“Good show! They collected over two thousand for the Ruff Abbey Fund. What did you think of Jeffa Young?”
“Fine woman. You’re lucky to get her for your staff.”
“I hear you took her to dinner. Is she going to do your chart?”
“The subject never came up, Mac.”
“She’s doing Gordie’s and mine. You should have one, Qwill.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.” This was Qwilleran’s way of turning down a suggestion. . . . but the suggestion would not go away. At home Polly called him, speaking in an apologetic way.
“Qwill, I’ve been asked to get some information from you—by hook or by crook.”
“Asked by whom? It doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s perfectly respectable. It’s for a Christmas gift. All I need is the place and hour of your birth.”
“Oh-oh! It sounds like one of Mildred’s tricks. Tell her I don’t want a horoscope. I’d rather have a handpainted necktie with a boa constrictor on it.”
. . .
After hanging up, he huffed into his moustache. The subterfuge had gone too far. Susan would be blackmailing him—in a genteel way. The only solution was to go to Jeffa Young and make a clean breast of it—but not right now. Koko was on the desk, sniffing at the day’s mail. He could tell which envelopes came from people having cats or dogs. . . . One was from Burgess Campbell, a printout of Phineas Ford’s Fabulous Collection:
Back in the 1920s there was a feed-and-seed dealer in Brrr Township who was a real nice guy—hardworking, honest with his customers, and devoted to his wife. They had no children, and it was his way of showing kindness and understanding by taking her for a ride every Sunday afternoon in his Maxwell. Or was it a Model T? They would buy strawberries or a pumpkin, depending on the season, and stop at an ice cream parlor in town for a soda.
His wife also liked to visit antique shops. She never bought anything—just looked. Every town had an antique shop and every farmhouse had a barnful of junk and a sign that said ANTIQUES. As she wandered through the jumble of castoffs, her husband trudged behind her, looking left and right and wondering why people bought such stuff.
Once in a while he played a little joke on her as they drove. She would say, “Stop! There’s an antique shop!” And he would say, “Where? Where?” and speed up. Sometimes she’d insist that he turn around and go back.
On one of these occasions she had her own way, and they visited a farmhouse collection of this and that, Phineas traipsing dutifully behind his wife. Suddenly he saw something that aroused his curiosity, and he asked the farmwife what it was.
“A scamadiddle,” she said. “Early American. Very rare. Found only in the Midwest.”
“How much do you want for it?”
“Oh, a dollar, I guess,” she said.
“Give you ninety cents.” Phineas was no fool.
He carried it to the car and put it on the backseat, causing his wife to ask, “What’s that thing?”
“What thing?”
“That thing on the backseat.”
“That’s a scamadiddle,” he said casually, as if he bought one every day. “Early American, you know. Very rare. Found only in the Midwest.”
“Oh,” she said. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Put it in the china cabinet.”
Every weekend after that, Phineas found pleasure in antiquing, forever searching for another scamadiddle. One Sunday he found it! Now he had two! He was a collector!
They began to travel farther afield, into adjoining counties, and to Phineas’s delight there was an occasional scamadiddle to be found. The shopkeepers, knowing his interest, kept their eyes open and produced an occasional treasure. He was paying two dollars now—and no dickering. He built a room onto their house, lined with shelves and one glass case for choice examples.
The breakthrough came when another collector died, and Phineas bought his entire collection. A magazine called him the Scamadiddle King. He built another, larger room and paid the high dollar for the few remaining scamadiddles. Three museums were bidding to buy the Phineas Ford Collection posthumously.
Then tragedy struck! One fateful night his house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, reducing the entire scamadiddle collection to ashes.
And that’s why—today—there’s not a single scamadiddle to be found in the United States.
Qwilleran chuckled long and lustily before phoning the antique shop. “Susan,” he said seriously, “do you ever run across any scamadiddles in your travels?”
“Any what?”
He repeated it and spelled it.
“I see whirligigs and niddy-noddies, but I’ve never seen a scamadiddle—but then folk things aren’t my specialty. Iris Cobb would know, if she were here.”
