“Thank you. I’m so inspired by the challenge, I feel rejuvenated . . . especially when we find we’ve been given books worth as much as five thousand dollars.”
“How did you discover them?”
“The K Fund put us in touch with a rare-book dealer in Chicago, who told us what to look for, like: important author, first edition, autographed, and, of course, good condition. We sent him a list of candidates, and he appraised them. Several are worth five hundred dollars, and a few are worth much more.”
Arch said, “You’d never get me to pay five hundred for a book!”
“But hon,” his wife protested, “you paid that much for a rusty piece of old tin!”
“That was a primitive piece of folk art with a provenance, and it was an auction for a good cause!”
Qwilleran said, “ESP promotes literacy, and that’s a good cause.” Then he added slyly, “The more people who learn to read in Moose County, the more newspapers you sell!”
“I need another drink,” Arch said. “Who’s ready?”
“Hon, I’m about to serve now,” Mildred said. “Would you open the wine and feed Toulouse?”
Dinner began with a mysterious soup, followed by a mysterious casserole and another unidentified course called a savory. The dessert was equally mysterious, but everything tasted good.
During the meal they discussed the new play, the two actors from Lockmaster who were so good, and the possibility that the show might run for three weekends—a local record.
Then Qwilleran asked, “Has anyone heard that Alden Wade is taking a condo in Indian Village?”
“I doubt it,” said Lisa. “He’s been living at the Hibbard Guest House and is enthusiastic about it. Violet Hibbard is on the ESP board of directors, you know.”
Mildred said, “I knew her in grade school. She was always serious, being an only child and accustomed to being with adults. She was an all-A student and made the rest of us look bad, so we were glad when she was sent to a private school in the East.”
“She’s still serious,” Lisa said, “but she’s developed a kind of warm feeling for people. Maggie Sprenkle, her only longtime friend, says that Violet taught at an American university in Italy for a while, early in her career, and when she came home, she was a different person.”
“It’s those Italian men!” Arch said.
“Oh, hon!” his wife protested.
Qwilleran asked, “Did she never marry?”
“No, and she’s the last of the Hibbards,” Lisa said. “They were never a large family, and the flu epidemic of 1918 wiped out almost a whole generation, according to Maggie.”
“This is off the record, of course, but she donated most of the books that turned out to be rare.”
Arch asked, “Can she take her donations as a tax deduction?”
“I believe so.”
“Do you have a record of who gave what?”
“Yes. The information is in the computer but not for publication.”
Mildred said, “This is all so interesting!”
Lisa went on, “Faulkner, Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Raymond Chandler, and Dr. Seuss are among the valuable books we have. . . . Strange to say, the Dr. Seuss books seldom show up in the rare-book market. Is that because they don’t survive family wear and tear? But we have The Cat in the Hat that didn’t get chewed by a dog.”
“I’ll take it!” Qwilleran said. “Koko will sit on it to keep it warm. He knows a significant book when he smells one.”
Arch said, “I hope all these valuable books are going to be kept in a safe.”
“We’ll keep them under lock and key,” Lisa said, “and show potential customers an inventory of what’s available. And that brings up another thing: Violet spotted a wonderful antique jelly cupboard at Susan Exbridge’s shop. It’s priced at three thousand, but she’ll give it to us for half price.”
Arch asked, “What does a jelly cupboard have to do with books? If it isn’t too dumb a question.”
Lisa explained, “Families used to keep their home-canned goods locked in a cabinet. Don’t ask me why. Susan’s so-called jelly cupboard is big enough to hold over a hundred books in upper and lower sections. Both sections have locks.”
Mildred said, “I’ve seen that in her shop! It’s a handsome pine piece—elegant in its simplicity.”
“Exactly!” Lisa said. “It would be the focal point of the ESP shop.”
Arch said, “How come she’s selling it for half price? She should give it to you for nothing. If you’re afraid to ask her for it, send Qwill to twist her arm!”
“I second the motion,” Lisa said.
