The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (25 page)

“Never fear, substitute Daughter Matilda. I shan’t forget for a second, cross my heart and hope the cat spits in my eye. Nor shall I forget you, true Daughter Matilda,” the landlady added, turning to the true Arethusa. “You are the veritable epitome of sad affliction nobly borne and I do wish I could offer you a little snack before you leave, but I’m afraid there’s not a crumb left in the house.”

Arethusa cast a wistful eye at the groceries Osbert had brought with him, but stiffened her upper lip enough to reply that it didn’t matter since they’d only just finished their tea, and she’d look forward to visiting Mrs. Phiffer again in the near future. She then shook hands with her hostess, kissed Clorinda very carefully on the cheek so as not to roil her complexion, thanked her in moving terms for the far, far better act she was about to perform, and sailed out to Osbert’s wagon wearing the real Daughter Matilda’s now quite lint-free black jacket.

“A heart of gold,” she remarked once they’d got headed back toward Lobelia Falls. “But a mediocre cook. Were you perchance intending to stop for ice cream?”

“Sorry,” Osbert told her. “I’m planning to get you back to your house as fast as I can so you’ll have time to ease back into your own persona, if you can remember who you were, and hike yourself over to the inn. Perchance it’s slipped your mind that you have a date with Ranville, Glanville, and Miss Fuzzywuzzy for the Yarnbusters’ cribbage tournament.”

“Yarnslingers, I believe. Gadzooks, you’re right! That chloroform must have fuddled my memory. I don’t generally forget cribbage tournaments.”

“Much less dinner engagements,” Osbert added to make her feel more like her real self again. “I’ll stand guard while you change and run you back to our house when you’re ready. We can all three go to the inn together.”

“To what three do you refer? Dittany’s not up to the vicious thrust and parry of a cribbage tournament, surely?”

“No, but she’s up to eating a meal out instead of having to cook. Don’t worry, we’re not going to horn in on your tête-à-tête with Ranville and Glanville, as the case may be.”

“Is that a reason or a threat?
Entre nous,
nephew, I’m beginning to wish you’d think of some urgent reason to fetch Archie up here for a few days. It would be an agreeable change to spend an evening in the company of a man who doesn’t come with a carbon copy attached. Surely not all twins are so relentlessly identical? I believe Chang and Eng, the original Siamese twins from whom the name is derived, were totally distinct personalities.”

Osbert said he believed so too, and they finished their ride in unwonted amity. After checking to make sure no kidnappers were lurking about the premises, Osbert left his aunt to gird herself for the coming affray and went downstairs to telephone his wife.

“Mission accomplished, darling. Do you feel up to dining at the inn and if so, could you be ready in fifteen minutes? We’re at Arethusa’s now and will be over to pick you up as soon as she’s finished changing her clothes and polishing her forsooth.”

Dittany said she’d love to go and would be ready. She met them at the door, wearing an elegant golden-brown maternity dress with a deep lace collar and cuffs. Osbert was enchanted.

“You look like a butterscotch sundae, dear. Where did you get that fancy gown?”

“You’ve seen this dress before, silly. It’s the one Mum brought from Montreal. I’ve decided I might as well get my use out of it now because I don’t intend to have twins again in a hurry. Arethusa, we’re glad to have you back. How was your visit?”

“Different. Mrs. Phiffer let me blow on her pinwheels to make them spin, and showed me how to paint a duck. I acquitted myself creditably, if I do say so.”

“I was the one who taught her how to make pinwheels,” Osbert couldn’t help bragging.

Arethusa gave him a look. “Methinks a little learning is a dangerous thing. Now may we cease the rodomontade, addlepate? I have to think myself into the tournament.”

“By all means do,” said Osbert. “You are therefore planning, I trust, to banish all recollection of what’s happened since last night when you were struck behind the ear and found yourself some time later lying on the grass in your own backyard, at which time you staggered to your feet, picked up your handbag, and fled to us for succor and a midnight snack.”

“Did I, forsooth? What did you give me?”

“Whatever your palpitating heart desired, though you’re not too clear about the menu since at the time you were still dazed from the stunning blow which had been dealt you. You naturally will refrain from bringing any of this up in conversation tonight unless somebody asks you specifically for details, which in fact nobody ought to do because Sergeant MacVicar has decided we should all keep quiet about the whole affair. This is customary procedure in the case of abductions, where silence may become a vital factor in safeguarding the abducted from violence.”

