The Cat Who Wasn't There

Five

The events of the last twenty-four hours bewildered the members of the Bonnie Scots Tour as they switched from sadness at the loss of their leader to indignation at the loss of their driver. Obviously Bruce had been there earlier, picking up the luggage in the hall and loading it properly in the waiting bus. The assistant cook said she had given him his breakfast in the kitchen at six o'clock. Some of the passengers sat in the bus waiting hopefully for his return, while others trooped back into the inn for another cup of coffee.

Mrs. Utley, who had been late in rising as usual, reported that she looked out her bedroom window while everyone was at breakfast and saw a car pull into the courtyard. It left again immediately and went downhill in a cloud of dust. No one paid any attention to her.

Eventually the innkeeper called the constable, and Larry gave the constable a rough description of the missing driver. No one knew his last name, and a quick check of Irma's briefcase failed to fill in the blank. The nearest hospital also was called, but no red-haired forty-year-old male had been admitted. Larry addressed the group seriously.

"How long do we sit here, wondering if he'll show? We have a reservation at another inn tonight and a lot of traveling to do in the meantime." "Let's not hang around any longer," Riker advised.

"It's our bus, not his. Let's hit the trail." "That is," said Larry, "if anyone is comfortable with driving on the wrong side of the road." Qwilleran volunteered to drive, if someone else would navigate, and Dwight was elected. Larry offered to read Irma's travel notes en route, and Lyle said he would fill in the historical facts. With this arrangement in effect, the bus pulled away from the inn for Day Seven: another castle, another loch, another stately garden, another pub lunch, another four o'clock tea with shortbread.

Qwilleran was a good driver. Everyone said he was better than Bruce.

"Cheaper, too," he boasted. At lunchtime, Carol said to him privately, "I feel terribly sorry for Melinda. My father was a surgeon, and even after thirty years in the operating room he was absolutely crushed if he lost a patient. So Irma's death was a terrible blow for Melinda, coming right on top of her father's suicide and the rumors about her mother's death. She has no immediate family now. She lost her only brother while she was in med school. She and Emory were only a year apart and grew up like twins.

His birth was a difficult one, and that's what started Mrs.

Goodwinter's decline in!-plete helplessness." Why is she telling me this family history? Qwilleran wondered.

"You know, Qwill, it's none of my business, but I wish you and Melinda had gotten together. You always say you're not good husband material, but the right woman makes a difference, and you don't know what you're missing by not having children. Forgive me for saying so." "No offense," he said, but he suspected that Melinda had coached her.

"All aboard!" came the commanding voice of their leader. The mild-mannered Larry Lanspeak could project like King Lear on the stormy moor. During the afternoon drive through Glencoe, with its wild and rugged mountain scenery, Lyle entertained the passengers with the story of the Glencoe Massacre in the late 1600's.

"King James had fled," he began, "and the Scottish chieftains were forced to pledge allegiance to William of Orange--by a certain date.

There was one chief who missed the deadline: Macdonald of Glencoe. When his oath finally arrived at government headquarters--late--a high official suppressed it and gave orders to exterminate the clan. A Captain Campbell was dispatched to the glen with 128 soldiers, and they lived there for a while on friendly terms with the Macdonalds, presumably accepting the chief's hospitality. Suddenly, one day at dawn, the treacherous attack took place. Campbell's men put more than forty members of the clan to the sword, including women, children, and servants... I never trust a Campbell," Lyle concluded.

"Don't forget, dear," said his wife, "you married one." "That's what I mean. They make great apple pie, but I don't trust 'em." Then he went on.

"The order for the attack was supposedly written on a playing card, and ever since that time, the nine of diamonds has been called the Curse of Scotland." That night they checked into a rustic inn that had been a private hunting and fishing lodge in the days when upper-class sportsmen came up from London for grouse-shooting and fly-casting.

The Bonnie Scots group entered through massive oak doors, iron strapped and green with mold, and walked into a lobby hung with hunting trophies. An ancient leather-bound journal recorded the names of sporting notables who had bagged 86 grouse and 33 pheasant on a certain weekend in 1838. Larry picked up the room keys and distributed them.

