The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain Page 8

  “When was this exactly?”

  “How would I know? What time did you go up?”

  “How—” Dittany realized how pointless her question had been. Neither she nor Arethusa had any real sense of time. She settled for “Did you see anyone else?”

  “No, only John. I found the spectacle unedifying and came away.”

  “Well, it was probably before I got there, otherwise we might have met. Anyway, I think you ought to tell Sergeant MacVicar.”

  “What’s to tell? That old John was alive before he got shot? Surely MacVicar’s already deduced that for himself.”

  “Didn’t it at least occur to you to wonder what he was doing up there?”

  “No. I was wondering what I myself was doing up there.”

  Coming from anybody else, this statement might have sounded farfetched. Since Arethusa had said it, Dittany was inclined to take the remark at face value.

  On the other hand, Arethusa was a fine strapping figure of a woman not yet fifty, who pulled a sixty-five-pound bow and shot in the gold more often than not. She was also imperious, impetuous, and a sworn enemy of the late Mr. Architrave ever since his failure to repair a leaking water main until it had washed out her formal gardens and flooded the basement she’d just converted at great expense into a paneled study and forgotten to insure against Mr. Architrave.

  As for those black-banded arrows, anyone could buy a couple of new ones, maybe at that big sporting goods store in Scottsbeck where a person wouldn’t be known and remembered, and paint on that theatrically ominous decoration. A person might choose a wide black band not for its histrionic eye appeal but because the person knew none of his or her friends, neighbors, casual acquaintances, or even archenemies used such an identifying mark. This would indicate a noble desire not to incriminate anybody, but it would inevitably brand John Architrave’s death as premeditated murder.

  And who could whip up a tastier bouillabaisse of violent demise and romantic high-mindedness than Arethusa Monk? And who else lived in such a tenuous balance between Lobelia Falls and Never-Never Land?

  And who else was giving the Henbit Secretarial Service enough business to pay the taxes and buy Ethel’s dog biscuit? Surely not even Arethusa would hatch a deliberate plot to kill an old man just because he’d destroyed those magnificent plantings her great-grandmother had started with roots brought all the way from the ancestral mansion in Upper Brighton, New Brunswick, and destroyed some five thousand dollars’ worth of mahogany paneling and a complete first edition of the Bobbsey Twins series that Arethusa had been collecting since her seventh birthday and might be said to have been the prime factor in molding the literary style that had brought her fame and fortune. Would she?

  Oblivious to Dittany’s gloomy ponderings, Arethusa tossed her elegant cloak over a chair and plunked herself down at the kitchen table. “Have at thee, varlet. Stand and deliver. Figuratively speaking, of course. You may sit if you wish.”

  “You’re all heart, Arethusa.” Dittany hesitated. But what was the point? Arethusa, though spotty in her attendance owing to sudden visitations of the literary muse, was a Grub-and-Staker in good standing and therefore sure to get the story from somebody or other anyway. “Just give me time to get us a drink. I’ve already told this stuff until my throat’s beginning to feel as if it’s lined with emery paper.”

  “And precisely Whom have you told? No writers, I trust?”

  “No, just Hazel Munson, Samantha Burberry, Zilla Trott, and Minerva Oakes so far.”

  “And, prithee, what do you mean so far, you fink? Or should it be finkess?”

  “Arethusa, could you do me a very great favor and shut up for a minute?”

  For a wonder, Arethusa did. If she wasn’t hearing the tale for the first time, she was certainly putting on an impressive act. Her eyes, wide and lustrous like Lady Ermintrude’s, grew wider and more lustrous with every syllable. As Dittany completed her by now well-rehearsed narrative, she drew a sigh of total rapture.

  “I couldn’t have thought of a better one myself!”

  “Will you please try to get it through your romance-riddled cerebellum that this is real?” cried Dittany in exasperation. “Mr. Architrave’s dead and we can’t do anything about that, but if we don’t manage to elect Samantha Burberry to the Development Commission, then Andy McNasty’s going to swipe the Enchanted Mountain out from under our very noses and turn it into a housing development. I heard him say so with my own ears!”

  “Whose else would you use?” said Arethusa with one of those flashes of common sense that occasionally visited her. “And you tell me yon verbose varlet Sam Wallaby is McNaster’s catspaw, right?”

