the dorms, and worked in the greenhouses when he wasn’t in class or peddling cowpats. The other young woman, also a senior, was majoring in botany. She also lived in the dorms, her botanical notebooks were works of art. She was possessed of a comfortable trust fund and she was engaged to the chap in the stovepipe hat According to Mrs. Mouzouka of culinary arts, she was congenitally unable to boil water. She must be here because she’d wanted to stay with her fiancé or because she didn’t want to go home, or both. She might have done the drawing of Dr. Svenson. She could easily have supplied the plant material. She could never in God’s world have baked the cowpats.

  All Peter knew about the girl with the big round eyes was that she was a freshman, she was studying culinary arts, and she didn’t live in the dorms. Since there were very few rental apartments around town, and those few all grabbed up by faculty, she must either be living with her own family or boarding with somebody else’s. Peter’s face grew as stern as he could make it with one of the Enderbles’ half-grown kittens crawling up his pant leg.

  “All right, you three, come clean. Whose idea was it to bake those cowpats?”

  “C-cowpats?” stammered the freshman. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “This critter does.” Peter set the young cat on the counter; it headed straight for the oversized compote that held the cowpats. “You might as well give him one. You can’t sell them, you know.”

  The male senior reached for one of the cowpats, smelled it and took a gingerly nibble. “It does taste—

  K
athy, this isn’t funny! You could get us all pinched and the Illumination shut down.”

  “Gerry, what are you talking about?” snapped his fiancée. She grabbed the cowpat, nibbled, made a face, and burst into laughter. “You idiot, don’t you know cannabis from catnip? Clarice, have you any thoughts on the matter?”

  Clarice had no thought but burst into tears. Peter reached over and touched her arm.

  “I think you’d better come along with me, Miss— er—

  “S-s-s-sissler. Am I under arrest?”

  “Not at all. I have no authority to arrest anybody, we just need to talk. Miss Bunce”—he’d finally remembered the senior woman’s name—”perhaps you’d be good enough to come with us. Can you manage alone for a few minutes, Pascoe?”

  “I guess so, Professor,” the male member of the group replied. “If you wouldn’t mind impounding the evidence, maybe those cats would go away. I think this kitten’s about to throw up on the counter.”

  “An excellent suggestion, Pascoe. I assume you have something to put the cowpats in. Come on, kitty, I’d better take you home. Are you ladies ready to go?”

  “K-kathy doesn’t need to c-come,” sniffled the wretched Miss Sissler. “Sh-she didn’t do anything.”

  “That’s all right, Clarice,” said Miss Bunce. “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I d-do.”

  “All right then, if that’s how you feel.”

  With a toss of her mobcap, Miss Bunce began rearranging the counter. Followed by a number of disappointed cats, Peter delivered the kitten to Mrs. Enderble, then led his weeping semi-captive away to the nearest dumpster and thence to the faculty dining room. He wasn’t about to take a young female student into his own house now that she’d refused a chaperone, not with Helen gone. He’d assumed the dining room would be all but deserted at this hour, and it was. Nobody was around, except a student waiter who came somewhat reluctantly out to take their order.