The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Chapter 20

It was just turning dusk as Gramp Wiggins backed his automobile carefully into position, using an ingeniously constructed mirror on the rear of his car to centre the trailer hitch.

Milred, attired in a cooking apron, came out of the kitchen door to stand on the screen porch, regarding him grimly.

Gramps didn’t see her until he had the trailer centered; then he looked up and grinned. “Hi, Milred.”

“Hi, Gramps.”

“They tell me I’m in the doghouse.”

“You haven’t heard anything yet.”

Gramps climbed out of the car, went around, and twisted the handle which lowered the trailer into position on the hitch. When he had the assembly locked into position, he came up to the screen porch. “Well, go ahead and say it.”

“Say what, Gramps?”

“What a heel I am for goin’ away and blockin’ the driveway an’ all that stuff.”

She laughed and said: “You’re getting a persecution complex.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I never thought about Frank’s car. I was in a hurry, and I had to leave the trailer some place.”

“That’s a minor matter. Frank can get along without his car as long as there are taxicabs in town, and the county furnishes him with an automobile for transportation on his official business... Had anything to eat?”

“Nope.”

“Come on in and sit down. I’m having a bite in the kitchen.”

“Where’s Frank?”

“He’s up at the office. Busy.”

Gramps came in, said: “Got anything to drink around the place?”

“Nothing that you’d be interested in, and don’t try to inveigle me into any of your concoctions tonight. That cocktail of yours had me trying to jab a fork in my steak every time it came whizzing around.”

“Nothing to that,” Gramps protested in well-simulated surprise. “That was mild. Didn’t give you no headache next morning, did it?”

“No.”

“Well, there you are. That’s good liquor.”

“The presence or absence of a headache the next morning isn’t the only thing in life, Gramps. I like to see where I’m going once in a while.”

“I tell you that was mild. I’ll run out and grab a nip of the pure quill, won’t bother to mix up no cocktail... Sure you don’t want to join me?”

“Absolutely, definitely, positively, certain,” she said. “And in case you’re interested, you’re having steak hash tonight.”

“Yum yum,” Gramps said. “Hash is swell,” but added with quick suspicion, “when it’s good.”

“This,” she said defiantly, “is good, and don’t make any insinuations. Otherwise you’ll find yourself on the outside looking in.”

“Onions in it?”

“Lots of onions.”

“Garlic?”

“Some.”

“Got some garlic salt in the place?”

“Yes.”

“Well, put a shaker by my plate, and I’ll spike it up a little,” Gramps said. “Hash ain’t hash without lots of garlic.”

Gramps went out to the backyard, unlocked the door of his trailer, entered the sacred precincts, and poured himself a generous swig of that which he referred to as “the pure quill’. He came back to find Milred putting the dinner on the table.

Gramps tasted the hash, added garlic salt, tasted it again, and nodded his head. “Put a little gravy in here, didn’t you?”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s what makes it nice. Hash ain’t no good when it’s dry. Tastes like sawdust. Always save out a mite of gravy when you’re goin’ to make hash the next day, an’ put it in the hash. Doesn’t do any hurt to slice a lot of onions an’ cook ’em up first. The meat’s already been cooked. Ain’t no use to cook it to death, just warm it enough to get it good ’n’ hot ’n’ let the gravy soak in.”

“That’s right.”

“Could have put a little more garlic in there, and it’d have been better.”

“Frank has to be careful about garlic. He’s working so much at the office nights... Never know when he’s going to be called.”

“That’s right. What’s he working on tonight? That murder case?”

“Uh huh.”

“Got a lead in it?” Gramps asked, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

She laughed. “It’s simply routine. He’s interrogating some witnesses from Los Angeles. He’s asked them to come up.”

“Uh huh,” Gramps said noncommittally.

“How about some more hash, Gramps?”

Gramps said: “Don’t care if I do. I claim that’s pretty darn good hash. Guess it’s the Wiggins in you that makes you such a darn good cook.”

He passed his plate. Milred spooned him out a generous second helping of the hash. Gramps put on garlic salt, and had just cleaned up his plate when he suddenly gave a convulsive start and clapped his hand to his mouth.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Doggoned tooth,” Gramps said, pushing his plate well back on the table and raising his other hand up to his jaw. “Goldang, jumpin’ toothache! Shoulda had somethin’ done about it a while ago. It’s been giving me fits lately. Gee jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! That hurts!”

Gramps pushed back his chair, started stomping around.

Milred said: “Put some Campho-Phenique on a piece of cotton, shove it down into the cavity.”

“Ain’t got no Campho-Phenique,” Gramps said.

“I have some.”

Milred jumped up, hurried to the medicine chest in the bathroom, came back after a few moments with a bottle of Campho-Phenique and a bit of cotton on an applicator. “Here you are, Gramps. Let me put it in.”

“Nope. Better put it in myself,” Gramps said. “I know right where it is... Get awfully touchy about anyone foolin’ around my mouth, particularly when I’ve got a toothache.”

Gramps took the cotton and Campho-Phenique, went out to his trailer, returned presently to hand the bottle back to Milred.

“Make it feel any better?” she asked.

“Not much,” Gramps said. “Hang it all, I know some toothache drops that always do the job. Reckon I gotta go get some of ’em... I’ll be back after a while, but don’t wait up for me. I’ll just park the trailer out in front of the house.”

She said: “Park it right in the driveway. I’ll move Frank’s car out after you go. We’ll leave it out on the street, and then you can use the driveway. In case he should have to go out during the night, he’ll have his car where he can get at it.”

“Okay,” Gramps said. “Don’t look for me if you don’t see me. Remember I got my bed with me.”

Gramps scuttled across the kitchen, banged the door on the screen porch as he took the back stairs in one leap, and a few seconds later Milred heard the motor on the automobile rattle and bang into noise, and caught a glimpse of the trailer moving past the kitchen window.

With the calm resignation of a woman who has long since given up trying to reform masculine character, she went into the hallway, took the receiver from the telephone, and dialled her husband’s office.

“Hello,” Frank said, his voice sounding short and impatient.

“Hate to interrupt you, dear,” Milred said. “This is your ball and chain. My paternal grandfather showed up, heard you were at the office, and suddenly developed a jumping toothache. I think it was an excuse to get away and go up to see if he couldn’t horn in on proceedings.”

Duryea chuckled. “Have to hand it to him for being persistent... It didn’t look like the real thing, eh?”

“Quite a case of malingering, if you ask me. The acting was rather good but a trifle overdone.”

Duryea said: “Okay, I’ll have a reception committee for him.”

“Don’t know when you’ll be home?”

“No.”

“Working?”

“Yes.”

“Witnesses?”

“Yes.”

“Love me?”

“Uh huh.”

“Okay, I’ll be here when you get home.”

Milred hung up the telephone, and smilingly took the bottle of Campho-Phenique back into the bathroom.