The Cat Who Wasn't There Read online

  “Irma says it’s better to make it invitational to ensure a compatible group. We’ll go in late August when the heather is in bloom. The tour will start in Glasgow and end in Edinburgh.”

  “Glasgow?” Qwilleran echoed with interest. “I’ve been reading about the Charles Rennie Mackintosh revival in Glasgow. My mother was a Mackintosh, you know.”

  Polly knew, having heard it a hundred times, but she asked sweetly, “Do you think you might be related to him?”

  “I know nothing about my maternal ancestors except that one of them was either a stagecoach driver who was killed by a highwayman, or a highwayman who was hanged for murdering a stagecoach driver. As for Charles Rennie Mackintosh, I know only that he pioneered modern design a hundred years ago, and he sounds like an interesting character.”

  “If you wish to extend your time in Glasgow, you can do that,” Polly said encouragingly. “Carol and Larry will go early and see a few plays in London.”

  “Okay, sign me up for a single,” he said. “I’ll find a cat-sitter. Lori Bamba would be perfect, but she has kids, and they’d fall off the balconies. The barn was designed for cats and adults.”

  The soup course arrived, and they savored it in silence as they thought about the forthcoming adventure. When the swordfish was served, Qwilleran said, “I’ve heard a rumor about Irma Hasselrich, although not from a reliable source. Perhaps you could set me straight.”

  Polly stiffened noticeably. “What have you heard? And from whom?”

  “I protect my sources,” he said, “but the story is that she shot a man twenty-odd years ago and was charged with murder, but the Hasselriches bribed the judge to let her off without a sentence.”

  Drawing a deep breath of exasperation, Polly replied, “Like most gossip in Pickax, it’s only ten percent accurate. The motive for the shooting was what we now call date rape. In court, Hasselrich defended his daughter brilliantly. The jury found her guilty of manslaughter but recommended leniency, and the judge was more understanding than most jurists at that time; he gave her probation, plus an order to do three years of community service . . . Does that answer your question?”

  Detecting annoyance in the curt explanation, he said, “I’m sorry. I simply repeated what I had heard.”

  More softly Polly said, “After completing her community service, Irma went on to devote her life to volunteer work. She’ll do anything for charity! She’s raised tons of money for good causes.”

  “Quite admirable,” Qwilleran murmured, but it crossed his mind that “anything” was a strong and suspect word.

  He ordered strawberry pie for dessert, and Polly toyed with a small dish of lime sorbet. She had eaten only half of everything that was served. “I’m watching my diet,” she explained. “I’ve lost a few pounds. Does it show?”

  “You’re looking healthy and beautiful,” he replied. “Don’t get too skinny.”

  After dessert they went to her apartment for coffee, and then did some reading aloud. They read two acts of Macbeth while Bootsie sniffed Qwilleran’s trouser legs with distaste.

  It was late when Qwilleran returned to the apple barn, and two indignant Siamese met him at the door. Sensing that he had been associating with another cat, they walked away with a lofty display of superiority.

  “Come off it, you guys!” he rebuked them. “I have news for you. I’m taking a trip to Scotland, and you’re not going!”

  “Yow!” Koko scolded him.

  “That’s right. You’re staying here!”

  “N-n-now!” shrieked Yum Yum.

  “And you’re not going, either!”

  TWO

  THE DAY FOLLOWING his evening with Polly, Qwilleran regretted his impulsive decision to go to Scotland and leave the Siamese for two weeks. As he brushed their silky coats—Yum Yum with hindlegs splayed like a Duncan Phyfe table, and Koko with tail in a stiff Hogarth curve—he thought of canceling his reservation, but an inner voice deterred him, saying: You’re a two-hundred-pound man, and you’re allowing yourself to be enslaved by eighteen pounds of cat!

  That evening he was reading aloud with the female cuddling contentedly on his lap and the male perched on the arm of his chair, when the telephone rang. “Excuse me, sweetheart,” he said, lifting Yum Yum gently and placing her on the warm seat cushion he had just vacated.

  It was Irma Hasselrich on the line, speaking with the syrupy, formal charm that was her style. She said, “Mr. Qwilleran, I learn with a great deal of pleasure that you wish to join the Bonnie Scots Tour.”