"Hey, look! We have locks on our doors!" he announced.

"We're back in the civilized world!" Then, while the other men unloaded the bus, he telephoned the previous inn to inquire about the missing driver. There was still no clue to his defection. When the luggage was marshaled in the center of the lobby, Bushy announced, "Grab your own bags, folks, and if you can't lug 'em upstairs yourself, we'll help you." Piece by piece the luggage was identified and removed.

"Where's mine?" Mrs. Utley demanded.

"You left it on the bus!" A quick check proved that the baggage bin was empty. Qwilleran said, "Are you sure you placed it outside your room this morning, Mrs. Utley?" "My sister took care of it while I was in the shower! Where is she?

Somebody go and get her! Bring her down here!" The shy Zella, acting as if under arrest and stammering in self-defense, insisted she had put the bags in the hall along with her own suitcase. Hers had arrived safely.

"I always packed for Grace while she was dressing," she explained in a tremulous voice.

"I brought up the jewel cases from the safe and packed them. Then I stayed in the hall with the luggage until it was picked up." "And Bruce picked it up?" Qwilleran asked.

"I saw him." He exchanged knowing glances with Bushy, who was now official baggage handler as well as official photographer.

"They've been stolen!" Mrs. Utley screamed.

"That man! That driver! He stole them! That's why he ran off!

Somebody picked him up in a car! I saw them speed away from the inn!" Other members of the group, hearing the commotion, came down to the lobby, and the hysterical Mrs. Utley was assisted to her room.

"Does anyone have a tranquilizer for the poor woman?" Carol asked.

"At least she has her carry-on bag, so she can brush her teeth," said Lisa, "and I imagine she's well covered with insurance." "Where did Irma hire that guy?" Compton kept saying. Larry phoned the previous inn, describing the missing luggage, and after a search the innkeeper called back to say that no alligator bags could be found anywhere. Larry also phoned the constable in the fishing village and learned that a report of the missing articles would have to be filed in person. Larry said, "We'll hire a car and drive tomorrow. I'll go back there with Grace." "That's really noble of you," said Lisa.

Qwilleran asked Bushy, "Do you think you may have taken a picture of Bruce?" "No, he'd never let me shoot him--always turned his back. I thought he was camera-shy, but now I'm beginning to wonder..." The Chisholm sisters had a tray sent up to their room, while the others gathered in the dining room for a five-course dinner of smoked salmon, lentil soup, brown trout, venison, and a dessert flavored with Scotch whiskey--or whisky, as it said on the menu card.

Afterward they assembled in the lounge, where hot coals were glowing in the fireplace, and the Lanspeaks organized an impromptu revue to bolster morale. Carol and Lisa harmonized "Annie Laurie" and Larry read Robert Burns's poem "To a Mouse," with a passable Scots accent.

Then Dwight played "The Muckin' o' Georgie's Byre" on the tin whistle, one of the Scottish tunes in the booklet that came with his purchase.

"It didn't take you long to become a virtuoso," Polly remarked.

"I've been playing since I was a kid," Dwight explained.

"I won second place in an amateur contest when I was ten." "Amanda says a tin whistle sounds like a sick locomotive," said Riker.

"It's weird, all right. I'm thinking of using it in Macbeth whenever the witches are on stage." Lisa asked, "Are any of you fellows going to buy kilts? We're scheduled to visit a woolen mill tomorrow." "Not I, ," said Qwilleran promptly, although secretly he thought he would look good in one.

"I think men look sexy in kilts... but they've got to have sturdy, good-looking legs," she added with a telling look at her lanky husband.

Bushy said, "I heard a good story from the innkeeper this morning.

There was this newspaper woman from the states, attending some Highland games over here. Men were swinging battle axes and tossing the caber, which is something like a telephone pole, and half the male spectators were wearing kilts.