  “Yes, and this very bilge we’re drinking came from his scabrous den of iniquity,” snarled Dittany, rising to hurl what was left of the sherry down the sink.

  Arethusa stayed her hand. “Hold it. No fair laying a guilt trip on the poor, innocent grapes. Think of the honest peasant toes that squashed them.”

  “Thanks, I’d rather not. Anyway I expect there’s some sort of advanced grape-squashing technology by now. How did we get switched over to grapes, anyway? Arethusa, do you have any bright ideas about the campaign?”

  Arethusa pondered, her alabaster brow resting lightly on one shapely hand in an Elizabeth Barrett Browning attitude. For a long moment she sat and continued to ponder. At last she looked up, astonished. “Do you know, Dittany, for the first time in my life I can’t think of a thing. Can you?”

  “Well, it did cross my mind that you might like to give a donation since you’re the only person I know who has any spare cash lying around. We’ll need a fair amount of capital to run any sort of campaign and make a passable show of fixing up the mountain before election day.”

  “Gadzooks, yes. I’ll endow a trash basket in loving memory of the Hunneker brothers or whatever. And you may use my name on your press releases for what that’s worth. In sober retrospect, it might be worth a fair amount. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give that society editor who’s always bugging me for an interview a call first thing tomorrow morning and bend her ear about how I go up to the Enchanted Mountain in the clear, cold light of dawn to seek my inspiration and how delighted I am that our distinguished social leader Zilla Trott—or did you say it was Minerva Oakes?”

  “It’s Samantha Burberry.”

  “Stap me! Write it down and pin it to my cloak so I shan’t fluff my lines, will you? Anyway, I’ll burble on about how my dear friend Samantha—you did say Samantha?—has been prevailed upon by a group of concerned citizens to lend her presence for the furtherance of a—oh, rats, I’ll have to work it out on paper. Then Samantha will have to do the interview instead of me. Od’s blood, I knew I’d think of something.”

  Arethusa tossed off the rest of her sherry, flung her cloak about her in a wide purple swirl, and vanished into the night. Dittany heaved a sigh of relief, but the sigh was premature. Before she could get the door latched Arethusa was back.

  “I just thought of something else. I’ll go to work on Osbert.”

  Before Dittany could ask, “Who’s Osbert?” she was gone again.

  Chapter 9

  DITTANY RATHER EXPECTED ARETHUSA to make at least one more dramatic reappearance, but she didn’t. That enigmatic utterance about Osbert must have been her swan song for the night. And who was Osbert, anyway? Was he some actual being of flesh and blood who might be induced to hand out a few leaflets or hack a few trails, or was he but an Osbert of the mind, a false creation proceeding from the plot-oppressed brain? Knowing Arethusa as she did, Dittany was inclined to the latter assumption. Sometime around the middle of August, like as not, she would come across Osbert in a heap of mangled copy paper. The prospect gave her no pleasure.

  By now it was well past midnight and she was ready to drop in her tracks, had she been making any at the moment. Upstairs her comfortable bed was waiting. She yearned for that bed as Osbert would no doubt be yearning for some chaste but voluptuous knucklehead a few months
from now. Yet the thought of climbing the stairs to get at it was, she might as well admit, one she did not care to entertain by herself.

  There was only one thing to do, and Dittany did it. She put on her heavy storm coat, took a thick woolen muffler for reasons Other than warmth. Then, somewhat embarrassedly picking up Gramp Henbit’s silver-knobbed blackthorn cane in passing, she slipped out the back door again.

  Avoiding the road in which some minion of Andy McNasty’s might even now be lurking with evil intent, she flitted from forsythia to weigela, from Euonymus atropurpureus to Philadelphia coronarius until she reached the biggest doghouse in Lobelia Falls. Within those massively reinforced walls, confined not in durance vile but simply to keep the inhabitant from chasing skunks during the wee hours, lay deliverance. Fumbling in the dark, Dittany managed to release the heavy-duty clasp. “Ethel,” she whispered. “Come on, old buddy.”

