A Crossworder's Delight by Nero Blanc

his new plan to her, finishing by saying, “Get some sleep. We’ll make our move at four A.M. And don’t turn turtle on me; I can’t do this without your help.”

Thirteen
    A T 8:29 the following morning, a yelp erupted from the inn’s front parlor. The cry was followed by the crash and clatter of a cup and saucer falling to the floor, and the hurried footsteps of Morgan Marz running to the scene. In his hands were a stack of Sunday newspapers, which had arrived later than usual since there was now well over a foot of snow outside.
    â€œIt’s back!” Mrs. Towbler burbled in her “Ox-Bridge” accent. “Or … well, I assume that’s your famous poem hanging there.”
    Morgan only stared at the wall above the desk, while Mitchell entered the room followed immediately by Joy Allman, who was carrying a basket of freshly baked muffins.
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell us?” Morgan asked her. “You know how concerned we’ve been.”
    â€œTell you about what?” Joy serenely placed the hot muffins on a heating tray on the sideboard and then bent to pick up broken pieces of china. “Butterfingers, the lot of them,” she grumbled, but softly enough so that Mrs. Towbler didn’t hear.
    â€œThat the Longfellow was back!”
    Joy straightened up slowly. She wasn’t young, but neither was she old enough to have as stiff and sore a body as she now made a show of unbending. “Well, so it is,” she announced when she’d achieved her full height. “What do you know about that!” Despite the enthusiastic words, she sounded more jaded than surprised.
    â€œAnd decorated for the hols,” Mrs. Towbler continued to babble brightly as she walked across the room to examine the framed poem, which was indeed now hung with tinsel and twinkling lights. “You clever, clever boys! This was a ruse to keep us snowbound folk entertained, wasn’t it? Like one of those mystery weekends one reads about: a charming old inn, an unsolved crime, sinister shenanigans, creepy creaks on the staircase, and so forth.… I assume your Mr. Polycrates and that rather oafish policeman were actors hired to help move the plot along. They certainly did provide the necessary probing queries and clandestine, lowering of brows.… Is the little boy an actor, too … the one with the alien name? He should go far, that child … with all the kiddie movies Hollywood produces nowadays. He has a rather nice, if precocious, appeal.”
    At that moment, E.T. appeared, the earflaps on his hat flipped upward, lending him the appearance of a curious and determined puppy. He cast a quick, suspicious glance toward Joy Allman, and a more covert but equally leery one at Morgan, then walked purposefully toward the poem, staring at it long and hard.
    â€œOh, this is too marvelous!” Mrs. Towbler’s tinkling voice gushed. “I must fetch my husband—and the others, of course. What fun! A genuine whodunit … but instead of Monsieur Poirot, we have Mr. Polycrates. Oh, my! I should have noticed the similarity yesterday—the P, the O, the R in the name of Christie’s clever sleuth being reproduced in the Greek Polycrates.… Oh, you Americans, such an inventive race!” Then she turned to greet another arriving guest. “Ah, Miss Cadburrie. Do look at the fun gift we’ve been given! The inn’s famous treasure has been miraculously reinstalled.”
    â€œWhat’s all the hullabaloo?” the Yorkes asked in unison as they also walked into the parlor.
    It was Miss Cadburrie who replied. Her tone was testy. “The Longfellow’s back.” She joined E.T., and began studying the poem with gimlet eyes—although not before she’d shot “the Brit” a superlatively nasty glance.
    â€œBut I d-d-don’t understand,” Mitchell Marz stuttered. “Who would have d-d-done this