The Cat Who Came To Breakfast

CHAPTER 14

When Qwilleran went to breakfast Monda] morning, he first detoured into the office. Lori, of course was busy in the kitchen, and Nick could be heard ham mering nails somewhere, but Jason and Lovey were play ing with toy telephones. The two youngsters sat on thi floor, three feet apart, holding pink, plastic instruments t< their ears.

The three-year-old said, "Are you there?"

"You're supposed to wait till the phone rings and I sa; hello," her brother said.

"Who's this?"

"We're not connected! You didn't dial!"

"How are you?"

"That's not right, Lovey," the exasperated six-year-oli shouted.

"You look very nice today," she said sweetly into th mouthpiece.

Qwilleran interrupted. "Excuse me, Jason. Would you find your father for me?"

"Okefenokee!" The boy scrambled to his feet and disappeared into the family quarters.

Nick soon walked in, wearing his carpenter's apron. "Hi, Qwill! What's up?"

"I've received a report that's somewhat revealing."

"You did? Sit down . . . Jason, take your sister into the other room."

"Okefenokee!"

"Thanks, Nick, but I'm staying only a minute. I want to get into the breakfast room before it closes. Here's what I heard last night: The guests who were poisoned were not eating Cajun chicken, or chicken etouffee, or chicken Creole. They had all ordered chicken gumbo! It seems to me that an extra ingredient went into the pot, accidentally or on purpose."

"You think Don deliberately twisted the truth when he blamed the poultry farm?"

"Or the kitchen didn't give him the true facts. It may be that chef—Jean-Pierre Pamplemousse, or whatever his name is—didn't want his reputation besmirched. So that's where we stand at the moment." Qwilleran started toward the door but turned back. "Do you know anything about the woman called Noisette, who runs the antique shop?"

"No. She hasn't attended any of Don's business meetings or get-togethers."

"One more question: What happened to the Hardings? I haven't seen them for the last day or so."

"The old gentleman caught cold," Nick said, "and they wanted to get off the island, so I ferried them across yesterday and put them on a plane."

Too bad, Qwilleran thought. They would have enjoyed hearing about the visit to Buckingham Palace, the eccentricities of the royal family, William's antique carriages, and the fate of the peacocks. The vicar would have had his own sly comments to make, and his wife would have rebuked him gently.

For breakfast he had pecan pancakes with homemade sausage patties, followed by brioches filled with creamed chipped beef. The sausages were particularly good, and he attributed their distinctive flavor to fresh herbs from Elizabeth's garden.

There were things Qwilleran wanted to do that day. He wanted to visit the antique shop once again, have a few words with Dwight Somers, and check the post office for a postcard from Oregon—all errands that were better done in the afternoon. Before leaving the inn, therefore, he picked up a couple of their Sunday papers from Down Below—to read in the privacy of his screened porch.

It was warm and humid on the porch, and the Siamese had found a cool patch on the concrete slab: Yum Yum lounging like an off-duty sphinx with forelegs fully extended and paws attractively crossed; Koko with hind quarters sitting down and front quarters standing up. His elongated Siamese body made him look like two different cats with a single spine, and the thinking end of the cat was now alert and waiting for something to happen. Suddenly ears pricked, whiskers curled, and nose sniffed. A few moments later Qwilleran caught a whiff of smoke and turned to see June Halliburton approaching through the weeds.

"Don't invite me in. I'm just enjoying a legal smoke," she said, holding a cigarette gracefully in one hand and a saucer in the other. As usual, a limp Panama drooped over her red hair and white complexion. "The esteemed management will have me shot if I smoke indoors or drop live ashes outdoors."

"I agree with the esteemed management," Qwilleran said. "Today's too warm for anything as uncomfortable as a forest fire."

Peering through the screen at the three of them, she said with an arch smile, "What a touching domestic scene! I suppose the demographers have you classified as an untraditional family: one man, two cats."

"One man, two animal companions," he corrected her.

"And how do you like your cottage?"

"The roof doesn't leak, and the refrigerator works," he said. "What more can one ask?"

"My refrigerator is full of ice cubes, so join me for a drink, any time."

"Yow!" said Koko impatiently, his nose twitching.

"No one invited you," she said. Stubbing her cigarette in the saucer, she walked away at a languid pace, and Koko shook himself so vigorously that the flapping of his ears sounded like a rattlesnake. Then he ran indoors and yowled over the domino box.

"Okay," Qwilleran agreed, "but this is a whole new ballgame. We don't add scores any more; we spell words."

Koko watched with near-sighted fascination as the dominoes were randomly scattered over the tabletop. Instead of standing on the chair with forepaws on the table, however, he elected to sit on the dominoes like a hen hatching eggs.

"What's that all about?" Qwilleran demanded. "Are you getting a gut feeling?"

