The Luck Runs Out (4 page)

It was like playing host to the aurora borealis, Shandy thought as he brought her a Balaclava Boomerang, a local favorite compounded of home-hardened cider and homemade cherry brandy. She loved it. Iduna was ready to love everything and everybody, and it became obvious that Balaclava was going to love her.

Miss Flackley, who arrived a careful five minutes after the half-hour gowned as any faculty wife with excellent taste might be in a long-skirted shirtwaist dress of some soft brownish material with little orange flowers oh it, knew all about Bjorklund Buggy Whips. It would have been hard to say which of the lady guests was more delighted with the other.

Professor Stott was clearly charmed by them both. As he purposefully masticated Helen’s excellent dinner, emitting gentle grunts and whoofles of satisfaction, he kept moving his massive head slowly from side to side in happy contemplation of his fair tablemates. He beamed goodwill and bonhomie as he accepted a third helping of mashed potatoes from the rose-tipped fingers of Miss Bjorklund, the gravy boat from the utilitarian but well-groomed hand of Miss Flackley.

When he had eaten the table bare, he paid the supreme compliment of staying awake and regaling them with anecdotes of swine he had known. In contrast to the recent fiasco, this party was a triumph. Shandy was almost but not quite sorry when Professor Stott offered to escort Miss Flackley to her van, Iduna retired to the guest room, and he had Helen to himself.

“Don’t you think Iduna’s a darling?” said his wife as she slipped into bed.

“She’s all that and then some,” Shandy agreed, yawning. “Several darlings rolled into one. What do you think a runt like Tim could ever do with a woman that size?”

“Love will find out the way. Good night, dearest. Thank you for my beautiful silver.”

There were a lot of things Shandy would have liked to say then, but he was too tired. Throwing an arm over Helen, he went to sleep, and so did she.

They were accustomed to early rising, but it did seem a trifle excessive when somebody came thumping on their brass knocker at half-past four the next morning. Muttering a curse, Shandy grabbed his bathrobe and rushed to get down there and slaughter whoever was making that infernal racket, before Helen and their guest woke up in a panic.

He hurled open the door, amazed to confront Professor Stott, but such a Stott as he had never seen before. Stott was frantic. He grabbed Shandy by the bathrobe, shook him till he could hardly breathe, and gasped, “She’s gone!”

Naturally, Shandy’s first thought was of Helen. “No, no, Stott. We got her back all right. She’s upstairs asleep.”

“No, I’m not,” said his wife behind him. “What’s wrong, Professor Stott? Who’s gone?”

“Belinda!” he wailed.

“Belinda? You mean your pig?”

“I mean Belinda of Balaclava,” he almost sobbed. “My prize sow, the fruit of thirty years’ selective breeding, the sow on whom I have pinned my hopes of the Perfect Piglet. She’s gone!”

“You mean she’s run away?”

“Of course she hasn’t run away. Why would she run away? She had the world at her hooves. Anyway, how could she run? She weighs eight hundred fifty-three pounds and is due to farrow in three weeks. She’s been kidnapped!”

“How do you know?” Shandy managed to interject.

“I received a mysterious telephone call. It aroused me from my slumbers. That would not normally be an easy thing to do.”

Stott was beginning to recover some of his wonted dignity. “Perhaps I was occultly attuned to the distress which Belinda must naturally be feeling at the hands of her perfidious captors, and was sleeping less soundly than usual. In any event, I picked up the instrument and was addressed in a sinister hiss.”

“A sinister hiss?”

“I cannot otherwise describe the sound. It hissed, Professor Stott, go look on your doormat. That, as you will grant, was an odd sort of message to receive at an early hour of the morning. I requested elucidation but got no reply. At last it dawned on me that the connection had been broken. I cogitated for some time, then concluded that this must be some student prank.

“Since I am not insensitive to the japeries of youth, I proceeded to open the door, expecting to find there some article of a frivolous nature, and to hear snickers from the surrounding shrubberies. I heard only the soughing of wind through the boughs and the dismal hoot of some far-off owl, either
Bubo virginianus
or
Strix varia.
I am unable to state which. I am wholly overwrought. It may even have been
Strix nebulosa nebulosa.”

Stott lapsed into silent dejection, or possibly slumber. Shandy prodded him.

“What did you find on the doormat?”

“This!”

