The Mystery of Sinister Scarecrow - M. V. Carey [41]
“Then she had an accident and she broke her hips. It must have started her thinking. We all know about people who have minor automobile accidents and then claim that the whiplash has injured them and their necks hurt. Who can prove that their necks don’t hurt? If Mrs. Chumley insisted that her legs wouldn’t support her, who could say she was wrong?”
“So she lied to my brother and he kept the house open just for her!” Letitia Radford said bitterly. “And with the Radfords away, she became the head of the house, didn’t she? With servants waiting on her hand and foot! She must have hated it every time I came home!”
“I doubt that she minded until Burroughs and his wife began work on that tunnel,” said Jupe. “It must have been very difficult for them to dig while you were here, so they tried to frighten you away with the scarecrow and the bugs.
“It was a marvelous coincidence that they were all about the same build. They could all wear the scarecrow costume. That way they could alibi one another.
“The night we saw the scarecrow with the scythe, Mrs. Chumley and Burroughs were already with you at the front of the house. The scarecrow that night had to be Mrs. Burroughs. She ran from us in the darkness and doubled back to the rear of the house. She went through the cellar door, shucked the scarecrow outfit, made a quick call to the police in Rocky Beach, then hurried into the living room with her cap all askew. She claimed to have seen the scarecrow out the window, so we assumed she’d been in the house all along.”
“But what about the night the scarecrow tried to break into Charles Woolley’s lab again?” asked Bob, “When you saw the scarecrow that night, Mrs. Burroughs was in the kitchen and Burroughs was watching TV in the servants’ quarters, and Mrs.
Chumley was in the living room with Miss Radford.”
“Suppose it wasn’t Burroughs watching television,” said Jupe. “Suppose he’d rigged up a dummy that would look like a man watching television. He knew that anyone in the living room could look out across the pool to the servants’ quarters.
He’d rig a dummy if he wanted an alibi while he was stealing some more insects from Charles Woolley.
“And today the scarecrow who locked us in the cold room was Mrs. Chumley. Her room is on the first floor. She could have heard us in the cellar. Or perhaps it was Mrs. Burroughs. It doesn’t matter. They were all in it together.”
“But she didn’t need anything,” said Letitia Radford. “Why would she hire a couple of thieves to help rob a museum?”
“I think Burroughs and his wife thought of the robbery first,” said Jupe. “I think they took the job here because the Mosby Museum was so near. They must have been delighted that the only resident of the house was a crippled woman who could not come downstairs to the cellar.
“At some point they must have discovered that Mrs. Chumley could walk, and she must have discovered that they were digging. They came to terms. She would pretend ignorance of their activities. In return, they would not reveal the fact that she had been duping the Radford family for years. When you came home, Miss Radford, they had already joined forces. They felt you were a threat, and the showing of The Wizard of Oz on television was their inspiration. They created the scarecrow.”
“Amazing,” said Gerhart Malz.
“An adversary worthy of you, Mr. Malz,” said Jupe.
“What?” said Malz.
“You never knew that Mrs. Chumley wasn’t happy with a student’s copy of the
Vermeer,” said Jupe. “You never knew that she wanted to own the real thing.”
Malz looked at the painting over the mantel. “It was part of her bargain with the Burroughs couple,” said Jupe. “She would keep quiet and they would take the paintings — all but the Vermeer. She wanted the Vermeer.”
“Good heavens!” Malz went to the fireplace and looked closely at the picture.
“Well, I’ll be!” he exclaimed. “It is the