  “Yes, it strikes me as an interesting adventure. My mother was a Mackintosh. And by the way, please call me Qwill.”

  “Needless to say, Mr. Qwilleran,” she continued as if she had not heard, “we’re delighted that the Klingenschoen Foundation is offering a matching grant. We want to create a park for the patients at the facility, with flower beds, winding paths for wheelchairs, and a pavilion with tables for picnic lunches and games.”

  “Very commendable,” Qwilleran murmured. “How many persons do you expect to enlist for the tour?”

  “Our goal is sixteen. That number will fill a minibus.”

  “Did Polly tell you I want to spend some time in Glasgow?”

  “Yes. Several participants want to extend their stay abroad, so I suggest that we all make our own flight arrangements and meet on Day One at a prescribed location in Glasgow.”

  “How many have signed up so far?”

  “Eleven. Perhaps you can suggest other compatible travelers that we might contact.”

  Qwilleran thought for a few seconds. “How about John and Vicki Bushland? They have a summer place in Mooseville, although they’re residents of Lockmaster, where he has a commercial photography studio.”

  “We would love to have a professional photographer along! May I call them and use your name?”

  “By all means.”

  “As soon as it was known that you were joining the tour, Mr. Qwilleran, I was able to sign up three others: Mr. and Mrs. MacWhannell—he’s the CPA, you know—and Dr. Melinda Goodwinter. Aren’t we fortunate to have a doctor with us?”

  Qwilleran cringed inwardly and combed his moustache with his fingertips. He had visions of the importunate Melinda tapping on his hotel door at a late hour and inviting herself in for a chat. She was a persistent young woman, and, according to Arch Riker, who had met her after her father’s funeral, she was still carrying the torch for him, Polly or no Polly.

  Qwilleran veiled his distress by inquiring about the weather in Scotland, and Irma assured him that she would send all pertinent travel information in the mail.

  When the conversation ended, he immediately phoned Arch Riker at the office of the Moose County Something. The two men had grown up together in Chicago and had pursued separate careers in journalism Down Below. Now they were reunited in Pickax, where Riker was realizing his dream of publishing a small-town newspaper.

  “Arch, how would you like to knock off for a couple of weeks and go to Scotland with a local group?” Qwilleran proposed. “We could save a few bucks by sharing accommodations.” He added a few details and dropped some important names: Hasselrich, Lanspeak, Compton, MacWhannell.

  Riker liked the idea, saying that he’d always wanted to play the seventeenth hole at St. Andrews.

  “And now the bad news,” Qwilleran said. “Melinda Goodwinter is going.”

  “The plot thickens,” said Riker with a chuckle. He was amused by his friend’s problems with women. “Does Polly know?”

  “If she doesn’t, she’ll soon find out!”

  Complimenting himself on a successful maneuver, Qwilleran called Irma Hasselrich and changed his reservation to double occupancy. The next day it was his turn to chuckle when Riker telephoned.

  “Hey, listen to this, Qwill,” he said. “I took Amanda to dinner last night and told her about the Scottish tour, and she wants to join! How do you like that kettle of fish?”

  “She’ll have to pay the single supplement. No one will be
willing to room with Amanda—not even her cousin Melinda.”

  Amanda Goodwinter was a cranky, outspoken woman of indefinite age who “drank a little,” as Pickax natives liked to say. Yet, she operated a successful studio of interior design and was repeatedly elected to the city council, where she minced no words, spared no feelings, played no politics.

  Riker, with a journalist’s taste for oddballs, found her entertaining, and for a while the Pickax grapevine linked them as potential mates, but Amanda’s prickly personality guaranteed that she would remain single for life. Now he was enjoying the prospect of Amanda disrupting the harmony of a group tour. “I hope everyone has a sense of humor,” he said to Qwilleran on the phone. “What’s so absurd is that she hates bagpipes, mountains, bus travel, and Irma Hasselrich.”

  “Then why is she going? Surely not only to be with you, old chum!”

  “No, I can’t take the credit. She’s excited about visiting whiskey distilleries. She’s heard they give free samples.”