From his cavernous pocket, Stott hauled a glass jar and held it out, label foremost. The caption read, “Pickled Pigs’ Feet.”

“The inference, I confess, did not immediately strike me. After further cogitation, however, I found the vague malaise which had seized me upon first hearing that sinister hiss was becoming intensified, to the point that I donned rough garments and went to reassure myself that all was well at the pigpens. To my horror, I found Belinda’s gate wide open; and—” Stott collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “Forgive me. I am overcome.”

“Land’s sakes, who wouldn’t be?”

Like a cumulus cloud on a windy summer’s day, Iduna Bjorklund had wafted her bulk silently down the stairs and into the gathering. “What you need is a cup of coffee. Come with me.”

She took the sufferer firmly by the hand and led him kitchenward. Shandy and his wife exchanged glances. After all, it was their house and their coffee, so they went, too. A few minutes later the four of them were seated around the kitchen table with mugs and plates in front of them. Half a dozen doughnuts did much to restore Professor Stott’s wonted composure. He was able to continue his narrative.

“I searched the surrounding area, to no avail. Hampered though I was by darkness and the fact that I had forgotten to put on my spectacles, I could not have missed seeing Belinda.”

“She’d have come to you,” said Iduna. “A sow knows who her friends are.”

“Yes,” said Stott, “I believe she would. When she did not, I faced the inevitable conclusion. Belinda has been a victim of another such terrorist attack as Mrs. Shandy was so regrettably exposed to yesterday. The pigs’ feet were meant as a threat.”

“Oh no!”

Iduna’s hand fluttered to the ruffles at the neck of her baby-blue peignoir. The garment was the size of an umbrella tent and could not have been more bewitching.

“There was only one thing to do,” Stott went on, “and I did it. I went and roused President Svenson.”

“At this hour?” gasped Shandy. “You’re a brave man, Stott.”

“Desperate situations require desperate measures. He, I regret to say, seemed inclined to treat the matter with an unbecoming levity. However, he did agree to mobilize the campus security force and institute a thorough search of the grounds. Thereupon, I deemed it wise to go back home for my eyeglasses and join the search party. As I was retracing my steps, pondering what further action might be taken without jeopardizing Belinda’s position, I thought of you and the astounding percipience you displayed during the remarkable series of incidents at Illumination time.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t call it astounding percipience,” Shandy demurred modestly.

“I should,” cried Helen. “So, in short, Professor Stott, you want my husband to find out who kidnapped your pig?”

The head of animal husbandry gazed in admiration at the assistant librarian who had so swiftly divined his purpose. “That is my fervent hope. To call in the police at this juncture might be to seal Belinda’s doom. Still, a man can’t sit and do nothing. Surely you must understand that, Shandy!”

Shandy understood only too well. If Stott was experiencing even a tiny fraction of the agony he himself had gone through yesterday waiting to find out whether Helen would turn up alive or dead, how could any human being decline his plea? Stott, like himself, was dedicated to his research. Knowing how it felt to have a flat of tenderly nursed seedlings damp off, he could imagine how Stott must be feeling with a specimen the size of Belinda in jeopardy.

Even if this did turn out to be only the students annual spring madness, nobody would find the joke so hilarious should the prized sow deliver her brood prematurely, then turn on the piglets and eat them, as sows had been known to do under conditions of extreme stress. What could he say except, “I’ll do what I can”?

S
TOTT WAS WRINGING HIS
hands, Helen was patting him on the shoulder, and Iduna was pouring them all another cup of coffee to keep their strength up when the telephone rang.

“I’ll take it,” said Shandy.

If he was to be a man of action, he might as well start now. It was probably their next-door neighbor, Mirelle Feldster, wanting to know why the lights were on so early. Mirelle wasn’t one to let a tidbit of news go unearthed.

No, it was not Mirelle. It was apparently somebody trying to be funny. The words came out in what might indeed have been described as a sinister hiss.

“Is Professor Stott there?”

“Yes,” said Shandy testily. “Speak up, I can’t hear you very well.”

“Tell him to look on the doormat.”

That was all. He slammed down the receiver. Helen said, “What was it, Peter?”

“Somebody wanting Stott to look on the doormat.”

“Oh dear! Not more pigs’ feet? Peter, I don’t think this is one bit amusing.”

“Neither do I.”

