The Luck Runs Out (21 page)

Mirelle had been standing close to Stott during the final rites at the grave. She must know about the sunflower seeds that had been found in Miss Flackley’s abandoned van. Stott himself might have mentioned the curious little circumstance to his colleague, and Jim had passed it on to Mirelle simply because it seemed so unimportant. Shandy knew that Jim often did ramble on to his wife about trivia so that she wouldn’t be continually accusing him of never letting her in on the latest faculty gossip.

Mirelle probably had sunflower seeds in the house. Everybody around the Crescent fed birds. She’d be asinine enough to think she’d be furthering Jim’s career by cramming a handful into Stott’s pocket, and she was nosy enough to have noticed that Stott did keep a clean handkerchief there. If he hadn’t produced the linen at the right moment, she could always have pretended she’d forgotten her own and asked to borrow his.

Remembering the way she’d come spouting venom all over his own living room night before last, Shandy thought it not at all impossible that Mirelle would progress from malicious gossip to malicious action if the effort were not too great and she thought she could get away with it. He wondered if it was possible to fingerprint sunflower seeds. Most likely she’d been wearing gloves. Helen or Iduna might know.

He quickened his pace toward home, but snarled as he came in sight of the Crescent and spied the borrowed college van all but blocking the narrow roadway in front of the brick house. Frank Flackley was there again, looking for sympathy and various other things, no doubt. Why wasn’t he out shoeing a horse? Why wasn’t he back at Forgery Point, brooding over the family album? Why wasn’t he anywhere but here?

If Flackley sensed that he was unwelcome, he certainly didn’t show it. Clutching a half-empty glass of beer, he made a token gesture at rising from Shandy’s favorite chair.

“Howdy, Professor.”

“Er—howdy,” Shandy replied. “Sorry to be so late, Helen. I was—er—detained. I gather you’re taking the day off, Flackley?”

“Nope, just hiding out,” the farrier replied affably. “I dunno’s you noticed, Professor, but I met me a hungry woman back there at the funeral. I don’t mind bein’ friendly, but there’s limits to what a man’s nose can stand. Bein’ around a rodeo ain’t no bunch of violets, but you don’t generally have to put up with sittin’ next to somebody that smells like a pay toilet in a bus station, if the ladies’ll excuse my language. I give her and the old geezer a ride home because he looked like he needed one, but when she says to me, ‘Come in for coffee,’ I says, ‘Sorry, I got urgent business elsewhere.’ ”

He took a rather self-satisfied pull at his drink. “So then I seen Miz Shandy and Miss Iduna here comin’ up the walk and I figured they wouldn’t be hardhearted enough to turn away a poor orphan boy. Goulson sure gave Aunt Martha a royal send-off, didn’t he? I told him I’d do a little tinkerin’ on that old hearse of his to make up. Don’t know as you noticed, but she’s gettin’ kind of weak in the joints.”

“No, I didn’t notice,” said Shandy. “I’d have said the hearse was in excellent condition.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t been around wagons like I have,” Flackley replied. “That was part of my job when I worked for Rudy. Of course we didn’t travel by wagon, but we had a couple we used in the show. You know, the Old-Timer rattlin’ along in the chuck wagon with pots and pans whangin’ and bangin’, stuff like that. Them wagons took an awful beatin’. Many’s the night I’ve worked, straight through, forgin’ new parts and I don’t know what all, so’s we’d be ready to roll for the next day’s show. Then like as not I’d have to daub flour on my hair and beard an’ play the Old-Timer because the guy that was s’posed to drive the wagon was off on a toot. That’s how come I grew this bush. Never knew when Rudy was goin’ to need some hairy-faced ol’ desert rat in a hurry, an’ it was easier than havin’ to glue one on.”

“You’re a man of many parts, Flackley,” said his host somewhat dryly.

“Yeah, well, that’s show biz, like they say. Now that I’m settlin’ down an’ turnin’ respectable, I been kind o’ wonderin’ whether I ought to get me a shave. What do you think, Miss Iduna?”

The comely blonde looked at Flackley, to Shandy’s secret joy, as if she couldn’t remember who he was.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t think of anything but poor Professor Stott. You don’t suppose that policeman would be foolish enough to arrest him, do you?”

“I thought they already had,” said the farrier petulantly. “Took him away in the cruiser, didn’t they?”

“That was just for questioning,” Shandy insisted. “Routine procedure.”

