Read Online The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig - Free Book Online Page A

business, then she’s going to bake you some scones. With currants.”
    “Currants?”
    A moue of distaste flickered for barely a trice across Pollicot’s normally bland countenance. Aha, thought Dittany, a potential rift in the lute. Once Arethusa had got Pollicot to map the water mains and decided she couldn’t stand having him underfoot any longer, she had only to start putting currants into everything she fed him. Arethusa herself wouldn’t find the ruse any sacrifice, she could eat currants till the cows came home.
    But currants were hardly germane to the present issue.
    What counted here and now was that Hiram Jellyby’s spring had been found. Now if Zilla could only keep all those treasure seekers from digging too close to where the gold must be! Dittany hadn’t thought of the possible ramifications, but she’d darned well better think of them now.
    Arethusa would have to manage entirely on her own.
    Abruptly, she said to Pollicot, “I’m sorry, Mr. James, I’ve just thought of something, I need to stop at my house.
    You won’t mind going on to Arethusa ‘s without me, will you? Just drop me at the corner of Apple wood Avenue.”
    “That’s quite all right, Mrs. Monk, I don’t mind a bit.”
    No doubt he meant it, currants or no currants. He even offered to drive Dittany straight to her door but she said, “Never mind, it’s the first house in,” and jumped out before he could go around and open the car door for her, as he assuredly would have done if she’d given him half a chance.
    By the time Pollicot got rolling again, Dittany was already home and sounding the alarm. “Osbert, you’d better get out there.”
    “Out where, darling?” Osbert had obviously been spending some quality time with his family, there were empty nursing bottles on the kitchen table and a twin on his lap. “What’s happening?”
    “Look at this.” She thrust the platinum print under his nose. “That’s Hiram Jellyby, it says so on the back. And Zilla says so too. So he really did exist. So does the spring, Polly James just dowsed it. And we’ve got a slew of people out there digging and I’m not sure Zilla can keep them away from the spring, and I think this is a case for Deputy Monk.”
    “Darling, you do? Then here, take Annie. Rennie’s asleep in his crib. He was awake when she was asleep and then he went to sleep and she woke up and you don’t mind, do you, dear? Maybe you’d better call the sergeant.”
    “I’m not sure whether-” Dittany was beginning, but Osbert was already out the door and making excellent time down Cat Alley. He was probably right, at that. This could well be a two-man job if the wrong person happened to dig up that boxful of gold. She gave Annie a kiss and picked up the telephone.
    Crime couldn’t be very rife in Lobelia Falls just now, Sergeant Mac Vicar sounded as if he might have been taking a little snooze in his chair. He woke up fast enough, though, when he heard who was on the line.
    “Ah, Dittany lass. How are the wee bairns?”
    “Fine. Listen. Osbert’s off to the community garden and he said I’d better call you, just in case.”
    “Oh, aye? In case of what?”
    “In case the wrong person digs up the gold. Pollicot James just dowsed the spring and we have documentary evidence* that Hiram Jellyby existed.”
    “Have you indeed?”
    “He was alive and driving mules on October 2, 1889,”
    Dittany replied impatiently. It was not like Sergeant MacVicar to be so obtuse. “Sergeant, don’t you think you’d better quit making idle conversation and get over there before people start banging Osbert with their shovels? I’d go back myself if I had anybody to leave the twins with.”
        Aye.
    The line went dead, the sergeant was on his way. Dittany relaxed and wondered why she’d developed a craving for cookies. Then she realized that, what with one thing and another, she’d never got around to eating any lunch and that somehow the time had worked itself