The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt (8 page)

They were flipping, too; there was no holding them back. To crowd around and goggle was the only reasonable thing to do. Even Sergeant MacVicar goggled, but only for a second. Then he said crisply, “Deputy Monk, wad ye kindly shut yon box?”

“But we want to see how much is in it,” wailed Dot Coskoff.

As treasurer for the garden club, for its museum, and potentially for its community garden, Dot of all people had a right to ask, but the sergeant was adamant. “Mrs.

Coskoff, there is a grave doot in my mind as to whether yon box was buried here for any legitimate reason. And belike in yours as weel. Am I no’ correct?”

When Sergeant MacVicar started calling people by their last names and talking broad Scots, those who knew him did not gainsay him. “I suppose so,” Dot admitted. “I can’t imagine who in his right mind would bury a trunkful of money out here in the middle of nowhere just for the fun of it. Unless it’s counterfeit, and the person was scared to keep it around the house.”

“Aye, but to get rid of counterfeit money, a pairson needs only a lighted match. A likelier reason, to my mind, is that this is real money that has been stolen, that the thief who buried it here has gone into hiding or else to jail, and intends to come back and excavate his loot when it becomes feasible to do so. That is why I dinna want anybody, including myself, handling these packages. There may be fingerprints that could help to convict yon hypothetical evildoer.”

“Well, yes, I can see your point,” Dot admitted. “But how would the crook have found the money again? The spot was all grown over, it looked the same as the rest of the field, and there was no sort of marker. Unless the crook was a dowser too,” she added doubtfully.

Sergeant Mac Vicar shook his head. “I misdoot his intention had been to use a metal detector. This would account for a receptacle so lavishly trimmed with brass.”

“But why bury the trunk so close to the spring?

Wouldn’t he have been afraid the water might get in and spoil the money?”

“Evidently not. The bundles are well sealed, and that canvas covering on the trunk has nae doot been heavily waterproofed. All in all, this was an ideal spot for the clandestine concealment of stolen currency. I wad remind you that, whilst Hunnikers’ Field seems isolated, it is in fact close to the highway that runs behind the Enchanted Mountain and is little populated for some fair distance, hence a good and easy place for a fleeing criminal to park his getaway vehicle undetected after dark and dig out a hiding place for his ill-gotten booty. He wad dootless hae prodded around with a rod or other implement, looking for a relatively soft spot to dig, and found it here where the underground water had kept the soil loose. If he was careful about cutting the sod and rolling it back over the spot after the box was buried, his chance of detection by any casual stroller wad hae been small.”

“Yes, of course. And nobody ever comes out here much anyway, except when Jim Thompson cuts the hay, and he wouldn’t notice anything that didn’t interfere with the baler. So what are you going to do with the trunk? The bank’s closed for the day by now, though I expect they’d open up for you.”

“Aye, but I intend to take yon trunk to the Mounted Police, they may have some leads as to where the money came from. They will surely be able to detect any fingerprints on the plastic, as well as to determine whether the bills are indeed genuine or bogus.”

“I should think there must be fingerprints,” said Dittany, who’d been uncharacteristically silent thus far. “Can you imagine anybody packing up this many bills without having to lick his thumb now and then?”

From force of habit, Sergeant MacVicar gave her his wee-fatherless-bairn smile. “A point to consider, Dittany lass. Deputy Monk, the two of us should be able to carry the trunk between us easily enough.”

“I’ll help,” offered one of the diggers, who happened to be Dot Coskoff’s husband, Bill. “I’ve got my car right over there beside the road. I can run you all the way to RCMP headquarters, if you like.”

“And not come back for two or three hours,” snorted Dot. “I hope everybody else isn’t going to skitter off now that there’s no more buried treasure to dig for.”

“As do I.” Sergeant MacVicar gave the onlookers an extremely Scottish look and they all slunk back to where they’d dropped their gardening tools.

Osbert exchanged a glance with Zilla before saying, “Since Bill’s going to take you, Sergeant, I guess you won’t need me, eh. I’ll walk Dittany home, then maybe come back and work some more on the water hole. It ought to be quite a lot deeper if people are going to pump out water for the garden. Happy deputizing, Bill.”

