Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

When I had the flashlight, Nick told me to step back. He began unwinding the chain from the tree and creating a coil of it that dangled from one hand, careful not to let it go slack. Soon he had the dog on a short lead. “Follow me,” he said. “But shine the light on ahead, along the ground.” As he walked down the trail with the dog heeling, he looked like any man taking his pet out late at night. The only difference was the heavy chain instead of a slender leash.

Nick took a circuitous route around the other dogs, which were restless and snarling. When he came to the far doghouse he stopped. “Move around that way,” he said, indicating a course away from the pack, “then shine the light down here.” I was anxious to see where the dog had snapped its chain. When I aimed the light at the side of the doghouse, there was a thick iron ring anchored in the wood. No broken links hung from the ring. Nick knelt down and clipped the end of the unbroken chain to the ring and then told me to step further back. Only then did he stand and drop the chain. He walked over to me and took the flashlight and I followed him back to the cabin. All the way I wondered how that dog had got loose.

Rick survived the night, although his screams kept the rest of us awake. As soon as dawn broke, Nick and Mr. Walker loaded him into Nick’s freighter canoe. Faye was there with a blanket for him to lie on and a fur robe to cover him. She put her hand on his head briefly. Then the canoe set off downriver towards the hospital in Moose Factory. Doug was watching, too, but he had no jokes in him.

I watched the canoe until it reached a bend in the river and vanished. Even after, I stood there, a hint of guilt gnawing at my stomach. It had occurred to me during a period of sleeplessness, while Rick screamed and cried, that he must have released the dog. He must have swallowed his fear and unlatched the chain, thinking Chinook would attack Doug and punish him. I couldn’t quite figure out how he’d got close to the dogs without rousing them, but I was sure it had happened. Believing that made the fifty cents feel heavy in my pocket.

Old Bag Dad by Keith Miles

As is the case with many prolific and successful authors, Keith Miles also writes under pseudonyms, his most famous being “Edward Marston,” which he reserves for his historical series. A new Marston novel, The Counterfeit Crank (an Elizabethan theater mystery featuring series character Nicholas Bracewell) is just out from St. Martin’s, and a new novel in his series of golfing mysteries, The Honolulu Play-Off (as Keith Miles), was published in April.

* * *

Nobody knew his real name. Since he was in his seventies, kept all of his worldly possessions in a plastic bag, and had a paternal manner, he was known as Old Bag Dad. Everyone who visited the Memorial Park knew and liked him. He was an institution. Sitting on his favorite bench and wearing the same tattered clothes year in and year out, he was a familiar figure in the community landscape, a cherished eccentric who radiated a kind of gentle wisdom.

Children loved him, parents trusted him, and Douglas Pym, the head park keeper, treated him with amused reverence. Old Bag Dad was not a troublemaker, or a wino, or a beggar, or a misfit, or a lunatic, or even one of the many aimless drifters who wandered in from time to time. He was, by his own definition, a good old-fashioned unrepentant tramp.

The bag was incongruous. Emblazoned with the distinctive logo of Harrods, it was filled with the most amazing range of items. It was hard to believe that Old Bag Dad had actually shopped in London’s most exclusive store, still less that he had bought there the penny whistle, the golliwogg, the pack of Tarot cards, the straw boater, the magnifying glass, the Tartan scarf, the alarm clock, the bicycle pump, the dog-eared copy of War and Peace, or any of the other unlikely objects that he invariably carried around with him. He was a collector with random tastes.

Douglas Pym always teased the old man about the bag. When he saw his friend on his bench that morning, he could not resist a joke.

“What have you got in there today?” he asked, peering into the bag. “Something from Harrods’ Food Hall?”

“Loaf of stale bread, Doug. That’s all.”

“Where did you get that?”

“I have my sources,” said the old man with a smile.

“They never seem to let you down. You always manage to get grub from somewhere. I saw you with a punnet of strawberries yesterday. Who gave you those?”

“That would be telling!”