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Outside it was raining heavily, but the man who had just entered my office was perfectly dry, which was more than I could say for the floor under his umbrella that was rapidly becoming an indoor lake.
“Mr Tuff, I’m Joe Pluvius. I don’t know if you use an umbrella much or not.”
I don’t, and I’ve noticed that when it is raining, people who do use umbrellas walk under the awnings, forcing those without umbrellas to perambulate in the rain or risk getting poked in the eye.
His umbrella had alternating red and yellow stripes and I wondered if he were going to try to sell me one. I prepared to become very sales-resistant.
“I collect umbrellas. I have over sixty and I hope to get many more. I keep them in a large shed behind my house and when I get enough – maybe a hundred – I plan to open an umbrella museum. Blandsville doesn’t have one, you know.”
I knew, and I also knew that umbrellas were also called bumbershoots. I tried to imagine long lines of people waiting eagerly to tour his museum. I couldn’t.
“How may I help you?” I asked with some trepidation.
“Someone has been stealing my umbrellas.”
Was there someone else who shared Mr. Pluvius’s odd interest?
“Twice someone has broken the lock on my shed and damaged or stolen a number of umbrellas, always late at night, of course. I’ve tried to catch the vandal and thief, but so far unsuccessfully.”
I told him my fees and services and promised to visit the scene of the crime that afternoon. I did. The shed had been repaired, the lock replaced. Inside, rows of umbrellas were hanging on rods by the curves of their handles, like bats – the flying rodents, not the baseball equipment – umbrellas of all colours. If Joe had been around with his bumbershoots when the rains that became Noah’s flood began, he would have done a booming business and drowned a rich man.
That night I watched, bored and coffee-logged, but nothing happened. The second night was the same. The third night, around two o’clock, I saw flashes of white moving on the lawn. I slipped silently onto the porch. Luck was with me: the spray of the annoyed skunk missed me, but the neighbourhood reeked for the next couple of days. A skunk does not smash locks or open doors, however.
The next night, again around two a.m., a much larger figure, on two legs, approached the shed. As it touched the door, I stepped quietly onto the porch and commanded, in my most authoritative voice “Freeze!” , hoping that the figure would not notice that the pistol in my hand was really only a trowel. I ordered him into the house where Joe turned on the lights.
“Bill!”
“Joe!”
Bill was Joe’s next-door-neighbour.
“Why, Bill? Why?”
“We, your neighbours, didn’t want you to open your museum and bring extra traffic and crowds of people into the area.” I thought that Bill may have been overestimating the popularity of Joe’s museum.
“You could have gone to the mayor and council,” I suggested. “They might have supported your objection.”
“But that could have caused hard feeling. We wanted Joe to abandon his museum idea voluntarily.”
I left Bill and Joe to settle the matter and went home for some much needed sleep.
A few days later, I received Joe’s cheque in the mail and a long, thin package. It contained a multicoloured umbrella with my name on it.
I hear that at a yard sale, Joe had sold three dozen umbrellas and turned a good profit. I also heard, heaven forbid, that he is thinking of a tie museum.
