The Cat Who Went Underground Read online

  Then in panic he ran back to the cabin and grabbed the phone book. Hands trembling, he looked up Joanna Trupp on Hogback Road. She was not listed. He might have guessed as much. He dialed the Glinko number, thinking they could radio her.

  The Glinko telephone rang once . . . twice . . . but before they could answer, Qwilleran heard a distant yowl. He slammed down the receiver and rushed outdoors again.

  “Koko!” he bellowed and then listened. There was no answer. Again he searched the grounds, fearing that the cat might be injured—mauled by a dog or wild animal—lying helplessly in the brush, too weak to cry out. How could he be found in these acres of woods?

  Again he called Koko’s name and listened to the answering silence. Had he imagined Koko’s yowl, just as Emma Wimsey had imagined the scratching?

  Defeated, he returned to the cabin, aware that his heart was pumping fast. He sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands . . . Did he hear a faint yowl? It seemed to come from the fireplace! He tried to look up the chimney, but the damper was jammed. He looked in the woodbox. On a wild hunch he ran to the toolshed and brought the ladder, climbed up on the roof and looked down the chimney. There was no cap on the flue, no screening. A small animal could fall down and be trapped! If Koko had run out of the house and then found himself locked out, he might climb a tree, drop onto the roof and try to enter the house by way of the chimney. It would be good thinking—up to a point. How would Koko know the damper was closed—and jammed?

  Qwilleran slid down the ladder, ripping his hands and tearing his trousers. He ran into the cabin, stuck his head in the fireplace and shouted up the chimney.

  There was a distant answer, but this time it came from the opposite end of the cabin.

  Qwilleran made a dash for the guestroom. “Koko!”

  Once more he heard the ghostly reply. It was driving him mad, and Yum Yum was racing about the cabin and shrieking hysterically.

  “Shut up!” he yelled at her.

  Calm down, he told himself. Think carefully. Listen unemotionally. He’s got to be here—somewhere. “Koko!”

  This time the answer came from the rear of the cabin. He rushed to the mudroom, kicked the rug aside and hoisted the heavy trap door.

  “YOW!” said Koko as he jumped out of the hole and shook the cobwebs from his fur.

  Qwilleran let the door drop with a crash. “How long have you been down there?” he demanded.

  “Yow!” said Koko, batting the cobwebs from his whiskers. He walked calmly to his water bowl in a corner of the kitchen and took a long drink.

  Qwilleran washed and bandaged his hands. “Don’t ever do that to me again!” he said sternly. Now it was clear what had happened: Joanna had gone down under the cabin to deal with the defective water heater; Koko followed without her knowledge and was probably exploring some remote corner when she closed the trap door, locking him in the crawl space. Then she replaced the rug and left the premises. Koko had been down there for how long? An hour? Two hours? Three hours? It would teach him a lesson!

  Qwilleran apologized to Yum Yum for shouting at her and then chopped the fried chicken for them, although his right hand was still shaking and he gripped the knife with difficulty. After placing the plate of chicken on the floor, he went for a walk on the beach to calm himself.

  The loneliness of the shore, the gentle lapping of the water, the vast expanse of lake and sky . . . all these natural tranquilizers worked together to quiet his nerves. Nerves? He had never in his entire life exhibited nervous symptoms. And yet, his hands had been trembling when he consulted the phone book; they were still shaking when he chopped the chicken. During his career as a crime reporter he had faced life-threatening crises without flinching. Of course, he had been younger then. Now he was fiftyish, and it had been two years since his last physical examination. Perhaps he had been drinking too much coffee. Polly Duncan had urged him to cut down. Every woman he had known in recent years had nagged him about his health. Every woman except Mildred, that is. They hovered about his life like a Greek chorus, chanting, “Eat right . . . Get more exercise . . . Quit smoking!” He had given up his pipe. He had bought a bicycle. He ate broiled fish. And now Polly was campaigning to limit his caffeine.

  Slowly he ambled along the beach, breathing deeply, stopping at intervals to gaze across the placid lake. Even before he reached Seagull Point he saw Russell walking toward him, wearing sunglasses and her usual drab attire.

