“No, I didn’t, but I was tempted.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I offered him a lift, and he declined. It’s incredible how wily the old devil is.”
“Did you get a close look at the cage?”
“Close enough. He had a Chihuahua in it, all right.”
“And you let him get away! Lester, I give up. I absolutely do. In my opinion, you are hopeless. You permit yourself to be temporarily disinherited by a dog, and now you are simply going to stand back and let it be made permanent by endless litters.”
“Damn it, Pearl, I can’t help it if old Crump is riddled with suspicion. Anyhow, Senorita Fogarty may have sex tonight, but it will be some time before she has pups. In the meanwhile, something must be done.”
“Frankly, I have no confidence in your ability to do it.”
“Well, you might at least be fair about it. You know as well as I that this is a very complex situation. It needs another head, that’s what, and Hester’s is the head it needs. What we must do, Pearl, is find her right now and inform her of developments.”
“There you go again, Lester, speaking in the plural. You’d think you had a frog in your pocket or something.”
“Don’t you want to come with me?”
“No, I don’t, frankly. I only want to go home, if you will be so good as to take me.” Pearl crawled into her bucket and pulled her skirt down over her knees as a clear indication of her position. “Please drive me there, Lester, with both hands on the wheel.”
“Well, all right, if you insist. But I don’t see why you have to be so unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable? I? It’s hardly unreasonable to try to salvage at least part of a day that has been largely wasted.”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about the time when we were waiting for old Crump to come out of the kennel?”
“You know very well that I’m especially susceptible when bored,” Pearl said. “It wasn’t fair of you to take advantage of me.”
11
Hester, the other head, had in the meanwhile been busy. Her business had begun, in fact, the previous afternoon immediately after leaving Flo and Uncle Homer and Lester, and it had been in the beginning a kind of preliminary session of furious thinking. It was apparent that someone had to assume the initiative in the matter of nudging Senorita Fogarty into dog heaven, and it was equally apparent that Lester was not the one to do it. Indeed, Lester had proved himself incredibly incompetent at every turn, and it was impossible to believe that he would suddenly improve.
Her approach to the problem was direct. If Senorita Fogarty, languishing in grief, was going on a diet of sex and oatmeal, she must be reached, clearly, through one of the media, and the one indicated was the latter, as Hester had already said, for the former seemed to offer nothing but a hideous restoration of Senorita’s interest in living, which was precisely the thing to be prevented. How, then, was the oatmeal to be dosed with sufficient poison to dispatch Senorita in short order? And how, when this was accomplished, was it to be made available in Mrs. Crump’s kitchen?
Hester, being clever, quickly had a couple of ideas. She also had the idea that whatever was done had better be done soon. Mrs. Crump had told Lester that the diet of sex and oatmeal was merely projected, not already established, but it would certainly be established without delay. Hester concluded this from the simple observation that one does not ordinarily begin treating an ailing patient next week. One begins today, or tomorrow at the latest. Hester’s plan depended upon the treatment’s beginning tomorrow, and her optimism in this respect was supported by the fact that Mrs. Crump had not divulged her insidious intentions until this very afternoon. It was likely, therefore, that Mrs. Crump, who invariably did her shopping before noon, would have to lay in a supply of oatmeal tomorrow. Provided, of course, that there was not a supply at hand. Hester was inclined to scoff at this possibility, for she herself never ate breakfast at all, unless you counted black coffee, and she was cheerfully convinced that no one, not even the Crumps, would willingly consume oatmeal in preference to something edible. It would be necessary, at any rate, to go on the assumption that the oatmeal would be purchased tomorrow before noon, and the most logical person to carry in a supply properly dosed in advance was, in Hester’s judgment, no one but Mrs. Crump herself.
There remained, of course, the problem of laying hands on an appropriate poison. For the solution of this problem Hester had, ironically, Crump himself to thank. Having a mind that was littered with remote odds and ends, she still remembered an afternoon long ago when, as a small girl, she had watched Crump at war with moles in Grandfather’s yard, and she still retained a bit of significant information acquired in that experience that would be useful now. Thus doubly armed with determination and a solid plan, she made her way to the shopping center near Grandfather’s house at which Mrs. Crump did her shopping. It included, besides a supermarket and several other shops of various kinds, a hardware store.
In the supermarket, she explored the alleys until she found the shelves containing the cereals. There was a variety of oatmeals represented, and she was faced with the necessity of anticipating the selection of Mrs. Crump with her own. The odds against this might seem formidable, but in fact it was almost a sure thing. Among the boxes, there was one, labeled “Mother Murphy’s Quick-Cooking Oats,” that was easily distinguishable for its size, if not for the quality of its contents. Inside in the oatmeal, as the label guaranteed, was a free spoon. Moreover, despite its economy size and the premium, it was cheaper by several pennies than any other brand on display. It required only the most rudimentary knowledge of Mrs. Crump’s stringent sense of thrift to assure that she would by nature be seduced by Mother Murphy. Hester, therefore, helped herself to a box and carried it to the checkout counter with complete confidence in her judgment.
Outside again, she walked along the sidewalk to the hardware store, into which she turned, making her way toward the rear among a hazardous collection of lawn-mowers and bicycles. She was met halfway by a dehydrated clerk wearing a green eyeshade and sleeve garters. He seemed astonished that a nylon and fur female like Hester should have wandered inadvertantly into a crude shelter for nuts and bolts. He asked her what he could do for her in a voice that implied deep skepticism of there being anything.
“I would like,” she said, “some cyanide peanuts.”
His eyebrows climbed. His expression was sympathetic.
“Rats?” he said.
“Moles,” said she.
“Worse,” he said. “But these will do the trick. Nothing like a little cyanide to remove rodents.”
Or presumptuous Chihuahuas, she thought. It was really rather astonishing, although handy, that something like cyanide, which could turn up your toes in an instant, could be bought in any hardware store without even a register to be signed that might possibly turn up later to complicate developments. The clerk brought down a small box from a top shelf, which he reached by means of a step-ladder, and Hester, after paying, put the box in the brown paper sack with Mother Murphy’s Oats, and went, carrying the sack, back to her apartment. She felt, all in all, that she had made a couple of quite shrewd purchases at very little expense to herself.
Opening the box was a delicate operation, calling for the most meticulous care. Fortunately it was simply sealed, one flap overlapping another and glued down. By inserting a thin blade under the top flap, Hester was able to work the two apart without damage to either, thus revealing in time Mother Murphy’s nutritious treasure within. It was then in order to add the cyanide peanuts. First, however, realizing that peanuts in a box of oats could very well excite suspicion, Hester reduced them to a lethal powder, employing an empty gin bottle as a rolling pin. Then she mixed the powder well into the oats, using Mother Murphy’s premium spoon. After that, nothing remained to be done except to seal the box again, which was accomplished neatly with care and a little glue.