The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare Read online

  “All bosh,” said Scottie, shaking his shaggy head of gray hair. “Canna believe a worrrd of what they say on radio. A body can get better information from the woolly caterpillars.”

  “You look as if you lost some sleep last night.”

  “Aye, it were a bad one, verra bad,” said the volunteer fire chief. “Didna get home till six this mornin’. Chipmunk and Kennebeck sent crews to help. Couldna do it without ’em—or without our women, God bless ’em. Kept the coffee and sandwiches comin’ all night.”

  “How did Junior take it?”

  “It were hard on the lad. Many a time I been in the newspaper office to pass the time o’ day with his old man. A fire trap, it was! Tons of paper! And them old wood partitions—dry as tinder—and the old wood floor!” Scottie shook his head again.

  “Any idea how it started?”

  “Couldna say. They’d been takin’ pictures, and it could be a careless cigarette smolderin’. There’s a flammable solvent they always used for cleanin’ the old presses, and when it hit, it raced like wildfire.”

  “Any suspicion of arson?”

  “No evidence of monkey business. No reason to bring the marshal up here to my way o’ thinkin’.”

  “But you saved the lodge hall and post office, Scottie.”

  “Aye, we did indeed, but it were touch an’ go.”

  On the way home Qwilleran stopped at the public library to check the reading room. The man who claimed to be a historian was not there, and the clerks had not seen him since Tuesday morning. Polly Duncan was not there either, and the clerks said she had left for the day.

  For dinner that night Mrs. Cobb served beef Stroganoff and poppy-seed noodles, and after second helpings and a wedge of pumpkin pie, Qwilleran took some out-of-town newspapers and two new magazines into the library. He drew the draperies and touched a match to Mr. O’Dell’s expert arrangement of split logs, kindling, and paper twists. Then he sprawled in his favorite lounge chair and propped his feet on the ottoman.

  The Siamese immediately presented themselves. They knew a fire was being lighted before the woodsy aroma circulated, before the crackle of the kindling, even before the match was struck. After washing up in the warmth of the blaze, Koko started nosing books and Yum Yum jumped on Qwilleran’s lap, turning around three times before settling down.

  The female was developing an inordinate affection for the man. She was brazenly possessive of his lap. She gazed at him with adoring eyes, purred when he looked her way, and liked nothing better than to reach up and touch his moustache with a velvet paw. True, he called her his little sweetheart, but her obsessive desire for propinquity was disturbing. He had mentioned it to Lori Bamba, the young woman who knew all about cats.

  “They go for the opposite sex,” Lori explained, “and they know which is which. It’s hard to explain.”

  * * *

  Yum Yum was dozing on his lap, a picture of catly contentment, when Qwilleran heard the first thlunk. There was no sense in scolding Koko. It went in one pointed ear and out the other. When reprimanded in the past, he had not only resented it; he had found his own ingenious way of retaliation. In any argument, Qwilleran had learned, a Siamese always has the last word.

  So he merely sighed, transferred his lapful of sleeping fur to the ottoman, and went to see what damage had been done. As he expected, it was Shakespeare again. Mrs. Fulgrove had been rubbing the pigskin bindings with a mixture of lanolin and neat’s-foot oil, to preserve the leather, and both ingredients were animal products. But whatever the explanation for Koko’s special interest in these books, two of them were now on the floor, and they happened to be Qwilleran’s favorite plays: Macbeth and Julius Caesar.

  He leafed through the latter until he found a passage he liked: the conspiracy scene, in which men plotting to assassinate Caesar meet under cover of darkness, shadowing their faces with their cloaks. “And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood up to the elbows, and besmear our swords.”

  Conspiracy, Qwilleran reflected, was Shakespeare’s favorite device for establishing conflict, creating suspense, and grabbing the emotions of the audience. In Macbeth there was the conspiracy to murder the old king. “Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

  A tremor on Qwilleran’s upper lip alerted him. Was the Picayune’s double tragedy the result of a conspiracy? He had no clues—only the sensation in the roots of his moustache. He had no clues and no logical way to investigate.

