The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  "Cal is chairman of the ball," she said, "and he's flitting around, so you can be my date."

  Her eyes were roguish as well as exotic.

  Then Sandy, changing to a formal tone that rang hollow, introduced the others who were seated at the table. They were members of Cal's committee, she explained pointedly. A Mr. and Mrs. Riggs or Biggs were in French period costume. A short fleshy couple named Buchwalter, who seemed to be having a dull time, were garbed as peasants. There was also Mae Sisler, art reporter from the other newspaper.

  Qwilleran gave her a fraternal bow, at the same time estimating that she was ten years past retirement age.

  Mae Sisler gave him a bony hand and said in a thin voice, "Your Mr. Mountclemens is a very naughty boy, but you look like a nice young man."

  "Thank you," said Qwilleran. "No one has called me a young man for twenty years."

  "You'll like your new job," she

  predicted. "You'll meet lovely people."

  Sandy leaned close to Qwilleran and said, "You look so romantic in that moustache. I wanted Cal to grow one so he would look halfway grown-up, but he resisted the suggestion. He looks like such an infant. Don't you think so?" She laughed musically.

  Qwilleran said, "It's true he appears youthful."

  "I think he's retarded somehow. In another few years people will think he's my son. Won't that be crushing?" Sandy gave Qwilleran an adoring look. "Are you going to ask me to dance? Cal is a terrible dancer. He thinks he's a killer, but he's really a clod on the dance floor."

  "Can you dance in that costume?"

  Sandy's stiff white kimono was bound about the middle with a wide black obi. More white silk was draped over her straight dark hair.

  "Oh, sure." She squeezed Qwilleran's arm as they walked to the dance floor. "Do you know what my costume represents?"

  Qwilleran said no.

  "Cal's in a black kimono. We're the Young Lovers in a Snowy Landscape."

  "Who are they?"

  "Oh, you know. The famous print — by Harunobu."

  "Sorry. I'm a dunce when it comes to art." Qwilleran felt he could be debonair about the admission because, at that moment, he was leading Sandy expertly through a fox-trot enhanced by a few Qwilleran flourishes.

  "You're a fun dancer," she said. "It takes real coordination to fox-trot to a cha-cha. But we must do something about your art education. Would you like me to tutor you?"

  "I don't know if I could afford you — on my salary," he said, and Sandy's laughter could be heard above the orchestra. "How about the little lady from the other news, paper? Is she an art expert?"

  "Her husband was a camouflage artist in World War I," said Sandy. "I guess that makes her an expert."

  "And who are the rest of the people at your table?"

  "Riggs is a sculptor. He does stringy, emaciated things that are shown at the Lambreth Gallery. They look like grasshoppers. So does Riggs, when you come to think of it. The other couple, the Buchwalters, are supposed to be Picasso's famous pair of lovers. You can't tell they're in costume. They always dress like peasants." Sandy turned up her nicely tilted nose. "I can't stand her. She thinks she's such an egghead. Her husband teaches art at Penniman School, and he's having a one-man show at the Westside Gallery. He's a vegetable, but he does lovely watercolors." Then she frowned. "I hope newspapermen aren't eggheads. When Cal told me to — Oh, well, never mind. I talk too much. Let's just dance."

  Qwilleran lost his partner shortly after, when a surly young man cut in. He was wearing a torn T-shirt and had the manners of a hoodlum. The face was familiar.

  Later, back at the table, Sandy said, "That was Tom, our houseboy. He's supposed to be Stanley what's-his-name from that Tennessee Williams play, and his date is around here somewhere, dressed in a pink negligee. Tom is a boor, but Cal thinks he has talent, and so he's putting the kid through art school. Cal does a lot of wonderful things. You're going to write an article about him, aren't you?"

  "If I can collect enough material," said Qwilleran. "He's difficult to interview. Perhaps you could help me."

  "I'd love it. Did you know Cal is chairman of the State Council on Art? I think he wants to be the first professional artist to make the White House. He'll probably get there, too. He lets nothing stop him." She paused and became thoughtful. "You ought to write an article about the old man at the next table."

  "Who's he?"

  "They call him Uncle Waldo. He's a retired butcher who paints animals. He never held a paintbrush until he was sixty-nine."