The cat seemed to know what he was doing. Suddenly he rose and, with a grunt, pushed several pieces onto the floor. Quickly and with high anticipation Qwilleran retrieved them: 0-2, 1-3, 3-4, 2-6, and 5-6. By adding the pips on each piece he got 2, 4, 7, 8, and 11, which corresponded to B, D, G, H, and K in the alphabet.

"That won't fly," Qwilleran said in disappointment.

We need vowels, the way we did when we played Scrabble." He asked himself, What does a cat know about fowels? And yet ... Koko could read his mind without understanding his speech.

Either Koko understood, or the next draw was a phenomenal coincidence. It produced 0-1, 0-5, 1-4, 2-3, 4-5, and 3-6, all of which corresponded to the vowels, A, E and L

Qwilleran groaned and pounded his forehead with his fists. It was beyond comprehension, but luckily he had earned to take Koko's actions on faith, and he continued the game. Who would believe, he asked himself, that a grown man in his right mind would participate in such a farce? He took the precaution of drawing the window blind.

After that, Koko's efforts were more to the point. Sometimes he swept pieces off the table with a swift flick of his tail, and from the seven or eight designated dominoes Qwilleran was able to spell words like field, beach, baffle and lake. (It could also be leak.) Unfortunately, the operation was limited to the first twelve letters of the alphabet. Nevertheless, he liked the challenge and kept a record: fable, dice, chalk, chick, cackle. Koko pushed dominoes off the table; Qwilleran translated them into words; Yum Yum sat on her brisket and kibitzed.

Eventually the cats lost interest, having a short attention span, and Qwilleran decided it was time to walk downtown. His first stop was the antique shop. Noisette was sitting at her desk, looking stunning, and reading another magazine, or perhaps the same one.

"Good afternoon, mademoiselle," he said pleasantly.

She looked up with a smile of recognition, and he realized that her lustrous brown eyes were a rich shade ol hazel. "Ah, you have returned! What is it that interests you today?" she asked.

"The green glass luncheon set," he said. "It would be a good gift for my sister in Florida, but I don't know about the color."

"Green glass can be used with pink, yellow, or white napery," she said. "It gives the most enjoyment of color."

"I see ... My sister lives near Palm Beach. She'd enjoy your kind of shop. Are you on Worth Avenue?"

Noisette shrugged apologetically. "At the moment I regret I do not know my address. I am moving due to the expirement of my lease."

Qwilleran mumbled something about the luncheon set and his sister and edged out of the shop. He was convinced that this was the woman he had seen, and heard, in the Buccaneer Den. A ripple of sensation in the roots of his moustache told him that she was also the woman drinking with the man who drowned.

Qwilleran's next stop was the post office. He was sure that Polly would have mailed a postcard the day after she arrived. Then, he figured cynically, it would go from her friend's country address to the General Mail Facility in Portland and then across the country to the General Mail Facility in Minneapolis, from which it would be delivered to Pickax and forwarded by his secretarial service to the island, via the General Mail Facility in Milwaukee, which would have no "Breakfast Island" in the computer, so Polly's postcard would go to the dead letter office in Chicago. At least, he thought that was the way it worked. Only one thing was certain: It had not arrived at Pear Island.

At the hotel he found Dwight Somers in his office and asked to have a few private words. They sauntered out to the farthest rim of the pool.

"Something on your mind?" Dwight asked.

"I'd like to ask a favor," Qwilleran said. "I need to know the last name of Noisette, who runs the antique shop. She must have signed a lease or other contract with the hotel. Would it be in the hotel files?" "Probably, but I wouldn't have access to them." "You could wangle your way into the vault." "Is it that important? Okay, I'll give it a try." "Do that, and I'll owe you one," Qwilleran said. "By the way, I'm bringing the mermaid to lunch at the Corsair Room tomorrow, in case you want to size her up."

Dwight asked, "How are you getting along with your next-door neighbor?"

"I avoid her, but I found out why she's working 400 miles north of everywhere. She came up to Lockmaster because it's horse country, and she's fond of riding."

"Are you sure?" Dwight asked. "When we had dinner at the Palomino Paddock, surrounded by bales of hay, saddles, and photos of famous horses, she never once said anything about riding, and that pale face doesn't belong on an outdoorswoman."

"Something's wrong somewhere," Qwilleran acknowledged. "How's your boss's disposition lately?"

"He's hot under the collar today. A photojournalist from your paper has been over here, questioning hotel guests about how they feel about feral cats on the island. Don had him thrown out and refused to speak for publication."

On the way out of the hotel Qwilleran saw a towering figure occupying one of the rocking chairs on the porch and rocking vigorously. He had to look twice; he had never seen the Pickax police chief dressed in anything but the official uniform or full Scottish kit. He dropped into a rocker next to Brodie and said, "Andy! What are you doing here?" v.

