“I hope they haven’t done any damage to the museum.”
“No, but it’s something we worry about . . . Would you like to look around the apartment while I wash the salad stuff?”
The focus of her living quarters was the country kitchen, where a round oak table and pressed-back chairs were ready for dinner. (Dinner for three, Qwilleran noticed. Nothing had been said about another guest.) There was a small bedroom with an enormous bed—the kind Lincoln would have liked. And there was a parlor with wing-back chairs in front of the fireplace, a rocker in a sunny window, and a large Pennsylvania German wardrobe that had been in the Klingenschoen mansion at one time. Koko soon discovered the sunny window. He even recognized the wardrobe. Yum Yum stayed in the kitchen, however, where the pot roast was putting forth tantalizing aromas.
Mrs. Cobb said, “I invited Polly Duncan because she helped with research for the museum, but she had a previous engagement. So I called Hixie Rice. She’s been advising us on publicity, you know. She had a date to go sailing this afternoon, but she’ll be here a little later.”
“Hixie is always good company,” Qwilleran said, wondering if Polly really had another engagement, or if she was avoiding him.
“You’ll never recognize the main part of the house when you see it,” Mrs. Cobb said as she twirled the lettuce in a salad basket. “Remember all that decorator-type wallpaper? When we removed it, we found the original walls had been stenciled, so we did some research on stenciling and got the paperhanger to restore it for us. He was very cooperative. He’s a nice young man but down in the dumps because his girl jilted him and married someone wealthy. I told him to forget his old flame and find a girl who’ll appreciate him. He’s almost thirty; he should get married . . . Now prepare for a surprise!”
She led the way into a section of the house built in the mid-nineteenth century and now restored to the simplicity of pioneer days. Furnishings such as a rope bed, trestle table and pie safe had come from the attics of Moose County residents.
“We want it to look as if our great-great-grandparents still live here,” she said. “Can’t you just imagine them cooking in the fireplace, reading the evening prayers by candlelight, and taking Saturday night baths in the kitchen?”
The floors sloped; the floorboards were wide; the six-over-six windows had some of the original wavy glass. Mrs. Cobb conducted the tour with professional authority while Qwilleran and Koko tagged along, the latter sniffing invisible spots on the rag rugs and rubbing his back against furniture legs. Yum Yum stayed in the kitchen, guarding the pot roast.
“And now we come to the east wing, added in 1890. We use these rooms to exhibit collections. Here’s the Halifax Goodwinter Room with the doctor’s collection of lighting devices—from an early rush lamp to an elegant Tiffany lamp in the wisteria pattern—very valuable.”
At this remark Qwilleran kept a close watch on Koko, but the cat was not attracted to art glass. He merely rubbed his jaw against the corner of a showcase.
“The Mary Tait MacGregor Room is all textiles. Old Mr. MacGregor gave us his wife’s quilts, hooked rugs, jacquard coverlets and so on, all handed down in her family.” Koko rolled on a hooked rug done in a distelfink pattern.
The Hasselrich Room featured Moose County documents, which Qwilleran said he would like to study at some future date: land grants, early birth and death certificates, journals of nineteenth-century court proceedings, and ledgers from old general stores, itemizing kerosene at a nickel a gallon and three yards of calico for fifteen cents.
“It breaks my heart to show you the next room, considering what happened,” said Mrs. Cobb. “Nigel was president of the Historical Society, and he didn’t even live to see it dedicated. That rolltop desk belonged to Cyrus Fitch, and in one of the drawers we found a list of his bootleg customers. Imagine! He was smuggling whiskey during Prohibition! They’re all dead now, except Homer Tibbitt.”
The cut glass, she said, was donated by Margaret Fitch. A punch bowl, decanters and other serving pieces were dazzling under artfully placed spotlights, but not dazzling enough to capture Qwilleran’s full attention. He was getting hungry. Nigel had contributed his collection of mining memorabilia: pickaxes, sledgehammers, miners’ caps, lanterns, etc., and David had done pen-and-ink sketches of the shafthouses at the old mines.
