The Cat Who Talked Turkey

TWELVE

When Qwilleran reported to the hotel office after the dress rehearsal, Gary said, “Your throat must be dry after all that nonstop talking. What’ll it be?”

“Squunk water, please. What’s the bad news?”

“Lish and Lush are on the way here from Wisconsin!”

“Did she get the letter from the attorney?”

“Apparently, because she wanted to reserve a couple of rooms here. I told her we were sold out for the holiday weekend. She asked if they could park in the lot and sleep in the car. I told her our license doesn’t cover campouts. Then she asked for your phone number, Qwill. I thought fast. I told her it had been changed and your number was unlisted.”

“You think fast on your feet, Gary.”

“Yeah, well . . . I was sitting down. I figured that you didn’t want her and her weird boyfriend as houseguests. Anyway, I said she could leave a message for you at the newspaper. You can take it from there. Brrr has plenty of campsites where you can sleep in your car and use the camp facilities, but the thing of it is, I’m afraid she’s gonna make a stink about losing Mount Vernon. She’s a crafty one! Ask anybody. Do you think I should notify the authorities?”

“It wouldn’t hurt!” Qwilleran was beginning to regret he’d commissioned her to research Koko’s antecedents. That little four-legged sleuth had known there was something fishy about her from the beginning! “So, what’s the good news, Gary?”

“Well! The reservations for the Great Storm show are all taken! We’ve got to add more performances! Even though there’s no charge for admission, they’re plunking down ten- and twenty-dollar donations!”

Qwilleran said, “I hope they won’t be disappointed. The script isn’t as sensational as the one for the Big Burning.”

“It’s you they want to see and hear, you chump! And what I heard and saw tonight—terrific! We should add Sunday matinees and some more evening performances in July and August.”

“Well,” he said modestly. Actually, before switching to journalism, Qwilleran had wanted to act on the stage. (He had also wanted to be a pro ballplayer or jazz pianist, but that was another story.) “How does Maxine feel about added performances? I don’t want to make do with substitutes.”

“My wife is suddenly stagestruck! She’s talking about taking the show on the road!”

Qwilleran spent the next morning polishing his column about Agatha Burns, aware that it should sound like a tribute to a hundred-year-old and not an obituary. There was an early deadline for Friday’s Something, which would hit the street at ten A.M. with a banner headline: HAPPY 200TH!

He walked downtown to file his copy and stopped at the florist shop to order centerpieces for the wedding dinner. Claudine greeted him effusively, even though her big blue eyes looked at him with apprehension.

“Do you have any short lilies?”

She paused and glanced around the shop. “I never heard of short lilies. They grow on long stems—as a rule, that is. But I could call our supplier in Chicago. How soon do you have to have them?”

“They’re for a dinner party Saturday evening, and I’ve been instructed to order two low arrangements of mixed white and yellow lilies, without any stuffing.”

“I suppose we could cut the stems short.”

“Do you have low bowls?”

Two low bowls of imitation cut glass were produced and discussed. Was it necessary to have matching bowls? How many blooms would each contain? Four would be too few and six too many, but five would pose a problem: three yellow and two white, or vice versa? The solution: one bowl with white predominating and the other with yellow predominating, to be delivered to Boulder House for the Qwilleran table.

Showing much relief, Claudine said she would phone Chicago at once.

In the early afternoon, Qwilleran wandered into the classiest shop in town. Modest gold lettering in one corner of the plate-glass window stated: EXBRIDGE & COBB, FINE ANTIQUES.

Qwilleran asked Susan Exbridge, “Do you ever have any miniature porcelain shoes?”

“No, but I know where to find some. Are you starting a collection? There are some serious collectors here and in Lockmaster.”

“I’ve just met one of them, Edythe Carroll. She invited me to tea the other day, and I thought I’d like to send her a shoe.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Susan said. “Her collection is a very private matter, pursued by her and her husband throughout their married life. She has told me she wants no more, now that he’s gone. The last shoe they found together was a Meissen porcelain while they were vacationing in Germany. Edythe keeps it on her bedside table.”

Qwilleran nodded sympathetically. “I quite understand. There must be a hundred or more in her glass-front cabinet. I must say that miniature shoes strike me as a strange item to collect. What’s the story behind them?”

“Come in the office for a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Every inch of wall space in the office was covered with shelves—for reference books on antiques. Susan noted his appreciative glance at them. “These books belonged to dear Iris Cobb. I owe so much to her.”

“We all do,” Qwilleran said, as he sipped his coffee. Then—“On the question about the shoes, why were they made in the first place?”

