The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  The man with a prominent moustache huffed into it with annoyance.

  “Why fight it, Qwill? Isn’t the K Foundation a philanthropic institution? Isn’t it mandated to do what’s best for the community?”

  Qwilleran shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’ve kept my nose out of the operation because I know nothing about business and finance—and care even less—but if I had offered more input, the directors might have balanced economic improvement with environmental foresight. More and more I’m concerned about the future of our planet.”

  “Well, you have a point there,” Riker admitted. “Let’s drink to environmental conscience!” he said jovially, waving his empty glass at a tall serving person, who was hovering nearby. Derek Cuttlebrink was obviously listening to their conversation. “Another Scotch, Derek.”

  “No more for me,” said Mildred.

  Polly was still sipping her first glass of sherry.

  Qwilleran shook his head, having downed two glasses of a local mineral water.

  Everyone was ready to order, and Riker inquired if there were any specials.

  “Chicken Florentine,” said the server, making a disagreeable face.

  The four diners glanced at each other, and Mildred said, “Oh, no!”

  They consulted the menu, and the eventual choice was trout for Mildred, sweetbreads for Polly, and rack of lamb for the two men. Then Qwilleran returned to the subject: “Why did they change it to Pear Island? I say that Breakfast Island has a friendly and appetizing connotation.”

  “It won’t do any good to complain,” Riker told him. “XYZ Enterprises has spent a fortune on wining and dining travel editors, and every travel page in the country has hailed the discovery of Pear Island. Anyway, that’s what it’s called on the map, and it happens to be pear-shaped. Furthermore, surveys indicate that a sophisticated market Down Below finds ‘Pear Island’ more appealing than ‘Breakfast Island,’ according to Don Exbridge.” He referred to the X in XYZ Enterprises.

  “They like the pear’s erotic shape,” Qwilleran grumbled. “As a fruit it’s either underripe or overripe, mealy or gritty, with a choice of mild flavor or no flavor.”

  Mildred protested. “I insist there’s nothing to equal a beautiful russet-colored Bosc with a wedge of Roquefort!”

  “Of course! A pear needs all the help it can get. It’s delicious with chocolate sauce or fresh raspberries. What isn’t?”

  “Qwill’s on his soapbox again,” Riker observed.

  “I agree with him on the name of the island,” said Polly. “I think ‘Breakfast Island’ has a certain quaint charm. Names of islands on the map usually reflect a bureaucratic lack of imagination.”

  “Enough about pears!” Riker said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Let’s eat.”

  Mildred asked Qwilleran, “Don’t you have friends who’ve opened a bed-and-breakfast on the island!”

  “I do indeed, and it disturbs me. Nick and Lori Bamba were about to convert one of the old fishing lodges there. Then the Pear Island resort hoopla started, and they got sucked into the general promotional scheme. They would have preferred leaving the island in its natural state as much as possible.”

  “Here comes the food,” Arch Riker said with a sigh of relief.

  Qwilleran turned to the young man who was serving the entrées. “How come you’re waiting on tables, Derek? I thought you’d been promoted to assistant chef.”

  “Yeah…well…I was in charge of French fries and garlic toast, but I can make more money out on the floor, what with tips, you know. Mr. Exbridge—he’s one of the owners here—said he might give me a summer job at his new hotel. You can have a lot of fun, working at a resort. I’d like to be captain in the hotel dining room, where they slip you a ten for giving them a good table.”

  “As captain you’d be outstanding,” Qwilleran said. Derek Cuttlebrink was six-feet-eight and still growing.

  Polly asked him, “Now that Pickax is getting a community college, do you think you might further your education?”

  “If they’re gonna teach ecology, maybe I will. I’ve met this girl, you know, and she’s into ecology pretty heavy.”

  Qwilleran asked, “Is she the girl who owns the blue nylon tent?”

  “Yeah, we went camping last summer. I learned a lot…Anything else you guys want here?”

  When Derek had ambled away, Riker muttered, “When will his consumption of French fries and hot dogs start nourishing his brain instead of his arms and legs?”

