The Cat Who Robbed a Bank Read online

  “Inside the fence. They're bronze and susceptible to theft.”

  “Down Below, perhaps, but not up here.”

  “There are vacationers from Down Below who might like to take home a bronze souvenir. I still say it's safest to post it inside the fence.”

  A quarter mile rolled by, and he said, “Tomorrow afternoon I visit Maggie to tape her great-grandmother's story.”

  “Take an oxygen inhaler,” she advised. “Her apartment is suffocatingly Victorian. But you'll like her late husband's collection of books.”

  “Eddington Smith sold me a fine old copy of Oedipus Rex this week. Handsome binding but poor translation.”

  “In Canada this summer I saw a wonderful production of the play, complete with grotesque masks and exaggerated buskins.”

  They turned into Ittibittiwassee Road. He asked, “How did you like Carol's breast of duck?”

  “It was a little rich for my taste.”

  “But the blackberry cobbler was good.”

  When they reached Indian Village Polly asked, “Would you like to come in and say good night to Brutus and Catta?”

  “For a few minutes.”

  It was late when Qwilleran returned to the barn that night, and the internal clocks of the Siamese told them their bedtime snack was long overdue. Yum Yum prowled aimlessly; Koko sat on his haunches, his tail slapping the floor impatiently. They gave the impression they were too weak from hunger to protest; that was one of their subtle strategies, designed to make him feel guilty.

  “Sorry about this, but you know how it is,” he apologized while measuring a serving of Kabibbles on each plate. “We had breast of duck. I had hoped to bring you a taste, but there was none left.”

  After that they were ready to sleep. He escorted them up to their lodgings on the top balcony and said good night, leaving their door open. They never prowled in the night like feral cats; they had adapted to the human sleep schedule. But they often liked to rise at dawn and watch the early birds getting their worms. On the main floor there were windows with excellent views and accommodatingly wide sills.

  During the night an unnatural sound disturbed Qwilleran's sleep. He was dreaming about the Wild West and a coyote howling on a distant peak. He always dreamed graphically, and a coyote was an appropriate part of the scenario. Yet, the howl grew louder and closer and more urgent. He sat up in bed and took a moment to adjust to reality: barn . . . Pickax . . . cats . . .

  Koko was howling outside his bedroom door! Was it an alarm? A warning? Qwilleran threw the master switch that illuminated the premises, indoors and out, and went to investigate. He found nothing wrong, no prowlers, not even a waddling raccoon.

  As for the cat, he had returned to his quarters and was asleep in his basket. Perhaps he had been dreaming, too, Qwilleran thought. He looked at his bedside clock. It was two-thirty.

  SIX

  FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11—When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers.

  After the unexplained disturbance in the night, Qwilleran had to sit up and read for a while to relax his nerves. Consequently he was still sleeping when a morning phone call made a rude interruption. He answered the bedside phone with a single syllable resembling a grunt.

  “Sorry, Qwill,” said a woman's wide-awake voice. “Am I calling too early? It's going on eight-thirty!” She, of course, was dressed, breakfasted, and ready to leave for work at the library.

  Groggily, Qwilleran explained, “Koko had a stomachache in the night and kept me awake, so I had to sleep in. Does Brutus ever howl in the middle of the night?”

  “No, but he's not as vocal as Koko. . . . All I wanted, Qwill, was to ask what we're wearing to dinner in the Mackintosh Room tomorrow night. We don't want to overdo the 'bonnie Scots' idea, do we?”

  “Right you are. No kilts. No tartans.”

  “I thought my olive-green silk would be good with the plaid chair seats and green carpet.”

  “Sounds okay. I'll wear a gray tweed jacket to go with my gray tweed moustache.” Qwilleran was beginning to wake up.

  “I'm working tomorrow, so I'll go home to dress and then ride into town with the Rikers.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I'm really excited about the dinner. Did you read Mildred's interview with Chef Wingo on yesterday's food page? It was inspiring! . . . Do I hear Koko making a commotion?”