This was her chance, she thought, to get an honest answer to the old question: Is it true they don't wear anything underneath? So she went up to a congenial-looking Scot with red hair, who wore his kilt with a swagger.

"Excuse me, sir," she said.

"I'm from an American newspaper. Would you mind if I asked a bold question? Is it true that--ah-nothing is worn under your kilt?" He answered without hesitation.

"Yes, indeed, ma'am, it's true. Everything is in perfect working order."" Lyle grunted, and his wife giggled. He said, "When the English Redcoats ridiculed the Scots for fighting in "short skirts" during the Rebellion, they didn't know the reason for the national costume. It was for walking through a dense growth of heather. When the English soldiers tried it in full uniform, they bogged down." Larry said, "Tomorrow we visit the battlefield at Culloden. Why don't you brief us, Lyle?" "How much do you want to know? It was one of the bloodiest military mistakes ever made!" "Go ahead," everyone insisted.

"Well... Prince Charlie wanted to put his father back on the throne, and the English marched north to put down the uprising. They had 9,000 well-equipped, well-trained professional soldiers in scarlet coats.

They had competent officers in powdered wigs, as well as a full complement of cannon, muskets, horses, and supply wagons. The Rebels were 5,000 hastily assembled, poorly commanded Scots with broadswords, daggers, and axes." Qwilleran had turned on his recorder.

"It wasn't just Scots against the English. There were Highlanders against Lowlanders, Rebels against Loyalists, clans against clans, brothers against brothers.

"When the Rebels fought at Culloden, several mistakes had already been made by their commanders. They chose a battlefield that gave the advantage to the enemy; their food had run out; they had marched their troops all night in a maneuver that didn't work; the men were exhausted from hunger and lack of sleep; even their horses had died of starvation.

"Then the battle started, and they received no order to advance but stood in ranks while the enemy cannon mowed them down.

Desperate at the delay, some of the clans broke through in rage, blinded by smoke, screaming and leaping over the rows of their dead.

Then the cannon changed to grapeshot, and there was more slaughter.

Still they attacked like hungry wolves. The muskets fired at them point blank, and they rushed in and hacked at the bayonets with swords.

Some discarded their weapons and threw stones like savages.

When the battle was lost, the survivors fled in panic, only to be chased down by the dragoons and butchered." Lyle stopped, and no one spoke.

"Well, you asked for it," he said. Dwight put another shovelful of coal in the grate. Then members of the group started drifting away, saying they'd step outside for a breath of air, or they'd go up to bed, or they needed a drink.

It rained on Day Eight when they visited the battlefield at Culloden, and they found it depressing. It still rained when they visited a distillery, and even the wee dram served at the conclusion of the guided tour failed to cheer them. The Bonnie Scots Tour was winding down fast. Polly blamed it on the loss of their leader. Qwilleran thought it was a let-down after the enchantment of the Western Isles and Highlands. On the bus, Bushy grabbed the microphone and tried to elevate the general mood with stories that fell flat.

"Did you hear about the Scotsman who went to visit a sick friend with a bottle of Scotch in his pocket? It was a dark night, and on the way he tripped and fell on a sharp rock, but he picked himself up and went on his way. Soon he felt a trickle of something running down the outside of his leg. It was too dark to see, but he dabbled his fingers in it and tasted it.

"Thank God! It's only blood!" he said." Later that evening, when Larry and the Chisholm sisters returned from the scene of the crime, he said to Qwilleran, "That woman is impossible, but we got everything taken care of. What did I miss?" "Not much. A historic battlefield is all in your head. There's not much to see." "And the distillery?" "Everything was spic-and-span and absolutely sterile. Too bad Amanda wasn't there for the wee dram... Tell me, Larry, how valuable was the stuff stolen from Grace Utley?" "According to her, one necklace alone was worth $150,000. Some of the stone-set brooches and bracelets were estate stuff, valued up to $50,000 apiece. It was a nice haul for someone. Do you suppose the theft was impromptu on Bruce's part... or what?" Day Nine was devoted to museums and shopping. Mrs. Utley bought clothing and luggage enough to see her back to Pickax. The other women shopped for sweaters and kilts. Even Arch Riker found a cashmere cardigan that he considered a bargain. And then they checked into their the last inn before Edinburgh, a stately, ivy-covered mansion on extensive landscaped grounds, furnished with antiques and chintz.

