Vane Pursuit Page 8

  “Why should you be? You couldn’t have known I was in the tree, I’m far too rare a bird.” She chuckled. “Here, have a little more of whatever it is we’re drinking, though I’m afraid this is not my prime vintage. Last year’s apple blossoms got pretty much knocked off in that big hailstorm we had, so there wasn’t much of a crop. I was forced to eke out with elderberries.”

  “Nothing wrong with elderberries.” Peter took another sip and rolled it around his mouth, wine-taster style. “On the whole and speaking as a layman, I should say elderberries were just the ticket. What’s happened to Swope?”

  “I expect he’s gone exploring,” said Miss Binks. “I’ve taken a tip from the woodchucks and provided my lair with a couple of extra escape hatches. These also serve as a means of ventilation. I do hope Mr. Swope hasn’t taken a notion to poke his head out at the wrong moment.”

  “It’s okay, I didn’t.” Cronkite emerged from the tunnel, his sky blue slacks now totally beyond reclamation but his face and hands clean enough for practical purposes. “Quite a place you’ve got here, Miss Binks. What’s that machinery in the little room down the tunnel for?”

  “It’s my unlicensed still, and I’ll thank you not to squeal on me to the revenue men. I’d better heat up the soup now. The fire’s just about right.”

  “How do you manage about the smoke?” Peter asked her.

  “No problem. There’s a colony of skunks nearby. I just funnel the smoke through their den and nobody’s ever noticed. If anyone did, I don’t suppose they’d care to investigate. Nobody comes around here much anyway, you know, except an occasional hunter and those disgusting types who’ve infiltrated Woeful Ridge. They’ve stayed pretty much over there until now. I hope they won’t take it into their heads to relocate. Ah well, we mustn’t borrow trouble.”

  “Till trouble troubles you.” Cronkite’s remark was not tactful. Unfortunately, neither was it refutable. This remarkable woman must already be realizing that her unusual but satisfactory way of life was likely to go down the drain pretty soon unless somebody got rid of those yahoos. Peter wished desperately that he knew what they’d assembled all those grenades and bazookas for.

  “Miss Binks,” he said, “can you tell us anything at all about the so-called survivalists? When did you first become aware they’d taken over Woeful Ridge as a base of operations?”

  “I believe it was just about two years ago. I don’t go by any calendar except the seasons, you understand, so you mustn’t ask me to be precise. My chief recollection is that I was nettled at having any kind of long-term encampment on what I like to think of as my private domain. Woeful Ridge isn’t actually part of the Binks estate, but it’s close enough to give me concern as to what happens there.”

  “Have you ever gone over to find out what they’re up to?”

  “Yes, once or twice when I was reasonably certain they’d all gone away. All I’ve found out so far is that they’re meticulous about cleaning up after themselves, which relieves my fear that they might have turned the place into a dump, but doesn’t really make me any happier. I never go near that end of the estate if I think they’re around. Too many guns popping off. Since my whole object is to remain undiscovered, I could hardly blame them for shooting at the place where they didn’t know I was, could I? One must be fair. It wouldn’t matter if I were killed outright, but I’d hate to be lying out there wounded and helpless with nobody to find me.”

  “Naturally you would,” Peter agreed. “Then you have no idea as to their identities?”

  “None whatsoever. I’ve never been much of a mingler, even in what I’ve come to think of as my other life. I was brought up by an elderly aunt who in an earlier day would no doubt have been called a bluestocking. Aunt had no use for tea-party chitchat and neither do I. On the whole, she and I were quite congenial. Ours was not an unhappy life. I went to school off and on but found it desperately boring, didn’t get on with the other children, and irritated the teachers by pointing out their mistakes. I must have been a detestable child,” she added rather smugly. “What about some sassafras tea, Mr. Swope? The kettle should be hot by now. You needn’t look so alarmed. Sassafras is an ingredient of root beer. The early settlers used to drink it by the bucketful.”

  “Oh well, sure, Miss Binks. What the heck?”

  Throwing caution to the wind, Cronkite took a sip from the cup she handed him. It was bone china, Peter noticed, cracked and stained but still a lovely thing. Miss Binks caught his eye and chuckled.

