Hanging Around With Weights

Sash-weights. What are they? Most people don’t know. I didn’t know either, until my moustache started tingling last Tuesday while I was standing near a window in the Klingenschoen mansion. That’s when Koko knocked a sash-weight off the windowsill. It weighed about five pounds. He looked at me afterward with an expression that can only be described as knowing. Yum Yum, meanwhile, sat on the adjacent sill and said nothing, which was also significant.

Sash-weights are heavy objects found inside old windows. They help the window go up and down. Without them, the window would not go up and down as easily. This is important. Why is it important? Because Pickax has many old buildings, and old buildings have old windows, and old windows have sash-weights. Some of these sash-weights are made of iron. Some are made of lead. What’s the difference? I’m not sure, but Koko seems to prefer iron.

It has come to my attention that sash-weights have been disappearing from several historic properties in Moose County. This is the seventh theft-related incident this month in a town of three thousand people, which seems about average. Chief Brodie mentioned in passing that a sash-weight was also the blunt instrument used in that unpleasant business at the Hotel Booze last spring. These things happen. They seem to happen near me with some regularity, though I can’t imagine why anyone would find that suspicious.

Replacing sash-weights is expensive. I know this because the K Fund was billed $4,200 for restoration work on the mansion’s east wing, which my accountant assures me is fully deductible as a cultural preservation expense. Meanwhile, I can’t even get a decent bowl of clam chowder at the Old Stone Mill for under nine dollars. Who is profiting from all of this? Someone is. Koko pushed a book off the shelf yesterday—it was about the history of metalwork. I take these things seriously even if no one else does.

I would investigate further, but someone has been lurking near the barn, and I need to make sure the cats are secure. Also, the squirrels have been at the birdseed again, which I pay for out of pocket despite the K Fund covering virtually everything else in my life. Is that fair? It is not.

Sash-weights.