The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig

against Mr. Architrave.
    As for those black-banded arrows, anyone could buy a couple of new ones, maybe at that big sporting goods store in Scottsbeck where a person wouldn’t be known and remembered, and paint on that theatrically ominous decoration. A person might choose a wide black band not for its histrionic eye appeal but because the person knew none of his or her friends, neighbors, casual acquaintances, or even archenemies used such an identifying mark. This would indicate a noble desire not to incriminate anybody, but it would inevitably brand John Architrave’s death as premeditated murder.
    And who could whip up a tastier bouillabaisse of violent demise and romantic high-mindedness than Arethusa Monk? And who else lived in such a tenuous balance between Lobelia Falls and Never-Never Land?
    And who else was giving the Henbit Secretarial Service enough business to pay the taxes and buy Ethel’s dog biscuit?
    Surely not even Arethusa would hatch a deliberate plot to kill an old man just because he’d destroyed those magnificent plantings her great-grandmother had started with roots brought all the way from the ancestral mansion in Upper Brighton, New Brunswick, and destroyed some five thousand dollars’ worth of mahogany paneling and a complete first edition of the Bobbsey Twins series that Arethusa had been collecting since her seventh birthday and might be said to have been the prime factor in molding the literary style that had brought her fame and fortune.
    Would she?
    Oblivious of Dittany’s gloomy ponderings, Arethusa tossed her elegant cloak over a chair and plunked herself down at the kitchen table. “Have at thee, varlet. Stand and deliver. Figuratively speaking, of course. You may sit if you wish.”
    “You’re all heart, Arethusa.” Dittany hesitated. But what was the point? Arethusa, though spotty in her attendance owing to sudden visitations of the literary muse, was a Grub-and-Staker in good standing and therefore sure to get the story from somebody or other anyway. “Just give me time to get us a drink. I’ve already told this stuff until my throat’s beginning to feel as if it’s lined with emery paper.”
    “And precisely whom have you told? No writers, I trust?”
    “No, just Hazel Munson, Samantha Burberry, Zilla Trott, and Minerva Oakes so far.”
    “And, prithee, what do you mean so far, you fink? Or should it be finkess?”
    “Arethusa, could you do me a very great favor and shut up for a minute?”
    For a wonder, Arethusa did. If she wasn’t hearing the tale for the first time, she was certainly putting on an impressive act. Her eyes, wide and lustrous like Lady Ermintrude’s, grew wider and more lustrous with every syllable. As Dittany completed her by now well-rehearsed narrative, she drew a sigh of total rapture.
    “I couldn’t have thought of a better one myself!”
    “Will you please try to get it through your romance-riddled cerebellum that this is real?” cried Dittany in exasperation. “Mr.
    Architrave’s dead and we can’t do anything about that, but if we don’t manage to elect Samantha Burberry to the Development Commission, then Andy McNasty’s going to swipe the Enchanted Mountain out from under our very noses and turn it into a housing development. I heard him say so with my own ears!”
    “Whose else would you use?” said Arethusa with one of those flashes of common sense that occasionally visited her. “And you tell me yon verbose varlet Sam Wallaby is McNaster’s catspaw, right?”
    “Yes, and this very bilge we’re drinking came from his scabrous den of iniquity,” snarled Dittany, rising to hurl what was left of the sherry down the sink.
    Arethusa stayed her hand. “Hold it. No fair laying a guilt trip on the poor, innocent grapes. Think of the honest peasant toes that squashed them.”
    “Thanks, I’d rather not. Anyway I expect there’s some sort of advanced grape-squashing technology by now. How did we get switched over to grapes,