  “Part of my inheritance, Professor. One of the small treasures I’ve managed to salvage from the ruins of Grandfather’s house. I used to poke around the ashes quite a lot when I was first living here, but I’ve pretty well stopped that. There wasn’t much to find. Oddly enough, it’s delicate odds and ends like this that appear to have survived. What’s particularly interesting, I think, is that there are so few of them. I’ve never found one that was quite whole, and I’ve never found two that match.”

  “Are you implying that the house was looted before it burned?”

  “I think so, yes. The furnishings were supposed to have been left as they were pending Grandfather’s return or the settling of the estate, neither of which of course has yet happened. I’ve found a good many fragments of burned furniture, but nothing that would have been worth stealing. Cheap kitcheny pieces, from the servants’ quarters, I expect.”

  “Have you any idea who could have done the stripping?”

  “Somebody knowledgeable enough to weed out the good stuff,” Miss Binks replied, “and clever enough to move it away without being caught.”

  “Wasn’t there a caretaker who got killed in the fire?” asked Cronkite.

  “Yes, that’s right. The man was believed to have started the fire by falling asleep with a lighted cigarette in his hand, but there wasn’t enough left of either him or the house to prove it. Joseph McBogle, his name was. I don’t know anything about him except that he had a red-headed niece who came from some little town in Maine.”

  “Did you meet her?” Peter asked.

  “Yes, briefly. Rather an odd duck, I thought. She’d driven since before dawn to get to the funeral, she told me, and was going straight back afterward. She’d meant to stay over with a friend, but one of her cats was ailing and she was afraid her hired man would dose it with rum and kerosene if she stayed away. She took her uncle back with her in a shopping bag. His bones, that is. They’d been packed into a little Styrofoam box, like a miniature casket. She found the thing revolting but was understandably reluctant to repack the bones, so she simply popped the box into the bag to get it out of her sight. A reasonable thing to do, I suppose, but I did think it looked a bit outré. The bag had ‘Drink Jersey Milk’ printed on the side.”

  “M’yes, I see what you mean. But you didn’t know Mr. McBogle?”

  “Never laid eyes on him. He wasn’t one of the old servants, you know. The lawyers for the trust hired him as a caretaker after Grandfather went to be frozen in California. I’d have thought Alaska, but there it is. Grandfather had pensioned off the others; I’d known them, naturally. I only went to Mr. McBogle’s funeral because I felt Aunt would have expected me to represent the family. This was shortly after she died, while I was still living in Clavaton. I rather wished afterward that I’d taken the trouble to drop in on Mr. McBogle occasionally. I might have dropped a word about smoking in bed, but then I couldn’t have known he did, could I? And anyway I don’t suppose it would have done any good.”

  “Probably not,” said Peter. “Miss Binks, have you ever heard of Praxiteles Lumpkin?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Miss Binks’s sparse eyebrows lost themselves among the wrinkles in her forehead. “Praxiteles Lumpkin? What an odd question. I’m assuming you refer to the antique weather vane man, in which case you’re out of step with the times by almost half a century. Grandfather’s weather vane, which is to say the one that used to be on the coach house and the only one on the estate, as far as I know, was a
realistic, three-dimensional running horse in bronze. Victorian, you know, with lots of filigree around the letters and lightning rods to match along the ridgepole. Lumpkin’s were simple two-dimensional cutouts, mildly amusing in a primitive, bucolic way, or so they always struck me. They’d be called collectibles nowadays, I suppose.”

  “M’yes, you may well say so,” Peter answered. “The collector’s usual modus operandi seems to be to snaffle the weather vane and then burn down the building, presumably to cover up the theft. Perhaps I’m being fanciful in seeing a parallel between several recent thefts of this nature and the possible looting and torching of your grandfather’s house, just because they’ve all occurred here in Balaclava County.”

  “The more reason for lumping them together, I should say.” Miss Binks got up off the couch where they’d all three been sitting, and lifted the lid off the soup pot. “Ready now, I believe.”

