The Cat Who Robbed a Bank

Five

Wednesday, September 9 – ‘Chickens always come home to roost.’

AFTER THE SIAMESE HAD breakfasted and performed their morning ablutions (three licks to the paw, four swipes over the ear, etc,), they were treated to a workout with Qwilleran’s old paisley tie. He enjoyed whipping it around over their heads and watching their midair contortions. When they were tired and ready to stretch out in a patch of morning sun, he went to his studio on the first balcony to work on the “Qwill Pen” column for Friday.

Halfway through a sentence he was interrupted by urgent yowling on the main floor, and he took the shortcut to the kitchen, down the spiral staircase. Koko was standing on the kitchen counter, staring out the window. Qwilleran made a quick check, There were no vehicles in the barnyard, no prowlers on the grounds. “False alarm!” he said to the cat, “You can get arrested for that!”

Just then a small red car came bouncing through the wooded area and pulled up to the kitchen door. Koko knew it was coming, certainly knew who was driving, and probably knew what she was bringing!

“My apologies, old boy.” Qwilleran said. Going out to greet the visitor, he exclaimed, “Celia! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Look in the backseat, Chief. There’s some stuff for your freezer. I was gonna sneak in and leave it in the pirate chest.” A weathered sea chest stood at the back door for package deliveries.

“No one sneaks in when the Inspector General is on duty.”

Celia laughed happily. She always laughed at the mildest quip from “the Chief.” She explained, “I’ve brought you two meals of macaroni and cheese and a two-pound meatloaf. It’s sliced so you can thaw some for a sandwich. I didn’t put much onion in it because you might like to give some to the kitties, and I know they’re particular…. Ooh! You have new bar stools!” she squealed when she went indoors. “We’re so busy! I had to hire a helper. We’re catering a wedding reception Saturday.”

“Will you have time left for volunteer work? You were a real asset.”

“Only one thing – teaching adults to read. My first student is a forty-year-old woman who’s tickled to be able to read recipe books. In fact, she’s the one I hired as my helper…. Have you rented my old apartment yet?”

“To the new manager of the Mackintosh Inn. He says he has a strange feeling that some wonderful person lived there before him.”

“Oh, Chief! You’re a big kidder!”

In mid-afternoon Qwilleran walked downtown to Lois’s Luncheonette for a slice of her famous apple pie. Lois Inchpot was a loud, bossy, goodhearted woman who had been feeding downtown shoppers and workers for decades – in a dingy backstreet lunchroom. The shabbier it became with the years, the more the customers cherished it; they felt comfortable there.

When Qwilleran arrived, the place was empty, and Lois was in the kitchen, working on dinner. “Whaddaya want?” came a demanding voice through the pass-through window.

“Apple pie and a cuppa!” he shouted back.

“Apple’s all gone! You can have cherry.”

He walked to the pass-through and said, “I’m not enthusiastic about cherry pie.”

“How come? You un-American – or something?”

“I did my patriotic bit when I helped choose the queen for the cherry festival.”

Lois shoved a mug of coffee across the shelf and then banged a plate of cherry pie beside it, chanting, “Cherries every day keep the gout away!”

“Is that propaganda for the cherry-growers? Or are you practicing medicine without a license?”

“Eat it!” she ordered. “You’ll love it!”

He had to admit the pie was good – not too tart, not too sweet, not too gelatinous, not too soupy. Obviously it had never been in a freezer or a microwave oven. “Not bad!” he declared as he returned his empty plate. “Keep practicing, and someday you’ll get it right.”

“Oh, pish posh!” she said grouchily but with a half smile. She liked Qwilleran.

“Where’s Lenny?”

Her voice softened. “He has classes ‘most all day on Wednesday, and I don’t allow nothin’ to interfere with that boy’s education. He’ll finish school if I hafta scrub floors! Did you know he’s workin’ parttime at the hotel? – I mean, the inn? Six to midnight. And he’s captain of the desk clerks,” she said proudly.

“Someday he’ll be chief innkeeper,” Qwilleran predicted, knowing that was what she wanted to hear.