  Years before, as a prize-winning crime reporter, he had developed a network of anonymous sources. In Moose County he had no sources. Although the natives were notorious gossips, they avoided gossiping with outsiders, and Qwilleran was an outsider even after eighteen months in their midst.

  He glanced at the calendar. It was Wednesday, November thirteenth. On the evening of November fourteenth he would have seventy-five certified gossips under his roof—all the best people, drinking tea and socializing.

  “Okay, old sleuth,” he said to Koko. “Tomorrow night we cultivate some sources.”

  Thursday, November fourteenth. The weather was cooperating with the major social event of the season—not too cold, not too windy, not too damp. On Thursday evening seventy-five members of the Historical Society and Old Timers Club would view the Klingenschoen mansion for the first time, and the residence would become officially the Klingenschoen Museum.

  Ever since inheriting the pretentious edifice Qwilleran had considered it an absurd residence for a bachelor and two cats. He proposed, therefore—with the cooperation of the Historical Society—to open the mansion to the public as a museum two or three afternoons a week. When the mayor announced the news at a council meeting, the citizens of Pickax were jubilant, and the guests invited to the preview felt singularly honored.

  Qwilleran’s day began as usual in his garage apartment. He tuned in the weather report, drank a cup of instant coffee, dressed, and walked down the corridor to the cats’ parlor.

  “Commuter Special now leaving on track four,” he announced, opening the wicker hamper.

  The Siamese sat nose-to-nose on the windowsill, enjoying the thin glimmer of November sunshine and ignoring the invitation.

  “Breakfast now being served in the dining car.”

  There was no response, not even the flicker of a whisker. Impatiently Qwilleran picked up one animal in each hand and deposited them unceremoniously in the hamper.

  “If you act like cats, you get treated like cats,” he explained in a reasonable voice. “Act like courteous, cooperative, intelligent beings, and you get treated accordingly.”

  There were sounds of scuffling and snarling inside the hamper as he carried it across the yard to the main house.

  It was Mrs. Cobb’s idea that the Siamese should spend their days among the Oriental rugs, French tapestries, and rare old books of the mansion. “When you have valuable antiques,” she explained, “you have four things to fear: theft, fire, dry heat, and mice.”

  At her urging Qwilleran had installed humidity controls, a burglar alarm, smoke detectors, and a direct line to the police station and fire hall. Koko and Yum Yum were expected to handle the other hazards.

  When Qwilleran arrived at the back door with the wicker hamper, the housekeeper called out from the kitchen, “Would you like a mushroom omelette, Mr. Q?”

  “Sounds fine. I’ll feed the cats. What’s in the refrigerator?”

  “Sautéed chicken livers. Koko would probably prefer them warmed with some of last night’s beef Stroganoff. Yum Yum isn’t fussy.”

  After he had finished his own breakfast—a three-egg omelette with two toasted English muffins and some of Mrs. Cobb’s wild haw jelly—he said, “Delicious! Best mushroomless mushroom omelette I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Oh dear!” The housekeeper covered her face with her hands in embarrassment. “Did I forget the filling? I’m so excited about tonight, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Aren’t you excited, Mr. Q?”

  “I fe
el a faint ripple of anticipation,” he said.

  “Oh, Mr. Q, you must be kidding! You’ve worked on this for a year!”

  It was true. To prepare the mansion for public use, the attic had been paneled and equipped as a meeting room. A paved parking lot was added behind the carriage house. Engineers from Down Below had installed an elevator. A fire escape was required in the rear. For barrier-free access there were such accommodations as a ramp at the rear entrance, a new bathroom on the main floor, and elevator controls at wheelchair height.

  “What’s the order of events tonight?” Qwilleran asked Mrs. Cobb. She had chaired the Historical Society committee on arrangements.

  “The members will start arriving at seven o’clock for a conducted tour of the museum. Mrs. Exbridge has trained eighteen guides.”

  “And who trained Mrs. Exbridge? Don’t be so modest, Mrs. Cobb. I know and you know that this entire venture would have been impossible without your expertise.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Q,” she said, flushing self-consciously, “but I can’t take too much credit. Mrs. Exbridge knows a lot about antiques. She wants to open an antique shop now that her divorce is final.”

