“Someone would fail to get the joke,” Mildred said, “and I’d be arrested by the Board of Health.”
On the way to the municipal parking lot, Qwilleran met MacWhannell. “How’d you like the rally, Mac?”
“Good show! They collected over two thousand for the Ruff Abbey Fund. What did you think of Jeffa Young?”
“Finewoman. You’re lucky to get her for your staff.”
“I hear you took her to dinner. Is she going to do your chart?”
“The subject never came up, Mac.”
“She’s doing Gordie’s and mine. You should have one, Qwill.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.” This was Qwilleran ‘s way of turning down a suggestion… . but the suggestion would not go away. At home Polly called him, speaking in an apologetic way.
“Qwill, I’ve been asked to get some information from you - by hook or by crook.”
“Asked by whom? It doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s perfectly respectable. It’s for a Christmas gift. All I need is the place and hour of your birth.”
“Oh-oh! It sounds like one of Mildred’s tricks. Tell her I don’t want a horoscope. I’d rather have a handpainted necktie with a boa constrictor on it.”
After hanging up, he huffed into his moustache.
The subterfuge had gone too far. Susan would be blackmailing him-in a genteel way. The only solution was to go to Jeffa Young and make a clean breast of it-but not right now. Koko was on the desk, sniffing at the day’s mail. He could tell which envelopes came from people having cats or dogs…. One was from Burgess Campbell, a printout of Phineas Ford’s Fabulous Collection:
Back in the 1920s there was a feed-and-seed dealer in Brrr Township who was a real nice guy-hardworking, honest with his customers, and devoted to his wife. They had no children, and it was his way of showing kindness and understanding by taking her for a ride every Sunday afternoon in his Maxwell. Or was it a Model T? They would buy strawberries or a pumpkin, depending on the season, and stop at an ice cream parlor in town for a soda.
His wife also liked to visit antique shops. She never bought anything-just looked. Every town had an antique shop and every farmhouse had a barnful of junk and a sign that said ANTIQUES. As she wandered through the jumble of castoffs, her husband trudged behind her, looking left and right and wondering why people bought such stuff.
Once in a while he played a little joke on her as they drove. She would say, “Stop! There’s an antique shop!” And he would say, “Where? Where?” and speed up. Sometimes she’d insist that he turn around and go back.
On one of these occasions she had her own way, and they visited a farmhouse collection of this and that, Phineas traipsing dutifully behind his wife. Suddenly he saw something that aroused his curiosity, and he asked the farmwife what it was.
“A scamadiddle,” she said. “Early American. Very rare. Found only in the Midwest.”
“How much do you want for it?”
“Oh, a dollar, I guess,” she said.
“Give you ninety cents.” Phineas was no fool.
He carried it to the car and put it on the backseat, causing his wife to ask, “What’s that thing?”
“What thing?”
“That thing on the backseat.”
“That’s a scamadiddle,” he said casually, as if he bought one every day. “Early American, you know. Very rare. Found only in the Midwest.”
“Oh,” she said. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Put it in the china cabinet.”
Every weekend after that, Phineas found pleasure in antiquing, forever searching for another scamadiddle. One Sunday he found it! Now he had two! He was a collector!
They began to travel farther afield, into adjoining counties, and to Phineas’s delight there was an occasional scamadiddle to be found. The shopkeepers, knowing his interest, kept their eyes open and produced an occasional treasure. He was paying two dollars now-and no dickering. He built a room onto their house, lined with shelves and one glass case for choice examples.
The breakthrough came when another collector died, and Phineas bought his entire collection. A magazine called him the Scamadiddle King. He built another, larger room and paid the high dollar for the few remaining scamadiddles. Three museums were bidding to buy the Phineas Ford Collection posthumously.
Then tragedy struck! One fateful night his house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, reducing the entire scamadiddle collection to ashes.
And that’s why-today-there’s not a single scamadiddle to be found in the United States.
Qwilleran chuckled long and lustily before phoning the antique shop. “Susan,” he said seriously, “do you ever run across any scamadiddles in your travels?”
“Any what?”
He repeated it and spelled it.
“I see whirligigs and niddy-noddies, but I’ve never seen a scamadiddle-but then folk things aren’t my specialty. Iris Cobb would know, if she were here.”
“Well, when you go to that big show in New York, will you inquire around?”
“How high are you willing to go?” she asked.
“Not over a thousand.”
thirteen
On Wednesday Qwilleran went downtown to pick up Polly’s groceries. In front of the Pickax People’s National Bank of America he came upon Burgess Campbell and friend, and he said heartily, “Professor Moriarty, I believe! Are you planning to rob the bank?”
There was a momentary handclasp. “Sherlock! How strange you should ask! Alexander has been sniffing out the security traps.”
“Shouldn’t you be in the lecture hall, Professor?” “Not until one o’clock. Would you like to audit Political Foibles of the Early Nineteenth Century? I have a new boffo about Congress that you probably never heard.” Opening each lecture with a joke, he maintained, put his students in a relaxed and receptive mode, and no one was ever late.
Qwilleran declined the invitation. “Only if you know the one about the preacher who thought his bicycle had been stolen… . But let me tell you that your scamadiddle scam is a gem! Of all the tales I’ve collected, it’s the only real leg-puller.”
“I hope you can credit my father. Prentis Campbell III. He was an unreconstructed joker.”
From there Qwilleran went to the library to break the news that he would not be joining Polly for leftovers that evening.
He stopped at the circulation desk to stroke Mac, one of the resident cats, and inquired about Katie.
“She had to go to the vet to have her teeth cleaned.” The clerk looked up at the glass-enclosed office on the mezzanine. “Mrs. Duncan has somebody with her.”
“Nohurry. I’ll browse.” Browsing among the catalogued, jacketed, well-bound, dustfree titles in the public library lacked the sense of adventure he had known at Edd’s Editions. A part of his life had gone up in smoke.
After a while a man walked down the stairs, and Qwilleran walked up.
“Thatwas Dr. Emerson from Black Creek,” Polly said. “He wants to donate a suitable memorial to his late mother. She was an eminent churchwoman, an enthusiastic reader, and a lifelong knitter… . Excuse me if I start my lunch… .” From her lunchbox arose the familiar whiff of tuna.
He said, “I’ll pick up your groceries, but I’m afraid I can’t have dinner tonight.”
“Oh, really?”
He paused long enough for her to imagine the worst scenario, then said, “It’s Wetherby Goode’s night off, and he’s taking me to the curling club. I’m treating to dinner.”
“Where will you go?”
“To the Nutcracker Inn-just to check it out. If the food and atmosphere are good, you and I will go-preferably before snow flies.”