  “Give him a break. He’s smarter than you think,” Qwilleran replied.

  The meal was untainted by any further argument about Breakfast Island. The Rikers described the new addition to their beach house on the sand dune near Mooseville. Polly announced that her old college roommate had invited her to visit Oregon. Qwilleran, when pressed, said he might do some freelance writing during the summer.

  In pleased surprise, Polly asked, “Do you have something important in mind, dear?” As a librarian, she entertained a perennial hope that Qwilleran would write a literary masterpiece. Although the two of them had a warm and understanding relationship, this particular aspiration was hers, not his. Whenever she launched her favorite theme, he found a way to tease her.

  “Yes…I’m thinking…of a project,” he said soberly. “I may undertake to write…cat opera for TV. How’s this for a scenario?…In the first episode we’ve left Fluffy and Ting Foy hissing at each other, after an unidentified male has approached her and caused Ting Foy to make a big tail. Today’s episode starts with a long shot of Fluffy and Ting Foy at their feeding station, gobbling their food amicably. We zoom in on the empty plate and the wash-up ritual, frontal exposures only. Then…close-up of a cuckoo clock. [Sound of cuckooing.] Ting Foy leaves the scene. [Sound of scratching in litter box.] Cut to female, sitting on her brisket, meditating. She turns her head. She hears something! She reacts anxiously. Has her mysterious lover returned? Will Ting Foy come back from the litter box? Why is he taking so long? What will happen when the two males meet?…Tune in tomorrow, same time.”

  Riker guffawed. “This has great sponsorship potential, Qwill: catfood, cat litter, flea collars…”

  Mildred giggled, and Polly smiled indulgently.

  “Very amusing, Qwill dear, but I wish you’d apply your talents to belles lettres.”

  “I know my limitations,” he said. “I’m a hack journalist, but a good hack journalist: nosy, aggressive, suspicious, cynical—”

  “Please, Qwill!” Polly remonstrated. “We appreciate a little nonsense, but let’s not be totally absurd.”

  Across the table the newlyweds gazed at each other in middle-aged bliss. They were old enough to have grandchildren but young enough to hold hands under the tablecloth. Both had survived marital upheavals, but now the easygoing publisher had married the warm-hearted Mildred Hanstable, who taught art and homemaking skills in the public schools. She also wrote the food column for the Moose County Something. She was noticeably overweight, but so was her bridegroom.

  For this occasion Mildred had baked a chocolate cake, and she suggested having dessert and coffee at their beach house. The new addition had doubled the size of the little yellow cottage, and an enlarged deck overlooked the lake. Somewhere out there was Breakfast and/or Pear Island.

  The interior of the beach house had undergone some changes, too, since their marriage. The handmade quilts that previously muffled the walls and furniture had been removed, and the interior was light and airy with splashes of bright yellow. The focal point was a Japanese screen from the VanBrook estate, a wedding gift from Qwilleran.

  Riker said, “It’s hard to find a builder for a small job, but Don Exbridge sent one of his crackerjack construction crews, and they built our new wing in a jiffy. Charged only for labor and materials.”

  A black-and-white cat with rakish markings walked inquisitively into their midst and was introduced as Toulouse. He went directly to Qwilleran and had his ears scratched.

  “We w
anted a purebred,” said Mildred, “but Toulouse came to our door one day and just moved in.”

  “His coloring is perfect with all the yellow in the house,” Polly remarked.

  “Do you think I’ve used too much? It’s my favorite color, and I tend to overdo it.”

  “Not at all. It makes a very spirited and happy ambiance. It reflects your new lifestyle.”

  Riker said, “Toulouse is a nice cat, but he has one bad habit. He pounces on the kitchen counter when Mildred is cooking and steals a shrimp or a pork chop, right from under her nose. When I lived Down Below, we had a cat who was a counter-pouncer, and we cured his habit with a spray bottle of water. We had a damp pet for a couple of weeks (that’s spelled d-a-m-p), but he got the message and was a model of propriety for the rest of his life—except when we weren’t looking.”

