The Cat Who Blew The Whistle

-8-

Words can hardly express Qwilleran's panic when he glimpsed the blood-red splotch in the lounge area, nor his relief upon finding that it was the swatch of fabric in the Mackintosh tartan. The Siamese had stolen it! The envelope containing the application for membership in the clan was on the floor nearby. And where were the culprits? On top of the fireplace cube, observing Qwilleran's brief frenzy with wonder, as if thinking, What fools these mortals be!

"You devils!" he said, shaking his fist in their direction. Then he had second thoughts. It was not necessarily a two-cat caper. Which one of them was guilty? They both looked annoyingly innocent. Most likely Koko had heisted the envelope for some obscure reason of his own. Did he smell the red dye in the cloth? At one time in his brief but stellar career he had chewed red neckties.

Then Qwilleran had a quirky thought. "If you're trying to get me into a kilt," he shouted at Koko, "no dice!"

Nevertheless, he read the application blank once more. By nature he was not a joiner of clubs, societies, or associations (apart from the press club). Yet, as Big Mac had said, it would be a tribute to his mother if he joined the clan; she had been so proud of her Scottish heritage. Having reached middle age, he now found himself thinking about her with appreciation and admiration. He remembered her precepts: Give more than you get.... Be yourself; don't imitate your peers.... Always serve beverages on a tray.

She had died when he was in college. If she had lived longer, she would have gloried in his success as a journalist, wept over the crisis that almost ruined his life, and finally delighted in his new prosperity, especially since it was her Klingenschoen connection that sowed the seed.

Qwilleran filled out the membership application. Polly would be happy. "But no kilt!" he muttered to himself.

"YOW!" came a comment from the top of the fireplace cube.

The day after his visit with Eddie Trevelyan, Qwilleran drove to the mailbox with another cooler of soft drinks in the trunk. This was Phase One in his plan to get into the Trevelyan household by the back door. For Phase Two he would need Celia's help and the cooperation of Lisa Compton.

There were five trucks at the building site; electrician and plumber were "roughing in," according to Eddie. Qwilleran dropped off the cooler and returned to the barn to read his mail. One letter piqued his curiosity. The stationery had character, and the envelope was hand written in a distinctive script. He read:

Dear Mr. Q,

Just a note to say I'm sending you a memento from my father's personal collection. Whenever you sit in it, your creativity will scintillate. I want you to have this souvenir because I shall never forget that you saved my life on the island and encouraged me to improve my life-style.

My brother will bring it over on his boat, and Derek will pick it up at the pier in Mooseville and deliver it in his truck.

Gratefully, Liz

Qwilleran's first thought was: No! Not a pyramid! What will I do with it? Where can I put it? How large is it? Can I donate it to a school or museum without hurting Elizabeth's feelings? She had wanted him to call her Liz, a diminutive that only her father had used, but Qwilleran had no desire to be a surrogate parent.

He read the rest of his mail, throwing most of it into the wastebasket or red- inking it for handling by the secretarial service. A few letters he would answer himself, by postal card or phone call. Cards required fewer words than letters and were cheaper to mail. Despite his new wealth, there was an old frugality in his nature.

After that he went to work in his balcony studio, which was off-limits to the Siamese. The closed-door policy, he liked to explain, kept the cats out of his hair and the cat hairs out of his typewriter. Now he was trying to find something different to say about baseball for the "Qwill Pen" column.

He wrote, "Compared to a nervous, hyped-up, violent, clock-watching game like football, baseball is a spectator sport that encourages relaxation. The leisurely pace - punctuated by well- spaced spurts of running, sliding, and arguing - promotes a feeling of well- being, enhanced by the consumption of a hot dog or beverage of choice. The continual pauses - for bat-swinging, mitt-thumping, cap-tugging, belt- hitching, hand-spitting, and homeplate- dusting - produce a pleasant hypnosis."

Qwilleran's concentration was interrupted by the urgent ringing of the doorbell, as well as banging on the kitchen door. He ran down the ramp and found Derek Cuttlebrink towering on the doorstep. "Special delivery from Breakfast Island!" he announced. "Want me to carry it in?"