Qwilleran tried to subdue his rumbling stomach and then realized that the disturbance was actually a low growl coming from Koko’s chest. The cat had discovered a tiered platform exhibiting three model ships. He stood on his hind legs and pawed the air, weaving his head from side to side and looking exactly like one of the rampant cats on the Mackintosh coat of arms.
“Oh, look at him!” cried Mrs. Cobb. “Isn’t that touching? Those models were made by Harley Fitch! The three-masted schooner is a replica of one that sank off Purple Point around 1880.”
“I think Koko smells the glue,” Qwilleran said. “He’s a fiend for glue. We’d better get him out of here before he launches a naval attack.”
A car drove into the yard, and Qwilleran grabbed Koko while Mrs. Cobb went to greet Hixie Rice.
Sunburned and windblown and clad in sailing stripes, shorts and deck shoes, Hixie breezed into the house. “I hope you don’t mind how I look. I’ve been sailing with one of my customers. He has a catamaran. I never knew sailing could be so divine!”
“You should put something on that sunburn,” Mrs. Cobb advised as she served Hixie a Campari.
Qwilleran said, “I wondered why the Black Bear Café was running such large ads in the Something. You’ve been cozying up to the proprietor. I hope you know he’s descended from a pirate.”
“I don’t care if he’s descended from a dinosaur! He has a beautiful boat. We’re going out again next Sunday.”
“He used to sail with Harley Fitch. Did he mention the Fitch Witch?”
“No, he talked mainly about himself . . . and how a blue skyful of sail and a whispering breeze touches the soul of a man.”
The pot roast was succulent; the mashed potatoes were superlative; the homemade bread was properly chewy; the coconut cake was ambrosial. So said the guests, and Mrs. Cobb basked in their compliments.
Hixie summed it up. “Forget about the museum, Iris, and open a restaurant. Half the places that run ads in our paper are vile! The ethnic restaurants are the best bet. There’s a super little eatery in Brrr called the North Pole Café, where they serve the best zupa grzybowa and nerki duszone I’ve ever tasted. North Pole! Get it?”
“How about Italian food?” Qwilleran asked.
“There’s a fabulous place in Mooseville that’s a real mama-and-papa operation. He cooks, and she waits on table. When I went there to pick up their ad order, I went to the restroom and got locked in. I hammered on the door, and I heard Mrs. Linguini yell, ‘Papa, lady locked in the toilet! Bring a toothpick!’ After a while there was a picking sound in the lock, and Mr. Linguini opened the door, looking cross. He said, ‘You do it wrong. I show you.’ And he came into the washroom and locked the door. Of course, the mechanism didn’t work, and I was locked in the ladies’ room with Mr. Linguini!”
“How did you get out?” asked Mrs. Cobb, seriously concerned.
“He hammered on the door and yelled, ‘Mama, bring a toothpick!’ Oh, it’s lots of fun selling ads for the Moose County Something.”
Qwilleran said, “Hixie, you should write a guide to the restaurants and restrooms of the county.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it! All I need is a snappy title that’s fit to print.”
After coffee she excused herself, saying she wanted to get home before dark, although Qwilleran suspected she was going back to the Black Bear Café. He walked her to her car.
“Since you’re so keen on creative journalism,” he said, “why don’t you ask your sailing partner if he killed Harley and Belle in order to finance the remodeling of the hotel. A skyful of sail and a whispering breeze and thou might loosen his tongue.”
“You want me
to accuse him of murder while we’re five miles out in the lake and I’m ducking the boom? No thanks!” She gunned the motor and took off.
Qwilleran chuckled. Hixie had always dated men on the shady side of respectability. He returned to the house where Mrs. Cobb was touching a match to the kindling in the fireplace.
“We’ll have our second cuppa here,” she said. “It’ll be cozy. That Hixie is a clever girl, isn’t she? And nice looking. I wonder why she doesn’t get married.”
They sat in the wing chairs. Koko, stuffed with pot roast, went to sleep on the hearth rug. Yum Yum still preferred the kitchen.
“Wonderful little animals,” she said. “I miss them.”
“And they miss your cooking . . . I do, too,” he added with more feeling than he usually displayed before his former housekeeper.
