The Cat Who Tailed a Thief Read online

  While she was talking, Qwilleran was thinking. He had never met the fourteen-year-old science and math whiz who had helped solve the Euphonia Gage case in Florida, and he felt obliged to extend some form of hospitality, although he was not fond of the underage bracket. He said, “Would your grandson like to go along with me on an assignment for the paper?”

  “Oh, Chief! He’d love it! He’s outside now, using the snowblower, but I’ll tell him when he comes in. He’ll be thrilled! It might change his life! He might decide to be a newspaperman!”

  “Tell him to stick with cybernetics. It pays better. Does he have a camera?”

  “Yes. A new one his dad gave him for Christmas. And he has the little tape recorder he used in Florida.”

  “Good! He can pose as my photographer. Tell him to pick up a roll of film, and I’ll pay for it. Meanwhile, I’ll set up an interview and call you back.”

  “Shall I cut his hair?” Celia asked.

  “Not necessary,” Qwilleran said. “Photographers aren’t expected to look too civilized.”

  Her laughter was still resounding as they hung up.

  Then Polly called to discuss how they should dress for dinner.

  “Arch will be wearing his twenty-year-old red wool shirt,” Qwilleran said, “so I suggest we go in sweaters.”

  Polly’s staff had given her a white sweater embroidered with red cardinals and green holly—livelier than her usual garb, but Polly herself was livelier since her surgery. Qwilleran had a new sweater, ordered from Chicago, that looked like an Oriental rug—high style for a man whose peers Down Below used to call a lovable slob.

  “I’ll pick you up at one o’clock,” he said. “Bundle up, and we’ll walk. It isn’t windy.”

  “Do you know who’s just moved into the unit next to you, Qwill?”

  “A husky man. Drives a large van.”

  “That’s Wetherby Goode!”

  “No! What did I do to deserve that clown for a neighbor?”

  “Do I detect inter-media jealousy?” she said, teasing gently. “Most radio listeners think he’s entertaining. It’s not all about dew point and barometric pressure. One windy day he sang ‘Rockabye Baby.’ After an ice storm he quoted from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. One of his listeners had sent it in: The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around. People are afraid he’ll run out of quotes.”

  “Well, if you have to have a gimmick with your weather, I guess that’s as good as any,” Qwilleran acknowledged. “Who lives next to you?”

  “The Cavendish sisters, retired teachers, very quiet.”

  * * *

  At one o’clock they started out for the Riker condo in Building Two, muffled in down jackets, scarfs, woolly hats, mittens, and boots. They walked hand-in-hand as they had done during her first post-surgery outings. Now it had become a pleasant custom to both of them; to observers it was romantic grist for the gossip mill.

  Polly had a red wool scarf, six feet long, wrapped around her chin and ears and trailing front and back. “A present from Lynette,” she said.

  “What did you give her?”

  “A set of violet-scented soap, bath oil, and cologne. Violet is all she ever wears.”

  “I always wondered what that aroma was on Pleasant Street. I thought it was furniture polish.”

  “Oh, Qwill, you’re wicked! Violet is a lovely scent. To simplify my Christmas shopping I mailed the same thing to my sister in Cincinnati, and she phoned this morning to say how much she liked it.”

  “Do people on your gift list ever call to say they hate what you gave them?”

  “Now you’re being the cynical journalist!”

  Arriving at their destination, they were greeted at the door by a committee of three: the beaming host in a red wool shirt, the plump and pretty hostess in a chef’s apron, and their cat in his usual tuxedo with white shirtfront and spats. Toulouse looked slyly satisfied with his lot, like an alley-smart stray who has found a home with the food writer of a newspaper. The two women hugged, and each told the other she looked wonderful. The men, friends since childhood, had only to make eye contact to express all that needed to be said.

  There was a Scotch pine tree in the living room, trimmed like the one at their wedding the previous Christmas: white pearlescent ornaments, white doves, white streamers. The festively wrapped packages under the tree included those sent over by Polly and Qwilleran. The aromas were those of pine boughs, roasting turkey, and hot mulled cider.

  Mildred removed her apron and joined the others around a low party table loaded with hot and cold hors d’oeuvres.

