The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, Ate Danish Modern, Turned on and Off

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  Riker nodded. “That’ll make the boss happy. And it should get a lot of readership. My wife will like it. She’s a junker.”

  He said it calmly, and Qwilleran was shocked. “Rosie? You mean—”

  Riker was rocking contentedly in his swivel chair. “She got hooked a couple of years ago, and it’s been keeping me poor ever since.”

  Qwilleran stroked his moustache to hide his dismay. He had known Rosie years ago when he and Arch were cub reporters in Chicago. Gently he asked, “When—how did this happen, Arch?”

  “She went to Junktown with some gal friends one day and got involved. I’m beginning to get interested myself. Just paid twenty-eight dollars for an old tea canister in painted tin. Tin is what I go for—tin boxes, tin lanterns—”

  Qwilleran stammered, “What—what—what are you talking about?”

  “Junk. Antiques. What are you talking about?”

  “Hell, I’m talking about narcotics!”

  “I said we were junkers, not junkies!” Arch said. “Junktown, for your information, is the place with all the antique shops.”

  “The cabdriver said it was a hangout for hopheads.”

  “Well, you know how cabdrivers are. Sure, it’s a declining neighborhood, and the riffraff may come out after dark, but during the day it’s full of respectable junkpickers like Rosie and her friends. Didn’t your ex-wife ever take you junking?”

  “She dragged me to an antique show in New York once, but I hate antiques.”

  “Too bad,” said Arch. “Christmas in Junktown sounds like a good idea, but you’d have to stick to antiques. The boss would never go for the narcotics angle.”

  “Why not? It would make a poignant Christmas story.”

  Riker shook his head. “The advertisers would object. Readers spend less freely when their complacency is disturbed.”

  Qwilleran snorted his disdain.

  “Why don’t you go ahead, Qwill, and do a Christmas series on antiquing?”

  “I hate antiques, I told you.”

  “You’ll change your mind when you get to Junktown. You’ll be hooked like the rest of us.”

  “Want to bet?”

  Arch took out his wallet and extracted a small yellow card. “Here’s a directory of the Junktown dealers. Let me have it back.”

  Qwilleran glanced at some of the names: Ann’s ’Tiques, Sorta Camp, The Three Weird Sisters, the Junque Trunque. His stomach rebelled. “Look, Arch, I wanted to write something for the contest—something with guts! What can I do with antiques? I’d be lucky if I tied for the twenty-fifth frozen turkey.”

  “You might be surprised! Junktown is full of kooks, and there’s an auction this afternoon.”

  “I can’t stand auctions.”

  “This should be a good one. The dealer was killed a couple of months ago, and they’re liquidating his entire stock.”

  “Auctions are the world’s biggest bore, if you want my opinion.”

  “A lot of the dealers in Junktown are single girls—divorcees—widows. That’s something you should appreciate. Look, you donkey, why do I have to give you a big selling on this boondoggle? It’s an assignment. Get busy.”

  Qwilleran gritted his teeth. “All right. Give me a taxi voucher. Round trip!”

  He took time to have his hair trimmed and his moustache pruned—his standard procedure before tackling a new beat, although he had intended to postpone this nicety until Christmas. Then he hailed a cab and rode out Zwinger Street, not without misgivings.

  Downtown it was a boulevard of new office buildings, medical clinics, and fashionable apartment houses. Then it ran through a snow-covered wasteland where a former slum had been cleared. Farther out there were several blocks of old buildings with boarded windows, awaiting demolition. Beyond that was Junktown.

  In daylight the street was even worse than it had appeared the night before. For the most part the rows of old town houses and Victorian mansions were neglected and forlorn. Some had been made into rooming houses, while others were disfigured with added storefronts. The gutters were choked with an alloy of trash and gray ice, and refuse cans stood frozen to the unshoveled sidewalks.

  “This neighborhood’s an eyesore,” the cab driver remarked. “The city should tear it down.”

  “Don’t worry. They will!” Qwilleran said with optimism.