  "Where have I heard that before?" Qwilleran said.

  "Oh, sure, every senior citizen wants to be a Grandma Moses, but Uncle Waldo is really talented — even if Georgie doesn't think so."

  "Who's Georgie?"

  "You know Georgie — your precious art critic."

  "I haven't met the man yet. What's he like?"

  "He's a real stinker, that's what he's like. When he re, viewed Uncle Waldo's one-man show, he was absolutely cruel."

  "What did he say?"

  "He said Uncle Waldo should go back to operating a meat market and leave the cows and bunny rabbits to kids, who draw them with more imagination and honesty. He said Uncle Waldo butchered more livestock on canvas than he ever did in the meat business. Everyone was furious! Lots of people wrote letters to the editor, but the poor old man took it hard and stopped painting. It was a crime! He used to paint very charming primitives. I understand his grandson, who's a truck driver, went to the newspaper office and threatened to beat up George Bonifield Mountclemens, and I don't blame him. Your critic is completely irresponsible."

  "Has he ever reviewed your husband's work?" Qwilleran asked with his best expression of innocence.

  Sandy shuddered. "He's written some vicious things about Cal — just because Cal is a commercial artist and successful. Mountclemens classifies commercial artists with house painters

  and paperhangers. Actually Cal can draw better than any of those arty blotch, and, dribble kids who call themselves Abstract Expressionists. Not one of them could draw a glass of water!"

  Sandy frowned and fell silent, and Qwilleran said, "You're prettier when you smile."

  She obliged with a burst of laughter. "Look! Isn't that a panic? Cal is dancing with Mark Antony."

  Qwilleran followed her pointing finger to the dance floor, where Cal Halapay in black Japanese kimono was guiding a husky Roman warrior through a slow fox-trot. The face under Antony's helmet was bold- featured but soft.

  "That's Butchy Bolton," said Sandy. "She teaches sculpture at the art school — welded metal and all that sort of thing. She and her roommate came as Antony and Cleopatra. Isn't that a scream? Butchy welded her own armor. It looks like a couple of truck fenders."

  Qwilleran said, "The paper should have sent a photographer: We should be getting pictures of all this."

  Sandy did some acrobatics with her eyebrows and said, "Zoe Lambreth was supposed to handle publicity for the ball, but I guess she's only good at getting publicity for herself."

  "I'm going to phone the picture desk," said Qwilleran, "and see if they'll send over a man."

  Half an hour later, Odd Bunsen, who was working the one-to-eleven shift, arrived with a 35-mm. reflex camera hanging around his neck and the usual cigar between his teeth.

  Qwilleran met him in the foyer and said, "Be sure to get a good shot of Cal and Sandra Halapay."

  Odd said, "You're telling me? They love to get their noodles in the paper."

  "Try to get everybody in pairs. They're dressed up as famous lovers — Othello and Desdemona, Lolita and Humbert Humbert, Adam and Eve —»

  "Cr-r-azy!" said Odd Bunsen as he readied his camera. "How long do you have to hang around here, Jim?"

  "Just long enough to see who wins the costume prizes and phone something in to the desk."

  "Why don't you meet me at the Press Club for a night, cap? I can quit after I print these."

  Back at the Halapay table, Sandy introduced Qwilleran to an impressi
ve woman in a beaded evening dress. "Mrs. Duxbury," Sandy explained, "is the most important collector in the city. You should write an article about her collection. It's eighteenth-century English-Gainsborough and Reynolds, you know."

  Mrs. Duxbury said, "I'm not anxious to have my collection publicized, Mr. Qwilleran, unless it will help you personally in your new position. Frankly, I am overjoyed to welcome you among us."

  Qwilleran bowed. "Thank you. It's a completely new field for me."

  "I trust your presence here means that the Daily Fluxion has at last come to its senses and dropped Mountclemens."

  "No," said Qwilleran, "we're simply expanding our coverage. Mountclemens will continue to write critical reviews."

  "What a pity. We were all hoping the newspaper would dismiss that horrid man."

  A fanfare of trumpets from the stage announced the presentation of costume prizes, and Sandy said to Qwilleran, "I've got to collect Cal for the judging and the grand march. Are you sure you won't stay longer?"