“Zilla, why don’t you come along and have a cup of tea with us?” said Dittany, easily divining what was afoot.

“We need to talk to Minerva about that exhibition Mr.

Glunck wants to set up. And to Arethusa also, if she’s through stuffing scones into Polly James by now. Though I suppose we ought to quit calling him Polly now that he’s dowsed us our spring.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Zilla agreed. “Another thing we really ought to do is find out whether the water department will cough up a hunk of drainpipe or something to keep the dirt from trickling back into the hole and clogging the pump. Once we get a pump, that is. Don’t any of the rest of you do any more digging here till we find out how the water department wants it done.”

“Furthermore, it might not be safe,” said Dot. “We don’t want anybody caved in on.”

“Except one or two I won’t mention,” Zilla amended with a menacing glance at a couple of teenagers who were acting the way teenagers all too often do. “All right then, Dittany, let’s go. Anybody who wants to come back and dig some more tomorrow will be more than welcome.”

Joyous shouts of acquiescence were conspicuously lacking, people were already casting wistful glances at their cars or their companions. “I’ll bet you any money there won’t be a soul left here twenty minutes from now,”

Zilla grunted as soon as she and the Monks were well away from the garden area.

“Of course there won’t,” Dittany agreed. “You and Osbert played that scene quite nicely. Zilla, you don’t really believe Hiram managed somehow to change his gold into currency?”

“Well, he’d have had to, I expect, if he’d been planning to spend any. Gold pieces aren’t legal tender any more, are they? Frankly, I don’t know whether I believe in that gold or not. There was the spring and there was the trunkful of money. Not quite the way Hiram described it to me but, darn it all, what’s a person to think? It seems awfully far-fetched that two similar trunks could have been buried near the same spring, but I suppose it won’t kill us to look.

Though we’d better wait till after dark, just in case.”

“It’ll be dark anyway pretty soon,” said Osbert. “I’m just hoping we don’t get a bunch of sightseers out here messing around, falling in holes and breaking their legs and blaming it on us.”

“No fear,” said Dittany. “This is hoedown night at the high school, there’s a bean supper and social at the United Church, the Madrigal Society’s meeting at the Burberrys’, and of course they’ll be holding the usual Saturday night euchre tournament down at the fire station. Who’s going to have time for sightseeing? Oh, gosh, Hazel Munson must be out from under the dryer by now. I’d meant to catch her at the Twirl and Curl and show her Hiram’s photograph. I told Mr. Glunck I’d get back to him about the display cases before the museum closes.”

“Hazel will be home by now, then,” said Zilla. “Call her up and invite her for tea.”

“We’re awfully low on molasses cookies. The twins take up so much of my time that I don’t get around to baking the way I used to.”

“I could bring you some tofu.”

“No you couldn’t, Osbert won’t eat tofu. He says it’s just a lot of squish.”

“Well, he’d better learn to like it before his arteries start backing up on him.”

“Osbert’s arteries are clear as a bell. Aren’t they, darling?”

“Yes, darling. I keep hearing this little tinkle, tinkle, tinkle as the blood burbles merrily on its way like Tennyson’s brook. I think it was Tennyson’s. Somebody’s brook, anyway. Speaking of brooks, I wonder whether our water hole out there might actually be not just a spring but part of an underground stream.”

“Osbert!” groaned Zilla. “You mean Hiram’s gold might be someplace else along the route and we’ve got to go back and dig up the whole darn field till we come to it?”

“But if the spring’s a brook, how come the dowsing rod didn’t keep dipping every time Polly James crossed over?” Dittany argued.

“I don’t know, dear. It seems to me I’ve read someplace that you can dowse for metal as well as for water.

Maybe Polly’s rod has an affinity for fancy brass trimmings.”

“I’ll bet it does! I noticed part of it was brass. What if we got Polly back out there and had him hang a gold ring on the end?”

“How about a gold tooth?” snarled Zilla. “I think the less we go shooting our mouths off about gold, the less trouble we’ll likely run into. Furthermore, that bird rubs me the wrong way, I can’t quite say why. His chin’s got a funny set to it.”

“Really? Now, that I hadn’t noticed. I must study Therese’s photos when they come out.”

“Provided they do.”