"Will it come through the doorway?" Qwilleran asked. A pyramid large enough to sit in, he reasoned, would have awkward dimensions.

"No problem," Derek yelled as he returned to his pickup and unloaded an item of furniture. "Where d'you want me to put it?" he asked as he maneuvered it through the kitchen door.

"Do I have to tell you?" Qwilleran responded tartly. "What is it supposed to be?"

"A rocking chair! Handmade! Antique! One size fits all! It belonged to Elizabeth's old man." Derek set the rocker down and sat in it. "Comfortable, too! Try it; you'll like it!"

It was made entirely of bent twigs, except for the rockers - and the bowl- shaped seat that appeared to be varnished treebark. Qwilleran thought, It's the ugliest chair I've ever seen! He slid into the seat cautiously and was immediately tilted back as if ready for dental surgery. It was, however, a remarkably comfortable sling.

"There's something I'm supposed to give you." Derek dashed out to his truck and returned with a snapshot. "This is her old man, posing with his chair. She thought you'd like to see what he looked like. Now I've gotta get to work. I'm on for the dinner hour, five to eight."

"What about your rehearsal?" Qwilleran called after him.

"The rude mechanicals aren't scheduled tonight."

After Derek had driven away, raising more dust than other visitors had done, Qwilleran grabbed the phone and called Amanda's Studio of Design, hoping Fran Brodie would be in-house. She answered.

"Stay there! I'll be right over!" he shouted. He hung up while she was still sputtering, "What... What... ?"

He usually chose to walk downtown, but this time he drove. At the design studio he barged through the front door and threw a snapshot on Fran's desk. "Know anything about this? The chair, not the man."

The designer's eyes grew wide. "Where did you get this picture? Who is he? Is he selling the chair?"

"The man's dead. The chair is in my barn. It's supposed to be a thank-you from Elizabeth for saving her life on the island. If I'd known I was getting this, I'd have thrown her back in the swamp."

"Very funny," Fran said, "but you don't know what you're talking about. This is a twistletwig rocker, a hundred years old, at least. It was the poor man's bentwood, made of willow."

"Well, the poor man can have it! Even Whistler's Mother would think it was ugly. Koko sniffed it and made a face. Yum Yum won't go anywhere near it; that should tell you something!"

"I don't consider Yum Yum an arbiter of taste!" The two females had feuded briefly at one time, and Yum Yum won. "As a matter of fact, it's a beautiful piece of folk art, and a dealer on the East Coast recently advertised one for $2,000."

"You're pulling my leg!"

"I'm not! This is a choice collectible! Do you want to sell? Amanda will give you a thousand without blinking. Is it comfortable?"

"Very, but I still think it's a nightmare masquerading as furniture."

"Go back! You're not ready!" Fran said impatiently. "The chair is linear sculpture! It'll be a dynamic accent for your light, contemporary furniture. Live with it for a while, and you'll be writing a treatise for the "Qwill Pen" on the charms of twistletwig. I'll help you do some research."

She had said the magic word; whenever anyone mentioned material for his column, Qwilleran went on red alert. To save face he pointed to a wooden box on her desk. "What's that? Is that another high-priced collectible?" It was slightly crude, in the size and shape of a two-pound loaf of bread.

"That's an English pencil box," Fran said. "A country piece, rather old. I believe it's walnut. It came from the Witherspoon estate in Lockmaster."

The wood was a mellow brown enhanced by the distress marks of age. The lid was rimmed with a fine line of brass, and there was a small brass key in the lock. Qwilleran lifted the lid and found a shallow compartment.

"You could use it for cufflinks," she suggested.

"I don't use cufflinks. No one in Pickax uses cufflinks! What I need is a place to lock up my pens. One of our resident cat burglars has been swiping them, and I suspect Koko."

"This would be perfect, and you could use the drawer at the bottom for paper clips."

"Yum Yum opens drawers and collects paper clips." He tugged at the drawer. "It's jammed."

"No, it isn't. There's a secret latch."