  As soon as he spotted antique shops, he stopped the cab and got out without enthusiasm. He surveyed the gloomy street. So this was Christmas in Junktown! Unlike other shopping areas in the city, Zwinger Street was devoid of holiday decorations. No festoons spanned the wide thoroughfare; no glittering angels trumpeted from the light poles. Pedestrians were few, and cars barreled past with whining snow tires, in a hurry to be elsewhere.

  A wintry blast from the northeast sent Qwilleran hurrying toward the first store that professed to sell antiques. It was dark within, and the door was locked, but he cupped his hands to his temples and looked through the glass. What he saw was a gigantic wood carving of a gnarled tree with five lifesize monkeys swinging from its branches. One monkey held a hatrack. One monkey held a lamp. One monkey held a mirror. One monkey held a clock. One monkey held an umbrella stand.

  Qwilleran backed away.

  Nearby was the shop called The Three Weird Sisters. The store was closed, although a card in the window insisted it was open.

  The newsman turned up his coat collar and covered his ears with gloved hands, wishing he had not had his hair trimmed. He next tried the Junque Trunque—closed—and a basement shop called Tech-Tiques, which looked as if it had never been open. Between the antique shops there were commercial establishments with dirty windows, and in one of these—a hole in the wall labeled Popopopoulos’ Fruit, Cigars, Work Gloves and Sundries—he bought a pouch of tobacco and found it to be stale.

  With growing disaffection for his assignment he walked past a dilapidated barbershop and a third-class nursing home until he reached a large antique shop on the corner. Its door was padlocked, and its windows were plastered with notices of an auction. Qwilleran, looking through the glass door, saw dusty furniture, clocks, mirrors, a bugle made into a lamp, and marble statues of Greek maidens in coy poses.

  He also saw the reflection of another man approaching the store. The figure came up behind him with a faltering step, and a thick voice said amiably, “You like ’at slop?”

  Qwilleran turned and faced an early-morning drunk, red-eyed and drooling but amiable. He was wearing a coat obviously made from a well-used horse blanket.

  “Know what it is? Slop!” the man repeated with a moist grin as he peered through the door at the antiques. Relishing the wetness of the word, he turned to Qwilleran and said it again with embellishments. “Ssssloppp!”

  The newsman moved away in disgust and wiped his face with a handkerchief, but the intruder was determined to be friendly.

  “You can’t get in,” he explained helpfully. “Door locked. Locked it after the murder.” Perhaps he caught a flicker of interest in Qwilleran’s face, because he added, “Stabbed! Sssstabbed!” It was another juicy word, and he illustrated it by plunging an imaginary dagger into the newsman’s stomach.

  “Get lost!” Qwilleran muttered and strode away.

  Nearby there was a carriage house converted into a refinishing shop. Qwilleran tried that door, too, knowing it would not open, and he was right.

  He was beginning to have an uneasy feeling about this street, as if the antique shops were fakes—stage props. Where were the proprietors? Where were the collectors who paid twenty-eight dollars for an old tin box? The only people in sight were two children in shabby snowsuits, a workman with a lunchpail, an old lady in black, who was plodding along with a shopping bag, and the good-natured drunk, now sitting on the frozen sidewalk.

  At that moment Qwilleran looked up and saw movement in a curved bay window—a clean, sparkling window in a narrow town house painted dark gray with fresh black trim and a fine brass knocker on the door. The building had a residential loo
k, but there was a discreet sign: The Blue Dragon—Antiques.

  Slowly he mounted the flight of eight stone steps and tried the door, fearing it would be locked, but to his surprise it opened, and he stepped into an entrance hall of great elegance and formality. There was an Oriental rug on the waxed floor and delicate Chinese paper on the walls. A gilded mirror crowned with three carved plumes hung over a well-polished table that held chrysanthemums in a porcelain bowl. There was a fragrance of exotic wood. There was also the hush of death, except for the ticking of a clock.

  Qwilleran, standing there in amazement, suddenly felt he was being watched, and he turned on his heel, but it was only a blackamoor, a lifesize ebony carving of a Nubian slave with turbaned head and an evil glint in his jeweled eyes.

  Now the newsman was convinced that Junktown was something less than real. This was the enchanted palace in the depths of the dark forest.