“Of course they will. Therese couldn’t do anything wrong unless she took a course on how to be stupid in ten easy lessons. I hope Margaret Mac Vicar’s not mad that we stayed away so long, at least we’ll have something to tell her. Where in heck do you suppose all those bunches of paper money came from?”

1 hey might have been

the payroll for the mine,” Osbert suggested.

“No, dear,” Dittany explained gently. “The stagecoaches quit running quite some time ago. Hiram’s gold could have been the payroll for the mine, assuming any mines were in business around here then. These days, miners probably just get paychecks out of a computer.

Too bad, but there it is.”

“Dad-blang it, why couldn’t people have left the wide open spaces the way Zane Grey invented them? All right then, if you’re going to be picky, I suppose the money must have come from a bank. Or maybe a supermarket. Supermarkets take in scads of cash.”

“So they do, darling, and much of it ours. Zilla, can you remember any major supermarket heists around here in the past few years?”

“No, but there was that awful bank robbery somewhere down toward Hamilton, or maybe Windsor. I forget.

Anyway, a lot of money was taken and the man who ran the bank was kidnapped and murdered. To the best of my knowledge, the money’s never been found and neither have the robbers. Six or eight years ago, that must have been. I don’t remember the details.”

“I’ll bet Sergeant MacVicar does, though. That could be why he was in such a swivet to talk to the Mounties, they keep records on all that stuff. Now he’s going to be late getting back for supper. Poor Margaret! And she’s been so sweet about keeping the twins for us.”

“Oh, Dittany, stop dithering about the twins,” Zilla snapped. “Margaret MacVicar must be used to late suppers, the sergeant’s been on plenty worse errands than this one. He’ll be all right. Long as nobody hijacks Bill Coskoff’s car.”

“You’re such a comfort, Zilla. Why should they? They don’t know what he’s got stashed in his trunk.”

“They who?”

“Whoever might if they did,” Osbert interjected reasonably.

“Tell us more about that bank robbery, Zilla, I don’t recall anything about it. Do you, Dittany?”

“No, I expect there was something more interesting going on here in town at the time. There usually is.”

That was likely enough. Lobelia Falls folk didn’t bother much as a rule about what was happening elsewhere.

They had all they could do just trying to keep up with each other.

“I only remember because my mother had an uncle who used to be a head teller in a bank,” Zilla half apologized.

“We stopped to visit him at work once and he gave me a silver dollar. Out of his own pocket, naturally, not the bank’s, but kids remember those things. It was the first one I’d ever had, I don’t suppose I was more than seven or eight at the time. Anyway, as I recall, this banker in Hamilton or wherever was working late one night, foreclosing on mortgages or whatever they do. He was all alone in the building except for the night watchman, who was out back making tea when a bunch of robbers, or maybe it was only one robber, snuck in somehow and knocked him down on the floor and tied him up, and stuffed something in his mouth so he couldn’t yell to warn the banker.”

“Standard procedure,” said Osbert. “I always gag the watchman, myself. At least my villains do. So then what?”

“So then the robber bullied the banker into opening the vault and loading all the money into a sack he’d brought with him. The watchman couldn’t see this happening, being still tied up in the back room, but he could hear the robber bossing the banker around and threatening to shoot off his toes if he didn’t step lively. And then the robber came tearing out past where the watchman was lying, with this big sackful of money over his shoulder.

After that, by gum, he went back and got the banker and carried him out too.”

“The ornery sidewinder! That’s not standard procedure.

I always just tie the banker to his chair, myself.”

“Well, I’m telling you what this other one did,” Zilla insisted. “He stepped right over the watchman, staggering a little as you might expect because the banker was no lightweight, but making pretty good time, considering.”

“Gosh! Did the watchman see his face?”

“No. He had on a black hat pulled down over his forehead, and a black scarf tied over his face, you know how they do, and dark glasses on. And gloves. Black, I suppose, not that it matters. The watchman said the robber looked to be about seven feet tall, but that was only natural considering that he was down on the floor looking up. He said the banker seemed to be unconscious but wasn’t dripping blood or anything. The police decided he’d most likely been slugged over the head with the robber’s gun butt so that he wouldn’t make a fuss about being lugged off.”

“But why take the banker away at all?” said Dittany.