  Ethel came. She managed to get out just one ecstatic whoofle before Dittany, ruthlessly deft as Heartless Harold the Huntingshire Highwayman, wrapped her jaws in the muffler, led her back past the forsythia and the weigela, the burning-bush and the mock orange, and shoved her inside. Dittany’s intention was to lure Ethel upstairs with dog biscuits, but the ruse proved unnecessary. Ethel was nicely tucked in before Dittany could get her own coat off. This was probably the first time in history, not counting that inexplicable impulse of the Binkles’ at the dog pound, that anybody had voluntarily sought Ethel’s company, but Dittany wasn’t sorry she’d done it. She’d known all along that Ethel snored and was prepared to endure the lesser annoyance for the sake of the greater good. In fact she found herself deriving a certain comfort from the sound. If Ethel could snore, then all was well on Applewood Avenue. Dittany relaxed and drifted into sleep.

  She dreamed she was marching to the beat of a different drum. Something was making loud noises at her. Something huge and hairy was panting at her, exuding a peculiar halitosis that carried strong odors of dog biscuit. She stirred, opened her eyes, hastily closed them again, tried to persuade herself she was having a nightmare, then was forced to realize she wasn’t. The drumbeats were caused by Ethel’s tail thrashing against the blanket chest. The baying was Ethel’s greeting to a glad new day and the biscuity sighs a reminder that a good hostess ought to get up and fix breakfast for her guest.

  Dittany was a dognapper. Probably she should immediately phone the Binkles and confess to her crime. It did seem cruel, though, not to let them go on for another half hour or so in blissful ignorance of the fact that Ethel hadn’t really been stolen. She shoved a wet muzzle out of her left eyeball, dodged a loving tongue, and reached for the bathrobe that ought to have been hanging over the footboard of the bed. It was on the floor. Ethel must have been wearing it. Dittany shook off some of the dog hairs, slipped her chilly arms into the sleeves, played hunt-the-slipper for a while and at last managed to get her warm moccasins on the right feet. Then, like Una and the lion, she and Ethel padded downstairs.

  Ethel expressed a polite wish to go out. Dittany secretly hoped she’d go home to breakfast, though it did seem scrimy to begrudge a can of dog food under the circumstances. Anyway Ethel didn’t choose to leave. She merely spent a discreet few minutes behind the Taxus canadensis and then requested to be let back in.

  It was going to be another of those gray, raw, windy days. Dittany felt weary, heavy-eyed, and really not up to meeting any new challenges. Challenges, however, were just what she was about to meet. She’d barely got Ethel settled with a basinful of light refreshment when Hazel was on the telephone wanting to know if she had any expendable white sheets kicking around.

  “Probably,” Dittany replied. “Why? Are you setting up a first-aid station in case the campaign gets rough?”

  “No, though it mightn’t be such a bad idea, at that. What I had in mind was to dye them gold and cut them up for tablecloths. It would look so tacky to use mismatched cloths. By the way, you still have that bridge table and chairs of your mother’s, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I use them in my office.”

  “But you can surely spare them for a day or two.”

  “If needs must. Anything else?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Large casseroles, plates, cups, saucers, knives, forks, teaspoons, serving spoons, punchbowl, glasses, trays. Oh, and may we use those soapstone laundry tubs of yours to dye the sheets in? And your washer? And is your freezer very full?”

  “Heavens, no. I don’t even bother to plug it in, just for myself.”

  “Then plug in. We’ll need somewhere to keep the casseroles. After we get them baked, that is. You know, what we’d best do is bring all the ingredients over to your house and get our crew together and assemble and bake them right there in your kitchen. Then we can pop them straight down cellar into the freezer. I’ll do the first lot of shopping this morning and put the groceries in your pantry. That will be easiest.”

  “Easiest for whom?” Dittany said nastily, but Hazel only murmured something about cream of shrimp soup and hung up.

  Dittany made herself some tea and a great deal of toast. She was halfway through her first slice when the telephone rang again. Zilla Trott, full of beans from a good night’s rest induced no doubt by clean living and camomile tea, was also bubbling with plans. “It’s all set. The Boy Scouts will be over at the mountain directly after school lets out. Got any rakes, hoes, shears—”

  “Machetes, bolo knives, can openers, hatpins, buttonhooks? Sure thing, Zilla. Help yourself to whatever you can find in the tool shed.”

