Free The Grub-and-Stakers Spin a Yarn by Charlotte MacLeod

toward the door. “Dinna fash yoursel’ about the references, Cousin Matilda. Come, we’ll go out together. I’ll be nipping on over to Scottsbeck, Margaret, to inspect those two cars they’ve found ditched and to make sure the mortal coil which Cousin Charles so tragically shuffled off is being treated with due respect.”
    “Find out how soon Cousin Matilda can have him back, Donald,” said Mrs. MacVicar. “I’m sure she’ll want to get the funeral plans in order.”
    “I expect likely I will,” Mother Matilda agreed, “once I’ve got this director’s, meeting over with. You can be sure of one thing, Cousin Margaret—dear old Charlie’s going to get the rip-roaring send-off he deserves, bless his heart wherever he may be now. Osbert, your appointment’s for tomorrow morning at eight-thirty sharp. We start early in the mincemeat business.”
    “Yes, Mother Matilda. I’ll go straight home and write myself some red-hot references just as soon as I’ve put Dittany’s feet up.”
    Up was precisely where Dittany wished her feet to be. Lugging a pair of twins around became increasingly hard on the pedal extremities, she was discovering. “I don’t see why they can’t have mother-to-be carriages as well as baby carriages,” she fretted as they turned the corner onto Applewood Avenue.
    “Want to play horsey?” Osbert suggested. “I’ll get down on all fours and you can ride on my back.”
    “Thank you, dear, but you really ought to consider your dignity as Director of In-House Security,” Dittany replied. “What name are you going to use?”
    “I was thinking about something along the lines of Osbert Monk.”
    “But everybody from here to Halifax knows Osbert Monk is really Lex Laramie,” Dittany objected. “Sorry, dear, I meant that Lex Laramie is Osbert Monk.”
    “That’s all right, dear,” Osbert comforted her. “I get confused sometimes myself. Then how about my being Reginald Monk, who happens to be staying in Lobelia Falls with his brother Osbert and Osbert’s beautiful though bulgy wife. The one with the sore feet.”
    “Brilliant!” cried Dittany. “Then if people notice the resemblance, you can say you and Osbert are often mistaken for twins.”
    “Why can’t I just say we are twins?”
    “I suppose you could, now that you mention it, though it does seem to me there’s almost a plethora of twins around here already. I wonder whether Mum and Arethusa went somewhere with Glanville and Ranville. Let’s hope we don’t find the answer in our front parlor.”
    “Not to mention in our kitchen, our dining room, or down cellar messing around with our new sump pump.” This was the first sump pump with which Osbert had ever had occasion to become personally acquainted, and he tended to be rather fiercely protective of the relationship. “You know how fond of your mother I am, darling,” he went on plaintively, “but doesn’t she ever get tired of being sociable?”
    Dittany heaved a fairly good-sized sigh. “She never has so far, at least not that I can recall. Is Mum beginning to wear on your nerves, dearest? We can always telephone Bert and have him tell her she’s needed right away in Moose Jaw or wherever he happens to be at the moment. I’m sure he misses her terribly. Reasonably sure, anyway.”
    “It’s all right, dear,” said Osbert. “The situation’s not that desperate. Anyway, it looks as though I may not be around much for a while myself, so I’d much rather have her with you while I’m off at the mincemeat factory. I do wish they had some kind of easy sit-down job you could do, though, like counting raisins.”
    “I’m not sure how productively I’d be spending my time as a raisin counter, darling,” Dittany demurred. “Furthermore, I have a slight hunch one of us ought to be looking for the solution right here in Lobelia Falls, because this is where everything always seems to end up sooner or later. Aha, I see the welcoming committee’s right on