“I make it unanimous!” Mildred cried. “He’s good at twisting arms.”
Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “How soon do you need it?”
“Not later than Wednesday,” Lisa said. “One of our volunteers has a van, and he’ll pick it up.”
Arch asked, “Who’s for an after-dinner drink?”
Qwilleran said he had to go home and feed the cats before they started chewing the rugs. Lisa wanted to get home before dark. The Compton beach house was a quarter mile down the shore, and she had walked over.
Qwilleran was only too happy to drive her home; he had a question to ask: “Have you met Alden Wade? He has a strong presence onstage; what is he like as a person?”
“He’s charming!” she said. “And so helpful! Although he’s hired to do specific things for the bookstore, he comes downstairs to ask if he can do anything for the ESP. And that’s not all! A couple of weeks ago he brought me a long-stemmed red rose in a bud vase and told me to watch it open day by day. He said it’s inspirational! . . . Then I found out that he gave Polly one! And also Violet, his landlady! I think that was very sweet of him, and it makes me think he’s lonely.”
Or he’s covering all the bases, Qwilleran thought. Then he wondered why Polly had not mentioned the rose during one of their nightly phone chats. And he speculated about the rumor that Alden Wade was buying Unit Two. Perhaps he had looked at it just to please Polly. Perhaps she had suggested it!
“Well, thanks for the lift, Qwill,” Lisa said, “and while you’re here, let me give you a copy of our rare-book list. Tell me if you want to buy the Dr. Seuss for Koko.”
He drove home and found two hungry cats looking aggrieved because their dinner was late.
“Sorry!” he said. “But wait till you see what Mildred has sent you!”
The square plastic box contained not only the leftover casserole for the Siamese but a few items for human consumption: cookies, dinner rolls, apples, and two bananas past their prime.
Qwilleran divided the mysterious casserole between the two dishes under the kitchen table and stood by to observe their rapturous gobbling. Instead, they sniffed their plates and walked away, flicking their tails in irritation.
“Please!” Qwilleran protested. “You’re entitled to your opinion, but this is going too far!”
He knew they would gobble Mildred’s delicacies as soon as his back was turned.
Later that evening Qwilleran sprawled in his favorite thinking chair and considered Susan Exbridge, the individual whose arm he was expected to twist.
He jerked to attention for a moment as he heard Koko’s gut-wrenching howl that had come to be known as his “death howl.” More likely, he decided, it was evidence of catly indigestion following the mysterious casserole.
Susan Exbridge was a character, no doubt about it! She amused him with her pretensions and affectations, and he enjoyed teasing her and scolding her occasionally. He could get away with it because of his connection with the K Fund.
Susan had a great respect for money. In Pickax she was considered a snob. She received a goodly amount of alimony, bought her clothes in Chicago, and drove a status car. Her shop, Exbridge & Cobb Fine Antiques, was so high-toned that locals were afraid to enter—except to hurry to the annex, where the primitives were kept, huddled together like poor relations. They were the collection o
f the late Iris Cobb, who had left them to her partner. Mrs. Cobb’s extensive library of books on antiques now filled the shelves in Susan’s office, although Polly said Mrs. Exbridge had never read a book in her life. There was a slight clash of personalities here, no doubt exacerbated by Susan’s custom of greeting Qwilleran with an effusive “dahling.”
Now he had to convince her to donate the jelly cupboard to a good cause. The K Fund could contribute it easily, but the idea was to teach Susan a lesson in community involvement.
The easy way would be to storm into her shop and say, “Susan! I hear you’re selling Mrs. Cobb’s jelly cupboard to the ESP! Isn’t that rather shoddy business? After all, it was Mrs. Cobb’s, and you didn’t pay a penny for it! Your rich friends are donating five-thousand-dollar books! Surely you could manage a three-thousand-dollar jelly cupboard. . . . You know, you can take it as a tax deduction.”
A confrontation would be easy and effective but too obvious. He would prefer something more subtle, even devious.