  “Yes, he's ordering his breakfast: ham and eggs with a side order of American fries.”

  “Go back to bed! You're not ready,” Polly said.

  Qwilleran slipped into a jumpsuit before opening his bedroom door and following two caterwauling cats down the ramp. Instead of going to the feeding station, however, Koko jumped on the library table and put one paw on the phone.

  It's going to ring, Qwilleran thought, and before he could press the button on the automated coffeemaker, it rang. In an agreeable tone with a rising inflection he said, “Good morning?”

  The solemn voice of the attorney answered. “Qwill, this is Bart. Prepare for some shocking news!”

  Qwilleran hesitated. He was thinking, The hotel's bombed again.

  “Qwill, are you there? Delacamp died in his sleep last night!”

  “I can't believe it! I had dinner with him at the Lanspeaks'. He was in fine form, although he left early. Was it a heart attack?”

  “I don't know. The doctor is on the way to the inn. I'm at home. Barry Morghan called me here.”

  “Did his niece find him? She must be vastly upset.”

  “I don't have any details. But I thought you ought to know that all deals are off.”

  “I'll phone Carol, and she can notify those who had appointments pending. Too bad, isn't it?”

  “Yes, too bad.”

  Qwilleran phoned the newspaper first.

  Then he called the Lanspeak house in West Middle Hummock. The housekeeper said that Mister and Missus had left for downtown; he called the store; they had not yet arrived. While his hand hovered over the receiver in a spasm of indecision, a call came in from Barry Morghan, speaking in a hollow voice.

  “Qwill! Bad news!”

  “I know. Bart phoned. Delacamp is dead.”

  “Yes, but . . . the coroner is here, and it looks bad! The police are all over the place. Half the third floor is sealed off. . . . I can't talk now. Would you notify Bart of the situation?” The phone clicked unceremoniously.

  First Qwilleran called the paper with the latest tip.

  Then he phoned the attorney.

  His wife said, “He's just driving out—”

  “Catch him!”

  He visualized her running after the car, screaming and waving her arms.

  “Caught him!” she gasped after a few minutes.

  Her husband was less perturbed. “What's up?”

  “It's worse than we thought, Bart. They obviously suspect homicide.”

  “Jewel thieves?”

  “Sounds like it, doesn't it?” Qwilleran agreed.

  “We were assured that the jewels and large amounts of cash would be brought to the safe in the manager's office every night.”

  “Something went wrong.”

  “I'll go right to the inn. I may be needed. Thanks, Qwill.”

  Qwilleran felt a rush of blood, a burst of energy, a flashback to his old days as a police reporter Down Below. Koko, who had been sitting there to monitor the calls, was less involved. He pushed the script of the theatre club's new play onto the floor.

  “Not now,” Qwilleran said, picking it up and putting it in a safe place. He was asking himself: Where was the niece? What could she tell? When had she last seen the jewel cases? What had been done with the cash from the day's purchasers? After leaving the dinner party early, where had they gone? What did they do? . . . And then his curiosity took a different turn: Why did Koko howl in the middle of the night? It was about two-thirty. What was the time of death? And why was the cat sitting near the phone, looking so wise?

  No doubt about it, Qwilleran mused; he was an u
nusual animal. All cats have certain senses that are denied to humans; they tell time without a clock and find their way without a map. Koko's intuition went beyond that. He knew right from wrong, and he had known that something was wrong at two-thirty a.m. Some things cannot be explained, and Qwilleran had learned to accept the cat's uncanny perceptions.

  His own curiosity about the murder would have to go unsatisfied; no facts were known. Even WPKX had nothing to offer when the first news bulletin interrupted the country music:

  “A Chicago businessman registered at the Mackintosh Inn was found dead in the presidential suite this morning, a victim of homicide. No further details have been released, and the victim's name is withheld until the notification of relatives. Local and state police are investigating.”

