Authors: Charlotte MacLeod
S
HANDY ASKED TO USE
the Horsefalls’ phone and told Helen he didn’t know when he’d be home. “I’m about to pay a call on your chum at the antique shop,” he told her after he’d given her a rundown of events to date.
“Then stay away from that sofa. Nutie the Cutie may be ambidextrous. Peter, are you sure there’s no way I could be of use over there? That frail old woman—”
“That frail old woman is out in the kitchen at this moment plucking a chicken and blasting out her arteries with a slug of bathtub gin.”
“My stars and garters!”
“You may well say so. Did you finish the petunias?”
“How can you talk of petunias at a time like this?”
“Never mind how, just be sure you water them in well. If we let them wilt, Mirelle Feldster will start telling everybody our marriage is on the fritz. Arrivederci.”
“If you say so.” Sounding doubtful, Helen hung up.
Peter went back to the kitchen. “Tim, I’m going to pay a visit or two. Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“I’ll keep Henny and Miss Hilda company for a while longer, I think. You planning to swing back this way before you go home?”
“If you’d like me to. It may be an hour or so.”
“No hurry. Come on, Henny, we might as well finish cleaning out that spreader. The lime ought to have simmered down a little by now and we don’t want it hanging around for a reminder. Thanks for the coffee, Miss Hilda.”
The two old men walked out with Shandy. As he got into his car and turned out into the road, he could see them back there in the barnyard like a painting by Millet. A mighty rage toward all the sons of bitches who tried to grab land from hardworking farmers rose within him. If somebody was out to put the screws on Henny Horsefall, then somebody was going to feel the personal vengeance of Peter Shandy. He floored the accelerator and zoomed toward Nute’s Nook, wondering how many different crimes he was going to have to solve before he arrived at the true reason for Spurge Lumpkin’s death.
Seeing an expensive new car draw up in front of the shop, Nute came to the door all smiles, settling the cuffs of his lilac-striped shirt under the cuffs of his purple suede jacket. He reminded Shandy of a chipmunk that had fallen into a paint bucket. When the driver got out in corduroys and flannel shirt with the marks of petunia-planting imperfectly erased, the chipmunk face changed momentarily to a weasel’s. Then Nute got back his professional smirk and went through a pretty routine of searching his memory.
“Dear me, I know I’ve—ah yes. You were here last week with a petite blond lady. A charmer, if I may say so.”
“The lady is my wife and I do not care to have her charms commented on by strangers, so I’d rather you didn’t say so,” Shandy replied. “Mr. Lumpkin, are you aware that your cousin Spurge has been killed?”
“Spurge dead?” The artificial smile became all too real before Canute Lumpkin managed to smooth his features into a more decorous expression. “Then I’m—”
“The king of the cats. Precisely how much do you stand to inherit, Mr. Lumpkin?”
“Please don’t keep calling me Mr. Lumpkin. It’s such a dreary name. And surely you can’t expect me to be thinking of anything so crass as money when I’ve just lost my last, lone relative.”
“You appeared to have money rather firmly in mind a few months ago when you were trying to railroad Spurge into the loony bin.”
“I see you’ve been talking to the Horsefalls. By the way, may I have the pleasure of knowing who is taking such an interest in my personal affairs? It’s not that I don’t appreciate your concern, you understand. It’s merely that one does like to know.”
Posturing fop! Suppressing a natural urge to kick Nutie the Cutie where he most needed to be kicked, Shandy acceded to what was, after all, a reasonable request. Nutie was delighted.
“Professor Shandy! I had no idea I was being so signally honored. Why signally, I wonder? Should one be waving flags or working a heliograph? Do come in and sit down, Professor. Please forgive the disorder. I’ve just this minute finished with a customer in from New York who positively raided the place. One does enjoy dealing with people who have a sincere appreciation of the rare and the beautiful. And the wherewithal to indulge their tastes,” he added with an insinuating glance out the window at Shandy’s car. “By the way, I noticed your wife taking a particular interest in my Bow tea set the other day. Quite a rarity, as I’m sure you realize.”
“We already have a tea set, thanks.”
Shandy had no idea whether they did or not, but wouldn’t have touched anything from Nute’s Nook with a ten-foot pole. “Since you’ve had such a successful run of business, no doubt you’ll want to get in touch with Harry Goulson about paying the costs for your dear departed cousin’s funeral.”
