The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt (22 page)

Though she would, she promised herself, dust down some of the cobwebs they’d collected. As soon as she got around to it.

And why not now? Dittany nipped up the stairs to check on the twins, they seemed happy enough in their basket. She pinned an old towel around the kitchen broom, another around her hair, and went back to antagonize the current generation of spiders.

It was rather fun swiping along the beams, being careful of Cramp’s gadgets, thinking fond thoughts of the old man and of the hours he and his small granddaughter had spent down here together. Every one of these nails had a story dangling from it, Dittany must try to remember them all and tell them again when the twins were old enough to understand. Now what in the world was this old thing? It looked like a giant wishbone, she took it down from its nail and burst out laughing.

The object was indeed a wishbone, taken from the biggest turkey ever raised in Lobelia Falls and served years ago at the town’s centennial celebration. There hadn’t been an oven big enough to hold a bird that size; they’d had to dig a fire pit lined with hot stones and bake the huge turkey for many hours before it could be dug up and served. Gramp had been given the honor of carving, he’d got enough meat off the carcass to feed everybody in town except himself. Not to be left out, he’d carefully saved the wishbone, dried and gilded it, and hung it on his front door at Christmastime with a sprig of holly and a red ribbon bow. After using it thus for a few years, he’d begun to worry about what the elements might be doing to the historic bone and left it hanging in the cellar.

Perhaps it should be over at the Architrave, Dittany thought fleetingly, she wondered how Mr. Glunck would react to a turkey wishbone over a foot long and big around as a broom handle. She took it down and blew the dust off.

The gilding Gramp had put on still showed, in spots. On impulse, she took the two ends in her hands and held the bone out in front of her the way Pollicot James had held his divining rod. After its long drying out, the bone wasn’t so heavy as she’d expected; somehow it had a right feel to it. She washed it off under the faucet in the soapstone laundry sink and carried it upstairs.

There was plenty of gold in the house. Besides Dittany’s own wedding ring, there were the rings Daddy had given Mum that she was keeping for Annie. There were cuff links and collar studs, bar pins and stickpins, Gramp Henbit’s gold watch on a heavy gold chain with a gold nugget on it that was all the gold Cramp’s father had ever got out of a gold mine he’d bought shares in. Having cleaned and polished the wishbone as best she could, Dittany selected a pair of gold filigree cuff links and lashed them securely to the tip of the wishbone with heavy button thread. Now all she could do was try her luck and hope for the best. If only Osbert would get home in time to mind the kids, and if only Hiram Jellyby would lend her his eyeballs!

IVLy brother never really

understood Mossy.”

The sister of the late bank clerk was a shortish, roundish woman with an abundance of curly gray hair and a motherly expression. Her name was Mildred Orser and she was very glad to see Deputy Monk because she felt it was high time somebody listened to Mossy’s side of the story.

“Mossy’s a lovely cow, but she doesn’t like to be hurried.

You can’t blame a cow for wanting to march to the drummer she hears, is how I look at it. But Wilberforce couldn’t see that, he’d just march out to the barn with his pink plastic bucket and expect her to stand and deliver.

That’s no way to treat a cow. What I do is, I sing to Mossy awhile and tell her what pretty eyes she has, and maybe give her a carrot or an apple. Just a little extra something to show her I really care, you know. These things count, with a cow.”

“I’m sure they do,” said Osbert, although he wasn’t sure at all and didn’t much care for the way Mossy was switching her tail and pawing the ground.

“And of course I’m always careful to rub a little Bag Balm into my hands before I start to milk, and to keep my nails well manicured. Can you imagine a more off-putting thing for a cow than having to entrust her udder to rough, ill-tended hands? I’m afraid Wilberforce wasn’t always so considerate in that respect as he might have been.”

“On the other hand, Mossy wasn’t all that considerate of Wilberforce,” Osbert pointed out. “Or so I gather from the coroner’s report.”

“Oh, that horrid coroner’s report!” Mildred Orser shook her gray curls in righteous indignation. “I did think of suing for slander on Mossy’s behalf, but my lawyer advised against it. After all, as he pointed out, our great goal had already been achieved; I’d managed to save her life.

Do you know, those beastly policemen were all set to gun Mossy down as if she’d been some great big vicious monster?