“In Victorian times they held matches, toothpicks, salt, snuff. Some were pincushions. There was a great demand for them in the nineteenth century, and porcelain factories in many European countries were turning out high-heeled shoes, boots, slippers, and oxfords—with all kinds of decorations: flowers, birds, cherubs, and so forth. Collectors make a study of the dates, makers’ marks, glazes, et cetera. Prices can run as high as a thousand.”

“Hmmm,” Qwilleran murmured into his moustache. “You know a great deal about the subject, considering you don’t handle it in your shop.”

“I’ve been spending long hours with Edythe,” Susan explained. “After her husband died, she asked me to help her update the catalogue of her antiques in Mount Vernon. Most were handed down in her family. She was a Goodwinter, you know. And now that she’s decided to donate the house and contents to the community, as a museum, it’s important to have accurate descriptions and values. When she moved to Ittibittiwassee, I helped her select the pieces she wanted to keep. Most important was the china cabinet filled with shoes. Why am I telling you all this?”

“Because you know I’m interested and concerned.”

“And you’re not a gossip. Darling!” She returned to the brittle style she affected. “Are you sure you don’t want to buy something before you leave?”

“How much do you want for that ten-foot breakfront?”

“You couldn’t afford it!” She chased him out of the store.

For Scottish night, Qwilleran wore a kilt in the Mackintosh tartan—red with a fine green line. Polly wore a tartan sash looped under one arm and pinned on the opposite shoulder with a cairngorm; the Duncans shared a colorful tartan with the Robertson clan.

“Qwill! You look so wonderful. I think I shall cry!” she said.

“It’s a matter of the swagger that comes with a kilt. The devil-may-care tilt of a glengarry bonnet over the right eye, the toughness of knowing there’s a dagger in the cuff of one’s knee hose, and the pride of being a Mackintosh.”

“I’ve noticed that persons not entitled to wear Scottish attire seem very . . . ordinary by comparison,” Polly observed with a note of pity in her voice.

The ordinary ones stayed home Thursday night and watched the festivities on television. The TV crews had been in town all day.

In the early evening, the streets radiating from the Hotel Booze were filled with canny Scots who had parked on the outskirts and were walking toward the hub of activity. It was a kaleidoscope of clan tartans in vibrant reds, greens, blues, yellows, and combinations thereof. The wearers all had the quiet pride that Qwilleran had mentioned. He and Polly stopped to have a few words with the MacGillivrays, then the Campbells, the Ogilvies, the MacLeods, and more Campbells.

A hush fell on the crowd when the bell in the tower of the town hall tolled seven times. All eyes turned toward the hotel, and out came Chief Andrew Brodie with the lofty feather bonnet of a bagpiper, swaggering with a shoulder full of plaid and an armful of pipes. He was playing “Scotland the Brave.” Following him was Mayor Ramsey, pushing a wheelchair. The occupant was the centenarian, Miss Agatha Burns—fragile, calm, smiling. How many hearts turned over at the sight of her. Even those who had not been in one of her classes knew about the Burns mystique.

Arriving at a low platform near the bandstand and the birthday cake, the mayor accepted a microphone and declared that the historic town of Brrr had reached its two-hundredth year. Miss Agatha pressed a button, and the two hundred electric candles on the wooden cake were dazzling in the approaching dusk.

After that there were refreshments in the hotel and some serious marmalade tasting . . . entertainment in the park . . . conversation among Scots . . .

Lisa and Lyle Compton were there. (She was a Campbell—her husband a Ross.) Polly said they looked splendid in tartans. Lyle applauded the “Qwill Pen” column on Miss Agatha Burns. Qwilleran asked, “Lyle, are you both attending the dedication of the Carroll Memorial Museum Sunday afternoon?” He said they wouldn’t miss it for anything! Lisa said that Edythe would turn over the keys to Mount Vernon, and someone would give her an armful of roses. Then they discussed the Marmalade Madness and the merits of each. Polly said the bookstore was getting a marmalade mascot named Dundee.

When Qwilleran drove Polly back to Indian Village, he declined her invitation to come in for some music.

Polly said with a sigh, “I should really bear down on my studying. I’m learning some amazing facts. Do you realize that a bookstore grossing fifty thousand dollars will need one-point-eight persons on the staff?”

“Where do you get eight-tenths of a person?” Qwilleran said. “I feel that way myself sometimes, but I wouldn’t admit it to a prospective employer.”

Polly, who had become an expert at ignoring his levity, went on: “What do you think about having the cashier and service counter on the left as one enters? They say traffic flows in normally to the right and continues out on the other side.”

“Will Dundee have a location of his own? Or will he be free to wander at will?”

“That topic hasn’t been covered in my manual,” Polly said. “Mac and Katie at the library have simply adopted the circulation desk as their headquarters.”

After taking Polly home, Qwilleran drove back to Pickax faster than usual, as if a strange force was pulling him back to the barn. He had felt it before, when the cats had needed him.