He’d never seen anybody bridle before. It was interesting to watch Canute Lumpkin definitely and distinctly bridle.
“Really, Professor, I don’t see where I have the smallest responsibility in the matter. As you know, I did try to assume legal guardianship of my cousin, not, as the Horsefalls may have tried to make you believe, out of any pecuniary motive, but from a genuine concern for Spurge’s welfare. However, the judge saw fit to deny my petition. Therefore it would be inappropriate and probably illegal for me to go barging in and upset whatever plans the Horsefalls have made. Miss Hilda would adore to get me pinched for contempt of court.”
He spread his beautifully manicured hands and showed his dimple. “I’ll send a wreath or something, of course. Lilies, do you think? Consider the lilies of the field and all that? Though one could hardly say my cousin Spurge toiled not, could one? Old Horsefall worked him like, as one might expect, a horse. That was why I thought I should take steps to relieve the poor chap from what virtually amounted to slave labor. But since everybody chose to misunderstand my motives—”
“Who could possibly misunderstand your motives, Mr. Lumpkin? As to the value of the property you stand to inherit, no doubt it’s a matter of public record and I can easily look it up. What I’m most curious about is why you haven’t asked me what happened to your cousin. Perhaps you already know?”
“How could I? You’ve only this minute come galloping in here like that Ghent to Aix fellow—oh dear, he was carrying good news, wasn’t he? Now I shall be accused of another breach of taste. How ghastly! Very well, then, what happened to my cousin?”
Shandy told him, not sparing the details, and he said, “How ghastly!” again. “There, you see how right I was about Spurge’s incompetence? It appears to me, Professor Shandy, that I have ample grounds to sue the Horsefalls for negligence.”
“It appears to me that you have a fat chance of winning, Mr. Lumpkin. Furthermore the Horsefalls couldn’t afford to pay damages if you did by some wild chance succeed in winning your case.”
“Why couldn’t they? There’s the property,” Lumpkin replied a shade too quickly.
“Indeed there is. I see you’ve already been giving it some thought. How embarrassed will you be if the incident that resulted in your cousin’s death proves to have been perpetrated by some person or persons or your personal acquaintance desiring to get hold of that property?”
“Why should I be embarrassed at all? It’s entirely possible I do know the perpetrators, as you so learnedly refer to them, him, her, or it. One does know everybody in a place like this. And naturally I’ve heard about all the goings-on at the Horsefalls’, with Henny cavorting around with a shotgun full of rock salt and Miss Hilda stirring her cauldron and thinking up juicy new anathemas. I adore local gossip. Far more fun than watching the soaps, and there’s not the bother of being interrupted by somebody wanting to pick up a nice bargain in Spode just as Linda is about to confess to Michael that she’s having an affair with Claude, though I expect it would be Claudia these days.
“But to be appallingly frank with you, Professor, I don’t quite get the drift of this entire conversation. You wouldn’t by any chance be threatening me, would you? Because if you were I might be able to sue you as well as the Horsefalls, and perhaps the lawyer would give me a wholesale rate.”
Canute smiled ever so sweetly to show he was only joking, thus making it quite clear he’d strike like a cobra if he ever saw an opening. Shandy wondered how many people Nute had already dragged into court on one pretext or another, and how much he’d got out of his lawsuits.
“What a pity you don’t have a case, Mr. Lumpkin,” he replied with the mildness he usually reserved for his more dangerous moments in the classroom. “I shouldn’t dream of threatening you. And with Miss Horsefall’s hundred and fifth birthday celebration coming up so soon, I don’t suppose your slapping her with a lawsuit would be good public relations, would it? In any event you won’t want to be bothered now that you’re coming into the Lumpkin estate.”
“When I see a chance of picking up some extra money I always want to be bothered, Professor. Appalling of me I know, but there it is. Mercenary to the core. Are you quite, quite sure you wouldn’t care to surprise your lovely wife with my adorable Bow tea set? One might offer a reasonable discount to so distinguished a customer. For the public relations value, you know.”
Shandy thought he’d better get out of there before Canute Lumpkin acquired visible grounds to sue him for assault and battery. “I shan’t take advantage of your good nature, Mr. Lumpkin. Permit me again to offer you my condolences. Or congratulations, as the case may be.”
“I do so appreciate your thoughtfulness, Professor Shandy. Allow me.” With a self-satisfied smirk, Canute Lumpkin held open the shop door. “Oh, about those flowers. Do you think a simple bouquet of field flowers would be more appropriate? Daisies and buttercups, perhaps?”