  A blue velvet rope barred the stairway, but the parlor doors stood open invitingly, and Qwilleran advanced with caution into a high-ceilinged room filled with furniture, paintings, silver, and blue and white china. A silver chandelier hung from the sculptured plaster ceiling.

  His footsteps made the floor creak, and he coughed self-consciously. Then he caught a glimpse of something blue in the window—a large blue porcelain dragon—and he was moving toward it when he almost fell over a foot. It looked like a human foot in an embroidered slipper. He sucked in his breath sharply and stepped back. A lifesize female figure in a long blue satin kimono was seated in a carved Oriental chair. One elbow rested on the arm of the chair, and the slender hand held a cigarette holder. The face seemed to be made of porcelain—blue-white porcelain—and the wig was blue-black.

  Qwilleran started to breathe again, thankful he had not knocked the thing over, and then he noticed smoke curling from the tip of the cigarette. It—or she—was alive.

  “Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked coolly. Only the lips moved in her masklike face. Her large dark eyes, heavily rimmed with black pencil, fixed themselves on the newsman without expression.

  “No. Just looking,” said Qwilleran with a gulp.

  “There are two more rooms in the rear, and eighteenth century oils and engravings in the basement.” She spoke with a cultivated accent.

  The newsman studied her face, making mental notes for the story he would write: wide cheekbones, hollow cheeks, flawless complexion, blue-black hair worn Oriental style, haunting eyes, earrings of jade. She was about thirty, he guessed—an age to which he was partial. He relaxed.

  “I’m from the Daily Fluxion,” he said in his most agreeable voice, “and I’m about to write a series on Junktown.”

  “I prefer to have no publicity,” she said with a frozen stare.

  Only three times in his twenty-five years of newspapering had he heard anyone decline to be mentioned in print, and all three had been fugitives—from the law, from blackmail, from a nagging wife. But here was something incomprehensible: the operator of a business enterprise refusing publicity. Free publicity.

  “All the other shops seem to be closed,” he said.

  “They should open at eleven, but antique dealers are seldom punctual.”

  Qwilleran looked around aimlessly and said, “How much for the blue dragon in the window?”

  “It’s not for sale.” She moved the cigarette holder to her lips and drew on it exquisitely. “Are you interested in Oriental porcelains? I have a blue and white stemmed cup from the Hsuan Te period.”

  “No, I’m just digging for stories. Know anything about the auction sale down at the corner?”

  She coughed on the cigarette smoke, and for the first time her poise wavered. “It’s at one thirty today,” she said.

  “I know. I saw the sign. Who was this dealer who was killed?”

  Her voice dropped to a lower pitch. “Andrew Glanz. A highly respected authority on antiques.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “The sixteenth of October.”

  “Was it a holdup? I don’t remember reading about a murder in Junktown, and I usually follow the crime news carefully.”

  “What makes you think it was—murder?” she said with a wary glint in her unblinking eyes.

  “I heard someone say—and in this kind of neighborhood, you know . . .”

  “He was killed in an accident.”

  “Traffic accident?”

  “He fell from a ladder.” She crushed her cigarette. “I would rather not talk about it. It was too—too—”

  “He was a friend of yours?” Qwilleran asked in the sympathetic tone that had won him the confidence of maidens and murderers in the past.

  “Yes. But, if you don’t mind, Mr.—Mr.—”

  “Qwilleran.”

  “The name is Irish?” She was deliberately changing the subject.

  “No, Scottish. Spelled with a Qw. And your name?”

  “Duckworth.”

  “Miss or Mrs. ?”

  She drew a breath. “Miss . . . . I have quite a few antiques from Scotland in the other room. Would you like to see them?”

  She rose and led the way. She was tall and slender, and the kimono, a long shaft of blue, moved with silky grace among the mahogany sideboards and walnut tables.

  “These andirons are Scottish,” she said, “and so is this brass salver. Do you like brass? Most men like brass.”

  Qwilleran was squinting at something leaning against the wall in a far corner. “What’s that?” he demanded. He pointed to a wrought-iron coat of arms, a yard in diameter. It was a shield surrounded by three snarling cats.

