The Cat Who Smelled a Rat

seventeen

Koko was a cat of many interests-most of them short-lived, all of them intense. Now it was the glove box! Earlier he had spent hours investigating the highlights and shadows within the crystal martini pitcher. He had played fast and loose with a bowl of wooden apples, as if pointing out that they were not the real thing: that cat knew right from wrong. He had rubbed his jaw on the sharp corners of the pyramid lampshade tilting it or twisting it. Why? Only a cat would know… . Now his obsession was the glove box.

“What’s going on with you and that box, young man?” Qwilleran asked, and Koko squeezed his eyes. He could contract his long, sleek body into a pouf of fur to fit the five-by-fourteen surface exactly, looking like an Egyptian sphinx from the book on the coffee table. Sometimes he exercised his footpads on the carving or sniffed the hinges or pawed the latch.

“There’s nothing inside but gloves!” Qwilleran told him. Then he thought, We’re not connecting… . What does he want?… He’s trying to tell me something… . Does he want to get into the box?

Qwilleran was well aware that cats like to hide in boxes, wastebaskets, drawers, cabinets, bookcases, closets, and stereo systems-not to mention abandoned refrigerators and packing cases about to be shipped to Omaha.

“Okay, have it your way, you rascal!” He lifted the cat unceremoniously from his perch, opened the lid, and removed three pairs of winter gloves. “It’s all yours!”

It was a heavy box, the boards being oak and an inch thick. The lid tilted back on its hinges like a shelf. Koko approached cautiously, first studying the interior, then sniffing the surfaces, corners, and joinings. One would be led to wonder what esoteric secrets, or priceless treasures, or illegal substances had been stored there.

Qwilleran himself could detect nothing. “Enough of this nonsense! … Treat!”

It was the magic word. Yum Yum suddenly appeared from one of the lairs where she made herself invisible; Koko strolled nonchalantly to the feeding station. And that was the end of the glove box… . That is, until the next morning.

After Koko had finished his breakfast, he walked directly to the glove box as if it were his assignment for the day. It was still open, and he jumped in, settling down in a huddled posture to fit the space: back humped, head and ears alert, tail drooping over the outside of the box.

It was obvious to Qwilleran that the cat’s body seemed elevated as if on a cushion. He brought a ruler from his desk and measured the height of the box and the depth of the interior. It was six inches outside, four inches inside.

“A false bottom!” he said aloud. “Sorry to disturb you, old boy.”

He closed the lid and turned the box over for examination. As he did so, there was an unexpected sound from within-not a rattle but a swish. He grasped the box firmly and shook it hard. Something was sliding about inside: an old love letter? A deed to the old homestead? A forgotten stock certificate now worth millions? Whatever it was, Koko had known that something was entombed. It might be the skeleton of a mouse or the turnkey from a sardine can. Chuckling, Qwilleran tackled the secret compartment-pressing, prying, pounding while Koko yowled at his elbow. The more vigorous the attack, the more active the contents and the louder the yowls. Attracted by the excitement, Yum Yum was adding her shrieks.

“Shut up!” the man yelled, and the cats turned up the volume.

Qwilleran had an urge to take a hatchet to the stubborn chunk of wood but was saved by the telephone bell.

“Good morning, dear,” said Polly. “I’ll be chained to my desk all day and would appreciate some oranges and pears, if you’re coming in to Toodle’s.”

He agreed and at the same time solved his own problem. Susan Exbridge had a desk in her shop with a secret compartment; she would have a suggestion. The box he would leave at home, however. He was not supposed to have it. Polly would not want it known that she had given away Kirt’s heirloom, and Susan would be too curious about what came out of it.

Her store hours were eleven maybe to five-maybe. He dressed and drove downtown at eleven. Of course, she was not there. He stood on the street corner trying to decide where to go for coffee.

The center of town seemed unusually crowded. It looked as if a parade were scheduled. There were two PPD patrol cars in evidence. Qwilleran went to investigate.

