The Luck Runs Out (11 page)

“Why doesn’t she sew it up?”

“Peter, Matilda is a Brain. She wouldn’t know which end of a needle you’re supposed to thread. I can’t imagine what she’s doing at Balaclava in the first place. She ought to be at Harvard or Oberlin, majoring in Old Norse or Pure Mathematics.”

Shandy nodded. “I know. I’m afraid she’s here out of a sense of dedication. She’s the type to see herself as the flaming spearhead of a brave new order.”

“But, Peter, she’s so tiny!”

“So was David as compared to Goliath, since we seem to have got off on a Biblical turn. If this Gables kid is so brainy; she could surely find a way to manage the pig, or cohorts to manage for her. Whom does she hang out with?”

“I can’t think of anyone offhand. Matilda generally studies by herself. She does tend to gaze worshipfully at Hjalmar Olafssen, but who doesn’t? I do, myself.”

Shandy groaned. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned that lad. Tell me one thing, have you ever caught Olafssen gazing worshipfully back?”

“At me? Of course not.”

“The more fool he. I meant at Matilda.”

Helen shook her head. “No, I shouldn’t say worshipfully. He’s pleasant to her, of course. Hjalmar’s always kind to everybody, and everything. I suppose that’s how he got caught up in this Vigilant Vegetarians thing, that and Birgit. Peter, you weren’t thinking—”

There was no use trying to keep anything from Helen. Shandy told her what he’d been thinking, and she drove for a while in silence.

At last she said, “I hate to admit it, Peter, but I think you’re more apt to be right about the Viggies than about Professor Stott. Not that any of them did it, mind you, but—”

“Of course they didn’t, but—”

“Well, anyway, I’ll see what I can find out. The students talk to me sometimes, you know. I suppose they’ll be getting back in classes Monday, now that the van’s been found.”

“Why? Belinda hasn’t.”

“No, of course not. I’m just not thinking straight. Oh, Peter, what a ghastly mess!”

“Yes, I daresay by now your friend Iduna wishes she’d stuck with the tornado.”

“Actually, I think Iduna’s having the time of her life. When you called and told me to bring the car, Professor Stott and Tim Ames were both there showing her pictures of their grandchildren. She’d already seen Tim’s, of course, but she didn’t seem to mind seeing them again. Peter, did you know that Professor Stott has twenty-four grandchildren already, and two more on the way?”

“Making a total of twenty-six. Good God, Helen, you don’t suppose Belinda’s being used for some kind of ritual sacrifice by the Planned Parenthood League?”

“I think that’s the likeliest solution you’ve come up with yet,” she replied. “Peter, do try to relax and get your mind off this dreadful business for a little while.”

“How in Sam Hill can I, with everybody badgering me right and left? I suppose Svenson will be yowling at the door by the time we get home, demanding to know why I haven’t got the case wrapped up in a neat package with a bow on it. Helen, you don’t honestly think there’s the faintest ghost of a possibility that Birgit Svenson could be mixed up in it?”

“I don’t know what to say, Peter. Those Svenson girls must have a difficult time, trying to maintain the fiction that they’re ordinary mortals like the rest of us. Birgit might possibly go along with some ridiculous stunt just to prove she’s really one of the gang, or something, then have it backfire on her. Especially if Hjalmar was involved, and you can bet that if one of them was, they both were.”

“If she is, there’ll be seventeen different kinds of hell to pay,” sighed Shandy. “Helen, do you realize what it would mean to the Svensons if their own daughter got mixed up in a murder? What it would mean to the college?”

“I don’t even want to think about that. Peter, there must be an alternative possibility. What about this nephew, for instance, cropping up out of nowhere just at the crucial moment and stepping into a comfortable situation? Who’s to say he didn’t kill his aunt?”

“Who, indeed? And who’s to say how he got from Old Bareface back to Forgery Point once he’d ditched the van? Not to mention all those merry pranks with the pigs’ feet and pork chops when he has neither a car nor a telephone out there.”

“Well, I don’t care. I’d just like to know if he got off that Greyhound bus when and where he claims he did, and whether he made the trip alone.”

“And you shall, my love. That’s a damned good thought. If the state police haven’t already thought it, which I’m inclined to doubt, we’ll get them checking on that little question as soon as we’re back home. I expect Officer Madigan has been working Flackley over pretty thoroughly on the details of his past life, and so forth, this afternoon.”