“Lenny says old Mr. Muckety-Muck is here again, registered in the fancy suite on the third floor. You seen him?”

“To whom… are you referring?” Qwilleran asked to tease her.

“Don’t get la-de-da with me! You know who I mean.”

“No, I haven’t seen him. I thought I might catch a glimpse of him here, eating cherry pie.”

”Hah!” she huffed with contempt, banging the lid on a soup kettle for emphasis.

Just then her son burst into the restaurant and threw his textbooks on a table in the rear booth, “Got any pie, Mom?” He helped himself to a mug of coffee. “Hi, Mr. Q! Going to the games this weekend? The inn’s booked solid for Friday and Saturday nights.”

“Do you participate in the athletic events, Lenny?”

“Only the footraces. I leave the hammer-throw and all that to the big guys, but our night clerk tosses the caber. He has the strength for it. I introduced him to you at the party Saturday night. We call him Boze, short for Bozo.” Lenny moved his coffee mug to Qwilleran’s table. “I’m sort of his manager. He needs somebody to prod him, make his decisions, keep him on track, you know.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Since high school. I was managing the football team, and Boze was a great tackle. Not much of a student, though, and he wanted to drop out. So my mom and I took him on as a private crusade. I tutored him, and she fed him and read the riot act. She’s good at both of those!… And he managed to squeak by with a diploma.”

“What were his parents doing all this time?”

“He’s an orphan. Grew up in different foster homes. After graduation he got a job as woodsman with a forestry company, and I worked at the old hotel until it was bombed.”

“What brought Boze out of the woods?” Qwilleran asked.

“A soft job at the hotel, a small scholarship to MCCC, and a berth on the Moose County team for the Highland Games. Boze can toss the caber like nothing you ever saw! It’s not just brute strength, you know. It’s tricky, and he’s mastered the knack.”

“Should I know what a caber is?”

“It’s a pole – a tree trunk – about twenty feet long and weighing about two hundred pounds. Boze tosses it like a toothpick and tumbles it end-over-end, the way you’re supposed to. If we can beat those Bixby bums Saturday, it’ll give the whole county a big charge. Are you gonna be there?”

“I’ve never attended a Scottish Gathering, but I’ll be there, rooting for you guys. Altogether it’s quite a lively week in the sleepy town of Pickax. Have you met the distinguished guest?”

“No, he checked in while Viyella was on the desk. She says he comes on pretty strong, but his niece is kind of mousy. Not after eleven o’clock when I’m on the desk, though! I guess her uncle’s gone to bed, and she comes down to the lobby in false eyelashes, short-short skirts and lots of lipstick. She likes to hang around the desk and talk about rock bands. I couldn’t care less. I go for country-western. Besides, I have a lot of studying to do, and I can use some quiet time on the desk…. So I follow Mr. Morghan’s rule: Act friendly but don’t get friendly.”

“Lenny!” his mother shouted from the kitchen. “If you’re gonna gab instead of studyin’ your books, get off your rusty dusty and help me with dinner!”

Lenny jumped up and grinned. “Gotta go!”

Thursday, September 10 – ‘The early bird gets the worm.’

At six o’clock Qwilleran picked up Polly in Indian Village for the drive to West Middle Hummock, where the Lanspeaks had their country estate. His first words were, “Did you get the ring?”

“It’s breathtaking! I can’t believe that it’s mine – or will be after December 25.”

“Nonsense! Start wearing it now. Where is it?”

“I went directly to the bank and put it in my lock-box, but I can’t wait for you to see it!”

“How was the appointment with Old Compo?”

“All business. No hand-kissing or compliments. I declined a cup of tea and kept looking at my watch. They showed me the ring, and I handed over the cash.”

“Did they count it?”

“The assistant took it into the other room. I’m sure she counted it.”

Qwilleran said, “Both you and I must avoid any slip of the tongue that would reveal my presence at the tea.”

West Middle Hummock was an exclusive enclave of country estates, and the landscape was a panorama of woods and meadows, winding roads bordered with wildflowers, and rustic bridges over gurgling streams.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Polly murmured.

