Yet, such was the magic of the occasion that neither Qwilleran nor Rosemary thought to complain about the food.
While they were lingering over cups of what the Rattlesnake Inn called coffee, Rosemary came to the point. “I want to talk to you about William,” she said. “We’ve become good friends. A young man needs an older woman for a confidante—not his mother. Don’t you agree?”
Qwilleran nodded.
“William has some good qualities. He lacks direction, but I have always been confident that he will find himself eventually. I know he thinks highly of you, and that’s why I’m telling you this . . . I’m worried about him. I’m alarmed at his absence.”
Qwilleran stroked his mustache. “What’s the reason for your alarm?”
“He came home about eleven o’clock last night, after going to see his mother, and he stopped in my apartment and told me a few things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Well, he’s a very inquisitive person . . .”
“That I know.”
“And he’s been questioning some of the recent incidents at Maus Haus. He thinks there is more to them than meets the eye.”
“Did he mention anything specifically?”
“He told me he thought he ‘had something’ on Dan Graham and he was going to investigate. He fancies himself a detective, you know, and he reads all those crime stories. I told him not to meddle.”
“You have no idea what sort of malfeasance he suspected?”
“No, he just said he was going to visit Dan last night and sponge a nightcap; he thought he might come up with some evidence.”
“Did he go?”
“As far as I know. And this morning . . .”
“No William,” said Qwilleran. “I went looking for him, and his bed hadn’t been slept in, I’m sure of that.”
“And yet his car is in the carport . . . I don’t know . . . No one else seems to be concerned. Mr. Maus says he’s impetuous. Mrs. Marron says he’s unreliable. What do you think, Qwill?”
“If he isn’t there when we get home tomorrow night, we’ll make some inquiries. Do you know how to get in touch with his mother?”
“She’s in the phone book, I suppose. William also has a fiancée—or whatever.”
“Do you think he might have gone off somewhere with her? Do we know who she is or where to reach her?”
Rosemary shook her head, and they both fell silent. After a while Qwilleran said, “I’ve been doing a little worrying myself. About Joy Graham. Was she interested in that food buyer? Would she go to Miami to be with him?”
“Mr. Hamilton? I don’t think so. She has an exhibition coming up, and she’s terribly dedicated to her art.”
“Dan said he got a postcard, and she’s on her way to Miami; she wants her summer clothes shipped down there. She happened to tell me she hates Florida, so I don’t know what to believe. How do you size up her husband, Rosemary?”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve never liked that man, and I’m sure the others feel the same way. Haven’t you noticed the chill that falls on the conversation whenever Dan opens his mouth?”
“You know about the nasty situation at the Golden Lamb Chop,” Qwilleran said. “Did that start after the Grahams arrived at Maus Haus?”
“I believe it did.”
“Do you suppose Dan could be responsible? He’s the jealous type.”
“I really don’t think there’s anything going on between Joy and Max. They’re too friendly in public. If they were having an affair, they’d be carefully ignoring each other at the dinner table. Besides, I think Max is too fastidious to have affairs. He never even shakes hands with anyone, male or female.” She stopped to giggle. “William says Max is the kind who dries his toothbrush with a hair blower.”
Qwilleran pulled on his pipe, and Rosemary sipped the stuff in her coffee cup. After a while she said, “Did it ever occur to you that Mr. Maus is a lonely and unhappy man?”
“I don’t know why he should be,” said Qwilleran. “He has his French knives and his eight-burner stove.”
“You’re not being serious,” she chided. “His wife is dead, you know, and his heart isn’t in the law business; he should be running a fine restaurant. On Tuesday night, after I’d had dinner at my son’s house, I came home after midnight and saw a light in the kitchen, so I went in to investigate. There was Mr. Maus sitting at the table with his head in his hands. He was holding a piece of raw meat on his eye.”
“Filet mignon, of course.”
“All right. I won’t tell you the rest of it.”
“Please. I’m sorry.”
