The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  He asked, “Which shall it be, Koko? Stay here till spring . . . or move back to the barn now?”

  Koko swallowed, made a few dental passes with his tongue and said “Yow-w-w” loud and clear!

  And so, Qwilleran and the Siamese moved back to the barn—with its vast interior spaces, its balconies and ramps, its incredible acoustics.

  Upon arrival, the cats first checked the bowls and plates (his and hers) under the kitchen table—then their private quarters on the third balcony. Yum Yum found her silver thimble. Koko remembered his new hobby: He dropped from a balcony railing, like a bombshell, into a cushiony sofa.

  Pickax was glorying in its good fortune.

  First, a former intermediate school was acquired for a music center, where young people could take piano or voice lessons from teachers commuting from Lockmaster. The high-school band could practice there without annoying the neighbors. Uncle Louis organized a choral club, and there was talk about staging a production of The Mikado.

  Then an abandoned warehouse was adapted as a wildlife museum, and the Ledfields’ mounted birds and beasts were exhibited in realistic settings created by the theatre club’s set designer.

  As for the Old Manse, it adapted well to a museum of art and antiques. Volunteers from the best families were trained as guides. There were fresh flowers in every room . . . the score of Chopin’s Polonaise Brillante was open on Doris’s Steinway grand and on Nathan’s music rack (his Stradivarius was locked up).

  A preview of the mansion was being planned for those willing to pay five hundred dollars for a ticket. Guides would conduct them.

  Then—six months after the demise of Doris and Nathan, the Ledfield estate dropped a bombshell!

  NINETEEN

  After the doom and gloom of the hurricane, the accident at the Bloody Creek Bridge and—worst of all—the loss of the Ledfield family by unthinkable means . . . after all of this, Qwilleran and Polly were glad to be invited to the Rikers’ condo for a Sunday afternoon repast.

  “Less than a dinner,” Mildred said, “but more than a lunch.”

  Qwilleran took Arch a bottle of something, and Polly took Mildred a silk chiffon scarf in a marbled pattern done by a local artist.

  “The pattern is so unusual,” Mildred cried. “And the silk is featherweight.”

  Polly said, “It’s so weightless that I asked the druggist to put it on his pharmacy scale. He had to put a rubber band around it so it wouldn’t float away. He said it weighed eleven and a half grams!”

  Arch said, “If you roll it up it would fit in a shot glass!”

  The first topic of discussion was the front-page story in Friday’s paper: An anonymous donor had given the county-road commission a citizen’s mandate to ensure the safety of the Bloody Creek Bridge according to the standard of the state engineers.

  “Everyone,” Arch said, “was wondering about the identity of the donor, but the release had come from a law agency, and secrecy was implied.”

  No conclusions were reached or even attempted. There was mumbled regret over the loss of Liz Hart . . . and consternation over the county’s negligence.

  Then the four survivors of the hurricane recalled their method of coping. Polly had phoned friends. Mildred had worked on the cookbook that’s to be published. Everyone could guess how Arch had passed the time. As for Qwilleran, he always browsed through Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations on a rainy day.

  Now, to test the others, he asked, “Who is Gelett Burgess?”

  In unison they responded, “I never saw a purple cow!”

  “True! He had many talents but has been known for a century for a nonsensical poem. This past week I discovered a sequel to the original!”

  He waited for their eager looks and then recited:

  Ah, yes, I wrote the “Purple Cow”—

  I’m sorry, now, I wrote it!

  But I can tell you, anyhow,

  I’ll kill you if you quote it.

  The others applauded.

  Arch said he would rather be remembered for “The Purple Cow” than not remembered at all. And then Mildred said, “And we’re all so proud to have the K Fund buying the Grist Mill! But who will replace Liz Hart? She was so charming!”

  “Prepare for a surprise!” Qwilleran said. “A few years ago, when dining at the Boulder House Inn, did you occasionally meet a teenager? Her name was Jennifer.”

  They all remembered. She was very bright and personable. She was Silas Dingwall’s daughter.

  “Well, she has just completed a course in restaurant management at an eastern university. She and some fellow graduates have been traveling in France for gustatory experiences. She’ll be perfect for the Grist Mill!”

  “What a happy surprise!” Polly said.

  Mildred added, “This has been a year of surprises, and I think there are more to come. I feel it in my bones!”

  And so it went!

  In September the Pickax Fourth of July parade took place on Labor Day.

  In September, also, the Old Grist Mill opened under K Fund ownership—with a new manager.

  In October, the Pickax Music Center opened with the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical CATS, Uncle Louie MacLeod having secured the amateur rights to produce it. Besides, the choral group had all those costumes with tails left over from the KitKat review.