“Would you like to live here?”

“No, but I like to visit once in a while, Carol is preparing dinner; it’s her cook’s night off.”

The Lanspeaks lived in an unpretentious farmhouse furnished with country antiques that looked like museum quality. When their children were young, they had kept a family cow, riding horses, and a few chickens and ducks. Now Carol and Larry were alone – except for the couple who took care of the housekeeping and grounds – and they concentrated on running the department store and participating in the theatre club, historical society, genealogy club, and gourmet group.

Larry met them on the front steps, saying, “The visiting firemen will be a little late, so we’ll start the Happy Hour without them. Old Campo doesn’t drink, anyway.”

Uh-huh, Qwilleran thought.

Carol came out of the kitchen, where she was preparing her famous breast of duck with prosciutto and mushroom duxelles.

Qwilleran asked, “Has this year’s Delacamp expedition been a success so far?”

“He never discusses that aspect of his visit,” Carol said, “but I know that Mrs, Woodinghurst sold her famous brooch yesterday, and he’s agreed to take Maggie Sprenkle’s torsade.”

They talked in chummy fashion about the Tuesday Tea, and Qwilleran entertained them with an account of his discomforts and boredom as a security guard. Then the honored guests arrived, and the mood became formal. What happened next is best described in Qwilleran’s own words, which he recorded in his personal journal:

This guy Delacamp has been coming up here for more than twenty years and is not on first-name terms with anyone – even Carol and Larry. His niece was introduced as Ms. North. “Pamela,” she said shyly, keeping her eyes cast down. Could this be the chick who pestered Lenny Inchpot at the reception desk in the late hours? She was wearing her tailored suit, and her uncle wore a blazer obviously tailored to flatter his expanding girth.

He said to me, “Haven’t we met in the last few days? At the country club perhaps?” I professed regret at not having had the pleasure, but I began to wonder if my disguise had been less effective than Carol insisted.

Quickly she said, “Mr. Qwilleran writes a column for the newspaper, and his picture appears at the head of it. That’s the answer.”

Unconvinced, Old Campo continued to throw glances in my direction all evening. He asked for a cup of tea when Larry was ready to serve a second round of drinks, leading me to challenge him. “As a journalist and a confirmed coffee-drinker, may I ask why you prefer tea?”

“Tea is the thinking man’s coffee,” he began. “For five thousand years in China it has been known as a revitalizing beverage, increasing concentration and alertness. Later, the Japanese promoted harmony and tranquillity with the tea ceremony. Dutch and Portuguese traders introduced tea to England and Russia. Caravans of two or three hundred camels used to bring chests of tea to the Russian border. Clipper ships raced each other from China to London.”

His niece was yawning. She spoke only when spoken to but paid deferential attention to Old Campo. At one point she whispered to him, and he said, “Now I know where I’ve seen you! In my suite there’s a portrait of Mark Twain. You could be brothers!”

During Carol’s excellent dinner he discussed the three thousand kinds of tea in the world, and then the seven grades of tea. The latter sounded like a comic routine, and I was glad I had my miniature tape recorder in my pocket when he recited them: Pekoe, orange pekoe, flowery orange pekoe, golden flowery orange pekoe, tippy golden flowery orange pekoe, finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe, and special finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe.

The after-dinner tea was Darjeeling, “the champagne of teas,” we were told, “Grown in India in the Himalayan foothills. Sometimes on a forty-five-degree slope.”

The special guests left shortly after that, and the rest of us had some good strong coffee while we re-capped the evening and had a few laughs.

At one point Polly excused herself and returned with a look of wonderment. “Carol! You’ve done over the powder room! It’s spectacular!”

Naturally. Nosy Me had to investigate. They had made one entire wall into a lighted niche with glass shelves for a collection of French perfume bottles.

“Larry gives me perfume on every anniversary,” she said, “and I save the bottles: Shalimar, Champs Elysees, L’Heure Bleue – all the Guerlain classics. The bottles are works of art. Every time we go to Paris I haunt the antique shops and flea markets for vintage bottles. Some are priced as high as five thousand francs – and more if they’re Baccarat.”