Shandy opened the front door. A white paper parcel not more than six inches long and four inches wide was lying on the stoop. He picked it up and brought it inside.

“Looks like a package of meat.”

“Then don’t open it here,” said Helen. “Take it out to the sink in case it drips.”

“What if it’s a bomb?”

“All the more reason not to mess up the new carpet.”

Helen took the package out of her husband’s hand and rushed it to the sink. Unhappily, she unwrapped it at the precise moment Iduna started to refill the coffeepot.

“Why, Helen,” the guest remarked, “you’re not planning to cook pork chops at this hour of the morning, are you?”

“Pork chops?”

Like a bullet from a gun, or more aptly a shell from a howitzer, Professor Stott leaped from his chair. “Where did you get that?”

“Off the doormat,” said Shandy unhappily. “Your friend called again.”

“What did he say?”

“Just asked for you and said to look on the doormat. Don’t be alarmed, Stott. That can’t be one of Belinda’s chops. It’s too thin.”

“The paper’s from the Meat-o-Mat,” said Helen, referring to a store which she and many of her neighbors often patronized. “This chop doesn’t look awfully fresh to me, and they’re usually very fussy about quality. I’d say it’s been bought a while ago and kept in its original wrapper.”

“Which means it must have been obtained for the purpose to which it was put,” Shandy mused. “Hence we may infer that this was no spur-of-the-moment pignapping. I hope whoever’s pulled this caper is in one of my classes. It would give me particular pleasure to flunk him, her, or more probably them. I’d say it was next to impossible for one person to have made off with Belinda, wouldn’t you, Stott? A gang with a flatbed truck would be more like it. I expect we’ll be able to see tire tracks as soon as it gets light enough. The police may have picked up a trail already.”

“We must hope so.”

Somewhat reassured, Professor Stott began to extricate himself from the small kitchen. “I shall go back and lend my personal effort to the search. Are you coming, Shandy?”

“Not in my bathrobe. I’ll meet you at the barns as soon as I’m dressed.”

Shandy turned toward the stairs, then paused. “I wonder how they knew you were coming here. You didn’t happen to notice anybody trailing you?”

“No. I was steeped in gloomy ratiocination. I would not be difficult to follow.”

That was true enough. Following Stott would be about as hard as tracking a hippopotamus across a tennis court. Shandy put on some warm old clothes and was back downstairs before Stott had quite decided to go on without him. The man was still making his stately farewells to Mrs. Shandy and Miss Bjorklund when the front door began to buckle from thunderous blows on the knocker. This visitor was Thorkjeld Svenson, and the President was extremely upset.

“Shandy, you’ve got to find Stott.”

“Nothing easier, President. Come in.”

“No time. Damn it, where’s Stott?”

“I am here.” The professor moved into the light. “Have you found her? Is she unharmed?”

“She’s dead. Guard found her in the mash feeder.”

“But that’s impossible! Not—good God! Not dismembered?”

“Of course not dismembered. They just doubled her up and shoved her in.”

“President, this is an ill-timed jest. The mash feeder is not more than two feet square. Belinda—”

“Who’s talking about Belinda? It was Flackley the Farrier. She’s had her throat cut with one of her own knives. It was in the feeder with her.”

“Oh no!” cried Helen. “But she was here last evening! We had her to dinner. We liked her so much.”

“Sorry.” The great man had the grace to apologize. “Shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. But, damn it, it’s a shock. Nice woman. Capable woman. Liked her myself. Sieglinde liked her. Odin and Thor liked her!”

“Even Loki liked her,” said Professor Stott in a voice of doom. “President, do you still believe my sow was kidnapped as a student prank?”

“Stott, I don’t know what to think. If this was a joke that backfired, it’s the worst thing that ever struck this college. Just tell me one thing, what the hell would Miss Flackley be doing at the pigpens in her nightgown?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Are you sure it was a nightgown?” Helen asked him.

“Of course it was a nightgown. Thin thing with a long skirt. What else would it be?”

“Was it brown with little orange flowers?” Helen persisted.

“How the hell should I know? What difference does it make?”

“A great deal, I should think,” said Shandy. “As my wife mentioned, Miss Flackley dined with us last evening. She had on the sort of long dress any woman might wear for such an occasion. If Helen says it was brown with little orange flowers on it, then it assuredly was. If she was still wearing that same dress when she was killed, we can infer that she went directly from here to the pigpens.”