  Polly said, “I always feel so secure when I come to dinner here. Mildred doesn’t fuss in the kitchen; she doesn’t expect anyone to help; and everything turns out perfectly: the hot foods hot and the cold foods cold.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Qwilleran said.

  As the four busied themselves with the hors d’oeuvres, conversation came in short bites:

  About the theft: “An inside job! An outsider could have stolen it only if an insider talked on the outside.”

  About Lynette: “Suddenly she’s looking ten years younger! Is she in love? . . . She was jilted twenty years ago and hasn’t dated since. . . Maybe it’s Wetherby Goode. She thinks he’s cute.”

  About George Breze: “What’s he doing in Indian Village?. . . His house on Sandpit Road is up for sale. . . His wife left him. Why did she stay as long as she did?”

  About the Carmichaels: “Big difference in their ages. . . He’s an asset to the community, but she’s a misfit. . . Someone should talk to her about her wardrobe.”

  Polly said, “She has such a pouty mouth! Is it natural?”

  “It’s what they call a fish-mouth,” Mildred said. “You can have it done.”

  “My wife is so worldly,” said Arch.

  Toulouse walked into the room with a solemn tread and rubbed against the cook’s ankles as a reminder that the turkey was ready. Mildred served it with a brown-rice-and-walnut stuffing, twice-baked sweet potatoes with orange glaze, sesame-sauced broccoli, and two kinds of cranberry relish.

  “I feel compelled to serve two kinds,” she said, “or the turkey will be dry and the stuffing will be soggy. It’s just a superstition.”

  “It’s absurd,” said her husband, “but I don’t fight it.”

  Qwilleran claimed he had never been superstitious. “As a kid, I deliberately walked under ladders and stepped on cracks in the sidewalk.”

  “And look how he turned out!” Riker said. “Luckiest guy in the northeast central United States.”

  In pioneer days, Mildred related, it was unlucky to whistle in the mines, kill a woodpecker in a lumber camp, or drop a knife on the deck of a fishing boat.

  “Today,” Polly said, “we observe superstitions half in fun and half hopefully. Lynette always wears her grandmother’s ring to play bridge, and she almost always wins.”

  “Anything will work if you think it will,” Qwilleran said. “With the ring on her finger, she expects to win—a positive attitude that enables her to think clearly and make the right moves.”

  “The right bids,” Arch corrected him. “You’re thinking of chess.”

  With a wink at the others, Mildred said, “Arch always puts on his right shoe before the left.”

  “It has nothing to do with superstition. It has everything to do with efficiency,” he explained. “It’s the result of a lifelong time-and-motion study.”

  “You never told me that,” she said innocently. “But if you accidentally put on the left shoe first, you take it off and start over.”

  “Who needs Big Brother? I’ve got Big Wife monitoring my behavior.”

  “Ooh! I’m going on a diet after the holidays,” Mildred said.

  “Isn’t it strange,” Polly remarked, “how many superstitions have to do with the feet, like putting a penny in your shoe for luck or wearing mismatched socks to take an exam? Bootsie gives his paw three licks—no more, no less—before starting to
eat.”

  “Will someone explain to me,” Qwilleran asked, “why Koko always eats with his rear end pointed north? No matter where he’s being fed, he knows which way is north. And Yum Yum always approaches her food from the left. If something’s in the way and she has to do otherwise, she throws up.”

  Arch groaned. “This conversation is getting too deep for me. Let’s have dessert.”

  After the plum pudding had been served and after the coffee had been poured, the presents were opened—not in a mad scramble but one at a time, with everyone sharing the suspense.

  The first—to Qwilleran from the Rikers—was an odd-shaped package about four feet long. “A short stepladder,” he guessed. “A croquet set.” It proved to be a pair of snowshoes. “Great!” he said. “There are snow trails all around here! It’s just what I need to get some exercise this winter!” And he meant it.

  Polly was thrilled with her suede suit and silk blouse, and the Rikers whooped in unison over the Majolica coffeepot. Then Arch unwrapped his baseball tie and exploded with laughter, while Mildred screamed in glee.

  Qwilleran said, “It was supposed to be a joke, but I didn’t know it was that funny!” He understood their reaction when, a few minutes later, he opened a long, narrow giftbox from Arch. It was a baseball tie.