Then he thought of the Moose County method of making things happen: Spread the rumor and, before anyone knows, it’s a fact.
He phoned Polly Duncan. First he listened patiently to the details of organizing her winter wardrobe. Then he described the impromptu dinner she had missed, adding, “And by the way, I heard some surprising news! Susan Exbridge is donating a three-thousand-dollar cabinet to the ESP!”
“I can’t believe it!” Polly cried. “She never gives anything away! And she always referred to Eddington as ‘that dreadful little man.’ How do you explain it, Qwill?”
“Hard to say. You might check it out with some of your sources. It’s certainly good news—if it’s true.”
“I’ll make a few calls right away. Hang up, dear! Thanks for letting me know. . . . À bientôt!”
“À bientôt.”
Qwilleran hung up with satisfaction. In the morning he would visit Susan’s shop and congratulate her.
Having plotted the jelly cupboard strategy to his satisfaction, he tuned in WPKX and heard a bulletin that snapped him to attention: a fatal car accident at the Black Creek bridge at eight-fifteen P.M. That was the precise moment that Koko had uttered his ominous howl. It had nothing to do with feline indigestion: It was Koko’s death howl. Qwilleran had heard it many times before. It always signified wrongful death. The victim’s name was not released in the bulletin.
SIX
It was early Monday morning. Qwilleran was groggily pressing the button on his automated coffeemaker. The cats were staggering down the ramp from their sleeping quarters on the third balcony—stretching, yawning, waking up their fur with electrifying shudders.
He had forgotten about the WPKX news bulletin until Carol Lanspeak phoned. “Qwill! Did you hear about the accident last night? The victim’s name has just been released! It was Ronnie. It was our Ronnie! You know—Ronald Dickson, who played Algernon! I feel terrible about it—such a nice young man—and he was going to be married soon.”
“Sad news,” Qwilleran murmured. “What were the circumstances? Does anyone know?”
“A few members of the cast went to Onoosh’s to celebrate after the matinee. Ronnie had to drive back to Lockmaster. He missed the curve at the bridge. We’re canceling all performances and refunding ticket money. Will your review be running today—anyway?”
“On the entertainment page, but call the city desk immediately and request a front-page bulletin: all performances canceled owing to the death of a member of the cast. And when I file my copy this morning, I’ll check to see that the bulletin gets a prominent position.”
When domestic matters at the barn were resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned, Qwilleran drove to the office of the Something to file his review of the play. Walking down the long corridor to the managing editor’s office, he said “Hi!” to a young man hurrying in the opposite direction with a fistful of proofs—the new copyboy, apparently. Only copyboys hurried. This one had a beard, and longer hair than was usual.
“New copyboy?” Qwilleran said to Junior Goodwinter. “Copy facilitator,” Junior corrected him.
“Isn’t he rather hirsute?”
“Times have changed since you hacked for a living. . . . Is that your review of the play?”
Qwilleran handed him his copy. “Did you and Jody see the production?”
“Sunday afternoon. We thought it was great! Rotten news about the fatal accident. We’re running a bulletin in a black border on the front page. Obit tomorrow. Who’s the best source of information?”
“Wetherby Goode at WPKX and Alden Wade at the bookstore.”
“And what’s the topic for tomorrow’s ‘Qwill Pen’?”
“A brief history of literacy in Moose County—leading into community involvement in the ESP.”
Junior said, “This is a big week for Moose County! Dwight Somers guarantees we’ll get national coverage. Roger, Bushy, and Jill will cover the press preview for us and we’ll give it the front page and picture page on Friday.”
Qwilleran said, “They’d better have the mounted sheriff’s corps on the scene for the public opening Saturday. Hundreds turned out for the groundbreaking; how many thousands will show up for the public opening?”
Qwilleran waited until he knew the antiques shop would be open and then blustered into Susan’s front door in excitement.
She was talking to two customers and looked up in surprise. “Dahling! What brings you here in such a jovial mood?”