  She took three mismatched china bowls from her earthen pantry, dished up the soup with a long-handled tin dipper, and handed the bowls around. With his, Peter got a tablespoon with half the silver plate rubbed off, Cronkite a dinky scoop that must have been the sole survivor from a set of measuring spoons. Miss Binks used a strangely shaped object she must have fashioned herself from a piece of deer horn.

  “This is terrific soup,” Cronkite exclaimed after an experimental slurp or two. “I’m not going to ask what’s in it.”

  “Just as well you don’t.” His hostess didn’t sound a whit offended. “I can’t for the life of me remember. Nor can I recall the last time I gave a dinner party. We used to occasionally, when Aunt was alive, but you’re the first guests I’ve entertained here in the lair. I think lair has a much more picturesque ring to it than den, don’t you? Now tell me about these other fires, Professor. When did they happen?”

  “The latest and most serious happened only last night,” Peter told her. “Are you familiar with the Lumpkin Soap Works?”

  “Not to say familiar, but we used to ride over that way once in a while when Aunt was alive. I always liked their weather vane. I thought the skinny old man taking a bath on the roof was funny, but Aunt found it less than elevating. She was always trying to elevate me; she was very conscious of my position as Miss Binks. More so than I was, I have to say.”

  Miss Binks shrugged. “I’ve often wondered whether my subsequent futile efforts to gain control of Grandfather’s estate were undertaken more as an act of filial piety than through any genuine inclination: of my own. In which case, I played the fool with my money and deserved to lose it, but that’s water over the dam and I can’t honestly say I care much. I’m probably happier as I am. Healthier, certainly. More soup, Mr. Swope?”

  “Thanks, I’d love some, if you can spare it.”

  “My dear young man, I have a pantry twenty miles long. Don’t worry about my running out of food.”

  She refilled his bowl. “But getting back to the soap works, are you telling me that enormous brick building actually caught fire and burned down? How could such a thing happen?”

  “They think my brother Brinkley set it,” Cronkite mumbled through a mouthful of boiled greens.

  “Your brother? Why ever would he do a thing like that?”

  “He wouldn’t. But the factory workers all think he did because he’s been on Mr. Snell’s ear so much about modernizing the plant.”

  “Mr. Snell? Dear me, that takes me back to a place I don’t particularly want to go. I remember Mr. Snell, unfortunately. Aunt and I used to see him occasionally at the Clavaton Civic Symphony concerts. We lived in West Clavaton, as I perhaps failed to mention. He played the bass viol, or thought he did, and pontificated a good deal about music, using the right words in all the wrong places. Oleaginous creature. But Mr. Snell was the orchestra’s richest patron so they let him get away with it. Patronizing came cheaper than modernizing, no doubt. So Mr. Snell is still around? Did your brother work at the soap factory?”

  “Yes, ever since high school.”

  “Then wouldn’t it have been remarkably shortsighted of him to burn down his place of employment merely to emphasize a point of view? Can’t anybody come up with a more reasonable hypothesis?”

  “My brother Huntley, who’s in charge of the rendering, claims he watched a soldier throw what was probably a grenade through an open window into one of the tallow vats.”

  “Well then,” said Miss Binks, “what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that nobody believes him except us Swopes. We know Hunt has no more imagination than a doorknob. He couldn’t lie if he tried. Which doesn’t stop the rest of the town from claiming he’s just making up a yarn to shield Brink. They’re so mad about losing their jobs, I guess they’ve got to blame somebody.”

  “Can’t they track down the soldier and make him confess? Who is he?”

  “Don’t ask me. Hunt’s not even sure he was a soldier. It was too dark out to see much. The guy could have been a marine.”

  “Or a sailor or a boy scout, perhaps?”

  “Definitely not a sailor or a boy scout,” Cronkite insisted. “He was wearing what looked like army fatigues tucked into high boots. His hair was cut real short, Hunt says, and he didn’t just walk, he marched. Stiff and straight, you know, with his chin up. When he got abreast of the open window, Hunt says, the guy just flipped his hand sideways without even turning his head. This round thing about the size of a lemon flew through the air, then flames started shooting out of the window. Hunt tried to save Caspar Flum, the tallow man, but the doorway was one big wall of fire. Hunt caught fire himself.”

  “How dreadful! What happened to your brother?”

