The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt (12 page)

Osbert dug on, working outward and downward through the untidy jumble of ribs, vertebrae, radii, ulnae, a second tibia, a second fibula, a couple of humeri, another femur up among the collarbones and shoulder blades. This last seemed a most peculiar juxtaposition; Zilla advanced the theory that wolves or coyotes could have visited the burial site while yet there’d been reason to do so, and failed to tidy up after themselves. She took a keen interest in the bones, brushing off the dirt and arranging them in a logical pattern on Arethusa’s petticoat as fast as Osbert dug them up.

As evidence collected, all the party became fairly certain that the bones must have belonged to a human being, probably an adult of average size and possibly a male. The pelvis, when Zilla had got it together, seemed to be a trifle narrower than the rib cage, whereas a woman’s tends to be somewhat broader, as any experienced girl-watcher would have been willing to attest before intersexual ogling was outlawed by the antichauvinism movement.

“I wish those darned wolves hadn’t gone off with the skull.”

Osbert sounded fretful, and no wonder. It had taken him a good deal of excavating to accumulate a reasonably complete torso, and still not so much as a tooth of the head had shown up.

“Here, let me.” Zilla was as weary of trying to match up vertebrae and ankle bones as Osbert was of groping around in damp sand. She took the spade from his no longer reluctant hand and tried to think herself into a coyote’s frame of reference. “Let’s see, seems to me I’d keep my nose pointing toward the spring, so that means I’d be kicking backward with my feet. Unless-oh, what the heck. Let’s try over here for a change.”

“Do,” sighed Arethusa, who’d been trying to catch forty winks curled up on Osbert’s jacket and not succeeding very well, even after it had occurred to her that she might be more comfortable if she removed her rapier from underneath.

The night must be far spent by now, though none of them could tell since there was no visible moon to go by, and nobody had thought to wear a watch. They were all, except presumably Hiram, feeling the effects of fatigue and exasperation. Yet Zilla dug doggedly on, and as always, it was dogged that did it.

“I’ve found a jaw!”

“Bully for you, ecod,” Arethusa snarled drowsily.

“And a what-do-you call it? The round part.”

“So that gives us a whole skull!” Osbert, who’d been sitting on the bank trying gamely not to shiver, sprung to his feet. “Let’s see it. Thundering tumbleweeds, it’s got three eye sockets!”

“Huh? Gimme a look.”

With the speed of blue light, Hiram Jellyby was at Zilla’s side. In a second flash, those two incandescent eyeballs were glittering out from inside the cranium. Spang in the middle and slightly above them was the neat, round hole that Osbert had taken for a third eye socket.

“Look at this, Zilla. Fits like a glove, bullet hole an’

all.”

“Yes, I see it does,” Mrs. Trott agreed. “Well, Hiram, all I can say is, you’ve certainly changed a lot. So now it’s time for you to go on and do what you’ve got to do, is that the program?”

“Hell, I wouldn’t mind stickin’ around for the funeral.

‘Tain’t every entity gets the chance to horn in on the preachin’. What kind o’ minister you got around here these days? I’m warnin’ you right here an’ now, if he’s the kind that thumps the pulpit an’ hollers about hellfire an’ damnation, I’m goin’ to rise right up out o’ my ol’ pine box an’

tell ‘im it ain’t necessarily so.”

“Then I sort of wish we did,” said Zilla, “because it would be something to see. But Mr. Pennyfeather’s just a nice, well-spoken man who’ll talk about how you were faithful to your duty and kind to your mules, as I gather you must have been, what with digging them water holes and singing around the campfire and all. That’s true enough, isn’t it?”

“Hell, yes. Me an’ my mules was always friends an’

buddies. I wisht I knew where they was buried. I wouldn’t mind havin’ my bones in there with ‘em.”

“I’m afraid their bones must have been ground up to make bonemeal,” Osbert told Hiram as gently as possible.

“That was what usually happened, I believe. You might think of them as fertilizing roses and other posies, like Darling Clementine.”

If a ghost could sniffle, then that was what Hiram Jellyby was doing. As nobody liked to intrude on his grief, they waited silently by in the dark until the muleteer himself spoke again.

“That was real nice o’ you, bub. Made me feel warm an’ comforted. I don’t s’pose you’d like to get up at the funeral an’ put in a good word for my ol’ mules, would you?”