Little did Polly know I had special-ordered a bottle of L’Heure Bleue for her.

As Qwilleran and Polly drove back to Indian Village, she said, “Mr. Delacamp is visiting Maggie tomorrow morning to buy her pearl-and-diamond torsade. I’d love to know what he offers for it. I won’t ask, of course, and Maggie won’t tell.”

“And even if she does, she isn’t bound to tell the truth. You know the old rule; ‘Ask me no questions, and I’ll till you no lies’. Who said that? Shakespeare?”

“Oliver Goldsmith,” she corrected him. “And he said ‘fibs’ – not ‘lies.’ It was a line in ‘She Stoops to Conquer’.”

“With a friend like you, Polly, who needs an encyclopedia?”

“Thank you, dear. That’s the nicest thing you ever said! Did you know that ‘fib’ has been a euphemism for ‘lie’ as far back as the eighteenth century? It’s derived from ‘fibble-fabble’. I hope I’m not boring you.”

“Not at all, This is a lot more interesting than tea.”

Conversation stopped as they passed the site of the Old Glory mine and turned to look at the old shafthouse, a spectral presence in the moonlight. Then she said, “I hear the historical society and the county commissioners are squabbling about the new historical markers – to put them outside the fence, inside the fence, or on the fence. What’s your opinion, Qwill?”

“Inside the fence. They’re bronze and susceptible to theft.”

“Down Below, perhaps, but not up here.”

“There are vacationers from Down Below who might like to take home a bronze souvenir. I still say it’s safest to post it inside the fence.”

A quarter mile rolled by, and he said, “Tomorrow afternoon I visit Maggie to tape her great-grandmother’s story.”

“Take an oxygen inhaler,” she advised. “Her apartment is suffocatingly Victorian. But you’ll like her late husband’s collection of books.”

“Eddington Smith sold me a fine old copy of ‘Oedipus Rex’ this week. Handsome binding but poor translation.”

“In Canada this summer I saw a wonderful production of the play, complete with grotesque masks and exaggerated buskins.”

They turned into Ittibittiwassee Road. He asked, “How did you like Carol’s breast of duck?”

“It was a little rich for my taste.”

“But the blackberry cobbler was good.”

When they reached Indian Village Polly asked, “Would you like to come in and say goodnight to Brutus and Catta?”

“For a few minutes.”

It was late when Qwilleran returned to the barn that night, and the internal clocks of the Siamese told them their bedtime snack was long overdue. Yum Yum prowled aimlessly; Koko sat on his haunches, his tail slapping the door impatiently. They gave the impression they were too weak from hunger to protest; that was one of their subtle strategies, designed to make him feel guilty.

“Sorry about this, but you know how it is,” he apologized while measuring a serving of Kabibbles on each plate. “We had breast of duck. I had hoped to bring you a taste, but there was none left.”

After that they were ready to sleep. He escorted them up to their lodgings on the top balcony and said goodnight, leaving their door open. They never prowled in the night like feral cats; they had adapted to the human sleep schedule. But they often liked to rise at dawn and watch the early birds getting their worms. On the main floor there were windows with excellent views and accommodatingly wide sills.

During the night an unnatural sound disturbed Qwilleran’s sleep. He was dreaming about the Wild West and a coyote howling on a distant peak. He always dreamed graphically, and a coyote was an appropriate part of the scenario. Yet, the howl grew louder and closer and more urgent. He sat up in bed and took a moment to adjust to reality. Barn… Pickax… Cats…

Koko was howling outside his bedroom door! Was it an alarm? A warning? Qwilleran threw the master switch that illuminated the premises, indoors and out, and went to investigate. He found nothing wrong, no prowlers, not even a waddling raccoon.

As for the cat, he had returned to his quarters and was asleep in his basket. Perhaps he had been dreaming, too, Qwilleran thought. He looked at his bedside clock. It was two-thirty.