The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell

Chapter 7

On Friday morning, as Qwilleran was preparing their breakfast, the cats huddled on top of the bar, waiting for the sideshow. They liked to be entertained, and he liked an audience. On this occasion he recited from his collection of limericks:

I live with a pair of Siamese

Who think they can do whatever they please.

They subsist on steak

And truffles and cake

And lobster and six kinds of cheese.

Two furry bodies bolted from the bar top and chased each other up and down the ramp - twice. There was something about the rhyme and rhythm of limericks and other homely verses that pricked their psyche and teed off a mad race.

Returning to the kitchen with appetites whetted, they polished off two plates of turkey scraps from Lois's Luncheonette. As he watched them enjoying their meal, the phone rang.

Koko's ear twitching told him it was friend, not foe.

"Good morning!" he answered in the unctuously musical voice that amused his close associates.

"Qwill! I've just received a very . . . interesting letter!" It was Polly's voice, brimming with excitement.

"About what?" he asked.

"Wait until you read it!"

"Would it be too presumptuous to ask who sent it?"

"Clarissa Moore!"

"Hmmm . . . Read it to me."

"It's too long and too personal."

"Then we'll go to dinner tonight, and you can bring it with you," he suggested.

"Tonight is my Bird Club meeting. Why don't you come over to the bookstore for a few minutes. You can park your bicycle in the office."

He agreed, wondering what Harvey Ledfield's fiancée could be writing about: Jerome? Invitation to a wedding?

"I'll be there as soon as I brush the cats. Want me to pick up something for your lunch?"

"Thanks, dear, but I've brought my lunch."

He had guessed as much and he knew what it would be!

Qwilleran finished brushing the cats and told them he was going to visit Dundee and read a letter from Jerome's mother. Then he added, "Let's hope the Ledfield heir isn't suing you, Koko, for an unprovoked attack!"

Qwilleran had planned to bike to the newspaper office to file copy for his Friday column, but his built-in itch to know the latest news caused him to detour to the bookstore. He was pedaling his British Silverlight that stopped traffic; on a sunny day it gleamed like a piece of jewelry.

Qwilleran parked his handsome bike in Polly's office, and Dundee, who had never seen a bicycle in his young life, gave the wheels the sniff test.

Qwilleran said, "He's telling me I need air in the rear tire."

"Have a chair," Polly said. "You'll need to be sitting down to read this." She handed him a business envelope with typed address. With a newsman's lack of personal reaction, he read the letter through - then read it again.

Dear Polly,

It was a privilege and pleasure to meet you Saturday night. I wish we lived in the same town. You would be my role model. Sorry I didn't meet Brutus and Catta.

Here is a snapshot of Jerome taken when he won first prize in a cat fashion show. He was dressed as Santa Claus. I made his costume: a red coat and red cap with white fur trim and a white fur bib hanging around his neck, supposed to be a beard. It was hilariously funny, and he didn't object. Jerome is always calm, cool, and collected.

And now for the bad news - or good, depending on one's point of view. I've broken up with Harvey. I'm still going to call her Aunt Doris and keep in touch. She's so sweet! To tell the truth, I think she likes me more than she does Harvey!

When we got home, Harvey told me I'd have to get rid of Jerome! He hates cats. I said he'd have to get a steady job and/or go to college. He said he wouldn't have to do either because he'll inherit the Ledfield millions or billions.

Well! I took off Aunt Doris's ring and told him I was going to return it to her.

Harvey is sexy and all that, and he has that gorgeous head of hair - but we're all wrong for each other. What do you think, Polly? I don't have anyone to discuss it with, and my family in Indiana wouldn't understand.

With best wishes, Clarissa

"Well . . . What do you think?" Polly asked. "Are you surprised?"

"I'll tell you what I think!" he said. "If my girlfriend dressed up her cat like Santa Claus - with a white fur bib - I'd consider it grounds for murder! . . . No! In any marriage there are periodic disagreements, but to start a lifelong union with a built-in disagreement like theirs would be insanity. She's an ailurophile; he's an ailurophobe. Koko knew it or he wouldn't have gone airborne! I tried to pass it off as a catly game, but Koko is no fool. . . . Sorry to be on my soapbox."

Dundee, who had been courting customers on the selling floor, came running to enjoy the fun.