She breathed a heavy sigh that summed up all the misadventures they had survived at the Klingenschoen mansion. She was looking prettier than usual in her pink ruffled blouse, with the dancing flames lighting her face. He remembered the pink scarf and dashed out to the car for the Lanspeak giftbox tied with pink ribbon.
“Oh, real silk!” she cried. “And my favorite color. You remembered!” Her tear-dampened eyes were enlarged by the strong lenses in her eyeglasses, and Qwilleran felt a surge of compassion for her. She liked male companionship, and yet all three of her marriages had ended sadly. Although she claimed to be happy, he knew she was lonely. Sometimes he wondered about himself. He had been a bachelor for ten years, telling himself it was the best way to live. Life had been agreeable while Mrs. Cobb was his housekeeper, and the meals had been superb. Now he ate in restaurants and was constantly looking for a dinner companion. His best friend, Arch Riker, would soon be married and staying home evenings. Most of the women he knew were either too aggressive or too frivolous for his taste. The head librarian was the exception, but he and Polly had played their last scene, and he knew when to bring down the curtain.
He was quiet, lulled into contentment by good food, pleasing environment, and the domestic tranquility of the moment. Mrs. Cobb seemed to sense his mood, and her eyes smiled hopefully. Only the crackling of the fire and Koko’s heavy breathing broke the silence. Qwilleran wanted to say something, but for once he was at a loss for words. She was an amenable woman, a comfortable companion. He had only to say “Iris!” and she would say “Oh, Qwill!” with tears streaming down under her thick glasses.
Suddenly there was a rushing, bumping, scrambling, thumping burst of noise from the adjoining room. The man and woman ran to the kitchen. Yum Yum was lying on her side at the base of the gas range with her famous paw extended under the appliance while her tail slapped the floor.
“She’s got a mouse!” Qwilleran said. He reached for her and received a snarl in response.
“Leave her alone,” Mrs. Cobb said. “She thinks you want to take it away from her.”
“That’s where the mice are getting in—where the gas lines come into the house,” he said. “No wonder she was watching the range all evening. She could hear them.”
“Oh, she’s a good kitty—a real good kitty!”
“She’s smarter than your plumber, Mrs. Cobb.”
The tail-thumping slowed and then stopped, and Yum Yum wriggled across the floor, withdrawing her long foreleg with the prize clutched in the sharp claws of her famous right paw. Koko walked into the room and yawned.
Mrs. Cobb looked at him in consternation. “Just like a man!”
Her comment took Qwilleran by surprise. It was out of character for the docile, male-worshipping widow he had known.
“Time to go home,” he said, opening the picnic hamper. “It was a wonderful dinner, Mrs. Cobb, and you’re to be complimented on the museum. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
With the hamper on the backseat and the two commodes on the floor, Qwilleran tooted a farewell to his hostess on the doorstep and headed the car toward Pickax. He was thankful that Yum Yum had caught her mouse at an auspicious time, saving him from an amorous slip of the tongue. He needed no more women on his trail—least of all, his former housekeeper, who was marriage oriented and tragedy prone. All three of her husbands had died violent deaths.
He drove past the Hanging Tree and across the Old Plank Bridge and then west on Ittibittiwassee Road. There was little traffic. The county had built the road—at great expense—to accommodate Exbridge’s condominium development. Most motorists preferred the shorter, more commercial route, however, and the local wags called the new highway Ittibittigraft.
Darkness was falling as he passed the site of the old Buckshot Mine. It was here, he recalled, that he had suffered a serious bicycle accident a year before—a highly questionable accident.
And now . . . it all happened again.
SCENE SEVEN
Place:
A lonely stretch of Ittibittiwassee Road
Time:
Later the same evening
It was late Sunday night, and the traffic on Ittibittiwassee Road was sparse. Westward bound, Qwilleran met no cars approaching in the opposite direction, and he drove with his country brights illuminating the yellow lines on the pavement. On either side darkness closed in over the patches of woods, abandoned mine sites and boulder-studded pastureland. Now and then a half-moon accentuated the eeriness of the landscape, then retired behind a cloud.
