Beyond the Old Plank Bridge the route became winding and hilly, and I slowed to a cautious sixty-five, thinking about this woman who was depending on me tonight. Poor Mrs. Cobb had survived more than her share of tragedies. A few years ago, when I lived Down Below and wrote for the Daily Fluxion, she was my landlady. I rented a furnished room over her antique shop in a blighted part of the city. After the murder of her husband she sold the shop and moved to Pickax, where she applied her expertise to museum work. Now she was resident manager of the Goodwinter Farmhouse Museum, living in one wing of the historic building.
It was not surprising that she phoned me in her desperation. We were good friends, although in a formal sort of way, always addressing each other as "Mrs. Cobb" and "Mr. Q." I suspected that she would like a closer relationship, but she was not my type. I admired her as a businesswoman and an expert on antiques, but she played the clinging vine where men were concerned, and it could be cloying. She also played the witch in the kitchen. I'll admit to being a pushover for her pot roast and coconut cake, and the Siamese would commit murder for her meatloaf.
So here I was, speeding out to North Middle Hummock in my pajamas to rescue a helpless female in distress. For a brief moment it crossed my mind that her agonized phone call might be a ploy to get me out there in the middle of the night. Ever since inheriting all that damned Klingenschoen money I've been wary of friendly females. And ever since Mrs. Cobb arrived in Pickax with her vanload of cookbooks and her worshipful attitude, I've been on my guard. I enjoy a good meal and have always considered her a great cook, but she wore too much pink and too many ruffles - not to mention those eyeglasses with rhinestone-studded frames. Besides, I was involved with Polly Duncan, who was intelligent, cultivated, stimulating, loving... and jealous.
Hunting for North Middle Hummock in the dark was literally going-it-blind. It had been a thriving community in the old days when the mines were operating, but economic disaster after World War I had reduced it to a ghost town, a pile of rubble overgrown with weeds and totally invisible on a moonless night. With no streetlights and no visible landmarks, all trees and bushes looked alike. Finally my headlights picked out the white rail fence of the Fugtree farm, and I gave three cheers for white paint. After another dark stretch there was a white-painted cottage with a flickering light in the window; someone was watching TV. The cottage marked the entrance to Black Creek Lane, and the lane dead-ended at the Goodwinter place. I felt a flood of relief.
Mrs. Cobb had inherited the historic Goodwinter farmhouse from Herb Hackpole, her third husband, after a shockingly brief marriage. She immediately sold it to the Historical Society for use as a museum - sold it for one dollar! She was that kind of person, good-hearted and incredibly generous.
As I drove down the gravel lane I noticed that the Goodwinter farmyard, which should have been floodlighted, was in darkness. So was the house. Power failures are common in Moose County... and yet, I remembered seeing lights ,in the Fugtree farmhouse, and someone was watching TV in the cottage up at the comer. I felt a tingling sensation on my upper lip.
Driving around to the west side of the sprawling farmhouse, I parked with the headlights beamed on the entrance to the manager's apartment and took a flashlight from the glove compartment. First I banged the brass knocker, and when there was no answer I tried the door and was not surprised to find it unlocked. That's customary in Moose County. Flashing my light around the entrance hall I found a wall switch and flipped it experimentally, still thinking the power might be cut off. Unexpectedly the hall fixture responded - and on went four electric candles in an iron chandelier.
"Mrs. Cobb!" I called. "It's Qwilleran!"
There was no answer, nor was there any knocking or rattling or moaning. Certainly no screaming. In fact, the rooms were disturbingly silent. An archway at the left led to the parlor, and its antique furnishings were illuminated as soon as I found the wall switch. Why, I asked myself, had this frightened woman turned out all the lights? The roots of my moustache were sending me anxiety signals: Sometimes I wish it were less sensitive.
Across the hall the bedroom door was standing open, and there was an overnight case on the bed, partly packed. The bathroom door was closed. "Mrs. Cobb!" I called again. Somewhat reluctantly I opened the bathroom door and steeled myself to look in the stall shower.
Still calling her name, I continued down the hall to the old-fashioned kitchen with its fireplace and big dining table and pine cabinets. I flipped on the lights, and in that instant my instincts told me what I would find. There was a milk carton on the kitchen counter, and on the floor was a sprawled figure in a pink skirt and pink sweater, the eyes staring, the round face painfully contorted. There were no signs of life.
-2-
WHEN QWILLERAN DISCOVERED Mrs. Cobb's lifeless body he reacted with more sorrow than shock. He had sensed the worst as soon as he turned down Black Creek Lane and found the premises in darkness. Now, looking down at the pink-clad figure - pink to the very end! - he pounded his moustache with his fist, pounded it in sadness mixed with anger. It was unthinkable that this good woman should slip away in the prime of life, at the apex of her career, at the height of her joy. She had won the admiration of the community; her last husband had left her well-off; and at the age of fifty-five she was a grandmother for the first time. But then, he reminded himself, Fate had never been known for its good timing.
Finding the kitchen telephone, he punched the police emergency number and reported the incident without emotion, stating all the necessary details. The phone stood on a relic from an old schoolhouse: a cast-iron base supporting a wooden seat and a boxlike desk with lift-up top. The writing surface was grooved for pens and pencils and inkwell, and it was carved with generations of initials. Also on the desk was an alphabetized notebook containing phone numbers; it was open to E. Qwilleran called Susan Exbridge in Indian Village, and she answered on the first ring.
"Susan, this is Qwill," he said somberly. "Did Iris call you a short time ago?"
"Yes, the poor thing was frightened out of her wits for some reason or other. She was almost incoherent, but I gathered that you're bringing her over here to spend the night. I've just put pink sheets on the guestbed."
"That was the plan. I'm at the farmhouse now. She won't be able to make it."
"Why? What happened, Qwill?"
"I found her on the kitchen floor. Not breathing. No pulse. I've called the police."
Susan wailed into the phone. "How terrible! How perfectly awful! What will we do without her? I'm devastated!"
She had a tendency to be dramatic and a personal reason to feel bereft. The two women were partners in a new enterprise in downtown Pickax, and the gold lettering had just been painted on the shop window: Exbridge & Cobb, Fine Antiques. The formal opening was scheduled for Saturday.
Qwilleran said, "We'll talk tomorrow, Susan. The sheriff will be here momentarily."
"Is there anything I can do?"
"Get some rest and prepare for a busy day tomorrow. I'm calling Larry, and I'm sure he'll need your help with arrangements."
Larry Lanspeak was president of the Historical Society and chairperson of the Goodwinter Farmhouse Museum as well as owner of the local department store. As merchant, civic leader, and talented actor in the Pickax Theatre Club he brought boundless energy to everything he undertook. Qwilleran put in a call to the Lanspeak country house in fashionable West Middle Hummock, and, although it was almost two o'clock, Larry answered the phone as briskly as he would in midday.