The answer was waiting for him in the barnyard: a station wagon with a Wisconsin tag. But there were no cats waiting in the window. They were in hiding. The trespassers were probably in the gazebo.

Qwilleran grabbed a high-powered flashlight from his car and walked stealthily around to the front of the barn before switching it on.

Shocked and blinded by the sudden light, Lish and Lush jumped to their feet.

“Aren’t you people at the wrong address?” Qwilleran thundered. They had been drinking beer and eating take-out food.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Qwilleran. I couldn’t find a phone number for you. This is Clarence, my driver. I can’t have a license. Health problem, you know.”

Clarence gave a dopey nod, and Qwilleran responded accordingly.

Lish went on with characteristic nerve. “Do you happen to have a guest room we could use? All the accommodations are booked solid.”

Qwilleran said, “I have only one guest room, and that is occupied by a friend from California—a police investigator, here to work on a case.” He saw an involuntary glance pass between the two. “However, there are plenty of campsites where you can sleep in your car and use camp facilities. The best is Great Oaks. I’ll tell you how to get there. Have you brought a report on the matter I discussed with you?”

“No, but I have notes and can tell you the whole story.”

“Then excuse me a moment while I feed the cats.”

The Siamese had been fed earlier, but it was a chance to pick up his pocket tape recorder and a checkbook.

Back in the gazebo he said, “Okay, sit down and let’s hear it.”

“It ended up taking a lot more time than I expected, but I was on the trail of something important, so I persevered.

“First I checked the phone book, as you suggested, and there was no Mountclemens or Bonifield listed. So I thought of going to the courthouse. There were records in several different departments that might give a clue, and I spent a couple of days there. Then I had some vital business to take care of, so I turned the search over to one of the clerks. She was very nice, and eager to help. I told her to keep a record of hours spent and she’d be reimbursed.

“Well, it paid off! When I went back, she was all excited, saying it made her feel like a detective. There was no Mountclemens, but there was a Monty Clemens, who was the son of a George Clemens, and his mother had been Bonnie Field before her marriage. Monty was an artist who became an art critic somewhere out of town. He could have changed his name to George Bonifield Mountclemens, to sound more important than Monty Clemens.

“George was dead, but Bonnie was living in a nursing home in the suburbs, and I found her there. When she said she’d been a cat breeder, I felt as if we’d struck gold! She raised Persians.

“Well, George went to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and when it was over, he got a traveling job doing business in Bangkok. He went back and forth several times a year and told his wife about the gorgeous cats they had there. What’s more, they kept records of their heritage, tracing some of them back to the days when Thailand was called Siam, and the cats were bred as watch cats in the royal courts. They were known to be highly intelligent, and some had traits that were positively supernatural! The super cats weren’t usually sold to foreigners, but George knew the right people and had done favors for people, so they agreed to sell him a pedigreed male.

“When he phoned Bonnie, she was thrilled and told him she needed a breeding pair. So he pulled some more strings and got a female. They were very expensive, she said. Next problem: how to get them into the U.S. without the quarantine. George pulled some more strings, and the pair crossed the Pacific on an Air Force jet, probably howling all the way, Bonnie said with a laugh.

“So your cat is descended from this original breeding pair. Bonnie stopped breeding Persians and concentrated on Siamese. She did very well. All her customers reported that their cats had ESP.”

“Very interesting, Lish,” Qwilleran said. “How much do I owe you?”

“Well, it was a lot of fun, and I’d love to do it for nothing, Mr. Qwilleran, but there were a lot of expenses: travel cost and remuneration to the courthouse clerk and Bonnie Field. I thought you’d want me to be generous. The clerk spent a lot of hours, and Bonnie really needed the money. She said there are no retirement benefits for cat breeders. And I spent a total of nineteen hours myself, including travel time. So I think a thousand would be fair, less the fifty that you gave me in advance.”

“I’ll write you a check.”

“Could you possibly make it cash? It’s hard to get a large check cashed when you’re on the road, the way I am.”

“I . . . well . . . how would it be if I make the check payable to cash, and I’ll tell Gary Pratt at the Hotel Booze to cash it for you. Hotels always have money in the safe.”

Qwilleran clicked off the recorder surreptitiously, thanked Lish for her conscientious work, wrote her a check, and stood up briskly, signifying: end of interview.

She kicked her driver’s ankle (he had dozed off) and said she would be happy to undertake other assignments in the future.

“Where can I reach you in Milwaukee?” Qwilleran asked.

“Well, I’m in the process of relocating, and I’m not sure where. I’ll get back to you.”

“Do that!” he said. “Now, I’ll give you directions for reaching the Great Oaks camp.”

He watched their taillights receding through the woods before going indoors to brew a cup of coffee and contemplate the whole fabricated farce.