Stella Ryman and the Four Digit Puzzle

The Four Digit Puzzle began with Spaghetti for the Blind. It was an inauspicious start, highlighted by a general distress among the inmates at the mid-morning reorganization of the dining room. Fairmount Manor Residents had arrived at lunch to find that the usual seating plan had been entirely rearranged in order to take into account the new tables. These were rectangular instead of round and, to add to the kerfuffle, each table sat eight instead of six. Having inadvertently gone the long way around, through Carnation Corridor, Stella was a little late in arriving. She therefore found herself, without any sort of an option, sharing a table with the Greek Chorus. 

She was hopeful that Theo would join them, but he had somehow wound up on the far side of the room. She caught a glimpse of him helping a woman to her seat. At Stella’s table, the Nodder’s — no, Sally’s — opinion of Theo’s gentlemanly deed could be read in the purse of her mouth and the crease of her brow. Mad Cassandra Browning was missing, as usual. Stella had no idea how Cassie survived, unless she took her meals upstairs. Or, more likely, simply had her own supply of food and ate cans of baked beans alone in her room.

Three tables away, Cheryl was helping Thelma into a chair. At Stella’s side a seat sat empty. Without thinking, she called to Thelma. Thelma’s head jerked in the direction of Stella’s voice, and she scowled. Some clattery work with her cane ensued, and Cheryl followed Thelma’s lead to Stella’s table. 

“Our table.” Iolanthe nipped Stella’s thought short. Lord knew how she did it. 

“The whole room’s a cock-up now,” Lucille complained. “These new tables are far worse that the old ones, too. If they’re new, which I doubt. Look.”

She held up the tablecloth, which had changed since breakfast from rather good-quality cotton-linen to serviceable cotton-polyester. Iolanthe inclined her head as she peered underneath.

“Painted metal, where the old ones were good solid oak,” she observed, as the first tables were served their food. 

Stella corrected her. “The old tables were mahogany. Bought in the nineteen sixties, I’ll bet, when Fairmount opened. Not wonderful quality, but not veneer either.”

“Rosewood,” Thelma snapped. “The old tables were rosewood with a mahogany stain. Not top class, but worth at least five hundred each on the antiques market. Refinished, you might get twice that at an auction on a greedy night.”

In the middle of the buzzing room, Stella and the Greek Chorus were struck silent by this speech from the normally taciturn Thelma. The members of the Greek Chorus exchanged glances. Stella made herself ready to defend Thelma, but her preparations were unnecessary. 

“Oh, I’m right,” Thelma stated flatly. Her cane clattered hollowly, metal on metal, against the table leg. “Does anybody want to argue the question?”

Apparently nobody did. Stella felt unaccountably proud as Thelma folded her hands before her. Thelma added, “I can’t see what we’re having to eat.”

“Of course you can’t see what we’re having,” Lucille pointed out. “You’re blind.”

“Lucille!” Stella interjected. But she felt Thelma’s cane smack her across the shin. 

“Speak for yourself, Lucille.” Thelma said. She patted the placemat in front of her, then the fork and knife and finally put her thin hands across the top of her glass of water. She raised it to her lips and took a trembling sip. “Well, won’t somebody answer a simple question?  Is lunch anything I’ll want to eat?”