  The largest box under the tree—to Qwilleran from Polly—was a set of leather-bound books by Herman Melville, a 1924 printing in mint condition. Included were novels that Qwilleran, a Melville buff, had never been able to find. He dug into the box excitedly, announcing title after title, and reading aloud some of the opening lines.

  “Okay,” Arch said, “you’ve got all winter to read those books. Let’s open some more presents.”

  Also for Qwilleran was an opera recording from Polly: Adriana Lecouvreur with Renata Tebaldi. . . Toulouse gave Koko and Yum Yum a gift certificate good at Toodle’s fish counter. . . Arch gave Mildred a three-strand necklace of onyx beads accented with a cartouche of gold-veined lapis lazuli.

  The last gift under the tree was tagged to Qwilleran from Bootsie. “It’s a package bomb,” he guessed. After unwrapping it with exaggerated care, he exclaimed, “I can only quote the bard: I am amazed and know not what to say! It’s a sporran!”

  “You could have fooled me,” said Arch. “I thought it was something for cleaning the windshield.”

  “A sporran, for your information, Arch, is a fur pouch worn with a kilt by men in the Scottish Highlands. It’s used to carry money, car keys, driver’s license, cigarettes, lighter, credit cards, sunglasses, and possibly a sandwich.” He turned to Polly. “How did Bootsie find out I’d bought a kilt?”

  “Everyone in town knows it, dear. There are no secrets in Pickax.”

  “Well, we’re now a two-sporran family. Yum Yum has a cat-size sporran attached to her underside. It flaps from side to side when she trots, but hers is real fur. I think this one can be machine-washed and tumble-dried.”

  * * *

  When dusk fell and the gaslights on River Lane began to glow, it was snowing, so Arch drove Polly and Qwilleran home with their loot and foil-wrapped packs of turkey for their cats. Qwilleran minced some before going to Polly’s for mint tea and a recap of the afternoon:

  “Carol gets the credit for selecting your suit, Polly.”

  “Mildred made your sporran, Qwill.”

  “The snowshoes are good-looking enough to hang on the wall when I’m not using them.”

  “Did you know Adriana was the last role Tebaldi sang before she retired?”

  “Eddington Smith searched a whole year for a Melville collection. This one turned up in Boston.”

  It had stopped snowing when Qwilleran finally went home, and he was surprised to find footprints in the fresh snow on his front walk, leading to and from his doorstep. They were a woman’s footprints. There were no tire tracks. She lived in the Village and had walked. Who in the Village would pay a call without phoning first or being invited? Not Hixie or Fran. Certainly not Amanda Goodwinter. Opening the storm door, he found a gift on the threshold, wrapped in conservative holly paper and about the size and weight of a two-pound box of chocolates. He felt obliged to quote Lewis Carroll: Curiouser and curiouser! He carried it indoors, hoping it was not chocolates.

  The Siamese, dozing on the sofa, raised their heads expectantly.

  “Three guesses!” he said to them as he tore open the paper. It was a book with an unusual binding: leather spine and cloth-covered boards in a red and green Jacobean design, leafy and flowery. The gold tooling on the spine spelled out The Old Wives’ Tale.

  “Hey,” he yelped, alarming the cats. Arnold Bennett was one of his favorite authors, and this was considered his best novel. It was obviously a special edition of the 1908 book, with heavy quality paper, deckled edges, and woodcut illustrations. There was a note enclosed:

  Qwill—You mentioned Bennett in your column last week, and I thought you’d like to have this precious book from my father’s collection.

  —Your Number-One Fan—Sarah

  Qwilleran was flabbergasted. Sarah Plensdorf was the office manager at the Something—an older woman, rather shy. She lived alone in the Village, surrounded by family treasures.

  Clutching the book, he dropped into his favorite easy chair and propped his feet on the ottoman. Koko and Yum Yum came running. Reading aloud was one of the things they did together as a family.