 “Especially the and so forth,” Helen retorted. “Did it strike you that he’s an extremely attractive man?”

“It struck me that some women might think so,” her husband replied somewhat waspishly. “What is this? First I find you’ve been clandestinely ogling Hjalmar Olafssen, and now you start touting the attractions of Frank the Farrier.”

“I didn’t say he attracted
me.
I only meant he happens to have that smoldering, sexy quality about him that one or two sadly undiscriminating members of my gender might misguidedly prefer to more sterling qualities. Speaking of sterling, I wonder if they’ve caught the Carlovingian Cracksmen yet.”

“If they have, it’ll be on the six o’clock news. Which, come to think of it, was over half an hour ago.”

“Maybe we could catch a broadcast on the car radio,” said Helen, “though it hardly seems worth the effort now. Isn’t it odd how one’s perspectives can change so fast?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I still wouldn’t mind watching them being lowered slowly into a vat of boiling oil. By the way, is Iduna still frying doughnuts, or do you think she might be giving some thought to supper?”

“That’s right, you poor man, you’ve hardly had anything to eat all day. I’m sure she’ll have something ready and waiting. Iduna has a natural affinity for cooking stoves.”

“So I’ve noticed. You say she was cozying it up with old Tim, eh?”

“No, darling. I said she was looking at his and Professor Stott’s kiddie snapshots with equal and unfeigned delight.”

“That must explain why she hasn’t married. She has a heart like Browning’s Last Duchess, too easily made glad. Any galoot with a handful of baby pictures can come along and sweep the previous applicant off the boards before he’s had a chance to pop the question.”

“Peter, if you weren’t already married to me, would you marry Iduna?”

“What kind of idiotic question is that? How could I not be married to you?”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Well, that’s my answer and I’m sticking to it. What are we having?”

“How do I know? I’m not cooking it. I bought a roasting chicken and some veal cutlets and a leg of lamb and a pot roast this morning.”

“Sounds reasonably adequate. Helen, you do believe I was talking garbage about the Viggies, don’t you?”

“What I believe is that you’re tired and hungry and probably going to turn grouchy if you don’t get some food and rest soon. Close your eyes and make believe you’re stretched out on the sofa at home, listening to Mozart.”

“Why not Brahms?”

“See, I knew you were getting cantankerous and contentious. Never mind, it’s not far now. We’ll probably get home and find that Belinda has turned up with her chops and hocks intact, and that Miss Flackley’s secret lover, who’s one of the Headless Horsemen of Hoddersville, has confessed to a
crime passionel,
and that Iduna has made Swedish meatballs.”

“And Heavenly harps are sounding,” grunted Shandy. “Not that I’d put anything past that bunch of fiends in subhuman form from Hoddersville, at that. Did I ever tell you about the time they poured itching powder down the back of President Svenson’s overalls just as he was about to start his furrow in the Senior Plowmen’s event?”

“No, but I expect you’ll get around to it sometime or other. What happened?”

“What would you expect? Old Thorkjeld won the event in a time which has never since been equaled, had Sieglinde hold up Odin’s blanket tentwise while he stripped and took a bath in the Gideon J. Higgins Memorial Horse Trough. Then he wrapped the blanket around him like a kilt, went over to the Hoddersville crowd, grabbed them two by two, cracked their heads together, and heaved them into the manure pile behind the cow sheds. It was an impressive spectacle.”

“I can imagine. What did Sieglinde do then?”

“Beamed with wifely pride as the crowd gave him a standing ovation, then made him wipe out the horse trough so the animals wouldn’t get sick from drinking the itching powder.”

“There’s always something rather terrifying about true greatness, isn’t there?” said Helen in awe. “Who but Sieglinde would have remembered to clean the horse tank?”

“There’s something terrifying about feminine logic, too,” said her husband. “Why don’t you and Sieglinde get together and think up a foolproof way to get rid of Lorene McSpee so Iduna can see how pitifully in need of a good woman’s love Tim is? You’d enjoy having her for a neighbor, wouldn’t you?”

“Peter, you’re not minding about my having invited Iduna here without asking you first, are you?”

