The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn (2 page)

“I am not dressed up as a sheep,” cried Miss Jane. “I dress up like Miss Jane Fuzzywuzzy in order to advertise my shop.”

“Forsooth?” scoffed Arethusa. “Then you’d have done better to name the place Uncle Wiggly’s. Now if you two will excuse me, I’ll get on with my business.”

“One moment, Miss Monk, if I may so address you without giving offense,” said Sergeant MacVicar. “Can you give me further particulars concerning yon puzzling incident?”

“What is there to tell? This international spy came whizzing up and jumped out of his car—the one with the most bullet holes in it—and ran into the Yarnery. Then he came running out and grabbed me by the arm and started to talk about the sleeve to which the lady at my right has already alluded. He evidently inferred that I was the proprietor of the shop, though I cannot imagine why. Anyway, before I could correct his misapprehension, he dropped dead. At least one may assume he was dead, since he raised no protest when the other two spies came along and took him away.”

“Er—h’mph. How do you know the men were spies, Miss Monk?”

“Because they were all wearing trench coats with the collars turned up and felt hats with the brims turned down over their eyes. They have to, it’s in the international spy code. The first man may well have been a counterspy, which would explain his interest in Miss Wuzzy’s shop. Or perhaps he was only confused. Judging from the memoirs one reads in the newspapers, assuming one does, spies customarily exist in a perpetual state of bewilderment as to whose side they’re on at any given moment. It’s possible, I suppose, that Miss Wuzzy here is a spy also, which would account for the sheep disguise. Would you care to confirm or deny the hypothesis, Miss Wuzzy?”

“I couldn’t be bothered.” Miss Jane did look a bit like Uncle Wiggly when she sniffed. “I’m merely a victim of circumstance and you’re talking through that silly hat as usual. Those were no international spies, they were just a pack of hoodlums messing up my nice, clean sidewalk, not to mention the floor I’d just finished mopping.”

Miss Jane shook her broom in total exasperation. “Sergeant MacVicar, you’ll have to excuse me. I must see what’s happened inside the Yarnery. It’s tough enough getting established in a new location without the customers having to wade through puddles of gore to get to the yarn bins. Speaking of which, would you mind mentioning to Mrs. MacVicar that the blue shetland she wanted for your grandson’s birthday cap and mittens came in late yesterday afternoon? I meant to pop over and tell her myself, but it slipped my mind. I was busy getting ready for my cousins, you know. Actually, they’re putting up at the inn, but of course I’ll have them over to the house for meals and—”

“Mrs. MacVicar will understand,” said the sergeant. “Shall we go in together?”

They did. Arethusa remained outside, frowning down at the spots on the sidewalk and wondering why she wasn’t at home writing. As she thus pondered, she heard herself being hailed by a familiar and well-loved voice.

“Whoo-hoo, Arethusa!”

“Clorinda!” Arethusa whirled to embrace the petite figure in the scarlet cartwheel hat and the elegant gold-and-silver eyeglasses who hurtled toward her on three-inch heels regardless of slippery fallen leaves and possible cracks in the sidewalk.

Back when she’d been first the wife, then the widow of Dittany’s father, Clorinda Henbit had been not only the star of the Traveling Thespians and two-time winner of the Grand Free-for-All gold medal in archery but also the bosom friend of Arethusa Monk. Now married to Bert Pusey, a jovial salesman who traveled successfully in fashion eyewear, Clorinda was living a life far better suited to her ebullient personality and loving every minute of it. However, the lure of impending grandmotherhood and the chance of spending some time with her old friend had brought her flying back to Lobelia Falls.

Never one to tackle a situation by halves, Clorinda had been knitting up a storm ever since Dittany had managed to track her down at an optometrists’ convention in Saskatoon and break the joyful tidings. Starting with booties, she’d worked her way up via bonnets and sacques to carriage robes and buntings. Even as she emoted her rapture at being able to walk down the street and bump into her favorite female in all the world, not counting her daughter and whichever twin turned out to be a girl, she was fishing in her pocketbook for a twist of yarn.

“Come on, Arethusa. I’ve got to see whether Miss Jane has any more of this pink left. I started a bed jacket for Dittany and ran out halfway up the left front.”