  Bennett had been a journalist, and his novels were written in an unromantic style with detailed descriptions. As Qwilleran read, he dramatized with sound effects: the resounding call of the cuckoo in the English countryside, the clanging bell of the horse-car in town, the snores of Mr. Povey, asleep on the sofa with his mouth wide open. (He had taken a painkiller for his aching tooth.) When the prankish Sophie reached into the gaping mouth with pliers and extracted the wobbly tooth, Mr. Povey yelped, Qwilleran yelped, Yum Yum shrieked. But where was Koko?

  Some muttering could be heard in the foyer, where Qwilleran had piled all the Christmas gifts; Koko was doing his best to open the carton containing the set of Melville’s works.

  Was he attracted to the leather bindings? Did he detect codfish on a set of old books from Boston? Could he sense that the box contained a novel about a whale? He was a smart cat, but was he that smart?

  Koko did indeed have a baffling gift of extrasensory perception. He could tell time, read Qwilleran’s mind, and put thoughts in Qwilleran’s head. All cats do this, more or less, at feeding time. But Koko applied his powers to matters of good and evil. He sensed misdeeds, and he could identify misdoers in an oblique sort of way. Melville’s novels were concerned with good and evil to a large degree; was Kao K’o Kung getting the message?

  Was it coincidence that he pushed The Thief off the bookshelf when Pickax was plagued with petit larceny—and some not so petit?

  Trying to find answers to such questions could drive a person mad, Qwilleran had decided. The sane approach was to be receptive, open-minded. There was one clue, however, that he had divined: Normal cats have twenty-four whiskers on each side, eyebrows included. Koko had thirty!

  FOUR

  Between Christmas and New Year’s, Qwilleran took Celia Robinson’s grandson out on an assignment. He had been scheduled to interview an innkeeper in Trawnto Beach, but a dowser in Pickax seemed more likely to interest a future scientist. Furthermore, the dowser lived nearby, and Qwilleran could avoid sixty miles of driving in the company of a precocious fourteen-year-old. Admittedly, summer would be more appropriate for a dowsing story, but the interview could be conducted during Clayton’s visit and put on hold. Then, after spring thaw, Qwilleran could return for a demonstration of the mysterious art.

  When he drove into Celia’s parking lot, he saw Clayton on the snowblower, spraying his grandmother with plumes of white flakes, while she pelted him with snowballs in gleeful retaliation. Brushing snow from their outerwear, they approached Qwilleran’s car, and Celia made the introductions: “Mr. Qwilleran, this is my famous grandson
. . . Clayton, this is the famous Mr. Q. I call him ‘Chief.’”

  “Hi, Chief,” the young man said, thrusting his hand forward. His grip had the confidence of a young teen who is expecting a scholarship from M.I.T.

  “Hi, Doc,” Qwilleran replied, referring to his role in the Florida investigation. He sized him up as a healthy farm-bred youth with an intelligent face, freshly cut hair, and a voice deeper than the one on last year’s tape recording. “Got your camera? Let’s go!”

  “Where are we off to, Chief?” Clayton asked as they turned into Park Circle.

  “We’re going to Pleasant Street to interview Gil MacMurchie. His ancestors came here from Scotland about the time of Rob Roy. Do you know about Rob Roy? Sir Walter Scott wrote a novel with that title.”

  “I saw the movie,” Clayton said. “He wore skirts.”

  “He wore a kilt, customarily worn by Scottish Highlanders for tramping across the moors in wet heather, and also as a badge of clansmanship. During the Jacobite rebellion, clans were stripped of their names and kicked off their land. Rob Roy had been chief of the MacGregor clan but changed his name to Campbell. ‘Roy’ refers to his red hair.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I read. Do you read, Doc?”

  “Yeah, I read a lot. I’m reading Einstein’s Philosophy of Civilization.”

  “I’m glad you’re not waiting for the movie. . . Mr. MacMurchie is retired from the plumbing and hardware business, but he’s still active as a dowser. Know anything about dowsing? Scientists call it divining. It’s also known as water witching.”

  “Sure, I know about that! When our well ran dry, my dad hired a water witch. He walked around our farm with a branch of a tree and found underground water. I don’t know how it works.”

  “No one knows exactly, but there are plenty of guesses. Geologists call it an old wives’ tale.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Folklore. . . superstition. Yet proponents of dowsing say it works, in spite of the controversy.”