“Darn funny they’d pull their routine in the middle of Aunt Martha’s funeral.”

Flackley set down his empty glass and rose. “Well, folks, it’s sure been nice talkin’ to you. Thanks for the beer. Don’t s’pose you got a wagon that needs fixin’, but if there’s any odd jobs you’d like done around the house, just let me know. I’d like to do somethin’ to pay you back after all you done for me.”

“Er—thank you,” said Shandy. “Well—er—bear your offer in mind. I expect you’ll be extremely busy for a while, however, catching up on back work, and so on.”

“Don’t look that way. Aunt Martha seems to have got pretty well caught up before she was killed. I guess on account of this here little show you folks are havin’ everybody wanted their horses shod in advance. I got nothin’ scheduled for the next few days except a few odds an’ ends. That’s why I thought I’d work on Mr. Goulson’s hearse tomorrow, to keep myself busy an’ get the feel of the old forge. You folks take a run out. I’ll buy the beer.”

“Thanks, we may do that.”

Shandy got the unwanted guest outside and refrained by a valiant effort of will from slamming the door behind him. Then he returned to the women.

“Has there been any word about Stott?”

“Not yet,” Helen told him. “Peter, we’re worried sick.”

“We’ve been wondering,” Iduna ventured with unaccustomed diffidence, “if they’d let us go and see him. Maybe take him a few doughnuts or something to hearten him up.”

“Oh, I doubt if they’ll detain him long,” said Shandy. “Those sunflower seeds in his pocket were an obvious plant, and I have a sneaky hunch who planted them, and why. Furthermore, they were a waste of time, because that lot found in the van had nothing to do with the murder. Lieutenant Corbin probably has the whole story by now, but I think I’ll see if I can get hold of him and make sure. By the way, you may be interested to know that our band of Vigilant Vegetarians will soon be reduced by one member, and that Birgit Svenson is out storming the barricades again.”

“Well, well,” said Helen. “So that’s the way the tofu crumbles? Do hurry and telephone Lieutenant Corbin, Peter. I simply can’t bear to think of Professor Stott’s being subjected to such a ridiculous humiliation.”

“Me, neither,” Iduna added with such feeling that Shandy looked at her in wonderment before he went to make the call.

The telephone was in his minuscule office. From force of habit, he sat down at his desk to use the instrument, noting with a surprising lack of interest that he’d forgotten to water a flat of seedlings he’d started under the Gro-lite in there, and that they were looking rather sick. He came out of the office looking far sicker than his seedlings.

“They know about the sunflower seeds, and they’re discounting them as evidence,” he told the women. “Unfortunately, while they were examining his overcoat, they found a few small bloodstains around the pocket.”

“Oh, my stars!” cried Iduna. “But couldn’t they be—mightn’t he have cut his finger, or—”

Shandy shook his head. “Stott’s blood type is AB. The stains are type O.”

“But O is the commonest type there is,” Helen sputtered. “Half the people in the world are type O.”

“True, and Miss Flackley happened to be among the majority.”

“But—but wasn’t he wearing a different coat that night?”

“Helen, how many good dark overcoats do I possess?”

“One,” she mumbled.

“And how many would you assume any man on this faculty owns? Stott’s no fashion plate, any more than the rest of us. Besides, he’s already admitted it’s the same coat, though he is totally at a loss as to how the bloodstains got on it. End of quote.”

“Well, I’d explain it fast enough if I were that cop,” Iduna blazed. “I’d hunt up every last person who was at that funeral and see which of them is wearing a Band-Aid on his hand. Stands to reason the person who bled on his coat’s the same one who crammed those sunflower seeds into his pocket, doesn’t it? Where’s that Lieutenant Corbin’s phone number, Peter? I’ll soon give him a piece of my mind. A fine, upstanding man like Professor Stott!”

The Shandys regarded each other thoughtfully. At last Peter shook his head.

“Frankly, Iduna, I don’t think that’s a terribly good idea. I don’t mean about the Band-Aid. I think you have an excellent point there, and I’ll be happy to pass your suggestion along to the state police myself. The problem is, there’s already been—er—talk about Stott and Miss Flackley, and while we know it’s totally unfounded, there might be—er—conjectures if you were to enter the lists as his champion. Especially if you went over there lugging him doughnuts. Right now, you can best help Stott by lying low and keeping dark.”