  “An ornament from an iron gate, I think. It may have come from the arch over the gate of a castle.”

  “It’s the Mackintosh coat of arms!” said Qwilleran. “I know the inscription: Touch not the catt bot a glove. My mother was a Mackintosh.” He patted his moustache with satisfaction.

  “You ought to buy it,” Miss Duckworth said.

  “What would I do with it? I don’t even have an apartment. How much is it?”

  “I’ve been asking two hundred dollars, but if you like it, you can have it for one hundred twenty-five dollars. That’s actually what I paid for it.” She lifted the weighty piece out from the wall to show it off to better advantage. “You’ll never find a better buy, and you can always sell it for what you paid—or more. That’s the nice thing about antiques. It would be wonderful over a fireplace—against a chimney wall. See, it has remnants of a lovely old red and blue decoration.”

  As she warmed to her sales talk, she grew animated and her dark-rimmed eyes glistened. Qwilleran began to feel mellow. He began to regard this blue-white porcelain creature as a possible prospect for Christmas Eve at the Press Club.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said, turning away from the coat of arms with reluctance. “Meanwhile, I’m going to cover the auction this afternoon. Do you happen to know where I could get a picture of Andrew Glanz to use with my story?”

  Her reserved manner returned. “What—what kind of story are you going to write?”

  “I’ll just describe the auction and give suitable recognition to the deceased.”

  She hesitated, glancing at the ceiling.

  “If it’s true what you say, Miss Duckworth—that he was a highly respected authority—”

  “I have a few pictures in my apartment upstairs. Would you like to look at them?”

  She unhooked the velvet rope that barred the stairs. “Let me go first and restrain the dog.”

  At the top of the stairs a large German police dog was waiting with unfriendly growl and quivering jaws. Miss Duckworth penned him in another room and then led the newsman down a long hallway, its walls covered with framed photographs. Qwilleran thought he recognized some rather important people in those frames. Of the deceased dealer there were three pictures: Glanz on a lecture platform, Glanz with the director of the historical museum, and then a studio portrait—a photograph of a young man with a square jaw, firm mouth,
and intelligent eyes—a good face, an honest face.

  Qwilleran glanced at Miss Duckworth, who was clasping and unclasping her hands, and said, “May I borrow this studio shot? I’ll have it copied and return it.”

  She nodded sadly.

  “You have a beautiful apartment,” he said, glancing into a living room that was all gold velvet, blue silk, and polished wood. “I had no idea there was anything like this in Junktown.”

  “I wish other responsible people would buy some of the old houses and preserve them,” she said. “So far the only ones who have shown any inclination to do so are the Cobbs. They have the mansion on this block. Antiques on the first floor and apartments upstairs.”

  “Apartments? Do you know if they have one for rent?”

  “Yes,” the girl said, lowering her eyes. “There’s one vacant in the rear.”

  “I might inquire about it. I need a place to live.”

  “Mrs. Cobb is a very pleasant woman. Don’t let her husband upset you.”

  “I don’t upset easily. What’s wrong with her husband?”

  Miss Duckworth turned her attention to the downstairs hall. Customers had walked into the house and were chattering and exclaiming. “You go down,” she instructed Qwilleran, “and I’ll let the dog out of the kitchen before I follow you.”

  Downstairs two women were wandering among the treasures—women with the air and facial characteristics of suburban housewives; the newsman had met hundreds of them at flower shows and amateur art exhibits. But the garb of these women was out of character. One wore a man’s leather trench coat and a woolly mop of a hat studded with seashells, while the other was bundled up in an Eskimo parka over black-and-white checkerboard trousers stuffed into hunting boots with plaid laces.

  “Oh, what a lovely shop,” said the parka.

  “Oh, she’s got some old Steuben,” said the trench coat.

  “Oh, Freda, look at this decanter! My grandmother had one just like it. Wonder what she wants for it.”

  “She’s high, but she has good things. Don’t act too enthusiastic, and she’ll come down a few dollars,” the trench coat advised, adding in a low voice, “Did you know she was Andy’s girl friend?”