“At last count, Dittany had been the increasingly less grateful recipient of seven knitted bed jackets: two pink, one blue, one white with pink and blue trimming, one yellow, one lilac, and one variegated,” Arethusa pointed out. “Zilla Trott is knitting her a red one with fluffy pompons in case the weather turns cold. And if you’re pondering the advisability of ripping out what you’ve done and starting another bunting, forget it. She’s up to her armpits in tiny garments already. Egad, will this madness never cease?”

“Probably not,” Clorinda admitted. “You know the old crowd. Once they get the bit between their teeth, there’s no stopping them. But don’t worry, dear, I’ve thought of something else.”

“Gadzooks, it needed only that!”

“Don’t be negative, dear, it makes wrinkles. I just got the idea that now everyone’s nicely started and the yarn shop’s so handy, we might as well keep on and knit enough tiny garments for all the underprivileged wee ones in Canada.”

“What if the wee ones already have enough tiny garments?”

“Then we knit some for the States, and maybe Europe.”

“Thence to the Third World, I assume?”

“Well, dear, it would be good for détente. Do quit standing there darting those quills at me. I’ve got to get cracking. By the way, what are you doing out roaming the roads during your usual work time? Don’t tell me inspiration has flagged.”

“Perish the thought! I’m roaming the roads because I have an important business appointment.”

“Really? I must say you do look awfully brisk and competent. I don’t recall ever having seen you in that suit before. Where did you get it?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it matters. Whoever it was, they won’t have one left in my size anyway. They never do. Where is your appointment?”

Arethusa shook her quills sadly and slowly from side to side. “I can’t remember that either.”

“NEVER MIND, DEAR, I
expect it will come to you.” Clorinda expected no such thing, but one had to maintain a façade of optimism with Arethusa or be driven to desperation in consequence. “Let’s get that pink yarn before I forget what I came for, too. I can always give the bed jacket to the Russians and call it
glasnost
.”

“We can’t go in there,” Arethusa protested. “The Yarnery’s knee-deep in gore and Sergeant MacVicar is detecting.”

“Darling, do save your tall tales for your vast army of—heavens to Betsy! What are those red spots all over the sidewalk?”

“Gore, of course. Spies are by nature copious bleeders.”

“What spies?” demanded Clorinda. “Arethusa, have you any idea what you’re talking about?”

“Certainly I have. I’m talking about those three international spies who dropped by here a few minutes ago. The first one had been shot and was dripping all over the place. Miss Wuzzy appeared to be somewhat miffed about the mess he was making.”

“Do you mean Miss Jane?”

“Is that what she’s calling herself now?”

“That seems to be what she prefers. I wish she wouldn’t, it’s so confusing with Jane Binkle living right next door to—Arethusa, what about those other two spies? Are they the ones who shot him?”

“I really couldn’t say. He’d already been shot when he got here, his car was quite riddled with bullet holes. The other car was not so much riddled as pocked. I think I mean pocked.”

“Pocked sounds all right to me. Were the two men pocked, too?”

“I saw no sign of pockment. Or is it pocation? At any rate they didn’t appear to be bleeding, unless they were doing it in a civil and restrained manner.”

“Where are they now? Did Sergeant MacVicar arrest them?”

Arethusa shook her hat decisively, causing considerable agitation among the quills. “He didn’t get the chance. They were in the act of departing as he arrived. The two unpocked ones, if I’m using the term correctly, took the pocked one away.”

“You’re sure he was pocked and not riddled?” said Clorinda.

“Quite sure. All I saw was one bullet hole in the back of his trench coat, which is how I knew he was a spy like the other two.”

“Because of one single hole? That would hardly seem definitive to me.”

“Not because of the hole,” Arethusa replied with quiet dignity. “Because of the trench coats and the felt hats with the brims pulled down over their eyes.”

“Arethusa, dear, spies don’t go around in trench coats riddling cars and pocking people. Spies wear long black overcoats and carry umbrellas with poisoned darts hidden in the shafts. I believe these men must in fact have been racketeers, also known as gangsters. They riddle the cars with their tommy guns, which they carry around in violin cases. Do you recall whether any of the three happened to have a violin case with him?”

“To the best of my recollection, no. They could have left them in their cars, I suppose. Are you quite sure about the trench coats, Clorinda?”