I just flung myself in front of her and told them straight out, ‘If you’re going to shoot Mossy/ I said, ‘you’ll have to shoot me first. This cow,’ I said, ‘is the innocent victim of some evildoer’s foul machination.’ And I was right!”

“How so, Mrs. Orser?”

“Well, not to be blowing my own horn, but what I did was, I made the policemen grant Mossy a reprieve until we could get the vet to come and look her over. As I’d already suspected, and as the vet’s examination confirmed, the inside of her poor mouth was all blistered and her breath smelled funny. So that got Mossy another reprieve until the next morning at milking time when, sure enough, her milk turned out to be positively reeking with horse liniment.”

“Holy cow!” cried Osbert, “you mean your brother had been dumb enough to-oh, sorry. I shouldn’t speak disrespectfully of the stomped.”

“Oh, that’s quite all right, Deputy Monk. I must confess that I was pretty miffed with Wilberforce at the time, myself, mangled though he was. But then I got to thinking, out there alone in the barn all night with poor, dear Mossy.

I didn’t dare leave her alone for a second, you know, I was so afraid those bloodthirsty policemen would sneak back and effect her demise with a dart gun or some other nefarious device. They’d been quite sniffy with me, you know, they’d thought I was acting like a hysterical old kook. It was a triumphant moment for me, I can tell you, when that liniment turned up in the milk. After that, of course, they hadn’t a leg to stand on and they knew it. I assumed legal custody of Mossy and we’ve been the best of pals ever since. Haven’t we, Mossy Possy.”

“But whatever possessed your brother to feed horse liniment to a cow? Aside from the fact that it wasn’t very appropriate, didn’t he know such embrocations are intended for external use only?”

“Precisely my point, Deputy Monk. That’s what I asked myself, that awful night alone in the barn with Mossy, feeding her ice cubes to ease the pain of the blisters in her mouth. Yes, Wilberforce did know that liniment isn’t to be taken internally. He’d been an athlete in his youth-in fact he’d held the county egg-and-spoon championship two years in succession-and these things take their toll later on in life. You know how it is. Or perhaps you don’t, since you’re still young enough to think it won’t happen to you, which I certainly hope it won’t.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Orser.”

“Not at all, Mr. Monk. Anyway, Wilberforce used to apply liniment to his trick knee every night, regular as clockwork, before going to bed. But his was people liniment, not like the horse liniment that had been given to Mossy.”

“This was established as a solid fact?”

“Oh yes. Aside from the vet’s report, the bottle turned up in the trash after I’d forced those silly policemen to see the error of their ways, not that I ever got any thanks for putting them straight. But there was no way to prove it hadn’t been Wilberforce himself who’d given Mossy the liniment, thus bringing about his own demise. It was all water over the dam by then anyway, so I just had to let the whole thing drop. I couldn’t save my brother, but at least I was able to rescue Mossy, and frankly I find her the more congenial of the two. Wilberforce was inclined to be testy, you know.”

“Actually, I hadn’t known,” said Osbert. “Do you think your brother’s testiness contributed to his fatal misunderstanding with Mossy?”

“Oh, no doubt whatsoever, in my mind. Wilberforce never stopped to consider that there might be two sides to any question. It was his way or no way, and of course that’s not how to approach a cow with a sensitive nature.

I’m sure Mossy didn’t mean to stomp so hard, but what was a poor cow to do when she had a mouthful of horrible blisters and goodness knows how many more down in her turn-turn? Cows have four stomachs, you know. Can you picture yourself stuck with four awful tummyaches, all at the same time?”

“Well, not easily,” Osbert admitted, “but I can see what you mean. That must have been a terrible position for Mossy to be in.”

“There, Mossy, you see? Deputy Monk understands, even if silly old Wilberforce didn’t.”

Mildred Orser rubbed her cheek against the cow’s glossy brown neck. Mossy reciprocated the caress by wiping her nose on Mrs. Orser’s pink-and-white gingham blouse. At least it looked to Osbert as if she was wiping her nose, but perhaps Mossy had some loftier purpose in mind.

He cleared his throat.

“I don’t like to be reopening old wounds, Mrs. Orser, but do you think we could get a clearer picture of what actually happened that night? You hadn’t happened to see anybody hanging around the barn during the afternoon?”