“Dost think me a numbskull, forsooth? I’ve abducted more heroines than you’ve rustled coyotes.”

“Indeed you have, and I’d be the first to say so, Auntie. Then you know that on the entire subject of Daughter Matilda you remain resolutely mumchance. If anybody should mention having seen Daughter Matilda at her father’s funeral and being surprised at how much she reminded them of you, you will naturally cling to your mumness but permit yourself a sly and enigmatic smile. Got it?”

“Got it. Now shut up and let me concentrate. Oh, has Mother Matilda received her ransom note yet?”

“She hadn’t as of half-past five when I last checked with Sergeant MacVicar, who’d just talked with Daughter Matilda. The note may come any time now, but we can’t hang around to find out. I understand, by the way, that your cribbage tournament should be over by eleven or so.”

“Half-past ten is the posted closing, but it’s usually eleven by the time all the players have pegged out. They never run any later out of consideration for Grandsire Coskoff. The playoffs will probably have to be held over until next week, I can hardly wait. Glanville and Ranville, I add in parenthesis, will have left town by then.”

“That so? They’ve definitely made their plans?”

“So they aver, and who am I to doubt, pardie? Osbert, is there no way short of a garotte to turn you off?”

But Arethusa herself couldn’t stop talking. “Where do I sleep tonight?”

“In your own bed, God willing. I don’t know whether you’ll have company or not. Daughter Matilda will be coming back to Lobelia Falls because there’s no place for her in Lammergen; but we’ll have to decide where to put her, depending on how things work out.”

They’d reached the inn by now. Osbert let his passengers out at the front door and took the car around to the parking lot. The place would be jumping tonight, cribbage ranked next to archery as a form of gladiatorial combat in Lobelia Falls. Since Dittany had had the forethought to ring up for reservations, she and Osbert did get a table, though it wasn’t very well situated.

Miss Jane and the twins had booked earlier and were the cynosure of all eyes, sitting back to back in the middle of the room. Arethusa had now joined them, even more a cynosure in a crimson velvet dinner gown and several yards of false pearls which she wore, it was whispered by some of Grandsire Coskoff’s more fervid rooters, as a means of distracting her opponents.

Grandsire Coskoff himself had a habit of thrusting his false teeth halfway out of his mouth during moments of tense play and then snapping them back with a click that could be heard halfway across the room, so Arethusa’s fans didn’t see where his crowd got off making cracks about the pearls, even if maybe their champion did have this little nervous habit of rattling them together or swinging them around like a lariat while waiting for her vis-à-vis to settle the tormenting question of which two cards he must sacrifice to her crib.

As far as Dittany and Osbert could see, Ranville and Glanville were doing most of the talking, which didn’t surprise them a bit. Miss Jane was responding with eager smiles and nods, managing to get a few words in now and then. Arethusa barely opened her mouth except to insert food. Although that did mean her mouth was open a good deal of the time, it didn’t exactly make her the life of the party. Finally Ranville and Glanville must have said something about her lack of sociability for she shrugged and made a two-word rejoinder that looked to Dittany, who was in the more favorable position to lip-read, like “I’m concentrating.”

“So she’s holding the line,” Osbert murmured. “Good old Auntie! I hope she licks the pants off those two smarmy sidewinders.”

“Darling, I have the impression you don’t much like Ranville and Glanville,” said his wife.

“I’ve been getting the impression that nobody’s all that crazy about Ranville and Glanville,” he replied. “Clorinda mentioned a while ago that she found them wearing a bit thin, as you may recall, and Arethusa said much the same to me on the way back from her house. She wants me to invite Archie up for a few days.”

“Fine,” said Dittany, “just so he doesn’t bring his bagpipes this time. Though if Mum goes off with Bert, we might find things a trifle quiet around the house.”

“May we never have a worse misfortune! You won’t mind riding herd on Daughter Matilda by yourself for a while later this evening, will you, dear? Or you could get Margaret to come and stay with you.”

“Does that mean you and the sergeant have something on?”