  "Sorry, I have to file my copy, but don't forget you're going to help me write a profile on your husband."

  "I'll phone you and invite myself to lunch," said Sandy, giving the newsman an affectionate hug. "It will be fun."

  Qwilleran moved to the back of the room and jotted down names as the winners were announced, and he was looking for a telephone when a woman's voice — soft and low — said, "Aren't you the new man from the Daily Fluxion?"

  His moustache tingled. Women's voices sometimes affected him that way, and this voice was like caressing fingers.

  "I'm Zoe Lambreth," she said, "and I'm afraid I failed miserably in my assignment. I was supposed to notify the newspapers about this ball, and it slipped my mind completely. I'm getting ready for a one-man show and working awfully hard — if you'll accept a lame excuse. I hope you're not being neglected. Are you getting all the information you need?"

  "I think so. Mrs. Halapay has been looking after me."

  "Yes, I noticed," Zoe said with a slight tightening of well-shaped lips.

  "Mrs. Halapay was very helpful."

  Zoe's eyebrows flickered. "I daresay."

  "You're not in costume, Mrs. Lambreth."

  "No. My husband didn't care to come tonight, and I just dropped in for a few minutes. I wish you would visit the Lambreth Gallery someday and meet my husband. Both of us would like to help you in any way we can."

  "I'm going to need help. This is brand-new territory for me," Qwilleran said, and then slyly he added, "Mrs. Halapay has offered to supervise my art education."

  "Oh, dear!" said Zoe with an intonation that suggested mild distress.

  "Don't you approve?"

  "Well… Sandra is not the most knowledgeable of authorities. Forgive me. Sooner or later you'll find out that artists are notorious cats." Zoe's large brown eyes were being disarmingly frank, and Qwilleran drowned in them momentarily. "But I'm really sincere in my concern for you, she went on. "I wouldn't want to see you — misdirected. Much of the work being produced today in the name of art is spurious at its worst and shoddy at its best. You should insist on knowing the credentials of your

  advisers."

  "What would you suggest?"

  "Come and visit the Lambreth Gallery," she urged, and her eyes echoed the invitation.

  Qwilleran pulled in his waistline and entertained the idea of losing a few pounds — beginning tomorrow. Then he made another attempt to find a telephone.

  The grand march was over, and the guests were circulating. Word had spread about the club that the Daily Fluxion's new reporter was attending the party and that he was easily recognized by his prominent moustache. Consequently, numerous strangers approached Qwilleran and introduced themselves. Each one wished him well and followed with something uncomplimentary about George Bonifield Mountclemens. Those who were art dealers added brief commercials for their galleries; artists mentioned their forthcoming exhibitions; the laymen invited Qwilleran to come and see their private collections — anytime — and to bring a photographer if he wished.

  Among those who hailed.the newsman was Cal Halapay. "Come out to the house for dinner some evening," he said. "Bring the whole family."

  Now the drinking commenced in earnest, and the party grew boisterous. The greatest commotion could be heard in the games room, and Qwilleran followed the crowd in that direction. He found the room packed with laughing guests, standing rib to rib with barely enough room to raise a highball glass, and the center of attention 'was Mark Antony. She was standing on a chair. Without a helmet, Mark Antony was more nearly a woman — pudgy,faced, with a short haircut set in tight waves.

  "Step right up, folks," she was barking. "Try your skill!"

  Qwilleran squeezed into the room. The crowd, he discovered, was focusing its attention on a game of darts. Players were trying their aim at a life-size sketch of a man, chalked on the barn wood wall with all features of the anatomy explicitly delineated.

  "Step right up, folks," the woman warrior was chanting. "Doesn't cost a cent. One chance apiece. Who wants to play Kill the Critic?"

  Qwilleran decided he had had enough. His moustache was feeling vaguely uncomfortable. He made a discreet exit, telephoned his story to the paper, and then joined Odd Bunsen at the Press Club.

  "Mountclemens must be a pill," he said to the photographer. "Do you read his column?"

  "Who reads?" said Odd. "I just look at the pictures and check my credit line."

  "He seems to cause a lot of trouble. Do you know anything about the situation at the art museum?"