"It's my day off, and we came over for the ferry ride— the wife and me. I'm cooling my heels while she's off buying T-shirts for the grandkids."

"What does she think of the resort?"

"Same as we all think: too expensive and too built up!" Brodie said. "Nobody on the mainland likes what they've done to our Breakfast Island. We used to bring our three girls over here for picnics when they were growing up. It was a wild and lonely beach then."

"Did the islanders object?"

"Naw, we didn't bother them. We weren't rowdy, and we didn't spoil anything."

As they talked, Qwilleran noticed listening ears in the nearby rocking chairs. "Let's walk down to the docks, Andy," he suggested.

One of the piers, damaged by the boat explosion, was closed for repairs. They walked to the end of the longest pier and looked back at the flat-roofed hotel, the strip malls on either side, and the dense forest beyond. The ancient evergreens were so tall, they dwarfed the man-made structures.

Brodie said, "What's going to happen to that flat roof when they get tons of snow this winter? You know why they made it flat, don't you? Exbridge wanted to be able to land a helicopter on top of the hotel, but he found out they'd have to have special roof construction, and his partners at XYZ didn't want to pay for it. So now there's a pad behind the rescue headquarters, for when they have to chopper out an emergency case. They've had quite a few of those lately. I'll tell you one thing: I wouldn't want to be in that hotel during a bad wind storm. See all those tall trees? You can bet that their roots are drying out because of the drain on available ground water. It takes a lot of water to service the hotel, twelve stores, a big swimming pool, and all those food operations. A tall tree with a dry root system is a pushover in a big blow. No, sir! I wouldn't want to be here. How about you, Qwill?"

"Ditto."

Brodie said, "There was anothe* incident this weekend—the shooting. That was a strange one, if you ask me."

"That makes five incidents," Qwilleran said, "and they have five logical explanations."

"Have you come up with any theories?"

"Nothing conclusive, but I have some leads and a couple of good contacts. You could do me a favor when you get home, Andy. Get me the name and hometown of the hotel guest who drowned. They're hushing it up over here."

Andy said, "If you find any evidence, don't waste time talking to the sheriff's department. Go right to the prosecutor. The sheriff has no background in crime fighting; he's a good administrator, that's all, and if you ask me, it was XYZ backing that got him elected. How much longer will you be here?"

"Another week."

"How's Polly enjoying her vacation? Where did you say she was going?"

"Oregon. She's having a good time."

"When are you two gonna—"

"We're not gonna, Andy, so don't plan on doing any bagpiping for us unless we kick the bucket."

"Let's mosey back to the hotel," the chief said. "The wife will be looking for me, now that she's spent all my money. Also, we have to watch the ferry schedule; they've cut back the number of crossings. They're not getting the crowds they expected. Look! Half the rocking chairs are empty. There's a rumor that the hotel may fold. Did you bear that?"

"I'm not up on my rumorology," Qwilleran said with mock apology.

"There's also a rumor that the hotel was planned to fail. Don't ask me how that works. I don't understand financial shenanigans. They say XYZ is too successful to be healthy, whatever that means."

Leaving Brodie, Qwilleran started to walk home and found himself face to face with the Moseley sisters on the boardwalk. They had just stepped out of a horse cab and were headed for the tea room.

"Oh, Mr. Qwilleran! We were just talking about you. Have you any news about our dear Elizabeth?"

"She's fine. She's back on the island. I visited her family yesterday."

"You must tell us about her. Will you join us for tea? We're leaving tomorrow." They were pleasant women, and they looked at him eagerly.

"I'd be happy to," he said, although he usually avoided tea rooms. This one was bright with posters of Scottish castles and displays of ornamental teapots. A cheery, pink-cheeked woman in a tartan apron brought a platter of shortbread and offered a choice of five teas. The Moseleys recommended a tisane, blending leaves, roots, flowers, and grasses.

Qwilleran gave them an update on their former student, and they described their vacation week. They had enjoyed the people at the inn, the sunsets, the carriage rides, and the lectures at the hotel.

"A conservation officer told us that this island was completely submerged thousands of years ago, except for the promontory where the lighthouse stands," said the one who had taught science. "Now all that's left of the wetland is the peat bog in the center of the island. I do hope they won't spray for mosquitoes. Insects, birds, frogs, snakes, turtles and all of those creatures work together to preserve the bog, which in turn preserves the quality of air and water."

"A peat bog," said the other sister, "is a mysterious miracle of nature. Did you know that a human body can sink in a bog and be perfectly preserved forever?"

Altogether, the conversation was better than the tea, although Qwilleran drank three cups of the stuff—not because he liked it, but because it was there. Later, while walking home, he formulated a new theory about the missing lightkeepers. First he thought they had been drugged with island coffee and dropped into the bog. Yet, that would require a motive on the part of the islanders, and motive was the missing piece in the puzzle.