  “Hi!” he said. “Where are your feathered friends today?”

  “I fed them early,” she said.

  “Just taking a walk?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m walking to lower my blood pressure,” he told her. “I’ve just had a traumatic experience.”

  She looked at his bandaged hands. “You’re hurt.”

  “That’s nothing, but it’s part of the story. You see, I thought my cat was lost in the woods. I have two cats, and they’re not supposed to go out. In fact, they never go out. When I came home and found one of them missing, I don’t mind telling you that I panicked! My cats mean a great deal to me. Actually, they’re all the family I have. I worried about roving dogs, wild animals, hawks, even kidnappers. It turned out that the plumber came in my absence and opened the trap door to the crawl space. Koko went down under the floor and was trapped. He’s the male. The female is Yum Yum. They’re Siamese. Would you like to meet them?”

  He realized he was babbling like a simpleton, but it helped him to talk about the distressing experience.

  After a moment’s hesitation Russell answered his question with a timid yes. He continued to talk all the way to the cabin.

  She accepted a chair on the lake porch, sitting on the edge of it.

  “Would you care for a ginger ale?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “The cats are around somewhere,” Qwilleran said. “They’ll come out when they hear us talking about them. They’re incredibly vain, and they like to be admired. Yum Yum is a lapcat, very affectionate, with all kinds of catly traits. Koko is something else, though! He’s a remarkable animal with a keen intuition about people, situations, and events . . . I wonder where they are. Excuse me a moment.”

  He found the Siamese in deep slumber on the guestroom bunk—Koko evidently exhausted after his ordeal in the crawl space, Yum Yum glad to curl up in companionable proximity, and both of them stuffed with fried chicken. Picking them up in two hands, he carried them to the porch, one under each arm, their legs and heads and tails drooping, their bodies a dead weight. He set them down gently on the porch rug.

  Yum Yum shook herself awake and looked at Russell with mild curiosity, then speculated on the laces in her canvas shoes. Koko, on the other hand, froze in the spot where he had been deposited, bushed his tail, and chattered at the visitor with the hostility he usually reserved for squirrels and stray cats.

  “Koko! Watch your manners!” Qwilleran scolded.

  “They’re interesting,” Russell said.

  The tail gradually resumed its normal shape, and Koko walked back into the cabin with one or two backward glances at the stranger.

  In embarrassment Qwilleran said quickly, “Would you like to see the new addition?”

  They walked around to the back of the cabin. “Big chimney,” Russell remarked as they passed the huge block of fieldstone. “Another porch,” she commented when she saw the one in the rear.

  “It’s handy to have porches fore and aft. One is always cool, and one is always sheltered.”

  “Tall trees,” she said, looking up at the hundred-foot pines.

  “Very old,” he said, nodding and looking wise.

  As they stood in front of the east wing, he explained the floor plan, discussed the method of connecting it to the original cabin, and described the proposed exterior of board-and-batten.

  Russell observed everything in silence, nodding noncommittally, and when he had completed the prospectus, she said in a hollow voice, “I hope . . . they . . . get i
t finished.”

  As soon as Russell had headed down the steps to the beach, Qwilleran felt an urge to talk with Mildred Hanstable. “Thank you for steering me to Emma Wimsey,” he said. “That’s a good cat story, and it makes one think. I’ll have to fix it up a little, but I think the readers will like it.”

  “And how about the reunion? Did you find it worthwhile?”

  “Quite! It’s enlightening to see how the other half lives. While I was there I felt envious, but now that I’m home, I find the idea of all those relatives somewhat suffocating.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “About three hours, and when I reached the cabin, I got a real shock. I thought I’d lost Koko.”

  “What!”

  “The plumber had let him get down into the crawl space, and I had some uneasy moments until I found him.”

  “How dreadful, Qwill! I know how you feel about those kitties.”

  “After that, I had a visit from your next-door neighbor. We spent a half hour together, and she said all of fifteen words in that time.”

  “I’m glad to hear she’s loosening up,” Mildred said.

