The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

13

The day after the murder of Mountclemens, there was only one topic of conversation at the Daily Fluxion. One by one they stopped at Qwilleran's desk: the members of the City Room, the Women's Department, Editorial, the Photo Lab, and the Sports Department. The head librarian, the foreman of the Composing Room, and the elevator starter paid unexpected visits.

Qwilleran's telephone rang incessantly. Women readers cried in his ear. Several anonymous callers said they were glad; Mountclemens had it coming to him. Some urged the newspaper to offer a reward for the killer. Six galleries telephoned to inquire who would review their March exhibitions, now that the critic was out of the picture. A crank called with a phony-sounding tip on the murder and was referred to the Homicide Bureau. A twelve-year-old girl applied for the job of art critic.

One call was from Sandy Halapay's maid, canceling the lunch date scheduled with Qwilleran there was no explanation. So at noon he went to the Press Club with Arch Riker, Odd Bunsen, and Lodge Kendall.

They took a table for four, and Qwilleran went over the incident in detail, starting with Koko's unusual behavior. Mountclemens had been knifed in the stomach. The weapon had not been found. There was no sign of a tussle. The gate to the alley was locked.

"The body's being sent to Milwaukee," Qwilleran told his audience. "Mountclemens mentioned that he had a sister there, and the police found her address. They also impounded the tape reels he had been working on."

Arch said, "They've been looking at back files of his reviews, but I don't know what they hope to find. Just because he insulted half the artists in town, that doesn't make them all suspects, does it? Or maybe it does!"

"Every scrap of information helps," said Lodge. "A lot of people hated Mountclemens. Not only artists but dealers, museum people, teachers, collectors — and at least one bartender that I know," said Qwilleran. "Even Odd wanted to bust a camera over his head."

Arch said, "The switchboard has been jumping. Everybody wants to know who did it. Sometimes I think our readers are all morons."

"Mountclemens wasn't wearing his artificial hand when he was killed," said Odd. "I wonder why."

"That reminds me," said Qwilleran. "I got quite a jolt this morning. Went upstairs to Mountclemens' apartment to get the cat's meat, and there on the top shelf of the refrigerator was that plastic hand! I jumped a foot!"

"What does the cat think about all the uproar?"

"He's edgy. I'm keeping him in my apartment, and he jumps, at the slightest sound. After the police had gone last night and everything quieted down, I put a blanket on the sofa and tried to make him bed down, but he just walked the floor. I think he prowled all night."

"I'd like to know what that cat knows."

Qwilleran said, "I'd like to know what Mountclemens was doing in the patio on a cold winter night — in his velvet house jacket. That's what he was wearing — and a glove on his good hand. Yet he had taken his topcoat with him. There was a British tweed lying on the bricks in a comer of the patio. They assume it was his — right size, New York label, and a shoulder cape! Who else would wear a cape?"

"Exactly where did you find the body?"

"In a comer of the yard, close to the gate that leads into the alley. It looked as if he'd had his back to the brick wall — the side wall, that is — when someone plunged the knife into his gut."

"It went into the abdominal aorta," said Lodge. "He didn't have a chance."

"Now we've got to find a new art critic," said Arch. "Do you want the job, Jim?"

"Who? Me? Are you crazy?"

"That gives me an idea," Lodge said. "Was there anyone in town who wanted to get Mountclemens' job for himself?"

"It doesn't pay enough to be worth the risk of a murder rap."

"But it has prestige," said Qwilleran, "and some art expert might see it as a chance to play God. A critic can make or break an artist."

"Who would be qualified for such a job?"

"A teacher. A curator. Someone who contributes to art journals."

Arch said, "He'd have to know how to write. Most artists can't write. They think they can, but they can't."

"It'll be interesting to see who applies for the job."

Someone said, "Any more dope on the Lambreth case?"

"Nothing that they've seen fit to reveal," said Lodge.

"Know who'd make a good critic?" Qwilleran said. "He's currently unemployed, too."

"Who?"

"Noel Farhar from the museum."

"Think he'd be interested?" Arch said. "Maybe I should give him a buzz."

After lunch Qwilleran spent most of the afternoon taking telephone calls, and at the end of the day his urge to go back to the Press Club for dinner was less powerful than his urge to go home and see Koko. The cat, he told himself, was now an orphan. Siamese were particularly needful of companionship. The bereaved animal had been locked up alone in Qwilleran's apartment all day. There was no telling what kind of breakdown he might have suffered.

When Qwilleran unlocked the door of his apartment, there was no sign of Koko on the sofa or the big chair, no leonine pose on the red carpet, no pale bundle of fur on the bed in the alcove.