“Well, he told me he’d been sitting on the bench down by the river and tripped on the boardwalk when he started to leave. Don’t you think that’s rather sad—sitting down by the river all alone?”
“He had a different explanation for me,” Qwilleran said. “Would you like to dance? I’m a sad, lonely, unhappy man, too.”
They danced slowly and thoughtfully, and Qwilleran was thinking of suggesting a walk in the moonlight when he was suddenly overcome by complete exhaustion. His shoulders sagged; his face felt drawn. He had been up since dawn, tramping around the farmers’ market, and then there had been the long drive, followed by boating (he hadn’t rowed a boat for fifteen years) and then dancing and a large meal . . .
“Are you tired?” Rosemary asked. “You’ve had a long day. Why don’t we go upstairs?”
Qwilleran agreed gratefully.
“Would you like me to massage your neck and shoulders?” she asked. “It will relax you, and you’ll sleep beautifully. But first a hot bath, so you won’t have sore muscles after all that rowing.”
She drew the bath for him, coloring the water lettuce green with mineral salts, and after he had soaked the prescribed twenty minutes, she produced a bottle of lotion that smelled faintly of cucumber. The soothing massage, the aromatic lotion, and Rosemary’s murmured phrases that he only half heard made him drowsy. He felt—he wondered—he wanted to say—but he was so relaxed . . . so sleepy . . . perhaps tomorrow . . .
It was noon when Qwilleran awoke on Sunday and learned that Rosemary had been up since seven and had hiked around the lake. They lunched hurriedly and reported to the ballroom for the cake-judging, only to discover that the plans had been changed. The judging had taken place before noon to accommodate the television crews. However, Qwilleran was towed around the ballroom by a public relations person to meet the beaming winners.
He congratulated the grandmotherly creator of the inside-out marble mocha whipped cream cake, the vivacious young matron with her brazil nut caramel angel cake, the delicate young man who was so proud of his sour cream chocolate velvet icebox cake, and finally the winner in the teenage class. She was a tiny girl with long straight hair and a wistful smile, and she had concocted a psychedelic cake. Qwilleran stared at the conglomeration of chocolate, nuts, marshmallows, strawberries, and coconut—the banana split cake of twenty-five years ago. He looked at the girl and saw Joy.
“Let’s get out of here,” he whispered to Rosemary. “I’m seeing ghosts.”
They drove home in the late evening—both of them relaxed and content to talk or not to talk as the mood prevailed—and it was midnight when they walked into the Great Hall at Maus Haus.
“When can I take you out to dinner again?” he asked Rosemary. “How about Tuesday evening?”
“I’d love to,” she said, “but I have to attend a recital. One of my grandsons is playing the violin.”
“You have a grandson?”
“I have three grandchildren.”
“I can’t believe you’re a grandmother! This violinist must be an infant prodigy.”
“He’s twelve,” said Rosemary as they started to climb the stairs. “He’s the youngest. The other two are in college.”
Qwilleran gazed at the grandmother-of-three with admiration. “You’d better get me some of that wheat germ,” he said. She smiled sweetly and triumphantly, and Qwilleran dro
pped the suitcases and kissed her.
At that moment they heard an outcry. Mrs. Marron came running from the kitchen corridor. She burst into tears.
Rosemary ran downstairs and put an arm around the housekeeper. “What is it, Mrs. Marron? What’s wrong?”
“Something—something terrible,” the woman wailed. “I don’t know how to tell you.”
Qwilleran hurried down the stairs. “Is it William? What’s happened?”
Mrs. Marron gave him a terrified glance and launched another torrent of tears. “It’s the cats!” she wailed. “They took sick.”
“What!” Qwilleran started to bolt up the stairs three at a time but suddenly stopped. “Where are they?”
Mrs. Marron groaned. “They were—they were taken away.”
“Where?” he demanded. “To the vet? Which one? To the hospital?”
She shook her head and covered her face with her hands. “I called . . . I called the . . . Sanitation Department. They’re dead!”
“Dead! They can’t be! Both of them? They were perfectly all right. What happened?”