“How about pigweed?”
Shandy got back into his car and headed for the Horsefalls’. He’d come out an extremely poor second in that interview, and was perhaps fortunate to have come out at all. Nute was cute all right. Clever as a rat, putting on an act designed to make one think he couldn’t possibly be so rotten as he made himself appear, when in fact he was no doubt a lot worse.
Canute Lumpkin was the sort to run a dirty-tricks campaign with enthusiasm and panache. He had his pipeline to the Horsefall farm via Fergy’s friendship with Spurge. He had a grudge against the old pair for wrecking his plan to get custody of his cousin and the Lumpkin inheritance. He was wily enough to have started with minor nuisances that would brand Henny an old crank for lodging complaints with the police, and gradually step them up to the point where he could do real damage without much interference.
In his “I’m only concerned for my cousin’s welfare” role, he’d have an excuse to ask Fergy details of Spurge’s work on the farm. Fergy might easily have mentioned that Henny had been after Spurge to wash out the spreader, and Nute could have guessed how his cousin would react to the novelty of bubbling quicklime. If he got killed, fine. If he didn’t, Nute would have a lovely reason to sue the Horsefalls for custody and damages. Since they had nothing but their property to pay him off with, he’d wind up with the Horsefall farm in his pudgy pink hands. After that, he’d no doubt be more than willing to bargain with Loretta Fescue and her eager client. A few years from now, these rich acres would be covered with blacktop and supermarkets, like as not. If there could be a worse crime than murder in Shandy’s book, that would have to be it.
I
T WAS JUST ABOUT
five o’clock now, too late to drop in at Town Hall. Too bad. Shandy would have liked to get some specific information about the Lumpkin estate. Chances were, though, that the Horsefalls would have some idea of what Nute now stood to inherit. Anyway he had to go back there and collect Tim, unless Roy and Laurie had already done so.
As he headed out from Lumpkin Center, Shandy happened to spot a curlicued sign outside a modestly built but considerably gussied-up frame house that said: “Loretta Fescue, Realtor.” He stopped and rang the bell but nobody answered. He scowled at a plastic gnome that was supposed to be pushing a toy wheelbarrow full of salmon-pink geraniums and got back into the car.
At the Horsefall place, Tim, Henny, and Miss Hilda were all sitting out on the porch in rush-seated rockers, looking down in the mouth. His coming was obviously a welcome diversion.
“Hi, Pete,” Tim called before Shandy was out of the car. “Glad you came. Laurie phoned a while back to see if I needed a lift. I said I’d go home with you.”
“Land’s sakes, don’t leave yet awhile,” Miss Hilda fussed. “That’s the trouble with you young things, always jumpin’ around like peas on a hot griddle. Let Professor Shandy catch ’is breath, can’t you? I’ll fix us a bite o’ supper soon as I get my legs back under me. Havin’ that Goulson man come an’ cart poor Spurge away was kind of a facer, I have to admit.”
Henny shook his head. “I know, Aunt Hilda. Couldn’t hardly believe it happened till then. Cripes, when I think of—here, Professor, haul up a chair an’ set. We’ll be eatin’ pretty soon, I guess maybe.”
“Please don’t bother fixing anything for me,” said Shandy. “My wife will be expecting me.”
“How long you been married?” Miss Hilda wanted to know.
“Since January twenty-first.”
“You mean this past January? Took your time about it, didn’t you?”
“Not really. I didn’t meet her till the week after Christmas.”
“Mph. Widow lookin’ for a meal ticket, was she?”
“No. Neither of us had been married before and my wife is quite capable of earning her own living. She has a doctorate in library science.”
“Then what in tarnation did she want to bother ’erself with a husband for?”
“She—er—claims to be rather fond of me.”
“Well, I s’pose there’s still a few that’s old-fashioned enough to want ‘Mrs.’ on their tombstones. Lord a’ mercy, what’s that?”
“It’s Spurge’s ghost, riz from the dead to git revenge on them as kilt ’im!” cried Henny in terror.
Henny’s mistake was a natural enough one. The tattered, bleeding figure rushing toward them over the swale would have been enough to scare anybody. It was brandishing what looked at first to be a broadsword but proved on closer inspection to be a pair of oversized hedge clippers. Cronkite Swope was returning from his journalistic investigation.