  "I know they've got a cute chick in the checkroom," Odd said, "and some cr-r- razy nudes on the second floor."

  "Interesting, but that's not what I mean. The museum just lost a million- dollar grant from some foundation, and the director was fired as a result. That's what I heard at the party tonight, and they say the whole ruckus was caused by the Daily Fluxion's critic."

  "I wouldn't doubt it. He's always raising hell in the Photo Lab. He phones in and tells us what he wants photographed for his column. Then we have to go to the galleries to make the pix. You should see the garbage he expects us to photograph! Last week I went back to the Lambreth Gallery twice, and I still couldn't get a shot worth printing."

  "How come?"

  "The painting was black and navy blue, for Pete's sake! My print looked like a coal bin on a dark night, and the boss thought it was my fault. Old Monty's always beefing about our photographs. If I ever get a chance, I'd like to bust a speed graphic over his skull."

  4

  Sunday morning Qwilleran picked up a copy of the. Fluxion at the hotel newsstand. He was living at an old, inexpensive hotel that had replaced its worn rugs and faded velvets with plastic floors and plastic-covered arm-chairs. In the coffee shop a countergirl in a plastic apron served his scrambled eggs on a cold plastic plate, and Qwilleran

  opened his newspaper to the art page.

  George Bonifield Mountclemens III was reviewing the work of Franz Buchwalter. Qwilleran remembered the name. Buchwalter was the quiet man at the Halapay table — the husband of the social worker — the vegetable who painted lovely watercolors, in Sandy Halapay's estimation.

  Two of the man's paintings had been photographed to illustrate the review, and Qwilleran thought they looked pretty good. They were sailboats. He had always liked sailboats. He began to read:

  Any gallery-goer who entertains an appreciation for fine craftsmanship must not miss Franz Buchwalter's one-man show at the Westside Gallery this month [wrote Mountclemens]. The artist, who is a watercolorist and instructor at Penniman School of Fine Art, has elected to exhibit an outstanding collection of picture frames. It is obvious even to the untrained eye that the artist has been working diligently at his framing in the last year. The moldings are well-joined and the comers meticulously mitered.

  The collection is also distinguished by its variety. There are wide moldings, narrow moldings, and medium-size moldings, finished in gold leaf, silver leaf, walnut
, cherry and ebony, as well as a murky wash intended to be that fashionable counterfeit known as antique white.

  One of the best frames in the show is a wormy chestnut. It is difficult for an observer to determine — without actually inserting a darning needle in the holes — whether this was manufactured by worms in North Carolina or by electric drills in Kansas City. However, a picture-framer of Buchwalter's integrity would be unlikely to use inferior materials, and this critic rather feels that it is genuine wormy chestnut.

  The exhibition is well hung. And special praise must be given to the matting, the textures and tones of which are selected with taste and imagination. The artist has filled his remarkable picture frames with sailboats and other subjects that do not detract from the excellence of the moldings.

  Qwilleran looked at the illustrations again, and his moustache made small mute protests. The sailboats were pleasant- very pleasant indeed.

  He gathered up his newspaper and left. He was about to try something he had not done since the age of eleven, and at that time he had been under duress. In short, he spent the afternoon at the art museum.

  The city's art collection was housed in a marble edifice copied from a Greek temple, an Italian villa, and a French chateau. In the Sunday sun it gleamed white and proud, sparkling with a fringe of dripping icicles.

  He resisted an urge to go directly to the second floor for a look at the nudes

  recommended by Odd Bunsen, but he wandered into the checkroom for a glimpse of the cute chick. He found a long- haired, dreamy-faced girl wrestling with the coat hangers.

  She said, glancing at his moustache, "Didn't I see you at the Turp and Chisel last night?"

  "Didn't I see you in a pink negligee?"

  "We won a prize — Tom LaBlanc and I."

  "I know. It was a nice party."

  "Real cool. I thought it would be a bomb."

  In the lobby Qwilleran approached a uniformed attendant who wore the typical museum-guard expression of suspicion, disapproval, and ferocity.

  "Where can I find the museum director?" Qwilleran asked.

  "He's not around on Sundays — as a rule — but I saw him walking through the lobby a minute ago. Probably came in to pack. He's leaving here, you know."