“I came to congratulate you, Susan, on your generosity in donating the jelly cupboard to ESP in memory of Eddington Smith!”
“Where did you hear that?” she asked cagily.
“It’s all over town! There are no secrets in our fair city.”
Even if she had wanted to deny it, the presence of two customers made it impossible. Actually, the scenario could not have been more cleverly staged.
“Someone will be here to pick it up before Thursday, which is when the out-of-town media will be here. May I look at it—in case I have a chance to describe it in the ‘Qwill Pen’?”
Susan helplessly waved him toward the annex and followed him there, saying only a weak “excuse me” to the customers.
Qwilleran said, “Handsome finish on the pine. How would I describe it?”
With only slight hesitation, she said, “The patina of age—and loving care.”
“Does it have a provenance?”
“It belonged to an old family on Purple Point.”
The fabrication amused Qwilleran, who had seen the cupboard in Iris Cobb’s apartment—in Junktown, Down Below.
He said, “A volunteer from ESP will be here to pick it up. He’ll call first.”
Qwilleran had yet another mission to perform downtown. Once a week he did Polly’s grocery shopping, putting the purchases in the trunk of her car, with the perishables in a cooler. Under ordinary circumstances he would then be invited to a home-cooked dinner of last week’s leftovers. There had been no ordinary circumstances, however, since Polly undertook the challenge of running a bookstore. He was keeping score, of course, and she now owed him twenty dinners.
He always took her list to Toodle’s Market, and Grandma Toodle always assisted him in selecting the fruits and vegetables. He might buy some Delicious apples for himself as well, and lately he was buying bananas. On this occasion he complained to Grandma Toodle that the bananas always turned brown before they could be eaten.
“How many in your family?” she asked.
“Three, but only one of us eats bananas.”
“Then don’t buy so many at once,” she advised, “and be sure they don’t have any brown spots.”
He selected four and was about to push his cart away, when he found it blocked by another piled high with cornflakes, flour, cat litter, sacks of potatoes, and gallons of milk. The shopper was a rosy-cheeked woman with the air of a happy housewife.
“Mr. Q,” she said, recognizing his moustache, “what you need is a banana hook.”
“All you need is an old-fashioned wire coat hook—the kind you see everywhere. Just screw it into the side of a wooden kitchen cupboard and hang up the bananas. Don’t put them in a bowl or on a counter.”
He thanked her graciously and wondered if he could write a thousand words for the “Qwill Pen” on the importance of having a banana hook. He would take a humorous approach. Bananas are funny; apples and oranges are not. There was something humorous about slipping on a banana peel, according to the old comic strips.
At home, Qwilleran found a clothes hook in the broom closet and screwed it into a wood surface in the kitchen. Problem solved! . . . or so he thought.
That evening, Qwilleran set out to con himself into eating a banana. He recalled his boyhood pleasure in clutching a banana like an ice-cream cone and peeling it down a little at a time. He recalled his boyhood dream of a banana split—never realized because his mother said it was too expensive. Thus fortified psychologically, he unhooked a banana and had just finished peeling it at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. He placed the naked fruit on a strip of peel and answered after the third ring. He thought it might be Polly, and he preferred to sit at the desk rather than stand at the kitchen phone.
It was not Polly. It was a woman’s husky voice asking for Ralph.
“No one here by that name,” he said. He should have hung up immediately, but . . . perhaps he was postponing the eating of the banana.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Quite!”
“Is this Wilson’s Bar?”
“No, it is not Wilson’s Bar. What number are you calling?”
She gave the number of the apple barn.
“You dialed correctly, but you’ve been given the wrong number. Who gave you this number?” By this time, Qwilleran was enjoying the conversation. It was beginning to sound like a comedy act. Or it might be a practical joke, and he wondered which one of his friends could be guilty. Wetherby Goode was the only one he could summon to mind.
The woman was saying, “Ralph told me I could reach him at this number.”
The Cat Who Went Bananas Page 4