  Qwilleran was aware that his newspaper would have reporters out in the field, hounding every news source in time for the noon deadline and afternoon publication. Still, he felt the urge to do a little snooping himself. He dressed hurriedly and walked downtown, without even saying goodbye to the Siamese—a courtesy that meant more to himself than to them.

  His first stop was the public library, known as the information center of the county—not because of its extensive book collection and expensive computer system but because it was the hub of the Pickax grapevine. In moments of crisis its subscribers flocked to the library to exchange questions, hearsay, and rash guesses, all of which would be circulated throughout the county by phone, in coffee shops, and on street corners. It was a traditional system that worked—for better or worse.

  Qwilleran walked slowly up the broad steps to the library, wondering what information and misinformation would be circulating at this early hour. He found the young clerks behind the desk in a huddle, speaking in hushed voices. Volunteers had their heads together in the stacks. Subscribers stood about in clusters, their solemn faces indicating they were not critiquing a best-seller. Only Mac and Katie, the two feline mascots, were unperturbed, being engaged in social grooming. Qwilleran spoke to them, and they looked up at him briefly with extended tongues. Then he bounded up the stairs to the mezzanine, where Polly could be seen in her glass-enclosed cubicle.

  She was hanging up the phone as he entered. “Well!” she said vehemently. “Have you heard the news?”

  “Off-putting, isn't it?” he remarked. “You and I and the Lanspeaks must have been the last outside contacts he had! How did you hear about it?”

  “One of our volunteers has a son who's a day porter at the inn. She knew I'd met Mr. Delacamp.”

  “Did her son have any particulars?”

  “Only that the assistant hadn't been around—probably upstairs being interrogated. It sounds ominous, doesn't it? What's your mission this morning?” “I'm on my way to see the Lanspeaks at the store.” “Carol will be flabbergasted!”

  At the department store he went directly to the office under the main staircase, standing outside until she had finished a phone call.

  She beckoned to him to come in, but all she could say was, “I'm flabbergasted!”

  He sat down without waiting to be invited. “How did you hear about it?”

  “From Viyella, the morning clerk at the inn. She's in my Sunday school class and was one of the French maids at the tea. She knew I'd be flabbergasted.”

  “Aren't we all?”

  “Do you have any inside information?”

  “Only that the police are there, and half the third floor is cordoned off.”

  “Viyella says they're questioning the staff and the guests and cautioning everyone not to talk about the case.”

  “How did she contact you?”

  “She wrote a note, and the day porter brought it to me.”

  “What's Larry's reaction to the news?”

  “He doesn't know! I drove him to the airport this morning, and he boarded the eight o'clock shuttle to Minneapolis. There's a merchandising show there, and he won't be back until tomorrow night. I'll phone him, of course. Wait till he hears! He has always had a jealous-husband theory, you know.” She stifled a slight giggle. “At least we know it wasn't Mr. Woodinghurst. He died twenty years ago.”

  Qwilleran said, “Just because it happened here, it doesn't follow that the perpetrator was a local.”

  “You're so right, Qwill! I'd prefer to think it's an outside job.”

  “What effect will it have on his customers?”

  “Those who wanted to buy tomorrow will be disappointed, of course, but I'm concerned about the Old Guard who were expecting to sell to him today. Some of them really need the money. They're old-timers who thought they were financially set for life. Then along came inflation and dishonest relatives and bad investment advice. It's sad. They should be notified, in case they don't hear it on the radio, but his niece has the schedule. The poor girl must be terribly upset.”

  Qwilleran next went to Lois's Luncheonette for the mid-morning coffee klatsch, where caffeine addicts and assorted loafers met to exchange opinions and rumors about current events. Everyone had a connection to the grapevine—a son-in-law or neighbor or fellow worker who knew the inside story. Lois, whose son was captain of the inn's desk clerks, had a direct line to the facts.

  “They called him a Chicago businessman on the air,” she announced while bustling around with the coffee server, “but everybody knows he was a jeweler with a million dollars' worth of stuff in his luggage.”

  “They didn't say nothin' about his girl! Where's his girl?”

  “Prob'ly took off with the killer and the loot.”