Qwilleran called the cat's name. He got down on hands and knees and looked under things. He searched behind draperies and behind the shower curtain in the bathtub. He peered up the chimney.

He thought, I've accidentally shut him up in a cabinet or closet. But a frantic banging of doors and drawers produced no cat. He couldn't have escaped. The apartment door had been locked. There were no open windows. He's got to be in this apartment, Qwilleran thought. If I start fixing his dinner, he may come crawling out of the woodwork.

Qwilleran went to the kitchenette, approached the refrigerator, and found himself face to face with a calm, cool-eyed Koko.

Qwilleran gasped. "You devil! Were you sitting there all the time?"

Koko, huddled in an awkward pose on the refrigerator top, answered with a curt syllable.

"What's the matter, old fellow? Are you unhappy?"

The cat shifted position irritably. Now he crouched with his body hovering above the hard porcelain surface. His haunches angled up like fins, and the fur over his shoulder blades spread open like a huge dandelion gone to seed.

"You're uncomfortable! That's what's wrong. After dinner we'll go upstairs and get your cushion. Is that okay?"

Koko squeezed both eyes.

Qwilleran started to mince the beef. "When this hunk of meat is gone, you'll have to start eating something I can afford — or else move to Milwaukee. You live better than I do."

After Koko had chewed his beef and Qwilleran had downed a salami sandwich, they went upstairs to get the blue cushion from the top of Mountclemens' refrigerator. The place was locked now, but Qwilleran still had the key the critic had given him a week ago.

Koko entered the apartment with a wondering hesitation. He wandered aimlessly, smelled the carpet here and there, and moved gradually toward one comer of the living room. The louvered doors seemed to attract him. He sniffed their edges, the hinges, the louvers — in rapt concentration.

"What are you looking for, Koko?"

The cat stretched tall on his hind legs and scratched the door. Then he pawed the red carpet.

"Do you want to get into that closet? What for?"

Koko dug vigorously at the rug, and Qwilleran took the suggestion. He opened the double doors.

In the early life of the house, this closet might have been a small sewing room or study. Now the windows were shuttered, and the space was filled with racks holding paintings in vertical slots. Some were framed; some were merely stretched canvases. Here and there Qwilleran caught glimpses of wild, meaningless splotches of color.

Once inside the closet, Koko sniffed avidly, his nose taking him to one rack after another. One particular slot interested him keenly; he tried to insert his paw.

"I'd like to know what this demonstration is all about," Qwilleran said.

Koko yowled in excitement. He tried first one paw and then the other. He took time out to brush against Qwilleran's pant leg, after which he resumed the quest.

"You want some help, I suppose. What's in that rack?" Qwilleran wthdrew the framed painting that filled the narrow slot, and Koko reached in to snag a small dark object with his claws.

Qwilleran took the thing away from the cat to examine it. What could it be? Soft… fuzzy… lightweight. Koko howled in indignation.

"Sorry," said Qwilleran. "Just curious. So this is Mintie Mouse!" He tossed the mint-perfumed toy back to the cat, who clutched it with both paws, rolling on his side and pummeling it with his hind feet.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Qwilleran returned the painting to its slot but not without giving it a quick perusal. It was a dreamlike landscape filled with headless bodies and disembodied heads. He grimaced and put it away. So these were Mountclemens' blue-chip stocks!

He looked at a few more. One was a series of black lines ruled across a white background — some parallel, some intersecting. He raised his eyebrows. Another canvas was covered with gray paint — just gray paint and a signature in the lower corner. Then there was a vivid purple sphere on a red field that gave Qwilleran the beginning of a headache.

The next painting caused a peculiar sensation in the roots of his moustache. Impulsively, he swooped down on Koko, gathered him up and ran downstairs.

He went to the telephone and dialed a number that he had come to know by heart. "Zoe? This is Jim. I've found something here at the house that I want you to see…. A painting — one that will interest you. Koko and I went up to Mountclemens' apartment to get something, and the cat led me to this closet. He was very insistent. You'll never believe what we found…. A monkey. A painting of a monkey!.. Can you come over?"

Minutes later, Zoe arrived by taxi, wearing her fur coat over slacks and a sweater. Qwilleran was watching for her. He had brought the monkey painting down to his own apartment, where it was propped on the mantel over the Monet.

"That's it!" cried Zoe. "That's the other half of Earl's Ghirotto!"

"You're sure?"

"It's obviously a Ghirotto. The brushwork is unmistakable, and the background is the same yellow-green. Notice how the design is poorly balanced; the monkey is too far to the right, and he's reaching out of the picture. Also — can't you see a scrap of the dancer's tutu showing at the right-hand edge?"