Next, he decided that the lightkeepers had wandered into the bog themselves—but why all three of them? And what were they doing in the woods?

Stimulated by the tea blended of leaves, roots, flowers, and grasses, Qwilleran composed a scenario: The islanders had entertained the lightkeepers with tall tales about chests of pirate gold, buried in the marsh long before the Beadles, Kales, and Lawsons washed up on the shore. The lightkeepers believed the stories. Perhaps they were bored; perhaps they were greedy; perhaps they had been drinking too much ale. Whatever the reason, the head light-keeper sent an assistant to reconnoitre on one moonlit night. The fellow went out with a lantern and shovel and failed to return. The second assistant was dispatched to look for him. And finally the lightkeeper himself went in search of the other two, with the result that Trevelyan, Schmidt, and Mayfus are honored by a bronze plaque on Lighthouse Point.

That evening, the crew in Four Pips played dominoes again, and the highlight occurred when Koko made one grand swipe with his tail, knocking a dozen pieces on the floor and enabling Qwilleran to spell hijacked. Otherwise, the words were ordinary: jailed, ideal, field (again), lake (again), deface, flea (which could also be leaf), lice, bike, and feed. Then, just as Qwilleran was getting bored, he was able to spell Beadle, and that gave him an idea. He walked up the road to Harriet's cafe to get a chocolate sundae and try out his lightkeeper scenario.

It was late, and there were no customers. "Just a chocolate sundae," he said to the island woman who was waitress, cashier, and busgirl.

As soon as his order was placed in the kitchen, Harriet came through the swinging doors. "I knew it was you, Mr. Q. Would you rather have hot fudge? I know you like it, and I can boil some up, if you don't mind waiting a bit."

"I appreciate that," he said, "but you look tired. Just sit down with me and have a cup of coffee."

Her plain face looked drawn, and her shoulders drooped. "Yes, I'm beat tonight . .. Hettie, dish up a chocolate sundae and bring us two cups of coffee. Then go home. I'll clean up. Thanks for staying late."

Qwilleran said, "Your long hours are getting you down. Why don't you take some time off once in a while?"

"It's not that so much," she said as she dropped into a chair. "I'm discouraged about business. All those accidents are scaring people away, and the radio is saying it'll be a bad summer—rain, high winds, and low temperatures. The B-and-Bs aren't getting reservations for the holiday weekend—not what they expected, anyway. And the hotel is cutting down on help. Some of my roomers upstairs have been laid off, and they're going back to the mainland. And then ..." She stopped and heaved a long tired sigh. "Yesterday I heard something that upset me."

"Is it something you can tell me?" he asked.

"I don't know. It's something I heard when I visited my ma yesterday. I just don't know what to do. I always thought islanders were good people who wouldn't hurt a soul, but now ..." She shook her head in despair.

"It might help you to talk about it," he said, mixing genuine sympathy with rampant curiosity.

"Maybe you're right. Will you promise not to say anything?"

"If that's what you want me to do."

"Well ... one of our people was involved in the accidents."

"Do you know who it is?"

She nodded.

"Those are serious crimes, Harriet. This person must be stopped."

"But how can I squeal, Mr. Q?" she said in desperation. "We've always stuck together, here on the island, but I'm getting to feel more like a mainlander. I lived there so long."

"It's not a case of islander against mainlander," he said. "It's a matter of right and wrong. You're a good person, Harriet. Don't wait until someone else is killed or injured. If that happens, you'll never forgive yourself. You'll feel guilty for the rest of your life."

"I wish I hadn't come back to the island," she moaned. "Then I wouldn't be faced with this terrible decision."

"That's understandable, but it doesn't solve any problems. You're here now, and you're involved, and it's your duty to come forward."

"My ma thinks I should keep my mouth shut. She's afraid something will happen to me."

"You won't be at any risk. I've been doing some snooping myself, and if you tell me what you know, I'll be the one to blow the whistle. No one will be the wiser."

"I've got to think about it," she said, wringing her hands.

Qwilleran's moustache bristled, as it did at moments of suspicion or revelation. This was a breakthrough waiting to break through, and it was a delicate situation. These islanders required special handling. He had to be at his sympathetic best.

"More coffee?" she asked.

"No, thanks," he said. Already the drums were beating in his head. There was no telling what wild-growing leaf, root, flower, or grass the islanders put in their coffee. "I think you should call it a day and get some rest. In the morning you'll be thinking clearly, and you'll make the right decision."

"Yes," she agreed with a sigh of relief. "I just have to clean up a bit, and then I'll go upstairs."

"What has to be done?"

"I always sweep the floor, straighten the chairs, and tidy up the kitchen."

"I'll help you," he said. "Where's the broom?" Gripped by the immediacy of the situation, Qwilleran forgot to mention his peat bog theory.