“No, not a soul. But then I wouldn’t have, you see; it was my day to volunteer at the fish farm. I was up to my ears in baby trout till about four o’clock, then I had to do a little grocery shopping on the way home and then, you know how it is, I just wanted to get into something comfortable and put my feet up.”

“You didn’t stop to say hello to Mossy?”

“Oh no, I never did, not around milking time. She was still Wilberforce’s cow then, you see, he didn’t take kindly to what he looked upon as interference. I had to be very circumspect.”

“So you don’t know who fed her the liniment. But you’re quite sure Wilberforce wouldn’t have done so? Even if somebody had told him that was the right thing to do?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure. To begin with, Mossy hadn’t been sick, so he’d have had no occasion to give her any medication.

Furthermore, Wilberforce wouldn’t have taken advice from anybody, not even Queen Elizabeth, although he did think very highly of Her Majesty, as do we all. I suppose if Her Majesty had supplied the liniment herself, free of charge, he might have been willing to give it a go, but she’d have known better in the first place, being a sensible woman and fond of animals. Furthermore, she’s far too busy with affairs of state to have bothered herself with the crotchets of Wilberforce Woodiwiss. Though I’m sure she’d enjoy meeting Mossy, should the occasion ever arise.”

“One never knows,” said Osbert. “Now, just to make sure I’ve got everything clear in my mind, you live in this house here, which is to say the blue one. Your brother lived in that house over there, namely the green one, with the barn in between.”

“Yes, that’s right. Wilberforce never married. He lived with Mother in the green house, which is the house we both grew up in, until she died, then he bought Mossy because he’d always wanted a cow and Mother had been against his having one. After Frank-my husband-and I got married, we lived in Kingston for a while. Frank worked at a miniature golf course, but there didn’t seem to be much future in it, so he got this wonderful job as a tour guide on a tramp steamer that takes people on cruises to faraway places with strange-sounding names. Of course this means he has to be away a lot; he decided it would be better if I lived near my family, so I took over the blue house, which had been my aunt Bertha’s while we were growing up. Aunt Bertha was always fond of Frank. He’s very popular with the passengers and also plays the flageolet quite capably. He’s going to come ashore and settle down, though, now that we’ve inherited Mossy, because a cow needs a cowherd. Anyhow, there it is.”

There what was? Osbert was still feeling a communication gap, he tried a direct question. “So in fact you were in your own house relaxing at the time Mossy attacked your brother?”

“I prefer not to use the word attacked, Deputy Monk.

As I see it, Wilberforce merely happened to be standing in the way when Mossy, goaded to desperation by the pain in her blistered mouth and the effect of the liniment on her intricate digestive system, reared up and began flailing about with her hooves.”

“How do you know she reared and flailed, Mrs. Orser?

Could you see her from where you were?”

“I was alerted by wild outcries, some of them Mossy’s and some, I believe, Wilberforce’s. It was hard to tell which were whose. By the time I’d zipped up my housecoat and rushed over to the barn, Wilberforce was on the floor with his head smashed in and this little gold whistle lying beside him. It’s ruined, I’m afraid, Mossy must have trampled it. She was still rearing and flailing, but not all that vigorously. Even then she was no heifer, you know; she tired rather quickly. I got her into her stall and phoned the police, little knowing what a stupid fuss they were going to make. But we’ve been through all that.”

“Yes, now, about this gold whistle, were you surprised to see it there?”

“Not particularly. I assumed Wilberforce had meant to blow it in an attempt to summon help.”

“Did he usually blow on his gold whistle when he needed help?”

“I really have no way to answer that. It was so unlike Wilberforce to admit being in a situation he couldn’t cope with by himself.”

“But this was his whistle?”

“Whose else could it have been? Keep it if you want it.

I haven’t the heart to throw it out, but it reminds me too much of poor Mossy’s terrible suffering. And Wilberforce’s too, of course,” she added as an afterthought.

Osbert thanked her and pocketed the mangled artifact.

“Where do you think the horse liniment came from?”

“Why, I suppose somebody must have brought it.

Somebody who owned a horse, wouldn’t you think?”

“But why bring horse liniment to a cow barn?”

“You know, Deputy Monk, that’s a very good question.