  In October, also, Qwilleran moved his household back to the condo for the winter.

  In November, the Ledfield Museum of Wildlife opened in a downtown warehouse, with mounted birds and beasts exhibited in naturalistic scenes created by the theatre club’s set designers.

  In December, a 500-dollar-a-ticket preview of the Ledfields’ Old Manse raised $20,000 for child welfare. The sum was matched dollar-for-dollar by the K fund.

  Also, in December, Koko became suddenly nervous—hearing inaudible noises and talking to himself. Qwilleran thought, something’s going to happen! And then it happened!

  In January, exactly six months after the demise of Nathan and Doris Ledfield, a sealed envelope that had long been in the vault of the law office was opened in the presence of witnesses. It was a document bequeathing a billion dollars for a Ledfield Academy of Music, specializing in keyboard and strings and of such excellence as to honor the name of Ledfield in music circles worldwide.

  The announcement was released to news media from coast to coast. Included was an endowment in the form of blue-chip investments that would be available for expenses not covered by income from such an establishment.

  There was one stipulation that stunned the witnesses and divided the good folk of Moose County. The magnanimous offer was made to any American city with a population of one million or more!

  Press and pulpit lauded the Purple Point couple for their generosity in the past and their concern for the future quality of life in Moose County, specifically: the museum of art and antiques, a facility for the study and enjoyment of music, and a wildlife museum of interest.

  Dissenters on the grapevine complained indignantly that the billion-dollar bequest should have stayed in Moose County to promote growth, build a new downtown, and improve recreation facilities.

  What would Cool Koko say?

  “When your dish is full of cream, don’t expect more.”

  POSTSCRIPT A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Imagine my surprise, recently, when I received a phone call from James Mackintosh Qwilleran . . .

  How nice to hear from you, I said. How’s Koko? How’s Yum Yum?

  He said, They’re fine! Koko just put an idea in my head, staring at my forehead, the way he does, until something clicks. This time he suggested I should interview you for the “Qwill Pen” column, Lilian. Do you mind if I call you Lilian?

  Not as long as you spell it right.

  The following dialogue took place:

  First, I think my readers would like to know how long you’ve been writing.

  My mother taught me to write at the age of three, but I was two years old when I composed my first poem: “Mother
Goose is up in the sky and these are her feathers coming down in my eye.”

  Not bad for a beginner. When did you start writing fiction?

  Nothing much until I was thirteen. I spent my summer vacation writing a French historical novel. All my favorite characters went to the guillotine and I cried a lot. My mother said I should write something that made me smile—and since mothers knew best in those days, I experimented with humorous verse. (Are you sure you want to hear all this, Qwill?) I invented the “spoem!”

  Should I know what that is, Lilian?

  They were verses about sports in what I called galloping iambic. One of my favorites was about a big-league player called McGee. Do you want to hear it? I know it by heart.

  By all means! Wait until I turn on my recorder.

  I think that I shall never see another gaffer in his prime who’s stuck to baseball like McGee, untrammeled by the wear of time. Although McGee is getting gray, he never fails to fill the bill and slaps the horsehide twice a day, besides a frequent double kill, but when it comes to private tricks, McGee deserves the laurel bough; of all the superstitious hicks, it takes McGee to show them how! He never has his turn at bat unless he walks around the ump and following an orange cat, he says, will cure a batting slump. His slumps indeed are very few; he says these tricks improve his skill, and if the fellow thinks they do it’s 99 to 1 they will.

  Bear in mind, Qwill, that I was seventeen when I wrote that. My interests changed. I wrote short stories, magazine features, advertising copy—and spoems. Then I started writing a newspaper column.

  Apart from McGee’s orange cats, Lilian, you haven’t mentioned cats at all.

  No, it was long after that when cats entered my life. I had always liked them, and they liked me. They followed me down streets in Paris, howled under my balcony in Rome, and sat on my lap, drooling, when I went visiting. It was not until I was living in a tenth-floor apartment that I was given a kitten. A Siamese. I called him Koko. But . . . It’s difficult to describe what happened. Briefly: he was killed in a fall from the tenth floor. In a building full of cat lovers he was . . . murdered . . . by a cat hater. I was shattered! The only way I could get the tragedy off my mind was to write a short story about it. My story of murder and retribution was published in a magazine, and that is what led to the Cat Who . . . series.

  Thank you, the “Qwill Pen” readers will appreciate it. May I ask you one more question, Lilian? Have you written plays? Your dialogue is smooth on the tongue and easy on the ear.

  Thank you. I had an urge to write drama during the reign of Beckett, Albee, and Ionesco, but theatre of the absurd has passed its prime.

  Bring it back! Pickax would be teeming with absurdities. Don’t quote me.