"I'll take it," he said. "Also my snapshot." Carrying the pencil box under his arm, Qwilleran walked to his car two blocks away; parking was a major problem in downtown Pickax. He could never set foot in the center of town without meeting a dozen acquaintances, and today he threw greetings to his barber, an off- duty patrolman, the cashier from Toodles' Market, and the proprietor of Scottie's Men's Store, who said, "Aye, there's the Laird hi'self!

When will you be comin' in to be measured for a kilt?"

"Not until you hear from my undertaker," Qwilleran retorted.

Then Larry Lanspeak, on the way to the bank, stopped him to ask, "What's that you're carrying? Your lunch bucket?"

"No, a pistol case. I'm on my way to a duel.... How's the play coming, Larry?"

"We've had problems. Fran and the new girl from Chicago wanted to incorporate a pyramid in the forest scenes. Imagine cluttering the stage, complicating the blocking, and confusing the audience with such a senseless gimmick! Carol, Junior, and I had to threaten to drop out before Fran would listen to reason. That girl is a good client of hers and also made a sizable donation to the club's operating budget. Politics! Politics!"

Arriving home with his English pencil box, Qwilleran filled the top compartment with felt-tip pens. One of the black ones was missing again, and he found it in the foyer. The drawer he filled with jumbo paper clips. The Siamese watched, their inquisitive tails curved like scimitars. "Foiled, you villains!" he said as he locked the lid. He left the key in the lock, since neither cat had learned how to turn keys. It would be only a matter of time, he surmised.

He and Polly dined early at the Old Stone Mill, as she was attending a dessert-and-coffee wedding shower for one of the library clerks. "Would you care to join us?" she asked teasingly. "Men often attend showers now, you know."

"This man doesn't," he said, putting a brusque end to the subject. "The electrician and plumber were working on your house this morning. It's beginning to look less like a lumberyard and more like a habitation."

"What am I going to do with all those mounds of soil they excavated for the foundation?" she asked with a worried frown.

"I suppose they'll use some of it for fill and then grade the lot. They'll move the dirt anywhere you say, with two swipes of the bulldozer. "

"I'd love to have a berm between the house and the highway. With plantings it would give a sense of privacy, but I don't want it to look landscaped. I want it to look completely natural. How does one do that?"

Rather too sharply Qwilleran said, "One calls Kevin Doone. He attended horticultural college for four years to learn how to do that."

"Do I bore you with my concerns about the house, dear?" Polly asked with a frank gaze.

"You never bore me! You know that. But for your own sake - I wish you'd delegate your problems to the professionals instead of trying to make all the decisions yourself."

"It'll be the only house I'll ever build, and I want it to express me," she said meekly. "I've always lived in places where I've had to compromise and make do."

"I understand, and I apologize for being flip. What else is preying on your mind? I want to hear."

"Well... the interior. I'd love to have white plastered walls and Williamsburg blue woodwork. I saw it in a magazine - with country antiques - but one needs good furniture with such a stark background. My things aren't good, but they're family heirlooms, and I couldn't part with them. I know wallpaper backgrounds are more flattering to a hodgepodge of furniture, but... I'm absolutely smitten with the idea of white walls and blue woodwork. Last night I couldn't sleep for thinking about it."

The solution would be so easy, he thought, if she would let him bankroll a houseful of pedigreed country antiques. She could have the twistletwig rocker for starters. But Polly would never approve of such largess. He said, "Suppose one of your clerks came to you with such a problem. How would you advise her?"

After a pause, she said with an abashed half-smile, "I'd tell her to keep the things she loves and use wallpaper."

"And I believe you'd be right."

Polly breathed a large sigh. "I've been doing all the talking. How thoughtless of me! What have you been doing?"

"Well, I had a chat with your builder, and he's not a bad fellow, in spite of his raggle-taggle appearance and double negatives. I've come to the conclusion that Moose County is bilingual. Half of us speak standard English, and the other half speak Moose."

"What did you talk about?"

"Soccer, and the fact that one of his ancestors built the barn. Neither of us mentioned his father, of course, but I inquired about his mother's health. He seems to think that a Swiss doctor has a cure for her rare disease. One wonders how true it is, and how effective, and how safe."