"I hope my lecture didn't go out over the loudspeakers," Qwilleran said. "What I'm trying to say is this: The only thing Harvey and Clarissa have in common is skiing and I say their so-called engagement was all a pose, on Harvey's part - planned to mislead Doris and Nathan and sew up the inheritance. . . . No matter, the plot backfired. Harvey will have to try again another year." And then he asked casually, "What's on the program at the Bird Club tonight - besides chicken potpie for dinner? I wonder how many pies you can get out of a single chicken?"

"Oh, Qwill!" she remonstrated.

"Do you mind looking after my bike while I go downstairs to see if they have anything new in the old-book department?"

The Edd Smith Place on the lower level had the usual browsers and, as usual, Lisa Compton at the cash register.

"Qwill, I was just thinking about you! We received several boxes of books from Trawnto Beach, including a book I read when I was twelve. I laughed so hard, I rolled on the floor, and my mother thought I was having convulsions. Have you ever read Three Men in a Boat by a British humourist published in 1889?"

"No," he said, "and frankly I've never rolled on the floor with laughter."

"You can read it aloud to the cats," Lisa said. "It's a small book, the kind Koko likes to push off the shelf - if you're telling the truth. Lyle and I have never had a cat that pushed books off the shelf, and he says it's a heinous fabrication on your part."

"He's never had a Siamese, that's his problem. . . . I'll take the book. How much? Do I get my money back if I don't roll on the floor?"

En route to the newspaper office Qwilleran and the British Silverlight received friendly toots from motorists and cheers from admiring pedestrians. One old gentleman shouted in a cracked voice: "Heigh-ho, Silver!"

In front of the Sprenkle Building, a tall stately woman of advanced age stood on the curb and waved. Qwilleran braked his bike abruptly in front of her and said, "Sorry, madam, you'll have to hail a taxi. My license doesn't permit me to transport passengers."

"Qwill, you rascal!" she cried. "You say the most outrageous things with a straight face!"

She was Maggie Sprenkle, one of the town's most active octogenarians, noted for her volunteer work in animal rescue. After her husband's death, she sold their Purple Point property and moved into the Sprenkle Building downtown in order to be closer to her volunteer activities. The ground floor was occupied by insurance and real estate firms; the upper two floors had been transformed into a Victorian palace.

Maggie asked, "Could you come upstairs for a cup of tea? I have something to discuss with you."

"After I've filed my copy at the paper."

"Come around in the rear," she said. "There's room in the back hall to park your bicycle."

In half an hour he returned and rang the bell; a buzzer admitted him and the Silverlight, and he rode to the second floor in a small elevator - all this in a hundred-year-old building with a Victorian palace upstairs. There were crystal chandeliers, plush carpet, patterned with roses, and red walls hung with large paintings in gilt frames.

When she offered him a "nice cup of tea," he said gently, "Somehow, Maggie, a nice cup of tea seems out of sync with a bicycle ride, even on a British one."

She agreed, and served Squunk water with cranberry juice.

Before sitting down at the carved marble-top table, he paid his respects to the five "ladies" from the animal shelter, who sat in five windows overlooking Main Street traffic. They had names like Florence Nightingale, Sarah Bernhardt, Louisa May Alcott, and so forth.

"How's everything at the animal shelter?" he asked.

"Thanks to the K Fund, we've doubled our capacity and hired a second rescue officer. Now, if only we could educate people not to abandon unwanted pets without food, water, or protection from wild animals! A pregnant cat or dog is driven into the country and dropped by the roadside. It breaks my heart! At the shelter, cages are being cleaned and animals bathed by wealthy women volunteers who could be playing afternoon bridge or flying to Chicago for a day's shopping. . . . You know all this, Qwill. You've written columns on it. And you quoted a philosopher: ?It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.' We try to place as many orphaned animals as we can. That's what I wanted to discuss with you: During the summer, while a lot of out-of-staters are here for reunions, why not have a series of animal auctions?"

Qwilleran gulped. He had been warned. They were going to ask him to be auctioneer! "Sounds like a good idea! I'm sure you could get Foxy Fred to handle it gratis. He would be very good at kidding the audience and pitting bidder against bidder. An out-of-town audience would eat it up!"

"You're very right, Qwill! We've asked him and he's going to do it. And here's what the volunteers suggested. Instead of putting anonymous animals on the block, give them all famous names - like my ladies!"

