The Cat Who Saw Red

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  "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 night- mare, 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 was 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."

  "I knew they had gone. When I went in to feed them on Sunday morning, I couldn't find them. I thought — I thought they'd been snatched. You know what Mr. Graham always says — "

  "But why did you tell me they were dead?"

  "I thought — I thought it would be better for you to — think they were dead than not to know." She started to sob. "My little Nicky, my grandson, he was missing for two weeks before they found him. It's terrible not to know."

  Gently Qwilleran said, "You must come back, Mrs. Marron. We all need you. Will you come back?"

  "Do you mean it?"

  "Yes, I mean it sincerely. Hurry back before Mr. Maus returns, and we won't say a word about the incident."

  Before leaving for the office, Qwilleran groomed the cats' fur with the new brush. Koko took a fiendish delight in the procedure — arching his back, craning his neck, gargling throaty comments of appreciation. Then he flopped down on his side and made swimming motions.

  "You've got a pretty good sidestroke," Qwilleran said. "We may get you on the Olympic team."

  Yum Yum, however, had to be chased around the apartment for five minutes before she would submit to the brushing process, which she obviously adored.

  "Typical female," Qwilleran muttered, breathing heavily after the chase.

  Their fur still smelled strongly of something. Was it clay? Had they been in the Grahams' clay room? They could have gone out the window, around the ledge, and through another window. Then Mrs. Marron, coming in to feed them, had latched the casement, locking them out. Had they climbed onto the ledge to look for pigeons? Or did Koko have a reason for wanting to snoop in the pottery? Qwilleran felt an uneasiness in the roots of his mustache.

  He opened the window to inspect the ledge. He moved the desk and gave a jump, hoisting himself across the high sill. Leaning far out, teetering across the sill, he could see the entire length of the ledge as it passed under the high windows of the kiln room and the large window of a room beyond, probably the Grahams' loft apartment. But when he tried to wriggle back into the apartment, the window seemed to have shrunk. Inside the room his legs kicked ineffectually, while the bulk of his weight was outside.

  Koko, fascinated by the spectacle of half a man where there should have been a whole one, leaped to the desk and howled.

  "Don't yell at me! Call for help!" Qwilleran shouted over his shoulder, but Koko only came closer and howled in the vicinity of Qwilleran's hip pocket.

  "What are you doing up there?" came a woman's voice from below. Hixie was on her way to the garage.

  "I'm stuck, dammit! Come up and give me a toehold."

  He continued to teeter on the fulcrum of the sill while Hixie ran indoors, ran upstairs to Number Six, ran downstairs to get the key from the kitchen, and ran upstairs again. After a few minutes of pulling, pushing, bracing, squeezing, and grunting — with Hixie squealing and the cats yowling — Qwilleran was dislodged. He thanked her gruffly.

  "Would you like to go to a meeting with me tomorrow night?" she asked. "It's the dinner meeting of the Friendly Fatties. . . Nothing personal, of course," she added.

  Qwilleran mumbled that he might consider it.

  "So this is the famous Siamese pussycat," she said on her way out. "Bon jour, Koko."

  "Yaeioux," said Koko, replying in French.

  Qwilleran went to his office to write a routine piece about the cake-baking contest for the second edition and to get a confirmation on his photo requisition. The assignment was on the board for five o'clock, earmarked for Bunsen, and Qwilleran telephoned Dan Graham to alert him.

  "Swell! That's swell!" said Dan. "Didn't think you'd be able to swing it. That's a real break. Don't mind telling you I appreciate it. I'd like to do something for you. How about a bottle? Do you like bourbon? What does your photographer drink?"

  "Forget the payola," Qwilleran said. "The story may never get in the paper. All we can do is write it and shoot the pictures and pray a lot." And then he added, "Just remembered, I have some friends on the Miami papers, including an art critic who might like to meet Joy while she's there. Could you give me her address?"

  "In Miami? I don't know. She didn't know where she'd be holing up."

  "How are you mailing her summer clothes, then?"

  "To General Delivery," said Dan.

  Qwilleran waited in the office for the first edition. He wanted to see how they were handling his new column. Prandial Musings appeared in thumb position on the op-ed page — a good spot! — with a photograph of the mustached author looking grimly pleased.

  "Who thought of the name for my column?" he grumbled to Arch Riker. "It sounds like gastric burbulance. Ninety percent of our readers won't know what it means."

  "Make that ninety-eight percent," said Arch.

  "It sounds as if the byline should be Addison and Steele."

  "The boss wanted something dignified," the feature editor explained. "Would you rather call it Swill with Qwill? That title did cross my mind. . . How was your weekend?"