“I’d be proud and honored.” Osbert sounded a bit choked up too. “As soon as we have a chance to sit down and have a real heart-to-heart talk, you must tell me all about them. Right now, we’d better get back to hunting for that chestful of gold before Aunt Arethusa’s rheumatics start kicking up. Can you suggest any place to dig that we haven’t tried yet, Hiram? How about over on the south side?”

“Waste o’ time. See, bub, it’s come back to me that the place where I found the gold wasn’t the same place where that bugger in the purple gaiters drilled me. So what it looks like to me is, we still ain’t found the right water hole.”

C_yh, for crying in the

soup!” Dittany herself was close to sobbing. “You mean you went through all that work for nothing?”

“Not quite for nothing, darling,” Osbert reminded his stricken wife gently. “We did find Hiram Jellyby’s bones and Greatgreat-grandmother’s wedding china. Hiram asked me to deliver a eulogy at his funeral.”

“What are you going to say?”

“Well, what he mainly wants me to do is say something nice about his mules. They meant a lot to each other.

Would you pass the marmalade, please, dear? I don’t know why, but I’m still hungry.”

“Poor, starved darling!” cried Dittany. “Shall I fry you a few more eggs and a buffalo steak?”

“Thanks, dear, but I’ll just fill up on toast. It’s not all that long till lunchtime, is it? I seem to have slept rather late.”

“Why shouldn’t you have? You didn’t get home till half past three this morning, plumb beat to the socks. I practically had to undress you.”

“That was kind of you, sweetheart. Remind me to do the same for you sometime soon.”

“Osbert! Not in front of the twins. You’re supposed to set an example.”

“But I am, darling. I’m setting the example of a loving husband and father.” Osbert proved his point with somewhat marmalady kisses all around. “What’s happened to Ethel? Don’t tell me she’s quit nannying on us?”

“Perish the thought. She’s just having her midmorning stroll, she’ll be back. In fact she is, I’d better go see whom she’s attacking out there. Oh, it’s only Sergeant MacVicar. Ethel, quit licking his face, it’s not respectful.

Come in, Sergeant. Haul up and set. Want me to roast you a fatted calf?”

“And when was I e’er prodigal, Dittany lass? Except wi’ unwanted advice, as my guid wife sometimes tells me.

I wouldna say no to a cup of tea, if there’s any left in the pot.” Sergeant MacVicar cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Osbert’s pajamas, which had little mustangs and cowboy hats printed all over them. “I trust you are not o’erfatigued from yesterday afternoon’s labors, Deputy Monk?”

“No, he’s plumb tuckered out from having spent the night digging up Hiram Jellyby’s bones and Great-greatgrandmother Monk’s tea set while you were sleeping the sleep of the sarcastic,” Dittany replied hotly. “What did you find out about the money?”

“Noo, lass, dinna fly off the handle. Would you care to eludicate, Deputy Monk?”

“What I’d really care to do is eat some more toast, if my beloved wife will give me any,” Osbert confessed. “You first, please, Chief.”

“Weel, then, pending further investigation, the hypothesis at RCMP headquarters is that yon trunkful of currency may be the loot from a remarkably daring robbery that took place eight years ago come Hallowe’en at a small but busy branch roughly halfway between Hamilton and Windsor. The remarkable part about it was that-“

Dittany knew it was rude to interrupt, but she also knew what a Scotsman could be like when he’d got started on a good story. She had no time this morning for lengthy flights of rhetoric.

“That the thief carried off the money, then came back and got the banker and tried to hold him for ransom. But the banker’s wife wouldn’t pay because she thought it was some of the boys being funny, so the robber killed him and cut off his finger and sent it to her with a nasty note about ye of little faith,” she encapsulated in a single breath before the sergeant could grab the floor again. “Zilla told me all about it while Margaret was watching the twins yesterday at teatime on account of the platinum print from the museum.”

“Oh, aye?” The sergeant knew better than to start a new hare by inquiring about the platinum print. “Margaret didna tell me.”

“Well, chances are you don’t always tell her everything either. How much money was in the trunk?”

“Zilla did not impart yon piece of information?”

“She didn’t know and don’t be Scotch. We’re all at sixes and sevens this morning and I haven’t got time for argy-bargy. Haven’t the Mounties counted it yet, for Pete’s sake?”