  The evening ended earlier than usual, because Polly was working the next day. No one else had any Saturday commitments. Riker, following his recent marriage, no longer spent seven days a week at the office, and Qwilleran’s life was unstructured, except for feeding and brushing the Siamese and servicing their commode. “My self-image,” he liked to say, “was formerly that of a journalist; now I perceive myself as handservant to a pair of cats—also tailservant.”

  He and Polly drove back to Pickax, where she had an apartment on Goodwinter Boulevard, not far from his converted apple barn. As soon as they pulled away from the beach house he popped the question: “What’s all this about going to Oregon? You never told me.”

  “I’m sorry, dear. My old roommate phoned just before you picked me up, and the invitation was so unexpected, I hardly knew how to decide. But I have two weeks more of vacation time, and I’ve never seen Oregon. They say it’s a beautiful state.”

  “Hmmm,” Qwilleran murmured as he considered all the aspects of this sudden decision. Once she had gone to England alone and had become quite ill. Once she had gone to Lockmaster for a weekend and had met another man. At length he asked, “Shall I feed Bootsie while you’re away?”

  “That’s kind of you to offer, Qwill, but he really needs a live-in companion for that length of time. My sister-in-law will be happy to move in. When I return, we should think seriously about spending a weekend on the island at an interesting bed-and-breakfast.”

  “A weekend of inhaling fudge fumes could be hazardous to our health,” he objected. “It would be safer to fly down to Minneapolis with the Rikers. You and Mildred could go shopping, and Arch and I could see a ballgame.” He stroked his moustache in indecision, wondering how much to tell her. He had an uneasiness about the present situation that was rooted in the old days, when he and Riker worked for large newspapers Down Below. They kept a punctilious distance from advertisers, lobbyists, and politicians as a matter of policy. Now, Riker was getting too chummy with Don Exbridge. XYZ Enterprises was a heavy advertiser in the Moose County Something; Exbridge had lent the Rikers a cottage for their honeymoon; and he had expedited the building of an addition to their beach house.

  To Qwilleran it looked bad. And yet, he tried to tell himself, this was a small town, and everything was different. There were fewer people, and they were constantly thrown together at churches, fraternal lodges, business organizations, and country clubs. They were all on first-name terms and mutually supportive. And there were times when they covered up for each other. He had met Don Exbridge socially and at the Pickax Boosters Club and found him a hearty, likable man, ever ready with a handshake and a compliment. His cheerful face always looked scrubbed and polished; so did the top of his head, having only a fringe of brown hair over his ears. Exbridge was the idea man for the XYZ firm, and he said his cranium could sprout either ideas or hair but not both.

  Polly said, “You’re quiet tonight. Did you have a good time? You look wonderful—ten years younger than your age.” Under his blazer he was wearing her birthday gift—a boldly striped shirt with white collar and a patterned tie.

  “Thanks. You’re looking pretty spiffy yourself. I’m glad to see you wearing bright colors. I assume it means you’re happy.”

  “You know I’m happy, dear—happier than I’ve ever been in my life!…What did you think of Mildred’s decorating?”

  “I’m glad she got rid of all those quilts. The yellow’s okay, I guess.”

  They turned into Goodwinter Boulevard, an avenue of old stone mansions that would soon be the campus of the new community college. The Klingenschoen Foundation had bought the property and donated it to the city. Currently there was some debate as to whether the institution should be named after the Goodwinters, who had founded the city, or after the original Klingenschoen, who was a rascally old saloonkeeper. Polly’s apartment occupied a carriage house behind one of the mansions—within walking distance of the public library—and she was assured of a leasehold.

  “Things will get lively here when the college opens,” Qwilleran reminded her.

  “That’s all right. I like having young people around,” she said, adding slyly, “Would you like to come upstairs and say goodnight to Bootsie?”

  Afterward, driving home to his barn, Qwilleran considered the hazards of letting Polly out of his sight for two weeks. She was a perfect companion for him, being a loving, attractive, intelligent woman of his own age, with a gentle voice that never ceased to thrill him.