“Well, when you go to that big show in New York, will you inquire around?”
“How high are you willing to go?” she asked.
“Not over a thousand.”
thirteen
On Wednesday Qwilleran went downtown to pick up Polly’s groceries. In front of the Pickax People’s National Bank of America he came upon Burgess Campbell and friend, and he said heartily, “Professor Moriarty, I believe! Are you planning to rob the bank?”
There was a momentary handclasp. “Sherlock! How strange you should ask! Alexander has been sniffing out the security traps.”
“Shouldn’t you be in the lecture hall, Professor?”
“Not until one o’clock. Would you like to audit Political Foibles of the Early Nineteenth Century? I have a new boffo about Congress that you probably never heard.”
Opening each lecture with a joke, he maintained, put his students in a relaxed and receptive mode, and no one was ever late.
Qwilleran declined the invitation. “Only if you know the one about the preacher who thought his bicycle had been stolen. . . . But let me tell you that your scamadiddle scam is a gem! Of all the tales I’ve collected, it’s the only real leg-puller.”
“I hope you can credit my father. Prentis Campbell III. He was an unreconstructed joker.”
From there Qwilleran went to the library to break the news that he would not be joining Polly for leftovers that evening.
He stopped at the circulation desk to stroke Mac, one of the resident cats, and inquired about Katie.
“She had to go to the vet to have her teeth cleaned.” The clerk looked up at the glass-enclosed office on the mezzanine. “Mrs. Duncan has somebody with her.”
“No hurry. I’ll browse.” Browsing among the catalogued, jacketed, well-bound, dustfree titles in the public library lacked the sense of adventure he had known at Edd’s Editions. A part of his life had gone up in smoke.
After a while a man walked down the stairs, and Qwilleran walked up.
“That was Dr. Emerson from Black Creek,” Polly said. “He wants to donate a suitable memorial to his late mother. She was an eminent churchwoman, an enthusiastic reader, and a lifelong knitter. . . . Excuse me if I start my lunch. . . .” From her lunchbox arose the familiar whiff of tuna.
He said, “I’ll pick up your groceries, but I’m afraid I can’t have dinner tonight.”
“Oh, really?”
He paused long enough for her to imagine the worst scenario, then said, “It’s Wetherby Goode’s night off, and he’s taking me to the curling club. I’m treating to dinner.”
“Where will you go?”
“To the Nutcracker Inn—just to check it out. If the food and atmosphere are good, you and I will go—preferably before snow flies.”
He left her before she could offer him a carrot stick and drove to the art center.
The parking lot was filled to overflowing, and the manager, Barb Ogilvie, greeted him with excitement. “Qwill! Look at the response to your column about batik-printing! Standing room only! Do you want to squeeze in? It’s almost over.”
He chose to wait in the downstairs gallery until the scraping of chairs, hubbub of voices, and chugging of departing
vehicles told him the program was over. Misty was thrilled with the attendance and the number who signed up for the course: eight women and one man, some of them from Lockmaster County. “This is my week!” she said to Qwilleran. “First the really super column that you wrote—then the great turnout—and then, this afternoon, I sign the contract for ten shafthouse batiks. My patron doesn’t want the commission or his identity to be known until the project is finished, but I’ll give you a sneak peek at the sketches if you’ll promise not to tell.”
The ten shafthouses were basically similar, but the artist’s eye had discerned their individuality. The structures were sketched from different angles, and wildlife was introduced: a doe with fawn, a raccoon, crows chasing a hawk, an antlered buck, a pair of squirrels.
Misty said, “I normally ask two thousand for a three-by-four, custom-designed, but I’ll have to buy extra vats and hire students to help, and Theo thinks I should ask five thousand. But that sounds rather high to me.”
Qwilleran agreed with her husband. “Your patron sounds less like an art lover and more like an investor who thinks shafthouses will disappear from the landscape and the batiks will appreciate in value.”