"Excellent idea!" he said. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"As a matter of fact . . . yes!" Maggie said. "Could you make up a list of names that are well known? We'd start with kitties."

"With pleasure! They'd be names from literature and legend - no contemporary figures. Politicians or movie stars or others in the news would turn it into a joke. The names can still have a light connotation: Peter Pan, Cholly Knickerbocker, Rosie O'Grady, Goody Two-Shoes. That would be perfect for a female with two white paws."

"Oh, I'm so excited, Qwill! How soon can you give us a list? We have some sharp-witted volunteers who will love fitting the names to the right kitties."

"In fact, Maggie, I'll pay a visit to the shelter. Colors and marking might suggest ?Cinderella' for all white; ?Bonnie Lassie' for an orange marmalade mix; ?Tom Sawyer' for a male with jaunty markings on the head. . . . Enough of this! I could stay here all day! . . . Just let me ask you one question: Do you know the Ledfields?"

He was prompted solely by a free-ranging curiosity that was part of his profession. Maggie's response was more than he anticipated.

"Why, yes! Nathan and Doris were our neighbours in Purple Point! Jeremy and I dined with them often. Nathan is a wonderful man - played the violin. Doris accompanied him on the piano. She's a sweet, retiring person - sad, because she's childless, and the Ledfields have always felt strongly about continuing the bloodline. They have only a nephew in California."

"He visited here last weekend, Maggie, to make sketches of my barn for an architectural project. He's entering college in the fall."

"Really? That will please his aunt and uncle. I believe his name is Harvey. He was here last winter. Harvey's parents were killed in a car crash on the freeway."

Maggie's cagily secretive expression caused Qwilleran to remark, "A terrible tragedy!"

"Not exactly," she said. "I shouldn't be telling you this, but everyone knows that Nathan's brother was the black sheep of the family - a burden and an embarrassment. When they died, that left Harvey the only heir to the Ledfield fortune, so Nathan sent him a pair of plane tickets, and he visited here with a friend, a personable young man. Nathan found the friend an interesting conversationalist but he was disappointed in Harvey. All the young man could talk about was a glamorous ski lodge in the mountains, which he wanted his uncle to back."

"Any luck?" Qwilleran asked.

"You jest!" Maggie replied. "Nathan considered it a frivolity, and the two youths didn't stay long. Nathan would prefer to put his heir through college."

"Did you meet Harvey? No? It's just as well, Maggie. He's a cat hater. . . . And now I must tear myself away from your fascinating company."

Maggie said, "You're so kind and understanding, Qwill! And always so concerned about people. . . . Don't forget the list of cat names."

On the way out he noticed a small framed photo on a bookshelf. Two couples in a rose garden.

"The handsome one is my Jeremy," Maggie said. "Doris and I are sitting on a bench that Jeremy copied from the one in Monet's A Garden at Giverny. My husband did beautiful things with wood. The framed calligraphy is Jeremy's work, too - a quotation from the Desiderata : ?With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,/it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.' "

Maggie added, "Jeremy was unable to walk; he was thrown from a horse when he was a young man. . . . Do you have a copy of the Desiderata, Qwill? I have one on my wall, and it's the first thing I see every morning. I have a copy for you, if you have a good place to post it."

He promised to thumbtack it on the bulletin board in his writing studio.

With another look at the photograph in the rose garden, Qwilleran came to several conclusions: Jeremy was indeed handsome and grew beautiful roses. . . . Maggie looked then, as she does now, very much in charge. . . . Nathan was not tall but broad-shouldered, serious - a picture of the concert violinist and keeper of the family dignity. . . . Doris was small and frail and devoted to her husband; she looked at him instead of at the photographer.

Later in the evening, he wrote in his journal:

Friday - Polly and I are making two lists for Maggie: one for males, one for females. I refuse to call them little boys and little girls.

The names, we decided, should be important, well known, strong-sounding, even when reduced to a nickname for everyday use. Volunteers will have to match them up with forty little balls of fur, so we supplied more than enough.

Examples: Rudyard Kipling, Conan Doyle, Lewis and Clark (for twins), Michelangelo, Henry Longfellow, Winslow Homer, Bustopher Jones.

And then: Betsy Ross, Jane Austen, Lorna Doone, Agatha Christie, Cleopatra.

One question: Suppose a sweet little Cinderella grows up to have a personality like Attila the Hun? Does the purchaser get a refund?