"It's not to be dismissed out-of- hand," Polly asserted. "Alternative medicine has always been practiced in other countries, and now by maverick physicians here."

Then it was time for her to leave for the wedding shower. Qwilleran drove her back to the library, where her car was parked, and then went home to phone Celia.

She was waiting eagerly for his call. "I had a ball!" she cried. "Virginia is a lot of fun. She's contralto soloist at the little Stone Church. She told me I could sing in the choir. And do you want to hear something funny? There's a cat that attends services every Sunday! They leave the front door ajar, and she walks in, picks out a lap, and sleeps all through the sermon.... Besides working at the library, Virginia has three teenagers, a dog, two cats, a hutch of rabbits, and some chickens."

"Where did you have lunch?"

"Lois's Luncheonette, and Lois sent two free desserts to our table - bread pudding. It wasn't as good as mine. I use egg whites to make it fluffy and whole wheat flour to make it chewy, plus nuts and raisins, and vanilla sauce."

"How do I place an order?" Qwilleran asked.

"Do you accept credit cards?" There was laughter on the line before he could ask, "Did you meet Lisa Compton?"

"Yes, I did, and she's very nice. She told me about a sad case in West Middle Hummock where she can send me to - "

"Celia," he interrupted, "why don't you jump into your little red car and drive down here? You can see the apple barn, meet the cats, and tell me about the sad case."

Moments later she stepped out of her car in the barnyard and gasped at the sight. "I grew up on a farm and never saw anything like this!" She was equally enthralled by the interior but shocked at the condition of the orchard.

"According to legend," Qwilleran explained, "a curse was placed on the orchard a hundred years ago. I thought the curse had exceeded the statute of limitations, but lately the property's been under surveillance by the FBI."

"Really?" "Yes, we have our own Feline Bureau of Investigation."

Celia laughed at his quip, but it was controlled laughter. She was fine-tuning.

The Siamese were listening to the conversation from a safe distance, sitting alertly and ready for flight if the visitor's laughter should hit the wrong note. Meanwhile they were sensing that she came from a poultry farm, lived with a black-and-white cat named Wrigley, and manufactured Kabibbles in her kitchen.

"Seriously," he said, "I'm glad you've enlisted in the Pals for Patients program. You're perfect for the job. What do you know about your first assignment?"

"Only that the patient is the wife of the man who disappeared with a lot of money that doesn't belong to him. It must be terrible for the poor woman, to be ill and have that happen. A practical nurse comes in five mornings a week, and I work afternoons. The rest of the time her daughter is there."

Qwilleran said, "I've heard that they're two lonely and unhappy women. With your cheerful personality you'll be very good for them. And you can do more than that! There's an element of mystery surrounding the scandal. I believe there's more to the story than people think." Then he added with heavy implication, "The police investigators may be on the wrong track."

Excitedly she asked, "Are you investigating it yourself, Chief?"

"I have no authority to do so, and the Trevelyans' lawyer has instructed them not to talk to the media."

"But you're not really media," she protested. "You just write a column, don't you?"

Qwilleran took a moment to enjoy an internal chuckle. "Be that as it may, it would be inadvisable for me to involve myself personally in the case."

Celia was sitting on the edge of her chair. "Could I help you, Chief?"

"I'm sure you could. When do you start?"

"Tomorrow afternoon."

"Suppose you get the lay of the land, and we'll talk again tomorrow evening. By that time I'll have planned our strategy."

"Is there anything special I should do tomorrow?"

"Just be friendly and sympathetic. They may welcome the chance to talk to someone. Don't ask too many questions; keep it conversational. And never... never let them know you're associated with me!"

"I'll write it down," she said. "I always write everything down." Her large handbag was on the floor near her chair, and she fumbled in it for a notepad, whereupon two quiet slinky Siamese approached in slow motion to explore its contents.

"No!" Qwilleran said firmly, and they withdrew backward at the same slow pace. "It's never a good idea to leave your handbag open while they're around," he explained. "Koko is an investigator, and Yum Yum is a kleptomaniac."