On the way out he had a few words with the manager. Barb Ogilvie loved her new job, was teaching a class in art-knitting, and had started dating Misty’s brother-in-law.
Walking to the parking lot, Qwilleran said, “Hi!” to a tall man who was taking long strides toward the building. The tall man made an equally expressionless response. Wait a minute! Qwilleran told himself; that was Don Exbridge! He’s going in to sign the contract for ten batiks! He has no interest in art and had no interest in shafthouses until his recent letter to the editor—and that was of questionable sincerity.
Hurrying to the cell phone in his van, Qwilleran called the building he had just left and asked to speak with Misty.
Barb said, “She’s just gone into an important conference—”
“This is more important—and confidential, Barb. Qwill speaking. Have her take the call in your office. Don’t mention my name.”
Misty came to the phone with wariness in her hello.
“This is Qwill,” he said. “I saw your patron entering the building and know who he is—a shrewd operator. Take Theo’s advice. Ask five thousand. He can afford it, and the art is worth it. Also, ask innocently what he intends to do with them. His reaction should be revealing. If he gives you an answer, it should be interesting, though not necessarily honest.”
“You drive!” the weatherman said to Qwilleran when they met at six P.M. “I’ve got the jitters.” As they headed for the Nutcracker Inn, he explained. “I just got a bummer of a letter from my ex-wife—first one since the divorce five years ago. She wants us to get together again! How do I handle it? Ignore it? Tell her to drop dead? There’s no point in trying to explain reasonably; she’s like a bulldog—won’t let go. I like my lifestyle, my job, my friends, the idea of having relatives in Horseradish. Also, there’s a girl down there that I like a lot—nothing serious.”
Qwilleran said, “I suspected you didn’t go down there to visit your sisters and your cousins and your aunts. Why did your marriage break up, if I may ask?”
“She wanted me to go back to school, get another degree, and become a serious scientist. Let’s face it, I’m an entertainer, and weather is my gimmick! But she nagged and nagged and nagged. Why did your marriage break up, Qwill?”
“In-law trouble. She married me without her parents’ permission. In the first place they scorned the media, and I was a gypsy-journalist, working for a different paper every two years, taking assignments all over the globe. They talked her into divorcing me, saying I wasn’t good enough for her—I’d never amount to anything—I drank. Soon after, she had a nervous breakdown, for which I was blamed, of course. Her parents were loaded, but they sent me her hospital bills. After that I really hit the bottle. Couldn’t hold a job. Almost killed myself before I came to my senses and got help. . . . I usually don’t go into these details.”
“How would you feel, Qwill, if she suddenly suggested a reconciliation?”
“She died a few years ago—in an institution.”
For a while there was nothing to say, until Qwilleran remarked, “With so many failed marriages, one forgets how many are successful: the Lanspeaks, the MacWhannells, Junior and Jody Goodwinter, Fran Brodie’s parents, the MacGillivrays, Lori and Nick Bamba, the Buster Ogilvies, Homer Tibbitt and Rhoda—”
“The Tibbitts are practically newlyweds,” Wetherby said.
“At their age, every year counts ten. . . . What about the mayor? I never hear anything about his home life.”
“He has a wife, no kids. Betty’s a homebody; hizzoner goes out selling stocks and bonds, playing golf, and pressing the flesh. His wife runs a mail-order business for her handcrafts. Have you heard of Betty Blythe’s Bunwarmers?”
“No! And I’m gripping the steering wheel to avoid falling off the seat. What are they?”
“Handmade baskets with handwoven napkins for keeping dinner rolls warm. She advertises in craft magazines and does very well.”
Only one old building remained in Black Creek, which had been a thriving town on a busy waterway in the nineteenth century. The Limburger mansion had been purchased by the Klingenschoen Foundation and was now making its debut as a country inn. There had been magnificent black walnut trees in the vicinity, and the mansion had the treasured black walnut woodwork. Hence the name: the Nutcracker Inn.
Qwilleran said to Wetherby, “I was in this house when the old man was alive—an eccentric old geezer. There was a cuckoo clock in the front hall. It’s gone.”