  "Not bad. Not bad at all. The cats gave me a helluva scare when I got home, but it turned out all right."

  "Any news from Joy?"

  Qwilleran related Dan's story about the alleged postcard and Joy's alleged plans to go to Miami. "And we've had another disappearance," he said. "Now the houseboy has vanished."

  He went to his desk and telephoned the Penniman Art School. William, who should have been in freehand drawing that hour, was absent, according to the registrar's office. The newsman then looked up Vitello in the phone book and called the only one listed; it was a tea-leaf reading salon and the proprietor had never heard of William. Blowing into his mustache, as he did when his course was not clear, Qwilleran ambled out of the office. He was passing the receptionist's desk when a girl who was waiting there touched his sleeve.

  "Are you Mr. Qwilleran?" she asked. "I recognized you from your picture. I'm a friend of William Vitello. May I talk to you?" She was a serious young girl, wearing serious glasses and unflattering clothes. The ragbag look, Qwilleran thought. She's an art student, he decided.

  "Sure," he said. "Let's sit down over here." He led the way into one of the cubicles where reporters patiently listened to the irate readers, petitioners, publicity-seekers, and certifiable cranks who daily swarmed into the Fluxion editorial offices. "Have you seen William lately?" he asked the girl.

  "No. That's what I wanted to talk about," she said. "We had a date Saturday night, but he never showed up. Never even called. Sunday I phoned Maus Haus, and he wasn't there. Some woman answered the phone, but she wasn't very coherent. Today he's not in school."

  "Did you get in touch with his mother?"

  "She hasn't heard from him since he took her a birthday present Friday night. I don't know what I should do. I thought of you because William talked about you a lot. What do you think I should do?"

  "William is impetuous. He might have decided to take a trip somewhere."

  "He wouldn't go without telling me, Mr. Qwilleran. We've very close. We even have a joint bank account."

  The newsman propped one elbow on the arm of the chair and combed his mustache with his fingertips. "Did he ever discuss the situation at Maus Haus?"

  "Oh, he's always talking about that weird place. He says it's full of characters."

  "Did he ever mention Dan Graham?"

  The girl nodded, giving Qwilleran a glance from the comer of her eye.

  "Anything you want to tell me is confidential," he assured her.

  "Well, I really didn't take him seriously. He said he was spying on Mr. Graham. He said he was going to dig up some dirt. I thought he was just kidding, or showing off. Billy likes to read spy stories, and he gets ideas."

  "Do you know what kind of irregularity he suspected? Was it a morals situation?"

  "You me
an — like sex?" The girl bit her thumbnail as she considered that possibility. "Well, maybe. But the main story had something to do with the way Mr. Graham was running the pottery. Something fishy was going on in the pottery, Billy said."

  "When did he last mention this?"

  "Friday night. He phoned me after he had dinner with you."

  "Did he mention any specific detail about the pottery operation? Think hard."

  The girl frowned. "Only that. . . he said he thought Mr. Graham was going to blow a whole load of pots."

  "Destroy them?"

  "Billy said he was firing the kiln wrong and the whole load would blow. He couldn't understand it, because Mr. Graham is supposed to be a good fireman. . . I'm not much help, am I?"

  "I'll be able to answer that later," Qwilleran told her. "Wait another forty-eight hours, and if William doesn't turn up, you'd better notify Missing Persons, or have his mother do it. And another thing: You might check your joint bank account for sizable withdrawals."

  "Yes, I'll do that, Mr. Qwilleran. Thank you so much, Mr. Qwilleran." Her wide eyes were magnified through the lenses of her glasses. "Only. . . all we've got in the bank is eighteen dollars."

  14

  Qwilleran returned to Maus Haus on the River Road bus, pondering the pieces of the puzzle: two missing persons, a drowned child, a slandered restaurateur, a lost cat, a black eye, a scream in the night. Too many pieces were missing.

  Up in Number Six the cats were snoozing on the blue cushion. They had been busy, however, and several pictures were tilted. Qwilleran automatically straightened them, a chore to which he had become accustomed. The cats had to have their fun, he rationalized. Cooped up in a one-room apartment, they had to use ingenuity to amuse themselves, and Koko found a peculiar satisfaction in scraping his jaw on the sharp corners of a picture frame. Qwilleran straightened two engravings of bridges over the Seine, a Cape Cod watercolor, and a small oil painting of a beach scene on the Riviera. In the far corner an Art Nouveau print had been tilted so violently that it was hanging sideways. As he rectified the situation, he noticed a patch on the wall.