They both stared at the canvas, their thoughts taking shape.

"If this is the missing half —»

"What does it mean?"

Zoe suddenly looked hollow-cheeked. She sat down and bit her lower lip. It was the mannerism that Qwilleran had found so unpleasant in Earl Lambreth. In Zoe it was appealing.

She said, slowly, "Mountclemens knew Earl was hunting for the monkey. He was one of those who offered to buy the ballerina. And no wonder! He had found the monkey!"

Qwilleran was making short stabs at his moustache with a thumbnail. He was asking himself, Would Mountclemens kill to get the ballerina? And if that were the case, why leave the painting on the premises? Because it had been removed to the stock room and he couldn't find it? Or because —?

With a crawling sensation in his moustache, Qwilleran remembered the gossip he had heard about Zoe and Mountclemens.

Zoe was gazing down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. As if she felt Qwilleran's questioning stare, she suddenly raised her eyes and said, "I despised him! I despised him!"

Qwilleran waited patiently and sympathetically for anything she wanted to say.

"He was an arrogant, avaricious, overbearing man," said Zoe. "I loathed Mountclemens, and yet I had to play along — for obvious reasons."

"Obvious reasons?"

"Can't you see? My paintings were enjoying his critical favor. If I had made him angry, he could have ruined my career. He would have ruined Earl, too. What could I do? I flirted — discreetly, I thought — because that was the way Mountclemens wanted to play." Zoe fussed with her handbag — clasping, unclasping, clasping. "And then he got the idea that I should leave Earl and go with him."

"How did you handle that proposition?"

"It was a delicate maneuver, believe me! I said — or I implied — that I would like to accept his proposal, but an old-fashioned sense of loyalty bound me to my husband. What an act! I felt like the heroine in one of those old silent movies."

"Did that settle the matter?"

"Unfortunately, no. He continued his campaign, and I got in deeper and deeper. It was a nightmare! There was the constant strain of acting out a lie."

"Didn't your husband know what was going on?"

Zoe sighed. "For a long time he didn't suspect. Earl was always so preoccupied with his own problems that he was blind and deaf to everyone else. But eventually he heard the gossip. And then we had a horrible scene. I convinced him — finally — that I was trapped in a nasty situation." There was prolonged business with the handbag clasp. Falteringly she said, "You know — Earl seemed to cling to me. Even though we were no longer — if you know what I mean. I found it safer to be marred, and Earl clung to me because I was a success. He was born to be a failure. His only achievement was a happy accident — finding half a Ghirotto — and it was his life's ambition to find the other half and be rich!"

Qwilleran said, "You don't think Mountclemens killed your husband, do you?"

Zoe looked at him helplessly. "I don't know. I just don't know. He wouldn't have done anything so drastic merely to get me. I'm positive of that! He wasn't capable of loving that passionately. But he might have done it to get me and the other half of the Ghirotto."

That would be quite a package, Qwilleran reflected. He said, "Mountclemens had a passion for art."

"Only as a form of wealth, to be accumulated and hoarded. He didn't share his possessions. He didn't even want people to know he owned fabulous treasures."

"Where did he get the dough to buy them? Certainly not from writing art columns for the Daily Fluxion."

Zoe left his question dangling. She seemed to shrink into her chair. "I'm tired," she said. "I'd like to go home. I didn't mean to talk like this."

"I know. It's all right," Qwilleran said. "I'll call you a cab."

"Thank you for being so understanding."

"I'm complimented to have you confide in me."

Zoe bit her lip. "I feel I can say this to you: When Earl was killed, my reaction was more fear than grief — fear of Mountclemens and what would happen next. Now that fear has been removed, and I can't be anything but glad."

Qwilleran watched Zoe's taxi disappear into the dark, ness. He wondered if she had suspected Mountclemens from the start. Was the critic one of Earl's enemies — one of the "important people" she had been afraid to name to the police? On the other hand, would a man like Mountclemens — enjoying a good life and with so much to lose — take the risk of committing murder to gain a woman and a valuable painting? Qwilleran doubted it.

Then his thoughts went back to the monkey propped on the mantel in his apartment. What would happen to it now? Along with the Rembrandt drawings and the Van Gogh, the Ghirotto monkey would go to that woman from Milwaukee. She would be unlikely to know its significance. In all probability she would loathe the ugly thing. How easy it would be -

An idea began to take shape in his mind. "Keep it… Say nothing… Give it to Zoe."

He returned to the apartment to look at the monkey. On the mantel in front of the canvas sat Kao K'o Kung, straight as a sentinel, giving Qwilleran a reproachful stare.

"Okay. You win," said the newsman. "I'll report it to the police."