“A good thing, too!” was the reply. “It would have driven the guests crazy. Or perhaps I should say: cuckoo.”
When the innkeeper welcomed them, Qwilleran asked about facilities for lodging and was told there were four large rooms on the second floor, two suites on the third floor, and five semi-housekeeping cabins down by the creek.
“Open all year round?”
“That depends what happens after snow flies. The K Foundation will make the decision. I’m Chicago-based, under contract to train staff and get the place running, then hire permanent innkeepers from the locality.”
“I know the ideal couple,” Qwilleran said. “Lori and Nick Bamba have the personality for innkeeping and a certain amount of experience.”
“Good! Tell them to apply to the K Foundation.”
When they were seated in the dining room, Wetherby said, “I remember the Bambas. They had a B&B at Breakfast Island. What happened?”
“The weather didn’t cooperate. Lori is working at the Pet Plaza now.”
“Kennebeck is having its annual roundup of stray cats before the Big One moves in. Any stray that’s adopted will be spayed or neutered—with Tipsy’s Tavern paying for it.”
“Tipsy herself was a stray, seventy years ago,” Qwilleran said.
“Did you see that teaser ad for a new recreation center in Pickax? What do you suppose it is?”
“Who knows? They promise fun for the whole family.”
“And did you see the letters to the editor in Monday’s paper? They’re all nuts! Did you hear that we have a professional astrologer living in the Village? I’m thinking of having my horoscope done. She does it in depth. Why don’t you have yours done, Qwill? I’m a Scorpio, sexy and talkative. What are you?”
“A Gemini—talented, likable, sensitive, kind, generous—”
“Sure,” Wetherby said.
“How about filling me in on curling—before we go to the club? How many on a team?”
“Four and a captain, called a skip.”
“How big is the rink?”
“A little wider than a bowling alley—and longer. The target, called the ‘house,’ is a circle of concentric rings, and the bull’s-eye is called the ‘tee.’”
“And what are the stones and brooms called?”
“Stones and brooms.”
“W
hat does the skip do?”
“He reads the ice. There’s fast ice and slow ice. He calls the plays: when to sweep, when to take out an opponent’s stone, how much weight to put into the throw. A lot of strategy and a lot of skill go into the game. Also a lot of suspense for the watchers. It won’t be crowded tonight, but you should see it when they have a tournament—called a bonspiel.”
The Pickax Curling Club had been built out in the country where land was affordable, and there was plenty of space for parking during a bonspiel. It looked, everyone said, like a Swiss chalet, and the interior expressed friendliness, the essence of the sport of curling.
Qwilleran later described his reactions in his personal journal:
Joe and I started in the warming room, where I saw a few persons I knew: Theo and Misty Morghan . . . Fran Brodie and Dr. Prelligate . . . Hixie Rice and Dwight Somers . . . Jeffa Young with (of all people!) Kirt Nightingale. Was he trying to sell her some books? Or was she lining him up for a natal chart? Dwight thanked me for recommending him to Cass Young and said he could do the builder a lot of good.
While chatting with the Morghans, I heard something enlightening. Misty’s secret patron (I happen to know he’s Don Exbridge) dropped in at her studio to inquire if she could meet a certain deadline. He said they’re for use in a large restaurant with balconies, and the batiks would hang from the balcony railings. The restaurant wanted to open before snow flies. It would help if she could deliver a few of the batiks, if not the whole order.
So that explained why Ernie Kemple’s offer for the building was rejected! Exbridge is going into business with the former owner of Otto’s Tasty Eats!
Joe pointed out Cass Young—a good-looking man, tall and straight like his mother. Cass and the members of the ice committee were dealing with a problem, so we didn’t intrude. It appeared that the new compressor machine was not maintaining the ice properly, and there was a bonspiel scheduled for Saturday. The technician had to come from Bixby, and he had a prior emergency, but he would come late if someone would promise to let him in.
The Cat Who Smelled a Rat Audio Page 12