The housekeeper was too shaken to answer. She could only moan.
“Were they poisoned? They must have been poisoned! Who went near them?” He took Mrs. Marron by the shoulders and shook her. “Who got into my apartment? What did you feed them?”
She moved her head miserably from side to side.
“By God!” Qwilleran said, “If it was poison, I’ll kill the one who did it!”
TWELVE
Qwilleran paced the floor of his apartment. Rosemary had offered to sit with him, but he had sent her away.
“My God! The Sanitation Department!” he said aloud, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Not even a chance to—I could have—at least I could have buried them with some kind of dignity.” He stopped, aware that he was talking to the four walls. He was accustomed to an audience. They had been such attentive listeners, such satisfactory companions, always ready to supply encouragement, entertainment, or solace, depending on his mood, which they had been able to sense unerringly. And now they were gone. He could not come to terms with the idea.
“The Sanitation Department!” he said again with a groan. Now he remembered: Koko had not wanted him to take the weekend trip. Perhaps the cat had an intimation of danger. The thought made Qwilleran’s grief all the more painful. His hands were clenched, his forehead damp. He was ready to destroy the beast who had destroyed those two innocent creatures. But where could he pin the blame? And how could he prove anything? Without the two small bodies he could never prove poison. But someone must have entered his apartment during his absence. Who? The only tenants in the house over the weekend, besides Mrs. Marron, were Max Sorrel, Charlotte Roop, Hixie, and Dan Graham. And perhaps William, if he had returned.
Qwilleran picked up the cat’s empty food plate and sniffed it. He took a sip from their water dish and spit it out. He smelled nothing unusual, tasted nothing suspicious. But he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. It would be Maus, he decided, returning from his weekend in Miami.
Qwilleran threw open his door and stepped into the hall to confront his landlord. It was not Maus; it was Max Sorrel.
“Man, what’s wrong with you?” Sorrel said. “You look like you’ve got the d.t.’s.”
“Did you hear what happened to my cats?” Qwilleran bellowed. “I went away overnight, and they took sick and died. At least, that’s the story I got.”
“Damn shame! I know how you felt about those little monkeys.”
“I’ll tell you one thing! I’m not satisfied with the explanation. I think they were poisoned! And whoever did it is going to regret it!”
Sorrel shook his head. “I don’t know. I think there’s a jinx on this house. First the housekeeper and then me and then—”
“What do you mean? What about the housekeeper?” Qwilleran demanded.
“Tragic! Really tragic! Her grandson came to visit—little kid this high—and he fell in the river. Loose board in the boardwalk, they think . . . Look, Qwilleran, you need a slug of whiskey. Come on in and have a shot.”
“No, thanks,” said Qwilleran wearily. “I’ve got to work it out in my own way.”
He returned to Number Six and gazed at the emptiness. He wanted to move out. He would leave tomorrow. Go to a hotel. He made note of the things he would no longer need: the harness and leash hanging on the back of a chair; the blue cushion; the brush he had bought and forgotten to use; the cats’ commode in the bathroom with the gravel neatly scratched into one corner. They had been so meticulous about their housekeeping. Qwilleran’s eyes grew moist.
Knowing he would be unable to sleep, he sat down at his typewriter to turn out a column for the paper—a requiem for two lost friends. Putting it down on paper would relieve the pain, he knew. Now would be the time to reveal to the public Koko’s remarkable capabilities. He had solved three mysteries—homicide cases. He was probably the only cat in the country who owned a press card signed by the chief of police. Qwilleran rested his hands on the typewriter keys and wondered how to start, and as his mind swam in an ocean of words—none of them adequate—his eyes fell on the sheet of paper in the machine. There were two letters typed there: pb.
The newsman felt a chill in the roots of his mustache: poisoned beef!
Just then he heard a distant cry. He listened sharply. It sounded like a child’s cry. He thought of the drowned boy and shuddered. The cry came again, louder, and in the darkness outside the window there was a pale form hovering. Qwilleran rubbed his eyes and stared in disbelief. There was a scratching at the window.