  “Don Exbridge’s wife? I didn’t know they were having trouble. Sorry to hear it.” Qwilleran always empathized with the principals in a divorce case, having survived a painful experience himself.

  “Yes, it’s too bad,” Mrs. Cobb said. “I don’t know what went wrong. Susan Exbridge doesn’t talk about it. She’s a very nice woman. I’ve never met him.”

  “I’ve run into him a couple of times. He’s an agreeable guy with a smile and a handshake for everyone.”

  “Well, he’s a developer, you know, and I take a dim view of them. We were always fighting developers and bureaucrats Down Below. They wanted to tear down twenty antique shops and some historic houses.”

  “So what happens after the tour of the museum?”

  “We go up to the meeting hall, and that’s when you make your speech.”

  “Not a speech. Just a few words. Please!”

  “Then there’ll be a brief business meeting and refreshments.”

  “I hope you didn’t bake seventy-five dozen cookies for those shameless cookie hounds,” Qwilleran said. “I suspect most of them attend meetings because of your lemon-coconut bars. Will your friend be there?”

  “Herb? No, he has to get up early tomorrow morning. It’s the start of gun season for deer, you know. How about the cats? Will they attend the preview?”

  “Why not? Yum Yum will spend the evening on top of the refrigerator, but Koko likes to parade around and show off.”

  The telephone rang, and Koko sprang to the desk in the kitchen, as if he knew it was a call from Lori Bamba in Mooseville.

  Lori was Qwilleran’s part-time secretary, a young woman with long golden braids tied with blue ribbons that tantalized the Siamese.

  “Hi, Qwill,” she said. “Hope I’m not interrupting something crucial. Isn’t this the big day?”

  “You’re right. Tonight we go public. What’s the news from Mooseville?”

  “Nick just phoned me from work and said I should call you. Someone’s camping on your property at the lake. On his way to work he saw an RV parked in the woods there. He wondered if you had authorized it.”

  “Don’t know a thing about it. But is it all that bad? There’s a lot of land there that isn’t being used.” Qwilleran had inherited the lake property along with the mansion in Pickax: eighty acres of woodland with beach frontage and a log cabin.

  “It isn’t a good idea to encourage trespassers,” Lori said. “They could leave a lot of litter, cut down your trees, set the woods on fire . . .”

  “Okay, okay, I’m convinced.”

  “Nick said you should call the sheriff.”

  “I’ll do that. Appreciate your interest. How’s everything in Mooseville? How’s the baby?”

  “He finally said his first word. He said ‘moose’ very distinctly, so we think he’ll grow up to be president of the Chamber of Commerce. . . . Do I hear Koko talking in the background?”

  “He wants to have a few words with you.”

  Qwilleran held the receiver to Koko’s ear, which flicked and swiveled in excitement. There followed a series of “yows” and “iks” and purrs of varying intensity and inflection.

  When the conversation ended, Qwilleran said to the housekeeper, “The English language has six hundred thousand words. Koko has only two, but he gets more music and meaning out of ‘yow’ and ‘ik’ than some of our learned friends get out of the whole dictionary.”

  “That Lori certainly has a way with cats,” Mrs. Cobb said with a trace of envy.

  “If Lori had lived in Salem three hundred years ago, she would have been burned at the stake.”

  The housekeeper looked saddened. “I don’t think Koko likes me.”

  “Why do you say that, Mrs. Cobb?”

  “He never talks to me or purrs or comes to be petted.”

  “Siamese,” Qwilleran began, clearing his throat and selecting his words carefully, “are less demonstrative than other breeds, and Koko in particular is not a lap cat, although I’m sure he likes you.”

  “Yum Yum rubs against my ankles when I’m cooking and jumps on my lap sometimes. She’s a very sweet kitty.”

  “Koko is less emotional and more cerebral,” Qwilleran explained. “He has his own attributes and personality, and we have to understand him and accept him for what he is. He may not make a fuss over you, but he respects you and appreciates the wonderful food you prepare.”