  While Qwilleran was relishing this news, Chief Brodie phoned to report that state troopers had spotted a Massachusetts license plate on a maroon car headed south near the county line. “Probably leaving the area,” he said. “We ran a check, and it’s registered to one Charles Edward Martin of Charlestown, Massachusetts.”

  “What was he doing here?” Qwilleran asked sharply, a rhetorical question. “In five years I’ve never seen a Massachusetts car in Moose County. Those New Englanders don’t even know it exists!”

  “Could be a friend of Dr. Melinda’s. Could be he came for her dad’s funeral. There were lots of beards there,” Brodie said. “Tell you what, Qwill: If he shows up again and we get a complaint, we’ll know who he is, at least. For now, we’re stepping up the night patrols on Goodwinter Boulevard, and you tell Polly not to go out alone after dark.”

  Qwilleran’s moustache bristled. Whenever he thought of that maroon car, he felt a distinct tremor on his upper lip. His luxuriant moustache was more than a prominent facial feature; it had long been the source of his hunches and suspicions, bristling and tingling to get his attention, and experience had taught him to trust the signals. This peculiar sensitivity was a matter he was loath to discuss with any but his intimate friends, and even they were disinclined to believe it. Nevertheless, it was a fact.

  He was not alone in his ability to sense trouble. Kao K’o Kung possessed a unique faculty for exposing evil deeds and evildoers, in the same way that he sniffed a microscopic spot on the rug, or detected a stereo control turned to “on” when the power should be off. When Koko’s ears pointed and his whiskers twitched, when he scratched industriously and sniffed juicily, he was on the scent of something that was—not—as—it—should—be!

  After the phone conversation with Brodie, Qwilleran turned to Koko, who always perched nearby to monitor calls. “Well, old boy,” he said, “the Boulevard Prowler seems to have left town.”

  “Yow,” said Koko, scratching his ear.

  “So far, so good. Now, how do we find you a suitable cat-sitter?”

  Koko jumped to the floor with a grunt and trotted to the pantry, where he stared pointedly at his empty plate. Yum Yum was not far behind. It was time for their mid-day snack.

  Qwilleran gave them a handful of crunchy cereal concocted by the food writer of the Moose County Something, Mildred Hanstable. It was the only dry food the Siamese would deign to eat. As he watched them munching and waving their tails in rapture, an idea struck him.

  “I’ve got it!” he said aloud. “Mildred Hanstable!”

  Besides writing the food column for the newspaper, she taught home economics in the Pickax schools, and she enjoyed cooking for cats, dogs, and humans. Widowed, she lived alone. Plump and pretty, she had a kind heart, a lively imagination, and an ample lap.

  “Perfect!” Qwilleran yelped, so loudly that the Siamese turned to look at him in alarm before finishing the last morsel on the plate.

  Mildred Hanstable was the mother-in-law of his friend Roger MacGillivray, and he tracked down the young reporter at Lois’s Luncheonette. “What do you think of the idea, Roger? She likes the cats, and they like her.”

  “It would do her a lot of good—help get her mind off the past,” said Roger. “She thinks your barn is sensational, and the chance to live there for a couple of weeks would be like halfway to heaven!”

  “One thing I must ask: Is she still drinking heavily?”

  “Well, she went through a twisted kind of alcoholic mourning for that no-good husband of hers, but she snapped out of it. Now she’s overeating instead. Basically she’s lonely. I wish she could meet a decent guy.”

  “We’ll have to work on that, Roger . . . Where are you headed now?”

  “I have an assignment in Kennebeck. The Tuesday Afternoon Women’s Club is planting a tree in the village park.”

  It so happened that Qwilleran had brought several handwoven batwing capes from the mountains, and he presented one to Mildred after a staff meeting at the newspaper. It was the kind of voluminous garment that she liked for camouflaging her excess poundage, and the invitation to cat-sit and barn-sit for two weeks thrilled her beyond words.