Eventually headlights appeared in Qwilleran’s rearview mirror—country lights excessively bright until he flicked the mirror to cut the glare. The vehicle was gaining on him. Its pattern was erratic: swerving into the eastbound lane as if planning to pass—falling back into line—coming closer—swerving again to the left. It was a van, and when it came alongside, it was too close for a prudent driver’s peace of mind. Qwilleran edged to the right. The van crowded closer.
He’s drunk, Qwilleran thought, and he steered close to the shoulder and eased up on the pedal. The van loomed over the small car. Another inch and it would bump him off the road. He steered onto the shoulder . . . Easy! Loose gravel! . . . Skidding! Easy! Turn into the skid! Baby the brake! . . . And then the little car hit a boulder and flipped over . . . still traveling, sliding along the edge of the ditch . . . another jolt, another rollover, twice, before it came to a shuddering halt in the dry ditch.
There was a moment of stunned disorientation—pedals and dashboard overhead—seat cushions and roasting pans everywhere—a shower of kitty gravel.
Why was there no cry from the cats?
Qwilleran unbuckled and climbed out of the door that had been thrown open by the impact. Then he crawled back into the dark car and groped for the hamper. It was lying on the upside-down ceiling, jammed under a seat cushion, its cover open, the cats gone!
“Koko!” he yelled. “Koko! Yum Yum!”
There was no answer. He thought, They might have taken flight in terror! They might have been flung from the car! In panic he searched the ditch in the immediate vicinity, looking for small light-colored bodies in the darkness. He called again. Utter silence.
Then headlights illuminated the landscape as a car approached from the east, stopping on the shoulder of the road. A man jumped out and ran to the scene. “Are you okay? Anybody hurt?”
“I’m all right, but I’ve lost my cats. Two of them. They may have been thrown out.”
The motorist turned and shouted toward his own car, “Radio the sheriff, hon, and bring the torch!” To Qwilleran he said, “Have you tried calling them? It’s heavily wooded along here. They might be hiding.”
“They’re indoor cats. They never go out. I don’t know how they’d react to the accident and unfamiliar surroundings.”
“Your car’s totaled.”
“I don’t care about the car. I’m worried about the cats.”
“The guy was drunk. I saw him weaving before he crowded you off the road. Seemed like a light-colored van.”
The man’s wife arrived with a high-powered flashlight, and Qwilleran started beaming it in the ditch and along the
edge of the thicket.
The man said to her, “He had two cats in the car. They escaped or were thrown out.”
“They’ll be all right,” she said. “We had a cat fall from a third-floor window.”
“Quiet!” Qwilleran said. “I thought I heard a cry.”
The wail came again.
“That’s some kind of night bird,” the woman said.
“Quiet! . . . while I call them and listen for an answer.”
Headlights and a flashing red rooflight appeared in the distance, and a sheriff’s car pulled up. The deputy in a brown uniform said, “May I see your operator’s license?” He nodded when Qwilleran handed it over. “How did it happen, Mr. Qwilleran?”
The other motorist said, “I saw it all. A drunk driver. Crowded him off the road, and then skipped.”
Qwilleran said, “I had two cats in the car, and I can’t find them.”
The deputy flashed a light around the wreck. “Could be underneath.”
The woman said, “We’d better go, honey. The baby-sitter has to leave at 11:30.”
“Well, thanks,” Qwilleran said. “Here’s your flashlight.”
“Keep it,” the man said. “You can get it back to me where I work. Smitty’s Refrigeration on South Main.”
The deputy wrote his report and offered Qwilleran a ride into Pickax.
“I can’t leave until I find them.”
“You could be out here all night, sir.”
“I don’t care. After you leave they may come crawling out of the bushes. I’ve got to be here when they do.”
“I’ll check back with you on my next round. We’re watching this road. I nabbed four DWIs last night.”
He left, and Qwilleran resumed his search, calling at intervals and hearing nothing except the night noises of the woods, as some small animal scurried through the underbrush or an owl hooted or a loon cackled his insane laugh.
He extracted the wicker hamper from the wreckage—out of shape but intact. He found the two commodes, also. The roasting pans had fared better than the body of his car. He was grateful for the flashlight.
The Cat Who Sniffed Glue Page 15