“They had not by the time I left them, and it is quite likely they still haven’t. They were going to fingerprint all the packages and perform other laboratory tests in the hope of tracking the miscreant. Or miscreants. The late bank watchman’s testimony that only one robber was involved seems no less incredible now than it did at the time of the perpetration.”

Osbert forgot the piece of toast he’d been about to steer mouth ward. “The late bank watchman? When did he die?”

“Less than a week after the robbery, in a somewhat bizarre manner. He was trampled to death by a cow.”

“A cow? You mean a steer?”

THUNDER BAY PUBLIC LIBRARY

“No, a milch cow that the watchman, an elderly bachelor, had been accustomed to stable in his garage and put to graze in his back yard.”

“But dairy cows don’t trample people to death,” Dittany protested.

“This one did, judging from the evidence. She was not, according to the sister who was living next door to the watchman at the time of his sudden demise, a contented cow. In fact the sister testified that there had been little sympathy between the cow and her brother for some time and that he had gone so far as to mention sending for the knacker within the cow’s hearing. The sister felt that this rash move on the watchman’s part might have precipitated the unwonted attack, but I pairsonally hae my doots.”

“Well, of course you would, Chief,” said Osbert. “Who wouldn’t? Obviously it was the robber’s accomplice who egged the cow on to trample the watchman, because the watchman knew who he was and was trying to blackmail him. The accomplice was probably the assistant manager, who’d agreed to help the robber because he wanted the banker’s job.”

“I’d be more inclined to think it was the head teller,”

said Dittany. “Head tellers get awfully fed up with having to dole out money all the time to other people and never getting to keep any for themselves. Zilla’s mother’s uncle used to be a head teller in a bank, but he finally got so tired of having to stay honest that he chucked up his job and turned to growing strawberries under glass for the fancy hotels and made a bundle, all of which he got to keep.

Didn’t the Mounties even investigate the head teller, Sergeant?”

“Yon head teller in this instance was a lady, Dittany lass. She and the assistant manager had gone directly from the bank at closing time on the afternoon of the robbery to the Presbyterian manse, where they were united in holy wedlock in the presence of various relatives and friends.

The entire company then enjoyed a wedding supper at the home of the bride’s aunt. At ten o’clock in the evening, the happy couple were seen off on the plane to Niagara Falls by the bridesmaid, the best man, and several of their coworkers, the aunt having stayed home to wash the dishes and count the silverware. It thus transpired that no member of the bank staff was without an ironclad alibi for the time of the robbery.”

“How come the banker missed out on the wedding?”

“He had been invited. He had expressed regret that pressure of business would prevent his attending the ceremony, but had promised to join the supper party as soon as he could get away. When he failed to do so, his absence was noted but not gravely regretted. Merriment was by then running high and a superior officer’s presence might, it was felt, have had a dampening effect, notwithstanding the president’s having been on affable enough terms with his staff.”

“Well, this is all very enigmatic,” said Dittany, “but I have tiny garments to wash and molasses cookies to bake.

You don’t really want another slice of toast, do you, Osbert?”

“No, pet, I’d better go up and put some clothes on before we have any more callers. What happened to the watchman’s sister after the alleged trampling, Chief?”

“I dinna ken, Deputy. Nor do I ken what happened to yon cow, though the logical outcome would nae doot hae been hamburger. Noo I must get back to the station. I will endeavor to ascertain the subsequent whereabouts of the sister and apprise you of any developments about the money. What are your plans for this afternoon?”

“Do we have any, Dittany?”

“We were going to take the twins to visit Grandsire Coskoff. Unless you’d rather work on your book?”

“No, I’ll go with you. We might stop at Aunt Arethusa’s and see what our chances are of getting Pollicot James to dowse us that other spring where the gold’s supposed to be buried. He may not want to, now that he’s already worked off his civic responsibility.”

“What other spring?” demanded Sergeant MacVicar.

“Oh, that’s right,” said Osbert, “I didn’t tell you. We have another enigma, Chief. We found what was left of the grave marker that Hiram whittled for himself in with the bones and the china. Whoever dug the hole to bury the china must have come across his bones, noticed the cross over in the field somewhere, and thrown it in out of superstition or general cussedness, not that it matters, I don’t suppose. Hiram claims he was shot in a different place from where he’d left the trunkful of gold pieces.”