Three officers were milling around, and one of them was Andrew Brodie; it had to be important to bring the chief out. Pedestrians were spilling out into the street, and police were detouring southbound traffic through Book Alley. One lane was kept open for northbound. Qwilleran quickened his pace when he realized the crowd was surging around the post office. They were noisy but not belligerent.

“What’s up, Andy?” he called out.

“Protest about the murals. Peaceful so far.”

There were no picket signs, no photographers, no officials to hear the complaints-just townfolk feeling bad and saying, “Isn’t it terrible?”

The chief said, “We need to bring it to a head, Qwill, so they’ll go home and let traffic get back to normal-before some hothead throws a brick.… Why don’t you go up there and talk to them?”

“Me?”

“You’ve got the gift of gab, and they’ll listen to you.” Without further words, Brodie grabbed his arm and started hustling him through the crowd. “Coming through! Make way! Step back, please!”

Onlookers recognized the moustache. “Is that him? … It’s Mr. Q! … Is he gonna talk to us?”

A flight of four steps on one side, and a ramp on the other, led to the post office doors. Qwilleran mounted the steps to the small concrete stoop and turned to face the assemblage. The babble of voices became a tumult of cheers and applause, until he raised his hand for silence.

Before he could speak, a man’s voice called out, “Where’s Koko?”

There was a burst of laughter.

Koko’s amusing and exasperating antics were chronicled in the “Qwill Pen,” reminding readers of their own unpredictable felines.

Qwilleran, speaking with his theatre voice that required no microphone or bullhorn, said that Koko was at home, devising something special in the way of a catfit to usher in the Big One.

The tension was broken. He surveyed his audience with the brooding gaze that they always construed as sympathetic. “I know why you’re here, and I know how you feel. I feel the same way. Most of you have had a lifelong friendship with these murals. You know the nineteenth-century pioneers as if they were your neighbors. You can see them with your eyes closed: tilling a field with a horse-drawn plow, spinning wool on a wheel, building a log cabin, shoeing a horse, riding a log run down the river, drying fishnets on the beach, carrying a pickax and a lunch bucket to the mine. And you know what he’s got for lunch.”

“A pasty!” everyone shouted.

“But time changes all things. The colors are fading, and the paint is flaking-a serious health hazard. Do we want to board up the murals and paint the walls government tan?”

“No! No!”

“Then let’s commission a new generation of artists to depict pioneer life with understanding and historic accuracy. It’s the kind of people-friendly project that the K Fund believes in-“

Cheers interrupted, and Qwilleran took the opportunity to mop his brow.

“The art studio that painted Moose County landscapes on the bookmobile would find it a challenge to depict primitive landscapes and early settlers with their oxcarts and sailing ships and log cabins. The original murals are being professionally photographed for the historic record and for the guidance of artists who will replicate them… . and in a memorial booklet available without charge to every family in Pickax.”

A news photographer appeared. Qwilleran was mobbed by enthusiasts. Here was the “Qwill Pen” in the flesh-Koko’s godparent-Santa Claus without a beard. Eventually Brodie extricated him and drove him to the antique shop. “Who tipped off the photographer?” Qwilleran asked.

“The paper picked it up from the police radio,” said the chief. “All that guff you gave them-was that the honest truth?”

“You shoved me in front of them. I had to make up something,” Qwilleran said.

Got any coffee?” Qwilleran grumbled as he barged Susan’s shop.

“Darling! What happened? You look … frazzled!”

“Skip the compliments. Just pour the coffee.”

She led him back to her office. “What on earth have you been doing?”

“You’ll read about it in the paper. And in case you’re wondering where your customers are, they’re all down at the post office. But they’ll be here in a few minutes. Meanwhile, I’d like a hostess gift for Mildred Riker. We had dinner there the other night. You were out, whooping it up.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “A customer invited me to a birthday party at the country club, and I had to go because she’d just made a huge purchase. I sat next to the mayor, and I thought it was rather gauche of him to try to sell me some investments between the soup course and the entree.”

