“They’re all sealed,” Cassie said. “That’s one of the reasons we chose it. The works are all sealed up, and once every hundred years you have a man open them with a blowtorch and put in a new works. Cuff, you see if there’s anything in the works.”
“Sure,” Cuff said. “Got a screw driver?”
Leonidas felt a twinge of pain as Cuff deftly proceeded to reduce his beautiful streamlined icebox to an unsightly, utilitarian hulk.
Then, with the same deftness, he put it all together again.
“I bow to you,” Leonidas said sincerely. “I should still be struggling with the first little screw head.”
“Gee, Bill, I guess I was wrong. There ain’t nothing in the works or the motor or the unit or the insulation. Nobody ain’t touched nothing, neither. I can tell. But if there ain’t something somebody wants, what does somebody want it for? I sort of think that’s kind of queer— Say, Bill, I think I just heard someone at the front door. Like a key.”
“Bison,” Leonidas said with resignation. “Don’t you think Bison, Cassie?”
“Bison?”
“I’ve no doubt,” Leonidas said, “that all the Bison in Dalton wear my door key on their watch chains, along with ornamental teeth, and claws. Oh.”
Dow lounged against the doorway. He was hatless and disheveled, and his face was blotched with cold.
“Dow!” Cassie said. “Where have you— For heaven’s sakes, Dow!”
“Go on, laugh,” Dow said wearily. “I know I’m a mess. I— Where did you find her? Where did she come from?”
“She dropped in,” Cassie said. “Her name is Leslie Horn. She isn’t married.”
Dow walked across the kitchen and gravely kissed Cassie’s cheek.
“I knew you’d be delighted,” Cassie said. “And she knows you want to marry her. I told her so.”
“You were the one on the train!” Leslie said.
“Didn’t I tell you that, dear?” Cassie said. “He had to fuss around with Bill instead of doing anything about you, and it simply gnawed at his vitals. You were just a fox—”
“Cassie,” Dow said, “I don’t feel that you’re advancing my case. I never said she was a fox. I said she was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, and I intended to marry the lovely creature, and I do, but I haven’t the time for any courting right now. Listen—”
“You listen to us, first!” Cassie said. “We have—”
“Both of you,” Leonidas said, “be still. Dow, this is, in substance, what has taken place here since you left. Listen carefully, and if Cassie shows any signs of saying a word, gag her.”
His summing up took him just four minutes by the clock.
As he listened, Dow’s worried look gave way to a grin. By the time Leonidas concluded, he was shaking with laughter.
“After hearing that, Bill, nothing matters,” he said. “I was worried when I came here, but now all I can think of is the Maharajah—what was that? About the snake and the thunderstorm?”
“ ‘He who is in the grasp of the cobra,’ ” Leonidas said, “ ‘can smile at the lightning s forked tongue.’ M’yes. I like that. I think it has a certain ring. Er— what’s been happening to you?”
“I can’t sum it up the way you did— Say, Leslie, did you see Elsa? Oh, what a pity! Elsa and the Pussycats. Tudbury’s Horse! Wow! Well, I took Jock to the Adamses’, and as I cut back to Main Avenue, I went past our house, and there was mother stuck in a snow drift.”
“In all my life,” Leonidas said reflectively, “I have never before heard of so many people being stuck in so many snow drifts.”
Dow pointed out that there were a lot of snow drifts.
“And mother had practically buried her car in one. You see, she feels if you race an engine hard enough, anything’s possible, and she was simply incredulous when I told her that her rear end’d fallen out. She said she didn’t believe it, but if it had, I was to drive her into Boston at once. When I declined, there were bitter words,” Dow added, “about filial gratitude. Following which, I presented her with my car, and told her to go along. So she did. And before she even got to the corner, she slewed into the Parrs’ driveway post, and lost one chain. And I considered the situation, and decided that while I could get back here in a cab, we really needed a vehicle on tap. So I summoned the tow car from the garage, and on the way back to the garage with it and mother s car, I hopped off at Paddock Street—”
“And went to my house,” Cassie said. “And took Popeye from my drive—didn’t I leave Popeye in the drive?”
“Yes, dear,” Dow said. “You left Popeye in the drive, with the keys in it, but Popeye was frozen, so I pushed it back into the garage and took the sedan. Cassie, whatever inspired you to buy that black sedan?”
“Rutherford,” Cassie said. “He said Popeye wasn’t dignified for his sister to drive around in what amounted to a soapbox on wheels, so I got Simeon. It was the most dignified car I could find. It needs gas—”
“Yes. I know. I noticed. So I drove up to the village to get some. And just as the fellow started the gas pump, am Upper Falls bus stopped at the corner for the lights. I didn’t think anything of it, at first, but my eyes kept sort of straying to it, and then, just as it started off, I realized— Are you listening? I realized that Swiss Chard was on it!”
Cassie squealed.
“Chard? What was she on an Upper Falls bus for?”
“That,” Dow said, “is something we will probably never know.”
“What was she doing?”
“Just sitting on the bus, being transported. I had to wait for the gas, and pay the man, and then I followed the bus. That wasn’t hard, because those busses are pretty lumbering, anyway, and with the snow, it wasn’t making very rapid headway. So I followed it.”
“M’yes,” Leonidas said. “Did