Osbert merely cocked an eyebrow and applied himself to his baked potato. By now the dining room was full and the noise level high enough to make conversation difficult unless a person wanted to scream, which neither of the Monks did. They finished their meal in relative silence, then looked in for a few minutes at the tournament room where players were settling themselves at the cribbage boards with tightened lips and resolute looks. Rogert Munson, as head proctor, was handing out new decks of cards still in their transparent wrappers; Arethusa was eyeing hers with an avidity she usually reserved for pickled onions. Dittany decided she’d better go home and put her feet up. A battlefield was no place for a woman in her condition.

“YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANY
trouble with the manager?”

Osbert spoke in the softest possible whisper. He wasn’t used to being in rooms engaged by people who’d have been exceedingly irritated to catch him poking through their belongings, and couldn’t help feeling a trifle uneasy even though this had been his idea in the first place. Sergeant MacVicar, who wasn’t turning a hair, shook his head.

“Yon manager knows better than to give me trouble. Did you find anything, lad?”

“I think so.” Osbert held up a garment taken out of a suitcase whose lock he’d just jimmied.

“Aye.”

There were two double beds in the room. With no further exchange of words, Sergeant MacVicar slid under one of them and his perspicacious deputy under the other. Fortunately, the inn went in for elegant decor; heavy dust ruffles around the box springs hid the men completely. Osbert gave the housekeeper a high mark for keeping the carpet underneath well-vacuumed; he and the chief would probably be able to keep from sneezing and giving themselves away. His biggest problem would be to see what was going on up above. He achieved a partial solution by finding a corner where the panels weren’t stitched together and nudging them aside the merest slit. He assumed Sergeant MacVicar was doing the same; naturally he didn’t ask.

The hideout was a trifle stuffy although comfortable enough thanks to the carpet. Osbert only hoped he wouldn’t drop off to sleep if the wait was a long one. However, he needn’t have worried. Glanville and Ranville must have got creamed in the tournament, though they were both in high spirits as they entered their room.

“Am I glad that’s over!” he heard one exclaim. “Hurry up with your side of the harness. If I don’t get to scratch my back pretty soon, I’ll go nuts.”

“You and me both,” said the other. “What I’m itching for is the scratch we’ll get when we hand over that mincemeat recipe to our contact at Redundant Relishes. I only wish I could have seen Mother Matilda’s face when she opened that ransom note.”

In the dark under the bed, Osbert smiled. Little did these two jolly rogues know that Daughter Matilda had managed to intercept the special delivery envelope when it came to her mother’s house, and had brought it with her to the Monks’ well over an hour ago. Right now she was most likely sitting with Dittany, waiting for Arethusa to return triumphant from the tournament. Osbert was enjoying a silent chuckle when something landed with a thump only a few inches from his nose. Through his slit, he viewed the object with interest. So this was how they managed. Just as he’d suspected.

“Get that harness out of sight fast!” snapped one twin.

Osbert drew back lest any ray from the bedside lamp reflect a gleam from his all-too-interested eyeball as the other twin picked up what looked like two halves of a surgical corset sewn together. The twin was stowing it under the mattress, he could feel the bed jiggling. Now coat hangers were being rattled and a suitcase opened.

“Why can’t you be Wardle tonight?” the first twin was saying fretfully. “I did him last night.”

“But you’re a better Wardle than I am,” the other replied. “Besides, I did most of the dirty work. All you had to do was give Daughter Matilda the chloroform and shove her off on Mrs. Phiffer. Though I have to say it was a real pleasure slugging our dear friend Arethusa. I thought she’d be out of commission tonight from that whack on the neck I gave her, but she’s right in there at her cribbage board, mopping up all comers. That old bird must be tougher than a boardinghouse steak.”

The twins’ Oxford accent had deteriorated considerably; they were beginning to sound like a couple of characters from an old George Raft movie. Clorinda might have been right about the mob at that, Osbert thought. Or else Ranville and Glanville had grown up near a cinema that showed a lot of outdated American gangster films.

“I’d like to take her for the same kind of ride we gave Charlie McCorquindale,” snarled Twin Two. “I still can’t figure out how he twigged on.”

“That’s because you never think anybody but yourself has a brain, Ran. McCorquindale was smart, that’s all. And gutsy. That’s the worst of these sneaky Canadians. You think they’re pushovers, then the next thing you know they’re all over you like ants at a picnic. But we’ll give them what-for. Hand me the Wardle suit, since you’re scared to tackle Mrs. Phiffer yourself.”