“No, my dear, I have other things to mind about, even if I chose to mind her being here, which I don’t. What I mind most is not being able to quit fretting about those students. Drat it, Helen, I’d have sworn we’ve as fine a lot here as you’d come across anywhere in the country. How could Birgit Svenson get herself mixed up in a thing like this?”

“Peter, you have no earthly reason to suppose Birgit is mixed up in anything at all. Now for goodness’ sake, let’s talk about something else for a change.”

“What, for instance?”

“Well, the horse show. Shouldn’t you be training for the oat-shucking contest or something?”

“There won’t be one. It is not possible to shuck an oat. Oats don’t have shucks.”

“Then what do they have? Oh, I know, it’s always in crossword puzzles. Awns. No, I suppose one couldn’t very well hold an awning, could one?”

“Not over an oat, at any rate. At least I daresay one could and it’s entirely possible somebody has, but it would seem a footling sort of activity. Why don’t you look it up? If there are any statistics available, I suppose I ought to know about them.”

“I’ll do that, assuming I ever get back to work. Did you know that Dr. Porble closed the library today, for the first time in history, excluding national holidays and Balaclava Buggins’s Birthday? He was out hunting the pig with the rest of them. Oh, I am sorry! We just can’t get away from it, can we?”

“No, we can’t, and what’s the sense in trying?” sighed Shandy. “Well, the last mess I got stuck in, I wound up with you. That kind of luck couldn’t happen twice, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to hope for the best.”

He didn’t add, “while we’re expecting the worst.” He didn’t have to.

I
T WAS ALMOST DARK
when they got back to the brick house. Helen was feeling guilty at having left Iduna for so long, but she needn’t have. They found their guest comfortably settled in front of the television set communing with Walter Cronkite. She had changed into what Shandy’s mother would perhaps have called a wrapper and Helen’s a lounging costume. Whatever the thing was, it became her immensely. In her hand was a Balaclava Boomerang and on her face was a smile of sweet content.

“I didn’t know when you folks would be along, so I rummaged around in the icebox and threw some things together. There was a canned ham I thought might go kind of nicely With those sweet potatoes we bought and wouldn’t be hurt if it had to set awhile. I figured Peter would need something hearty after the day he’s put in. It’s all keeping hot in the oven anytime you’ve a mind to eat. I made myself one of those boomerangs of yours, Peter. Never thought I’d wind up a solitary drunkard.”

“You won’t,” Shandy assured her, heading for the bar. “Same for you, Helen?”

“By all means,” said his wife. “Iduna, I suppose I should make some hypocritical noise about how you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble, but I’m not going to. You’ve probably saved both our lives. When did Professor Stott and Professor Ames leave?”

“Oh, quite some time back. I’ve had all sorts of company since then. Young folks, mostly. There was one boy who reminded me of my cousin Margit’s son Willem.

Handsome a chap as you’d ever want to lay eyes on, but he couldn’t take two steps without falling over his own feet.”

“Olafssen!” exclaimed Shandy. “What did he want?”

“Doughnuts. Leastways that’s what he got. He mainly wanted to talk to you, Peter, but he didn’t say what about.”

“Drat! I wish I hadn’t missed him. Did he say when he’d be back?”

“Nope, just said he was going to hunt the pig some more. I felt downright guilty fixing that ham, though I reckon there’s not much sense in that. If they weren’t good to eat people wouldn’t raise them, and think of all the fun they’d miss before they got eaten. That’s what I said to Professor Stott and he agreed with me. He
is
a fine-looking man, isn’t he? Sort of noble and majestic. He reminds me of that prize boar the Knebels used to have. You remember, Helen? He’s got that same proud way of looking you straight in the eye and flaring out his nostrils. Why, thanks, Peter, I don’t mind if I do, though you’d better go a little easy on the applejack this time if you want any supper tonight.”

“But, Iduna, you’re supposed to be our guest,” Helen protested. “You’ve already done more than your share. We don’t expect you to wait on us.”

“Nonsense. Now that I’ve got to start earning my keep, it won’t hurt me to get in a little practice. Well, it sure is an ill wind that blows no good, as I told Professor Stott. If that tornado hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t be sitting here having the time of my life, though I expect I shouldn’t say so with that nice Miss Flackley dead and gone and Belinda still missing. But you never know, that’s what I told him. It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

“You and Stott seem to have had quite a philosophical discussion,” Shandy grunted rather sourly. “How did you get on with Tim?”