  He extricated himself from this ticklish dialogue with a sense of relief. Koko had alienated more than one woman of his acquaintance, and a standoff between a temperamental cat and a superlative housekeeper was much to be avoided.

  From the library he telephoned the sheriff’s office, and within a half hour there was a brown uniform at the back door.

  “Sheriff’s department, sir,” said the deputy. “Got a report on the radio about your property east of Mooseville. No RV in your woods, sir, although there were recent tire tracks and a couple of empty cigarette packs. He buried the butts, so he knows something about camping. They were Canadian cigarettes. We get a lot of Canadian tourists here. No sign of poaching. No break-in or vandalism at your cabin. Gun season starts tomorrow, sir. If you don’t want trespassers with rifles, you ought to have your property posted.”

  The day wore on. The weather held. Excitement mounted. Mrs. Cobb put sugar in the soup and salt in the applesauce. Koko’s tail was stepped on twice.

  At seven o’clock every light in the mansion was turned on. Eighty tall narrow windows glowing with light on a wintry night created a spectacle that Pickax had never before seen, and traffic cruised around the Park Circle to gawk.

  When the guests arrived they were greeted by Qwilleran and the officers of the Historical Society. Then they moved from room to room, marveling at the richness and palatial dimensions of the interior. The drawing room, with its twin fireplaces and twin chandeliers, had a fortune in oil paintings on the crimson damask walls. The dining room, designed to seat sixteen, was paneled in carved walnut imported from England in the nineteenth century. The visitors were so entranced by the museum that Koko went unnoticed, although he strutted in their midst and struck statuesque poses on the carved newel post and the antique rosewood piano.

  At eight o’clock the meeting was called to order in the third-floor assembly room. Nigel Fitch, a trust officer at the bank, rapped the gavel and asked everyone to rise for a moment of silent tribute to Senior Goodwinter. Then the thanking began. First the president thanked the weatherman for postponing the snow. He thanked Qwilleran for making the mansion available as a museum.

  Qwilleran rose and thanked the society members for their encouragement and support. He thanked XYZ Enterprises for donating labor for the construction projects. He thanked the CPA firm for computerizing the museum catalogue. Particularly he thanked Mrs. Cobb for establishing the museum
on a professional level. Then she thanked the four committees that had worked on the preview. The president kept glancing toward the elevator expectantly.

  During the transaction of old and new business Polly Duncan, representing the public library, proposed an oral history project to preserve the recollections of Old Timers on tape. “It should be handled by someone with interviewing skills,” she specified, glancing at Qwilleran. He said he might give it a try.

  Nigel Fitch, who usually chaired a brisk meeting, was proceeding at a leisurely pace. “We’re expecting the mayor,” he explained, “but he’s been delayed at the city hall.”

  Whenever Fitch glanced toward the elevator, all heads in the audience turned hopefully in the same direction. At one point there were mechanical sounds in the elevator shaft, and a hush fell in the meeting hall. The doors opened, and out stepped an Old Timer, tall and thin and nattily dressed. He gave the president a cheerful salute and walked to an empty seat with a disjointed gait, like a robot.

  “That’s Mr. Tibbitt,” whispered a woman next to Qwilleran. “A retired school principal. He’s ninety-three. A dear old man.”

  “Mr. President,” said Susan Exbridge, “I would like to make a proposal. The Singing Society will present Handel’s Messiah at the Old Stone Church on November twenty-fourth, exactly as it was performed in the eighteenth century, with singers in period costume. We had planned a reception for the performers afterward, and this museum would be a marvelous place to have it, if Mr. Qwilleran would consent.”

  “Okay with me,” said Qwilleran, “provided I don’t have to wear satin knee breeches.”

  And still the mayor did not arrive. Looking frequently at his watch, Fitch invited discussions on raising the dues, recruiting new members, and starting a newsletter.

  Finally the telltale hum in the elevator shaft was heard, followed by a click as the car reached the third floor. All heads turned in anticipation. The elevator door opened, and out walked Koko—his tail perpendicular, his ears proudly erect, and a dead mouse gripped in his jaws.

  Qwilleran jumped to his feet. “And I want to thank the vice president in charge of extermination for his diligence in eliminating certain museum hazards.”