  “Can’t you just load everything into your wheelbarrow and bring it along when you come?”

  “What makes you think I’m coming?”

  “Dittany, you’ve got to! We can’t let those boys go yanking and snipping without supervision. You’re the only one except myself and Minerva who’s really sure what grows where.”

  “But I have to write a speech for Samantha and clear the pantry for Hazel to park her shrimp soup and find sheets to dye for tablecloths and—and besides, you’re not the one who got shot at.”

  “Neither are you. Just because a stray arrow happened to land somewhere in your vicinity—”

  “Didn’t mean a thing, eh? In one ear and out the other.”

  “That’s a gross exaggeration. Anyway, if it did come close, that’s all the more reason why you need to overcome any irrational fears that may be lurking in your subconscious mind.”

  “Zilla, my fears are neither subconscious nor irrational.”

  “Then you must deal with them at once. Half past one and not a second later. Bring a ball of string and a bag of lime to mark trails with. And I’m sure you won’t mind if the work crew leave their shovels and stuff in your tool shed. It will be so much—”

  “I know, handier for everyone. Okay, but somebody will have to keep track of which is whose. I’m darned if I’ll sort them out.”

  She’d also be darned if she didn’t, no doubt. Groaning, Dittany hung up and took a bite of cold toast. She hadn’t got round to calling the Binkles about Ethel but it was too late now. They’d have gone on their way rejoicing ages ago. Would cold toast be more palatable with jam? She was about to experiment when Therese Boulanger called.

  “Dittany, can we count on your help at the bake sale?”

  “What bake sale, for Pete’s sake?”

  “The one we’re holding Saturday morning to raise funds for the Enchanted Mountain Reclamation project. Didn’t Hazel tell you?”

  “I only remember soup and sheets.”

  “Oh, I’m glad you mentioned sheets. We’ll need your grandmother’s old sewing room to get them cut and hemmed. And Ellie Despard’s going to make the most adorable butterfly centerpieces out of gold lace paper doilies, but she needs a space to work, so—”

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess.”

  “Well, you do have that big house all to yourself, Dittany.”

  “That’s what you think, Therese. Look, why don’t I leave the key under the mat? Yo
u folks just march in four abreast and make yourselves at home.”

  “But, Dittany, we’re counting on you! Where will you be?”

  “Who knows? Up on the mountain catching poison ivy with Zilla, over helping Samantha memorize the speech I haven’t written yet, robbing clotheslines for you and Hazel—”

  “Speaking of clotheslines, is your dryer working?”

  “My clothesline is.”

  “What if it rains?”

  “It wouldn’t dare.”

  Therese permitted herself a snicker. “Ellie said she’d do some posters for Samantha’s campaign.”

  “Great!”

  “I told her you’d show her what to put on them.”

  “Merci and a rousing beaucoup. What time is she coming over?”

  “I expect she’s on her way. She has to work while Petey’s at kindergarten, you know.”

  Dittany knew. She’d made the mistake of offering to baby-sit Petey once. She was still quailing at the memory when Ellie arrived laden with scissors, paste pots, and sundry other items that were no doubt necessary for turning gold paper doilies into butterflies. Ellie was about to dump her messy armload on Gram Henbit’s solid mahogany dining-room table when Dittany screamed.

  “Ellie, wait. Let me spread something over the table before you begin slopping that gunk around.”

  “Dittany, you’re turning into a regular old maid. Why don’t you get married and find out what life’s all about? Though I must say there are times when I wish I’d never learned,” Ellie added rather wistfully. “Do as you please, then. I’ve got to run down to Mr. Gumpert’s for poster board.”

  Ellie dumped her armload on a chair and ran off, looking flushed and chic in her plaid coat, purple pants, and lime-green jersey with bright orange paint spots on it. By the time she got back, Dittany had the table set up for work and a rough sketch ready.

  “How’s this for an idea, Ellie? See, you print the headline YOU HAVE A CHOICE … THIS … and you draw a few moldy-looking beer cans … or this … and you put in a tree and some flowers. Then you print at the bottom WRITE IN SAMANTHA BURBERRY FOR DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION WHEN YOU VOTE TUESDAY, APRIL 2.”