"Think nothing of it," he said loudly. "I'm a food freak. But couldn't we turn down the volume, or disconnect the speaker, or shoot the disc jockey?"
Without another word, Mildred hurried from the room; the music faded to a whimper; and she returned with a triumphant smile.
"Now," Qwilleran began, "tell me how many hundred pasties I have to sample today."
"I hate to disappoint you," she said cheerfully, "but the preliminaries have narrowed the field down to fifteen. First the crust judges eliminated about a third of the entries. I feel sorry for the cooks who got up at four o'clock this morning to bake, and were scratched in the first heat. The next group of judges checked ingredients and correct prep of the filling. No ground meat! No disallowed vegetables! We'll do the final testing for flavor and texture."
"How many judges have been nibbling at the fifteen pasties before we get them?" he asked.
Before she could reply, a tall, gangling youth shuffled into the room. He threw his arms wide and announced, "Guess what! You got me instead of chef-baby."
"Derek! What happened to Sigmund?" Mildred cried in disappointment and some annoyance. Derek, after all, was only a waiter.
"He slipped on a sun-dried tomato and sprained his ankle. The sous-chef had to take over lunch, and the prep cooks are working on dinner already, so you're stuck with everybody's favorite wait-person."
"Well, I'm sure you're a connoisseur of anything edible," she said dryly. "Let's all sit down at the table and discuss the procedure. First I'll read some guidelines. The purpose of the competition is to preserve and encourage a cultural tradition, thus forging a spiritual link with the past and celebrating an eating experience that is unique to this region of the United States."
"Who wrote that?" Derek asked. "I don't even know what it means."
"Never mind. Just taste the pasties," she said sharply.
She went on: "Entries are limited to twelve inches in length, with traditional crust and ingredients."
"What about turnips?" Qwilleran asked. "I hear the anti- turnip activists are quite vocal."
"We're awarding two blue ribbons - for pasties with and without."
"I must confess: I hate turnips" he said. "And parsnips. Always have."
"Taste objectively," Mildred advised. "A great pasty transcends its ingredients. It's an art, requiring not only culinary skill but an act of will!"
"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Derek said impatiently. "I'm starved, and I've got a four-o'clock shift."
Mildred opened the door and gave the signal, whereupon the no-turnip pasties were brought into the room. Reduced by the preliminaries to half their size, they were cut into bite-sized chunks and served to the judges, whose comments were brief and emphatic: "Too much onion... Rather dry... Good balance... Flat; needs seasoning... Too much potato... Excellent flavor." After some retasting, Number 87 was named winner in the no-turnip category.
Next came a tray of pasties identified with a T for turnip. One in particular was praised by the two male judges, but Mildred tasted it and said indignantly, "This is turkey! Dark meat of turkey! It's disqualified. How did it slip past the other judges?"
Qwilleran said, "But it deserves some kind of recognition. I detect a superior act of will in its fabrication. I wonder who baked it."
"I bet it was a guy," Derek said.
"Well, we can't accept it," Mildred said firmly. "Rules are rules when you're judging a contest. Emphasis is on tradition, and tradition calls for beef or pork."
"You can't convince me," Qwilleran said, "that the early settlers didn't make pasties with wild turkey - or venison or rabbit or muskrat or anything else they could shoot or trap."
"That may be true, but if we break the rules, all future competitions will lose significance. And do you realize what a controversy we'll have on our hands?"
Derek said, "Take a chance. Start a war."
Qwilleran had a suggestion. "Throw the superpasty out of the running, but find out who baked It and do a Special feature on him or her on some future food page."
Mildred agreed. The crisis was past, but another crisis was yet to develop. When they emerged from the judges' chamber and handed the two winning numbers to the chairperson of the bake-off, he stepped to the microphone.
"Attention, please," he announced on the public address system. "Two blue ribbon winners in the Pasty Bake-off have been selected by our esteemed judges, and each will receive a prize of one hundred dollars, but we have a slight foul-up here. In order to preserve the anonymity of contestants during the judging, their names were deposited in the safe at our accountant's office, MacWhannell & Shaw, and since their office is closed until Monday, we regret we cannot identify the winners at this time. They will be notified, however, on Monday morning, and the winning names will be announced on WPKX and in the Moose County Something."
As the judges left the exhibit building, Mildred said to Qwilleran, "Weren't you shocked by last night's murder? It was a case of armed robbery, they said. We've never had anything like that in Moose County!"
Qwilleran knew more than he wanted to disclose to the publisher's wife. He said, "The SBI is on the case, and we can assume it's a criminal element from Down Below that's responsible - not some bad boy from Chipmunk... By the way, the cats want to express their gratitude for Bird One. The carcass is getting thinner, and Koko and Yum Yum are getting fatter." That was not quite true, but it sounded good. Actually, Qwilleran monitored their in- take, believing that Siamese were intended to be sleek. Even when he gave them a crumb of cheese for a treat, it was no larger than a grape seed. Yet, they chomped and bobbed their heads and washed their whiskers and ears for ten minutes, as if it had been a
Delmonico steak.
For Qwilleran, one more Explo commitment remained: the Celebrity Auction. He dressed for the event with care. In his days as a hard-working journalist Down Below, there had been neither time nor money to waste on sartorial splendor. His new lifestyle supplied both, and the owner of Scottie's Men's Store was his mentor. For the auction, Scottie recommended a bronze, silk-blend sports coat, olive green trousers, and a silk shirt in olive, to be worn open-neck.
On the way to the high school auditorium, Qwilleran drove to Gingerbread Alley to obtain Polly's okay on his outfit. She said he looked distinguished and romantic. "Call me when it's over, no matter how late," she requested. "I won't sleep until I know who gets you."
The crowd that gathered for the auction had paid plenty for their tickets and were convinced they were going to have a good time. The auctioneer, Foxy Fred, circulated in his western hat and red jacket, whipping up their enthusiasm. His spotters, also in red jackets, handed out numbered flash cards to those intending to bid. Poster-sized photographs of the celebrities were displayed on stage, either hanging on the back wall or displayed on easels.
The celebrities themselves were assembled in the Green Room backstage, where they would be able to hear the proceedings on the P A system. Besides Qwilleran, there were the mayor, the WPKX weatherman, the town's leading photographer, and the ubiquitous Derek Cuttlebrink, plus five attractive women: the heiress from Chicago, the personable young doctor, the glamorous interior designer, the theatre club's popular ingenue, and the chic vice president of the Moose County Something.
Qwilleran said to them, "I expect Foxy Fred to hawk me as 'a gen-u-wine old news-hound in fair condition, with the patina of age and interesting distress marks.' Then the bidding will start at five dollars."
The balding John Bushland said, "You're bananas! They'll hock their teeth to bid on you, Qwill. You have more hair than all the rest of us put together."