  “Coulda been kidnapped. He was her uncle.”

  Lois said, “Yeah . . . well . . . Lenny says she was no niece.”

  “Her and the killer were in cahoots, if you ask me. Somebody from Chicago.”

  “'Tain't fair! Strangers come up here and get themselves knocked off, and it makes us look bad.”

  “Why'd it happen just when we got a nice new hotel and some good publicity? Makes me madder'n a wet hen!”

  “Eleven o'clock! Turn on the news!”

  Lois switched on the radio that occupied a shelf above the cash register, and her customers heard one additional scrap of news:

  “The State Bureau of Investigation has been called in to assist local police in the investigation of a homicide. A Chicago businessman . . .”

  Qwilleran paid for his coffee and went home, taking time to walk through the inn's parking lot. Delacamp's Mercedes rental car was still there.

  When Qwilleran turned the key in the back-door lock, he heard the welcoming chorus indoors and realized once more how much he appreciated his housemates. He had lived alone for most of his adult life—before adopting Koko and Yum Yum. They were companionable, handsome, entertaining—and admirably independent. Sometimes exasperatingly so.

  One of the pleasures they shared was reading aloud. He had a good voice, having trained to be an actor before switching to journalism. When he read aloud from the vintage books that filled his shelves, he dramatized the prose in a way that excited his listeners. Currently they were reading the play-script of Night Must Fall: the smarmy lines of the houseboy, the petulant fussiness of Mrs. Bramson, and the country dialects of the kitchen help.

  They had reached Scene Four. Yum Yum was curled contentedly on Qwilleran's lap: Koko perched on the back of his chair, looking over his shoulder as if following the printed words, purring in his ear or tickling his neck with twitching whiskers. Mrs. Bramson was worrying about her jewel box. Danny was being overly attentive. . . . Suddenly he picked up a cushion and smothered his rich employer.

  “YOW!” came a piercing howl in Qwilleran's ear.

  “Please!” the man protested, putting a hand to his ear. “Don't do that!” But then he felt a sensation on his upper lip, and he tamped his moustache. It was always the source of his hunches. Now he knew—or thought he knew—more about the murder than the investigators had revealed.

  The Friday edition of the Moose County Something would have the latest—at two o'clock. At one-
thirty Qwilleran had an appointment with Maggie Sprenkle.

  The Sprenkle Building, across Main Street from the Mackintosh Inn, was a stone structure like all the others downtown, and its history dated back to the days when merchants always lived “over the store.” Now the storefronts on the ground floor had been updated into offices for an insurance agency and a realty firm. At one side a door led up to Maggie's palace on the second and third floors.

  Qwilleran rang the bell, waited for the buzzer to unlock the door, and found himself in a steep, narrow stairwell. It seemed narrower and steeper because of the thick stair carpet in a pattern of roses and the velvety rose-pink walls hung with dozens of old engravings.

  Maggie was waiting at the top. “Hang on to the handrail,” she cautioned. “The stairs are murder! Most of my guests come in the back, where there's an elevator.”

  “That's all right,” he called up the stairs. “I prefer the dramatic approach.”

  He made it safely to the top, and she welcomed him with a bear hug.

  He found himself in a two-story foyer with a skylight and another staircase leading to the upper level. This reception area also functioned as a library, its shelves glowing with the polished calf bindings of fine old books.

  “Do you have any Mark Twain?” he asked, thinking to introduce an earthy note.

  “Yes, indeed!” she replied in her usual hearty manner. “My grandfather-in-law entertained Mr. Clemens when he lectured here. . . . Come into the parlor. The ladies are waiting to meet you.”

  For a moment he expected the ladies of the library's board of directors, forgetting Sarah, Charlotte, Carrie, Flora, and Louisa May. They sat in the five windows: a tiger with white boots and bib, a calico, an orange marmalade, a black-and-white, and a snowy white with blue eyes. Each had her own windowsill and sat under a canopy of lace curtain, cut away at the bottom for easy access.