  With that worrisome matter concluded, he now applied himself to other matters. He gave batwing capes to his part-time secretary, the young interior designer who had helped him furnish the barn, and the advertising manager of the Moose County Something, making three women deliriously happy. Next, to replace the car that was left mired in the mountains, he found a white four-door on the used-car lot; he never wasted money on new models. All the while, he was cleverly managing to avoid Dr. Melinda Goodwinter, ignoring the reminder that he was due for his annual checkup according to the records of the late Halifax Goodwinter, M.D.

  Irma Hasselrich was prompt in mailing tour participants a detailed itinerary as well as information on Scottish weather and appropriate clothing: “Sweaters and jackets are a must, because evenings can be cool, and we’ll be traveling to windswept islands and mountaintops. Be sure to include a light raincoat, umbrella, and waterproof shoes or boots.” The last was underlined in red. Then: “For special evenings, men are requested to pack a blazer or sports coat with shirt and tie, and women are advised to have a dress and heels for such occasions. Luggage must be limited to one bag per person, plus a small carry-on. There will be no smoking on the bus or in restaurants as a matter of courtesy, and no smoking in country inns because of the fire hazard.” Enclosed was a brief glossary of Highland and Lowland terms:

  loch . . . lake

  moor . . . treeless hill

  glen . . . secluded valley

  fen . . . marsh

  ben . . . mountain

  firth . . . arm of the sea

  burn . . . creek

  strath . . . wide river valley

  kyle . . . strait

  croft . . . farmhouse

  crofter . . . farmer

  bothy . . . farmhands’ barracks

  neeps . . . turnips

  tatties . . . potatoes

  haggis . . . meat pudding

  toilet . . . restroom

  usquebaugh . . . whiskey

  (spelled “whisky” in Scotland)

  Included was a suggested reading list: Boswell, Dr. Johnson, Sir Walter Scott, and the like, most of which were in Qwilleran’s growing collection of secondhand books.

  Nevertheless, he went to Eddington Smith’s used-book store and picked up an old travel book with a yellowed fold-out map of Scotland. The bookseller also suggested Memoirs of an Eighteenth Century Footman. He said, “It’s about Scotland. It was published in 1790 and reprinted in 1927. It’s not in bad condition for a sixty-year-old book.”

  Qwilleran bought it and was on his way out of the store when Eddington mentioned, “Dr. Melinda came in yesterday. She wants me to buy Dr. Hal’s library, but she’s asking too much money.”

  That evening, as Qwilleran sat in his favorite lounge chair with Memoirs, the cats arranged themselves for a read: Koko on the wide
upholstered arm of the chair and Yum Yum on his lap with forelegs extended and paws crossed prettily. Sixty years of assorted household odors made the book fascinating to the Siamese. Qwilleran was enthralled by the incredible account of four motherless children—ages two, four, seven, and fourteen—setting out to find their father, who had left to fight for Prince Charlie. After walking 150 miles, being on the road for three months, begging for food and shelter, they learned that he had fallen in battle at Culloden.

  Absorbed in their predicament, Qwilleran was almost too stunned to answer when the telephone rang, until Koko yowled in his ear.

  “Uh . . . hello,” he said vaguely.

  “Hello, lover. Is that you? You sound far away. Do you recognize a voice from your high-flying past?”

  “Who is this?” he asked in a flat voice, although he knew.

  “Melinda!”

  “Oh . . . hello.”

  “Am I interrupting something important?”

  “No. I was reading a book.”

  “It must be pretty good. What’s the title?”

  “It’s . . . uh . . . Memoirs of an Eighteenth Century Footman by John Macdonald.”

  “Sounds like hot stuff. Someone told me you’re collecting old books now.”

  “I have a few.” He was trying to sound like a poor prospect, not to mention a dull and uninteresting person.

  “I’m selling my father’s library. Are you interested?”

  “I’m afraid not. I pick up one book at a time, here and there.”

  “Why don’t you meet me at the house for a look at Dad’s library. You might see—something—you like. I’m living at Indian Village, but I could run into town.”

  “That’s a good idea,” he said with misleading enthusiasm. “I’ll see when Polly Duncan’s available, and we’ll make an appointment with you. She’s my guru when it comes to old books.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Okay. I’ll get in touch with you later, if the books are still available . . . I hear we’re going to Scotland on the same tour, lover.”