  “They hosed him down and took him to Hoddersville Hospital. The doctors think he’ll pull through all right, but he’s going to need skin grafts on his arms and they’re not sure yet about his left eye.”

  Miss Binks shook her grizzled head. “One leads such a sheltered life out here on the estate. Rather, one thought one did. I wonder if your search party has made it this far. Shall I reconnoiter?”

  “You’d better not,” said Peter. “If those bloodhounds are anywhere around here, they might get a whiff of you. Er—no offense.”

  “And none taken, I assure you. Actually I’m quite clean, all things considered. Your point is well taken, Professor Shandy, and I don’t suppose it matters where they are. I took hunting hounds into my calculations when I planned my lair. Bloodhounds never occurred to me, I must say. However, the chances of anyone’s finding this place are, I believe, virtually nil.”

  She ate the last of her soup in silence. Then she put down her spoon and said, “Mr. Swope, I’ve been pondering what you said a moment ago. Could that soldierly person your brother saw possibly have been fairish, about forty by now but probably appearing younger, very square in the shoulders and trim at the waistline, and walking as if he had a ramrod for a backbone?”

  “Gosh, Miss Binks, he could have been. Hunt wasn’t too clear on the details. They’ve been giving him a lot of stuff for the pain. Why? Do you know somebody like that?”

  “In all my life, I’ve encountered only one person who has that knack of looking straight ahead and flicking something to the side with absolute accuracy. He’s a distant cousin of mine named Roland Childe, who grew up not far from us in West Clavaton. Roland was one of those curly-haired little darlings who can grin and smirk and lie and sneak their way out of anything.”

  Miss Binks pursed her lips. “I remember one time while I was still in my teens, Aunt roped me into helping out at a Sunday School fete. Roland was there, unfortunately. He couldn’t have been more than eight at the time, but he’d managed somehow to smuggle in a live frog. He bided his time till a bunch of children were gathered round the punch bowl, then tossed in the frog, which of course started kicking frantically. The punch was mostly grape juice, which spattered the girls’ pretty little party dresses and the boys’ clean shirts with horrid purple blotches.”

  “What a rotten thing to do,” exclaimed
Cronkite.

  “It really was,” Miss Binks agreed. “We’d had them playing musical chairs so they were all hot and thirsty and had to stand around waiting while we scalded out the bowl and made a fresh batch using the extra juice we’d thought would be plenty for a second bowlful. That meant we ran short, so nobody got quite enough to drink, which made the situation that much more unfortunate. The girls were sobbing about their dresses and the boys were snickering at them and acting silly, and of course dear Roland was all wide-eyed innocence. I could have whacked the little monster. I’m still sorry I didn’t.”

  “What happened to the young rogue when he grew up?” Peter asked her. “Assuming, of course, that he was allowed to do so.”

  “He was, more’s the pity. He was sent to a military academy. Roland had always been hipped on becoming a soldier of fortune. His father hoped a taste of army-style discipline would knock some sense into him.”

  “Did it?”

  “I can’t imagine anything could. Roland was as stubborn as he was stupid. He had a great gift of gab, though. He could run on in the most plausible manner and get everyone believing absolutely in what he was saying even though it made no sense whatsoever. At one of our legal go-rounds, he even tried to talk the judge into declaring him the custodian of Grandfather’s estate. However, the documents he produced turned out to be spurious so he managed to persuade the court that he’d been the victim of a cruel hoax.”

  “Nice chap,” grunted Peter. “But you have no idea where he is now?”

  “None,” said Miss Binks. “Roland’s parents are still living in West Clavaton, to the best of my knowledge. I’ve had no contact with them since that debacle with the court. They took the view that I was the one who’d forged the documents in order to discredit Roland’s claim, which was absurd in the first place. His parents are only distant cousins whom Grandfather never had any use for. Had I been the sort to stoop to such subterfuge, I’d have had sense enough to pick somebody who was at least on the right branch of the family tree, but naturally the Childes weren’t about to admit that they’re too low in the pecking order to count. Dear me, I have scrambled my metaphors, haven’t I? We have dessert if you’d care for some. Teacake made from day lily pollen, with wild strawberry jam.”