  “Who is this woman?” he demanded. “Where did she come from? Why is she here? She seems to be in her late twenties, but she dresses like 1935. Apparently she can afford a thousand dollars a month for a cottage.”

  “Maybe she’s a poor girl who inherited some money from an old uncle.”

  “And inherited the wardrobe from an old aunt. When Koko met her he reacted as if she’d come from outer space. I think he knows more than we do . . . And another curious thing about that girl, Mildred: She detects something unsavory about the Dunfield house. Did you tell her what happened there?”

  “Not a word!”

  “And when I showed her the new addition, she said she hopes it gets finished! I’m beginning to worry.”

  “What is there to worry about?” Mildred said. “You have a splendid young man working for you.”

  “That’s what I worry about. He’s too good to be true.” Qwilleran combed his moustache with his fingertips. “Clem didn’t march in the parade Friday; he didn’t show up for work yesterday; he didn’t attend the reunion with his fiancée today. Maryellen’s excuse was that Clem was out of town, but she wasn’t very convincing.”

  “Oh, Qwill! You’re always so suspicious. It’s not unthinkable that a person would go out of town on a big holiday weekend.”

  Qwilleran huffed into his moustache, mumbled something about hoping for the best, and said goodnight. He refrained from mentioning that Koko had been tapping his tail in a significant way for the last three days.

  EIGHT

  Qwilleran had become accustomed to six-thirty reveille on weekday mornings, sounded by the rumble of Clem’s truck, the whine of the table saw, and the staccato blows of the hammer. On Monday he slept until eight o’clock, however, and only the weight of two cats on his chest caused him to open his eyes.

  His doubts about the carpenter’s whereabouts proved to be well-founded; Clem did not appear. Qwilleran kept glancing at his watch and smoothing his moustache anxiously. Finally he telephoned the Cottle farmhouse.

  A weary-voiced woman answered—Clem’s mother, he assumed.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cottle? This is Jim Qwilleran. I’d like to speak with Clem, if he’s there.”

  There was a breathless pause. “You want . . . to talk to . . . Clem?”

  “Gimme that phone,” said a gruff male voice. “Who is this?”

  “Mr. Cottle? This is Jim Qwilleran. Clem is doing some construction work for me, and he didn’t show up on Saturday. I’m wondering when I can expect him.”

  “He’s out of town,” the man snapped.

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “Don’t know. I’ll tell him to call you.” The chicken farmer hung up.

  Here was a situation that called for the moral support of caffeine, and Qwilleran made himself a cup of coffee—weaker than usual, in the wake of his nervous shakes the night before. How long should he wait for Clem to return? Would Clem ever return? An uneasy sensation on his upper lip was intensifying. When should he start hunting for a substitute? Would anyone want to finish a job started by another builder? Where would he find anyone to equal Clem? And then the burning question: What had happened to Clem Cottle?

  The Siamese had finished their three-hour morning nap and had not yet settled down for their four-hour afternoon siesta. It was their Mischief Hour. Yum Yum was batting a pencil she had stolen from the writing table, and Koko was parading around with a sweat sock that Qwilleran used for biking.

  “What shall I do, Koko?” he asked. “You have a lot of good ideas. Tell me what to do.”

  Koko ignored him pointedly as he staggered about the cabin, dusting the floorboards with the sock dragging between his forelegs.

  “Are you telling me the house is dirty?” Qwilleran noted the fluffballs in the corners and the dust on almost everything. “Well, maybe it is.” He ran the dustmop around the edges and flicked a duster half-heartedly over several tabletops.

  The sock brought to mind Cecil’s story about Grandpa Huggins and the loaf of bread. They had a sly wit, those early settlers. Grandpa’s General Store had completely disappeared. Not a stick of it left, Cecil had said. It had been on the Brrr Road at Huggins Corners. The county was dotted with ghostly memories of villages and hamlets that had vanished without a trace, and they held a singular fascination for Qwilleran. He retrieved his sock, found its mate, changed into shorts and T-shirt, and set out on his bike to find the site of Grandpa Huggins’s General Store.