The bedrooms were large, with ornate plaster ceilings, lace curtains, and telephones!

"I'm expecting Junior to phone," Riker said. He was trying on his new sweater when there was a knock at the door.

Qwilleran opened it to fend a young man with a tea tray.

"You've got the wrong room. We didn't order tea," he said.

"Compliments of the house, sir." The waiter marched into the room and set the tray on a lace-covered tea table in front of a stiff little settee. The tray was laden with porcelain cups and saucers, a rosebud-patterned china teapot, a silver milk and sugar service, a plate of shortbread, and dainty embroidered napkins in silver rings.

"Just what I wanted.

More shortbread," Riker remarked as he sat on the settee and awkwardly poured tea into the eggshell-thin cups. Qwilleran pulled up a small chair opposite. At that moment the telephone rang.

"That's Junior!" said the editor, jumping to his feet.

"He's really on the ball!" As he started toward the phone, a button of his sweater caught on the lace cloth and dragged it off the table along with the tea, milk, sugar, shortbread, and china. With the table cover trailing from his sweater button, he answered the phone with the composure of a veteran news editor. Then he turned to Qwilleran.

"It's the desk clerk downstairs. Wants to know if everything's all right." "Tell him to send up a mop and a shovel," Qwilleran said. It was the final calamity of the Bonnie Scots Tour, but there was one more surprise in store for Qwilleran. The telephone rang in the middle of the night, and he jumped to a sitting position before his eyes were open. He turned on the bedside lamp. It was three o'clock.

"Something's happened to the cats--or the barn!" he said to Riker, who showed signs of stirring. As he expected, it was an overseas call, and Mildred Hanstable was on the line.

"Hope I didn't take you away from your dinner, Qwill." "Dinner! It's three o'clock in the morning!" "Oh, forgive me!" she cried in chagrin.

"I deducted five hours instead of adding. I'm so sorry!" "Is anything wrong? Are the cats all right?" "They're fine. We've just had a little snack." "When is Irma's funeral? How are the Hasselriches taking it? Have you heard?" "That's why I'm calling, Qwill. The funeral's been postponed--for family reasons, it said in the paper. Actually, the body hasn't arrived yet." "Hasn't arrived! It left here with Melinda four days ago!" "Yes, Melinda is home. She said the body was flown cargo... but it's lost." "How do you know?" "Roger was at the funeral home, asking why there were so many flowers and no body, and the Dingleberry brothers told him it had gone astray." "Is there any trace of it?" "Oh, yes. It arrived from Scotland and went to Chicago all right, but then it was shipped to Moose Jaw in Canada, instead of the Moose County Airport." "Is that where it is now?" "No, it's been traced to Denver, and they think it's on the way back to Chicago, by way of Atlanta." Qwilleran groaned.

"This is absurd, Mildred. Does Junior know what's happened?" "Roger told him, but it's being suppressed to keep from upsetting Irma's parents." "Hold the line," Qwilleran told her. Turning to Riker, he said, "Irma's body hasn't arrived. It's being shipped all over North America.

Junior is withholding the news." The two men stared at each other, both thinking what a headline it would make. All their training and experience and instincts as newsmen told them to go for the headline, but Pickax was a small town, and the Moose County Something was a small-town newspaper, and attitudes were different. Riker nodded assent.

"Well, thank you, Mildred," said Qwilleran.

"Is everything else okay? How about the cats?" "One of them has been chewing holes in your old sweaters and throwing up." "That's probably Koko. He hasn't done that for years! He's lonely." "I'm terribly sorry I disturbed you, Qwill." "That's all right. I'm glad you called. I'll be home soon--perhaps sooner than I planned."