Miss Bjorklund tossed her curls angrily. “Fine doings, I must say, when a person can’t—can’t even—” Her face crumpled, and she began to cry.

Helen stood on tiptoe to put her arms around as much of her friend as she could encompass. “Iduna, please don’t take it so hard. Peter will get him out. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.”

Shandy cleared his throat, wishing he could produce words that would stem that Niagara of tears. All he could think of was, “Now, now. I know it’s tough on you,” though why it should be tougher on her than on the rest of them was more than he could comprehend.

“I’m sorry if I was tactless, but, Iduna, you must realize that you’re a fine figure of a woman and Stott hasn’t been exactly blind to that fact. The police must have seen you two together at the funeral.” How could they have missed?

“He—he said I was the star that illumined his dark night of tribulation,” she sniffled. “How the heck am I supposed to illumine if I can’t so much as slap him together a couple of sandwiches?”

“Can’t you—er—shine from afar? It won’t be for long, Iduna, I promise you.”

“How Shandy intended to keep that promise, he hadn’t the remotest idea. He hoped Iduna wouldn’t press him for details. As it happened, she didn’t get a chance. At that moment, Thorkjeld Svenson entered, not bothering to knock but merely wresting the massive solid oak door loose from its hinges and tossing it into the shrubbery.

“For Yesus’ sake, come quick, Shandy,” he bellowed. “They’ve vandalized the wagon!”

“G
REAT BALLS OF FIRE
!”

Professor Shandy stared at his President in horror and dismay. Although the college possessed a number of horse-drawn conveyances, including the venerated one-horse chaise in which Balaclava Buggins himself had driven around the country lanes trying to scout up students for his about-to-be-founded Agricultural College, he knew at once which wagon Svenson meant.

It was the huge dray which from the beginning of history—Competition history, at any rate—had transported the mighty men and sometimes mightier women of Balaclava to the county fairgrounds and back. It was the wagon that, with eight gargantuan Balaclava Blacks hitched four abreast, had led each opening-day procession around the exhibition ring, with the Balaclava Boosters’ Drum and Bugle Band whanging and blatting and making a glorious racket that sent the audience into cheering frenzy. It was the wagon that every man, woman, and child in Balaclava County, not excepting the haughty Hoddersvillites and those stuck-up snobs from Lumpkin Corners, waited all year long to see.

Cripes, thought Shandy, no wonder the President had ripped off that front door with his bare hands. Under these circumstances, it was the natural and reasonable thing to do. Pausing only to grab his mackinaw and suggest that. Helen get hold of a carpenter from Buildings and Grounds before she and Iduna froze to death, he set off for the wagon barns at a speed he hadn’t shown since the summer of 1961, when an Aberdeen Angus bull had taken umbrage at his entering the pasture in a plaid flannel shirt of the wrong clan tartan.

The wagon was an appalling sight. One wheel was off. The poles were on the floor, their couplings smashed to bits. Around them lay several of the beer kegs that served for band seats, their staves kicked in and their iron hoops bent as by blows from a sledgehammer.

Shandy, who knew a great deal more about wagons than Flackley had given him credit for, took careful inventory. The damage was somewhat less catastrophic than it had looked at first glance, but cunningly contrived to be the sort that no college maintenance man could hope to put right.

Svenson picked up one of the damaged oaken kegs, cradling it to his mammoth bosom as a mother would her baby. “Yiminy, Shandy, what are we going to do?”

“I suppose we ought to call the police,” said the professor not very enthusiastically.

“Yah, and they take away the pieces for evidence and we get ’em back maybe six years from now. Shandy, you yackass, we show up at the Competition without our wagon, everybody says the college is falling apart. We start losing students. Instead of good farmers, America gets lousy computer programmers. The fate of the nation is at stake and you say call the cops!”

“President, shut up,” Shandy replied wearily. “I didn’t say do it, I only said we ought to, which you know as well as I. As to the insanity of such a course, I couldn’t agree with you more. What we need is—by jingo, Flackley! He was up at the house not half an hour ago, spouting off about how he used to have to make emergency repairs on the rodeo wagons.”

“Yah, but was he telling the truth?”

“How the flaming perdition do I know? Either we let him try or we get hold of a medium and resurrect old Matt Flackley. He was the last one to work on it, wasn’t he?”

“Yesus, yes! Maybe they still have some spare parts up at the forge. At least Flackley should have the right tools. Find him!”