  Only a trail bike or a vehicle with four-wheel drive could negotiate the sandy furrows of the Old Brrr Road, and there was not enough traffic to keep the weeds from growing in the ruts. Yet, this had once been the only thoroughfare between Mooseville and Brrr, traversed by wagons, carriages, doctors on horseback, and pedestrians who thought nothing of walking ten miles to exchange a catch of fish for a few dozen eggs. Here and there one could see the remains of a collapsed barn or a stone chimney rising from a field of weeds. A crude bridge crossing the Ittibittiwassee River was nothing more than a collection of rattling planks.

  Qwilleran passed a clearing with a circle of charred ashes in the center. Hunters had made camp here, or Scouts had pitched tents. He saw the rear end of a blue truck ahead, parked off the road with the front end in a shallow ditch. A varmint hunter, he surmised, but when he biked abreast of the pickup, he saw the frantic chicken painted on the door.

  He threw down his bike and approached the truck warily, fearful of what he might find. The windows were open, and the cab was empty, but the key was in the ignition—not an unusual circumstance in the north country. When he flipped the key, the motor turned over, so the truck was not out of gas. But where was the driver? Qwilleran touched his moustache tentatively. Clem was not “out of town” as his father and fiancée had insisted.

  After making this mystifying discovery, Qwilleran lost all interest in Grandpa Huggins’s General Store. He turned the bike around and headed back to the dunes, thinking what a coincidence it was—and how fortunate it was—that Koko had stolen his sock. All that remained now was to determine an appropriate course of action.

  As he pedaled up the snaking drive to the cabin, a small yellow car was leaving the clearing. He dropped his bike and walked to the driver’s window. “Looking for me, Maryellen?”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” she said in a small voice.

  “Back up,” he said, “and come into the cabin.”

  He wheeled the bike to the toolshed and met her at the door to the back porch. “Let’s sit out here. It’s a little breezy on the lakeside. May I get you a drink?”

  “No, thanks,” she said, studying her hands clenched in her lap.

  “What’s the problem?” Qwilleran asked, although he could guess.

  “I’m worried about Clem.”

  “So am I, but yesterday you told me he was out of town.”
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br />   “That’s what Mr. Cottle told me to say.”

  “What’s his line of reasoning?”

  “He says a young man has to have a last fling before he settles down. He says he did it himself when he was Clem’s age. But Mrs. Cottle doesn’t think that’s what happened to Clem, and neither do I. It’s not like him to go away without letting us know—not like him at all! He’s too thoughtful to do that.”

  “From my brief acquaintance with him, I’m inclined to agree, but why did you come to me?”

  “I didn’t know who else to go to. I don’t want to upset my parents. Dad has a heart condition, and Mom goes to pieces easily. Clem always said you were an important man in the county, so that’s why I came.” She looked at him appealingly.

  “You’re not going to like what I have to say, Maryellen, but . . . I’ve just been biking on the Old Brrr Road, and I saw Clem’s truck.”

  Her face and neck flushed a bright red.

  “It’s not wrecked,” he went on. “The keys are in the ignition, and it’s not out of gas. It’s just parked off the road, halfway in the ditch. Would he have any reason for using the old road?”

  She shook her head slowly. “He’s not a hunter. Only hunters go back in there.” Her eyes grew wide. “What do you think it means?”

  “It means that Clem’s father should stop kidding himself and report the disappearance to the sheriff.”

  In Qwilleran’s early days as a newsman, when he covered the police beat for newspapers Down Below, he had a good rapport with the law-enforcement agencies, and he could always discuss cases with fellow journalists at the Press Club. In Moose County he had no such connections. There was Arch Riker, of course, but his old friend only kidded him about his suspicions. And there was Andrew Brodie, but the Pickax police chief dried up when the case was outside his jurisdiction, and the Cottle farm in Black Creek was on the sheriff’s turf.

  Under the circumstances, Qwilleran’s only contact was Mildred’s son-in-law, who covered the police beat for the Moose County Something. Having quit a teaching job to join the paper, Roger MacGillivray was hardly a seasoned reporter, but he was a willing listener, and he had enthusiasm.