“What kind of investments?”

“A special package that pays enormous interest. He had the nerve to give me his card, so I gave him my card and said I buy family heirlooms.”

“Good for you! Now what do you recommend for Mildred?”

“She’d like a bone china teacup and saucer for her collection. I keep them in stock. They’re not old, but collectors come in to buy one and see a Duncan Phyfe table they can’t live without, or an original Tiffany lamp.”

“You’re a crafty one, Susan,” he said, “but you’ll never sell a Duncan Phyfe anything to me!”

“I know, darling, but I love you in spite of it. It’s your moustache! So cavalier! When Polly gets tired of you, I’ll be waiting in the wings… . Now about Mildred’s teacup,” she went on in her businesslike way. “She collects the rose pattern, and I think the yellow rose would be good. Want me to giftwrap it and drop it off at her place on my way home? What do you want on the card?”

Qwilleran was halfway home before realizing he had forgotten his prime mission: fruit for Polly and information on false bottoms. Oh, well…

The Siamese met him with a loud two-part reminder that it was half past treat time. Absently he poured out a dish of crunchies while pondering the mystery of the glove box. Once more he made an attack on the top, bottom, sides, inside, and outside-without a clue.

Then, from the kitchen came a familiar but regrettable sound. One of the cats was “sleigh-riding” or “bottom-sliding” as it was sometimes called. Qwilleran shrugged and said aloud, “Cats will be cats!”

Without stopping to figure the connection, his mind flashed to another wooden box in his life-when he was growing up. It held dominoes. It had a sliding lid, virtually invisible unless one knew about it. The glove box might have a sliding bottom!

Grasping it in both hands and pushing hard with both thumbs, he held his breath. Nothing happened. Turning the box around he pushed from the other end. Ah! A faint crack appeared! It was a tight fit, but gradually the gap opened to a few inches. He could see an envelope inside and could even pull it out without struggling further.

It was addressed to one Helen Omblower in Chipmunk, and the sender was G. Omblower in Pennsylvania; the return address was cryptic. It had been mailed twenty years before, and the envelope was yellow with

age. Both Koko and Yum Yum found it highly sniff-worthy. The enclosed note was equally cryptic. What interested Qwilleran was the unusual name. He looked it up in the phone book, but it was not listed. He would ask the Tibbitts; they knew everyone. Where had Kirt’s mother found the box? In a secondhand shop? It was a handsome piece of carving. Had she tried to open it to retrieve the letter?

His ruminations were interrupted by a phone call from Polly, exclaiming, “My hero!”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I forgot your pears and oranges.”

“They weren’t all that important. It was your performance in front of the post office that mattered!”

“Somebody had to say something.”

“Don’t be modest. You saved the day! Everyone who walked into the library today was raving about your speech! You stole the show from the Big One! Do you know the Last Drink flags are going up all over the county? The Village party will be held tonight-at the clubhouse as usual-Open House from five till midnight, with cash bar, snacks, informal entertainment, and card games. It’s very casual. Just drop in.”

Qwilleran said, “We could have dinner at the Nutcracker Inn first. It may close after snow flies. And I want to visit Homer before the Big One.”

He tracked down Rhoda Tibbitt at the Friendship Inn on the medical campus. “How is your indomitable spouse?”

“Just fine, Qwill. He’s in the Joint Replacement Spa

and having the time of his life, telling stories and keeping the other patients in stitches! They’ve given themselves nicknames. One old gentleman said, ‘If you can be Homer, I want to be Chaucer.’ And that started it. One woman wanted to be Emily Dickinson, and so forth.”

“Do they welcome visitors?”

“By all means! Come before snow flies.”

“As longtime residents of Moose County, Rhoda, have you ever known anyone by the name of Helen Omblower? She lived in Chipmunk twenty years ago. That’s all I know.”

There was a thoughtful pause. “It’s ringing a distant bell. I’ll ask Homer.”

“You do that, and I’ll see you both tomorrow.”