“Koko!” the man yelled, yanking open the casement.
The cat hopped down onto the desk, followed by Yum Yum, both of them blinking at the lamplight. They made no sign of greeting but jumped to the floor and trotted to the kitchen, looking for their dinner plate. Avidly they lapped up water from their bowl.
“You’re starved!” Qwilleran said. “How long have you been out there? . . . Sanitation Department! What’s wrong with that woman? She was hallucinating!” He hurried to open a can of red salmon and watched them as they gobbled it. There was no observation of feline protocol this time, no nonsense about males before females; Yum Yum fought for her share.
Now Qwilleran dropped into his armchair, feeling an overwhelming fatigue. The cats finished eating, washed their faces, and then climbed into his lap together—something they had never done before. Their feet and tails were cold. They crawled up Qwilleran’s chest and lay on their bellies, side by side, looking into his face. Their eyes were large and anxious.
He hugged them both. He hugged Yum Yum tightly because he remembered how—in his first frenzied reaction to the bad news—his concern had been chiefly for Koko. He reproached himself now. He cherished them both equally, and if he valued Koko for his special talents, he also valued Yum Yum for her winning ways and the heartbreaking way she looked at him with slightly crossed eyes. In apology, he hugged her more tightly.
To Koko he said, “And I don’t care if you never solve another case.”
There was a definite odor about the cats. He sniffed their fur. It smelled earthy.
After a while they warmed their extremities and felt contented enough to purr, and eventually they dozed, still huddled on Qwilleran’s chest. He fell asleep himself and woke at daybreak, his shoulders stiff and his neck virtually paralyzed. The cats had moved to more comfortable berths elsewhere.
At first he had difficulty convincing himself that the panic of the night before had not been a nightmare, but as he took a hot shower he remembered the pleasures of the weekend as well as the pain he had felt upon arriving home. On his way down to breakfast he slipped a note under Rosemary’s door: “False alarm! Cats are home. Just wandered away. Mrs. M. is crazy.”
In the kitchen he found only Hixie, scrambling eggs and toasting split pecan rolls.
“Have you heard the news?” she asked with glee. “Mickey Maus is in Cuba. His plane wa
s hijacked. And Mrs. Marron has quit, so we’re all on our own this morning.”
“She’s quit her job?”
“She left a note on the kitchen table saying she couldn’t stay after what happened this weekend. What happened? Did she get raped or something?”
“I don’t know exactly what happened or how,” Qwilleran said, “but she told a fib. I don’t know why, but she told me the cats got sick and died. Actually they’d climbed out the window, and they came home after midnight.”
“She was acting funny all day yesterday,” Hixie said. “Why would she say they were dead?”
“Do you know how to get in touch with her? I’d like to tell her to come back.”
“She has a married daughter somewhere in town . . . Oh, brother! This was the weekend that shouldn’t! Yesterday the hot water heater conked out; Mickey Maus was out of town; a delegation from the tennis club came over with a complaint; William never showed up; Max was working; Charlotte had the pip; so little me had to cope with everything, as if I didn’t have enough troubles of my own. Want some scrambled eggs?”
After breakfast Qwilleran telephoned Mrs. Marron’s daughter. “Tell her everything is all right. Tell her the cats have come back. Ask her if she’ll come to the phone and speak to Mr. Qwilleran.”
After some delay, Mrs. Marron came on the line, whimpering.
“Don’t worry about anything,” Qwilleran reassured her. “There’s no harm done, except that you gave me some anxious moments. The cats apparently got out on the roof. Did you open the window when you cleaned my room Saturday?”
“Just for a minute, when I shook the dust mop. They were asleep on that blue cushion. I looked to see.”
“Perhaps you didn’t latch the window completely; Koko is expert at opening latches if they’re halfway loose. But why did you invent that story about the Sanitation Department?”
Mrs. Marron was silent, except for moist sniffing.
“I’m not angry, Mrs. Marron. I just want to know why.”
Cat Who Saw Red Page 12