  Anything could happen in Oregon, he told himself as he turned on the car radio. After the usual Friday night rundown on the soccer game between Moose County and Lockmaster, the WPKX announcer said:

  “Another serious incident has occurred at the Pear Island Hotel, the second in less than a week. An adult male was found drowned in the hotel pool at eleven-fifteen this evening. The name of the victim is being withheld, but police say he was not a resident of Moose County. This incident follows on the heels of the food poisoning that caused fifteen hotel guests to become ill, three of them critically. Authorities have given the cause as contaminated chicken.”

  As soon as Qwilleran reached the barn, he telephoned Riker. “Did you hear the midnight news?”

  “Damn shame!” said the publisher. “The island’s been getting so much national coverage that the media will pounce on these accidents with perverse glee! What concerns me is the effect the bad publicity will have on the hotel and other businesses. They’ve gambled a helluva lot of money on these projects.”

  “Do you really think the incidents are accidents?” Qwilleran asked pointedly.

  “Here we go again! With your mind-set, everything’s foul play,” Riker retorted. “Wait a minute.

  Mildred’s trying to tell me something.” After a pause he came back on the line. “She wishes you’d reconsider the idea of a weekend on the island—the four of us—when Polly returns from vacation. She thinks it would be fun.”

  “Well…you know, Arch…I don’t go for resorts or cruises or anything like that.”

  “I know. You like working vacations. Well, sleep on the idea anyway. It would please the girls…and since you’re such a workaholic, how about writing three columns a week instead of two during the summer? Staff members will be taking vacations, and we’ll be short-handed.”

  “Steer them away from Pear Island resort,” Qwilleran said. “I have a hunch the ancient gods of the island are frowning.”

  The morning after the drowning in the hotel pool, Qwilleran was roused from sleep at an early hour by the ringing of the telephone. After a glance at his watch, he answered gruffly.

  “Sorry to call so early,” said a familiar voice, “but I need to see you about something.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In Mooseville, but I can be in Pickax in half an hour.”

  “Come on down,” Qwilleran said curtly. Then, grumbling to himself, he pressed the button on the computerized coffeemaker, threw on some clothes, and ran a wet comb through his hair. There was no

  sound from the loft, where the Siamese had their private quarters, so he decided to let sleeping cats lie. His mind was on Nick Bamba, who had pho
ned so urgently.

  In Qwilleran’s book, Nick and Lori were an admirable young couple. She had been postmaster in Mooseville until she retired to raise a family. Nick was head engineer at the state prison. It had been their dream to own and operate a bed-and-breakfast, in the hope that he could quit his well-paying but demoralizing job. Thanks to a low-interest loan from the Klingenschoen Foundation, they had bought an old fishing lodge on Breakfast Island. Before they could open their inn, however, they found themselves involved in the wholesale commercialization of the primitive island.

  As Qwilleran understood its history, the island had been populated for generations by the descendents of shipwrecked sailors and travelers. According to popular legend, some of the early castaways on this deserted shore turned to piracy in order to survive, luring other ships onto the rocks to be looted. That was only hearsay, however; historians had found no proof. One fact was known: Subsequent generations lived in privation, hauling nets in summer and living on salt-dried fish and wild rabbits in winter, eked out by goat’s milk and whatever would grow in the rocky, sandy terrain. Through the years, many islanders had moved to the mainland, but those who remained were independent and fiercely proud of their heritage. This much Qwilleran had learned from Homer Tibbitt, the Moose County historian.

  In the 1920s, according to Tibbitt, affluent families from Down Below discovered the island. Railroad czars, mercantile kings, beer barons, and meatpacking tycoons were attracted by the sport fishing, healthful atmosphere, and utter seclusion. They built fishing lodges on the west beach—rustic pavilions large enough to accommodate their families, guests, and servants. Native islanders did the menial work for them, and for a while local goat cheese was all the rage at parties on the west beach. Then came the 1929 Stock Market Crash, and suddenly there were no more yachts moored offshore, no gin and badminton parties on the terraces. Not until after World War II did descendents of the czars and tycoons return to the family lodges to escape allergies and the stress of high-tech life Down Below.