TSH: Ted, rings, ghosts

Roy C. Lackey · 15 May 2010, 20:28 · from 2010-May.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 15:28:19 -0500
Subject: (urth) TSH: Ted, rings, ghosts
References: <004101caf39b$8ef9daa0$00d34a0c@rclackey>
	<AANLkTin7aCTX6Coh3164gJoECU0JsUFkwSMK8PBf-aek at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005601caf46d$2cb12560$58d14a0c@rclackey>

Andrew wrote:
> Note how the ring gets introduced in this first conversation with Doris.
She
> wants to hear any ghost stories Bax might have; he tells her about his
> encounter with Emlyn and Emlyn's dropping stuff; she asks whether Bax's
opal
> ring was one of those things; just after this, she gives Bax Ted's ring,
> after ascertaINING that he's not married.

Yet he had already told her he wasn't married when she picked him up to go
to the restaurant (33).

> I think Doris knows some "stuff" and she is actively fishing for
information
> here. She's really interested in that opal ring; hence my little theory
> about why she gave Ted's ring to Bax: she wants Bax to give her the other
> one (I guess a wedding ring).

She came to the restaurant armed with Ted's ring, even though she said the
sight of it caused her grief, which makes me think she must have been up to
something. But how would she have known that Bax had the opal ring before
she saw it on his finger? The only other person who even knew Bax had it was
the jeweler he had shown it to that morning, who had said the ring was
worthless. And her note with the flimsy excuse for asking him to lunch came
in that same morning's mail.

If Ted is Someone Important, it seems just too coincidental that his wife
would spontaneously make a play for a man she had thought was poor up to the
minute she saw the opal ring on his finger. That would imply that she was
ignorant of its sorcerous worth and saw only the potential wealth a
cat's-eye opal suggested. That reduces her to a simple gold digger, not a
knowing ally of her husband. Unless the coincidence was the result of Bax
having messed with the triannulus and one of those "other things" that "fell
into line as well" (33) came into play.

> Recall also that on the scary ride to the same restaurant later on, she
says
> that of everybody she can think, she wishes Ted was with them - because, I
> think, she knows that Ted was involved with this "stuff" and would know
how
> to handle it.

Much the same way that Emlyn lamented his father not being around to tell
him how to handle things.

> As to what the wet initialled object might have been at the end: perhaps
> Ted's shroud? Would that be monogrammed?

I've never heard of a monogrammed shroud.

Let's run with the theory that Ted is Goldwurm and Doris his accomplice.
Does that mean that he didn't die and she knows it? She faked being a widow
for two years before Bax even came to town? Or he didn't die and she really
thought he had, medical bills and all?

Why did she send the Dear John letter? The last time Bax saw her was in his
driveway when she left to take Cathy to the hospital. The last he spoke to
her was the next(?) morning when she phoned to confirm his suspicion that
Martha had been one of the mourners at Skotos's funeral. The Dear John
letter comes out of nowhere.

A Dear John letter is usually prompted by the gal finding another guy. Was
there another guy? George? Then why turn right around and write the Terrible
Mistake letter, set it aside, go to the house to help catch a vampire, then
come home to write the postscript telling about it and mail it off?

-Roy

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