The Cat Who Played Post Office
Page 18
“Didn’t you ever suspect Penelope?”
“Well, she changed the subject whenever I mentioned Daisy, but I thought she considered it gauche to discuss servants. I admit I was puzzled when she repeatedly declined my invitations to lunch or whatever.”
“No mystery,” Melinda said. “I told her to keep hands off or I’d spread some unsavory rumors.”
“Melinda, you’re a nasty green-eyed monster.”
“All Goodwinters have a nasty streak; it’s in our genes.”
After studying the menu they ordered trout amandine.
“That’s trout with almonds,” said the waitperson, eager to be of service.
“Fine. And we’d like asparagus.”
“That’s extra,” Matthew warned.
While they waited for the entrée Melinda said to Qwilleran, “So you were wrong about the New Jersey connection. There was no sinister plot to eliminate you and grab the inheritance.”
He looked sheepish. “That’s what happens when I jump to my own conclusions instead of getting my signals from Koko. You know, that cat is ten pounds of bone and muscle in a fur coat, with whiskers and a long tail and a wet nose, but he’s smarter than I am. Without ever visiting Daisy’s apartment, he knew something was wrong. He knew Penelope’s final letter was going to be delivered. He knew Birch was sneaking up on the house last night.”
“Cats have a sixth sense.”
“Six! I say Koko has sixteen!”
“If only he could communicate!”
“He communicates all right. The problem is: I’m not smart enough to read him. Let me tell you something, Melinda. When I got the notion that the whole state of New Jersey was after me, Koko was disgusted; he avoided me for days. At one point he pushed some books off a shelf in the library, and I scolded him for it. Do you know what the books were? A poem titled Doomsday by a seventeenth-century Scottish poet named Sir William Alexander!”
The entrée was served. “This is your trout amandine and asparagus on heated plates,” said Matthew.
Qwilleran stared at the vegetable. “This isn’t asparagus. It’s broccoli.”
“Sorry. I’ll take it back.” Matthew removed the plates but soon returned with them. “The chef says it’s asparagus.”
They ate their trout and broccoli in silence until Qwilleran said, “If Koko hadn’t sniffed out the Daisy situation, and if I hadn’t started investigating, Penelope and Tiffany and Della would be alive today.”
“And a murderer would be at large,” Melinda reminded him.
“The Goodwinter reputation would be intact, and Alexander would run for Congress. He’d marry Ilya Smfska and produce another generation of supersnobs.”
“And the murderer and his accomplices would live happily ever after.”
“Penelope would eventually make an emotional adjustment,” Qwilleran said, “and Alexander would keep on paying for Birch Tree’s boats and trucks and motorcycles, but he could afford it.”
“And no one would care that Daisy was buried in the Three Pines mineshaft,” Melinda said.
After the tossed salad on a chilled plate with a chilled fork, and after the Ribier grapes with homemade cheese, and after coffee served with Stephanie’s own cream, Qwilleran and Melinda walked back to her father’s house.
Dr. Halifax met them at the door. “Prepare for some jolting news,” he said. “Just heard it on the radio. A private plane crashed fifty miles south of the airport, and the pilot has just been identified.”
“Alexander,” Qwilleran said quietly, as his moustache bristled.
Back at the mansion he was greeted by a prancing Siamese. Koko knew it was time for the nightly house check, and he led the way to the solarium.
“Case solved,” Qwilleran said to him, “but I’d like to know the real reason why you pushed those things around the kitchen. Were you trying to tell me to get that cold stone floor carpeted?”
He finished locking the French doors, and Koko preceded him to the breakfast room. While the man checked the Staffordshire figurines and German regimental steins, the cat checked for stray crumbs under the table.
“Tell me something,” Qwilleran said to him. “When you found Daisy’s diary, were you just chasing a fly? And if so, how come it happened to be crawling about Sandy Goodwinter’s initials?”
Koko bounded ahead to the library, where he pawed a leather-bound copy of The Physiology of Taste. In the dining room he sniffed the carved rabbits and pheasants on the sideboard. Then he marched into the drawing room, zigzagging across the Aubusson rug to avoid the roses in the pattern. While Qwilleran gave the bronzes and porcelains a security check, Koko headed for the antique piano.
Leaping lightly to the cushioned bench, he reached up with his right paw in an indecisive way, then withdrew it. After a few tentative passes with his left paw, he planted it firmly on G and then C. He seemed pleased with the sound made by the keys. More confidently he hit the D with his right paw and finally touched the E.
Qwilleran shook his head. “No one would believe it!” He switched off the lights and strode to the kitchen, humming the tune Koko had played: “How Dry I Am!”
Yum Yum was asleep on her blue cushion, and Qwilleran stroked her fur before opening the refrigerator. He splashed a jigger of white grape juice in a saucer, placed it on the floor, and watched Koko lap it up with lightning-fast tongue, his tail curled high in ecstasy.
“I’ll never figure you out,” Qwilleran said. “You’re all cat, and yet you sense the most incredible secrets. You were fascinated by Penelope, and it wasn’t just her French perfume. You howled at the exact hour when she died.”
Koko licked the saucer dry and started to wash up.
“Did you know she was going to be murdered?”
Koko interrupted his ablutions to give Qwilleran a penetrating stare, and the man slapped his forehead as the truth struck him. “It wasn’t a homicide set up to look like a suicide. She framed those guys! It was suicide planned to look like murder!”
Koko finished his chore, with great care to wash behind his ears, between his toes, and all along his whip of a brown tail.