can’t.” All at once, Miss Mink’s brass-plated composure had developed a serious crack. “I wasn’t here. I deserted my post. I failed them in their time of need. Oh, Lord, forgive me! Why wasn’t I taken instead?”
She flung her apron up over her face and started rocking frantically. The rocker scooted backward over the uneven wide-board floor. Shandy had to leap aside or be rocked over.
“Ottermole, is there any hot water in that kettle? Miss Mink could use a cup of tea to steady her nerves.”
“I don’t deserve any tea,” Miss Mink moaned from under her apron. “I’m a wicked sinner.”
“Aw, heck,” said Ottermole, “it ain’t that bad. Here, take a swallow of this.”
The housekeeper rubbed viciously at her face with the apron, let it fall, and glared at the sloppy mug Ottermole was holding out to her with the teabag’s little cardboard tag floating on top. “How am I to know it isn’t poisoned?”
“What do you care?” the chief retorted. “You just said why wasn’t it you instead of them? Anyway, how could carbon tetrachloride get into a teabag?”
“It might be in the water.”
“No chance. The water was boiling. Carbon tet would o’ turned into phosgene gas an’ leaked out the spout.”
“Good gad, Ottermole, I didn’t know that,” said Shandy. “Where did you pick up such esoteric knowledge?”
“I called up Professor Joad in the chemistry department. See, I figured they’d keep a kettle boilin’ on the wood stove, so I thought I’d better check it out.” There were, as Edna Mae had been trying for years to convince her relatives, no flies on Fred Ottermole.
Thus reassured, Miss Mink essayed a sip of the tea. “Humph,” she complained, “you might have put a little milk and sugar in it.”
Meekly, Chief Ottermole fetched the sugar bowl off the kitchen table and the milk from the circa 1954 Frigidaire. The larder was well stocked, Shandy noticed. Probably Grace and Persephone had brought groceries with them. He waited until Miss Mink had got her tea doctored to her liking and downed about half the mugful, then risked another question.
“Would you mind telling us where you went last night?”
Miss Mink finished her tea, carried the mug to the sink, rinsed it under the faucet, set it in the dish drainer to dry, walked back, and sat down in the rocking chair with her face turned toward the stove. “I was at the bingo,” she muttered.
“Thus do our sins find us out,” Shandy murmured. “Ah yes, the bingo. Where was it being held, Miss Mink?”
“Over at Fourth Fork.”
“They got a kind of community hall over there,” Ottermole explained to Shandy. “It used to be a schoolhouse till they started busin’ the kids over to the center. How’d you get there, Miss Mink?”
“I was driven.”
“Who by?”
“One of the neighbors.” She flapped her apron as if she were trying to shoo her bothersome visitors away. “Well, I have to get out of here sometimes, don’t I? Cooped up in this poky house day after day, night after night, waiting on the pair of them hand and foot with never a letup.”
“Aw, come on, Min. You had them Bugginses right where you wanted ’em. An’ don’t think we all didn’t know it.”
The speaker was the lady in red, blowing in out of the night, her hair a shade frowsier, her general aspect if possible more bedraggled. Instead of the windbreaker, she had on a fake-fur coat. Imitation wombat, Shandy thought. He wondered if she’d salvaged the garment from some long-distance truck driver who’d been in the habit of using it to wipe the stains of travel off his sixteen-wheeler.
“I didn’t hear you knock” was Miss Mink’s icy greeting.
“The door was open.”
“It was not.”
“Okay, then, but it wasn’t latched tight. I brung you a bunch o’ magazines to while away the time. Don’t I even rate a thanks?”
“I have no time to fritter away on your kind of reading matter. “
“Still sore ’cause you
She flung her apron up over her face and started rocking frantically. The rocker scooted backward over the uneven wide-board floor. Shandy had to leap aside or be rocked over.
“Ottermole, is there any hot water in that kettle? Miss Mink could use a cup of tea to steady her nerves.”
“I don’t deserve any tea,” Miss Mink moaned from under her apron. “I’m a wicked sinner.”
“Aw, heck,” said Ottermole, “it ain’t that bad. Here, take a swallow of this.”
The housekeeper rubbed viciously at her face with the apron, let it fall, and glared at the sloppy mug Ottermole was holding out to her with the teabag’s little cardboard tag floating on top. “How am I to know it isn’t poisoned?”
“What do you care?” the chief retorted. “You just said why wasn’t it you instead of them? Anyway, how could carbon tetrachloride get into a teabag?”
“It might be in the water.”
“No chance. The water was boiling. Carbon tet would o’ turned into phosgene gas an’ leaked out the spout.”
“Good gad, Ottermole, I didn’t know that,” said Shandy. “Where did you pick up such esoteric knowledge?”
“I called up Professor Joad in the chemistry department. See, I figured they’d keep a kettle boilin’ on the wood stove, so I thought I’d better check it out.” There were, as Edna Mae had been trying for years to convince her relatives, no flies on Fred Ottermole.
Thus reassured, Miss Mink essayed a sip of the tea. “Humph,” she complained, “you might have put a little milk and sugar in it.”
Meekly, Chief Ottermole fetched the sugar bowl off the kitchen table and the milk from the circa 1954 Frigidaire. The larder was well stocked, Shandy noticed. Probably Grace and Persephone had brought groceries with them. He waited until Miss Mink had got her tea doctored to her liking and downed about half the mugful, then risked another question.
“Would you mind telling us where you went last night?”
Miss Mink finished her tea, carried the mug to the sink, rinsed it under the faucet, set it in the dish drainer to dry, walked back, and sat down in the rocking chair with her face turned toward the stove. “I was at the bingo,” she muttered.
“Thus do our sins find us out,” Shandy murmured. “Ah yes, the bingo. Where was it being held, Miss Mink?”
“Over at Fourth Fork.”
“They got a kind of community hall over there,” Ottermole explained to Shandy. “It used to be a schoolhouse till they started busin’ the kids over to the center. How’d you get there, Miss Mink?”
“I was driven.”
“Who by?”
“One of the neighbors.” She flapped her apron as if she were trying to shoo her bothersome visitors away. “Well, I have to get out of here sometimes, don’t I? Cooped up in this poky house day after day, night after night, waiting on the pair of them hand and foot with never a letup.”
“Aw, come on, Min. You had them Bugginses right where you wanted ’em. An’ don’t think we all didn’t know it.”
The speaker was the lady in red, blowing in out of the night, her hair a shade frowsier, her general aspect if possible more bedraggled. Instead of the windbreaker, she had on a fake-fur coat. Imitation wombat, Shandy thought. He wondered if she’d salvaged the garment from some long-distance truck driver who’d been in the habit of using it to wipe the stains of travel off his sixteen-wheeler.
“I didn’t hear you knock” was Miss Mink’s icy greeting.
“The door was open.”
“It was not.”
“Okay, then, but it wasn’t latched tight. I brung you a bunch o’ magazines to while away the time. Don’t I even rate a thanks?”
“I have no time to fritter away on your kind of reading matter. “
“Still sore ’cause you
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