“Oh yes, positive. Trench coats and pulled-down felt hats are de rigueur in gangland circles. To hide those awful zoot suits, you know, and their slicked-down hair. I’ve watched them scads of times in the movies. Dear old Ditson never could pass up a George Raft or Edward G. Robinson rerun. I never understood why; Ditson was the sweetest, gentlest, most law-abiding man who ever lived. Hurry, Arethusa, never mind the gore. We’ve got to let Sergeant MacVicar know Lobelia Falls is being taken over by the mob.”

To refuse such a call to civic duty would have been wholly graceless. Heedless of the splashes on the sidewalk, Arethusa turned toward the Yarnery. “Very well, Clorinda, if you say so. Perhaps I did get mixed up about the trench coats.”

“One can’t blame you, dear,” her friend consoled her. “They’re hardly in your period. If it had been a question of perukes and dueling swords, you’d have got it straight in no time flat. Ah, good morning, Miss Jane. Oh dear, he did bleed a lot, didn’t he? Before I forget it, I wish you’d try to match this wool for me. After you’ve finished mopping up the blood, of course. Sergeant MacVicar, I do hope you have a few tommy guns over at the station.”

Sergeant. MacVicar was not a man to be easily disconcerted, particularly not by Clorinda, whom he knew of old. “I have not. You did not want one for yourself, surely?”

“Heavens to Betsy, no! I just want you to be prepared for the influx of gangsters. Or racketeers. I’m not quite sure whether the terms are synonymous, but I’m quite clear on the inadvisability of your letting Lobelia Falls be taken over by them. Ditson might have rather enjoyed having a few around because he used to think they were all like George Raft; but Bert, my current husband, as you of course know, takes an extremely dim view of mobsters. He’s run into a few real ones during the course of his career, and is quite firm in his belief that there’s not a heart of gold among them.”

“An assumption in which I heartily concur,” said the sergeant. “Do I deduce that your friend has been describing yon incident which led to the desecration of Mrs. Derbyshire’s clean floor?”

“Derbyshire?” Arethusa, who had allowed her attention to slip back a century or two, perked to attention. “Is that another of her aliases, forsooth?”

The proprietress parked her mop in the bucket, drew herself up to her full height, and gave Arethusa a far from sheepish look. “My proper name, as Sergeant MacVicar can testify since it’s on my vending license, is Prudence Elizabeth Derbyshire, or if you prefer, Mrs. Bentinck Derbyshire. Liberated woman though I am, I retained the name of my former husband. I should have thought the allusion to my shop name was obvious, especially to those in the literary profession, but I find that not all authors are as well up on the classics as one might expect. I’ve grown quite used to being called Miss Jane and don’t mind a bit. Advertising my shop is how I look at it. I must say, however, that nobody has ever before called me Miss Wuzzy,” she added with imperfectly concealed rancor.

In the bright lexicon of Clorinda Henbit Pusey there was no such grim word as rancor. “Then you’ve had a new experience,” she cried gaily. “How delightful for you! I always count that day lost in which I haven’t had at least one new experience.”

Miss Jane, or Mrs. Prudence, retrieved her mop and went back to work. “I’ve had quite enough new experiences, thank you,” she snapped as she scrubbed viciously at a gummy red spot. “Whatever that man’s problems might have been, faulty coagulation sure wasn’t one of them.”

Comparing notes later on, Clorinda had to agree with Arethusa that the yarn lady did look a good deal like a lost sheep when she forgot to smile. Clorinda pointed out that Miss Jane probably resembled a happy sheep when she did smile. As neither of the friends had ever seen a sheep looking more than placidly content, they decided to give Miss Jane the benefit of the doubt and table the question for lack of data. At the moment, however, they, like the proprietor and Sergeant MacVicar, were more concerned with the dire tale told by the now partly erased bloodstains.

“What puzzles me,” said Clorinda, “is why that gangster should have rushed in here and then rushed straight out again.”

“He did not rush straight in and rush straight out.” Sergeant MacVicar was, as well he should have been, a stickler for accuracy in observation. “Judging from the trail he left, he rushed in and circled around yon island display of baby yarn in the center of the room in a counterclockwise direction, passing the service counter on his way out.”

“He was probably looking for me,” said Miss Jane.

“He couldn’t have been,” said Arethusa. “He rushed right past you both coming and going.”

“But that was most likely because he didn’t realize who she was,” Clorinda pointed out. “How could he, when he’d never been in the shop before? Had he, Miss Jane?”