The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “You’re our guest, you know. Stay as long as you want.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, but let the newspaper foot the bill. It’ll look better, and they can afford it.”

  As the pilot carried aboard the turkey roaster that had no handles, he said, “What’s this for? Are you gonna do some serious cooking? I know the cats are

  crazy about turkey, but the cottage has all the pots and pans you’ll need—or you can borrow from Lori’s kitchen.”

  “That’s the cats’ commode,” Qwilleran said in an offhand way.

  “Well, I’ve gotta say I’ve never seen one like it, and I’ve seen a lot of cat potties.”

  “It’s practical.”

  “I hope Koko and Yum Yum are good sailors.”

  “They’ve never had a boat ride, as I recall,” said Qwilleran. “I’ll throw my jacket over their coop in case there’s too much breeze or spray from the wake. The water looks fairly choppy. I hope it won’t be a bumpy ride. I don’t worry about Koko, but the little one has a delicate stomach.”

  There was no need to worry about either of them. For the rest of the journey the Siamese were beguiled by the pleasures of the nose, raising their heads like beached seals and sniffing eagerly. During the voyage they registered the assorted smells of lake air, marine life, aquatic weeds, seagulls, and petroleum fumes. Arriving at the island they detected pails of bait, crates of fish, horses, fudge, and newness everywhere: new piers, new hotel, new shops selling new merchandise, new black-top paving, and new bicycles. Also assaulting their inquiring noses was a heady bouquet emanating from the milling mass of tourists—young and old, teen and preteen, washed and unwashed, healthy and unhealthy, tipsy and sober. Perhaps Koko’s personal radar picked up friendly and unfriendly, as well, or even innocent and guilty.

  As for Qwilleran, he found the island disturbingly different from the primitive scene he remembered. He had seen the photographs in the newspaper, but experiencing the altered environment was entirely unreal. The lakefront was fringed with the masts of sailboats and the superstructures of deepwater trolling vessels. A ferryboat, halfway between a tug and a barge, was unloading vacationers with luggage, and another was returning to the mainland carrying day-trippers with sunburn. Overlooking the marina was the rustic facade of the new Pear Island Hotel, artfully stained to look fifty years old. It was three stories high and a city-block long, with a porch running the entire length. Much had been said in the national publicity about the long porch and its fifty rocking chairs. Behind the hotel, making a dark-green backdrop, were tall firs and giant oaks that had been there before the first castaways were stranded on the shore.

  Qwilleran thought, This is the forest primeval, and the pines and the hemlocks are murmuring “Ye gods! Wha’ happened?”

  The hotel was flanked by rows of rustic storefronts, each with a hitching post. Window-shoppers strolled along wooden sidewalks called “the boardwalk” in the publicity releases.

  Nick said, “This is what the XYZ people call downtown.”

  “It resembles a movie set,” Qwilleran remarked. “At least they had the good taste not to paint yellow lines on the black-top.”

  “Right! Don Exbridge wants to keep everything as natural as possible. The only motor vehicles permitted are police, ambulance, and fire, and they can’t use sirens because of the horses. They use beepers.”

  There was indeed a unique hush along the waterfront, resulting from the absence of combustion engines—just a murmur of voices, the clop-clop of hooves, and the screams of seagulls and excited youngsters.

  Nick hailed a horse-drawn conveyance, loaded the luggage, and said “Domino Inn” to the old man hunched sullenly over the reins. Without answering, he shook the reins, and the horse moved forward.

  “What prompted the name of your inn?” Qwilleran asked.

  “Well, it was a private lodge in the Twenties, and the family that owned it was nuts about dominoes. We bought it completely furnished, including a couple-dozen sets of dominoes. My name is really Dominic, you know, so Lori thought we were destined to own the place and call it the Domino Inn. It’s different, anyway.”

  The downtown pavement and boardwalk ended, and the road became a dusty mix of sand, gravel, and weeds. “This is called West Beach Road,” Nick went on. “It should be sprayed with oil, but the county is tight-fisted. They’re getting all the new tax money, but they don’t want to supply any services.” He waved to a mounted security officer in red coat and stiff-brimmed hat. “We get spectacular sunsets on the west beach. Farther up the road is the exclusive Grand Island Club, where the rich folks have always had their clubhouse, private marina, and big summer estates. Where we are, the lodges are outside the Golden Curtain, as it’s called, and they’ve been rezoned commercial. There are three B-and-Bs. We get a nice class of people at our inn—quiet—very friendly. Do you play dominoes?”

  “No!” Qwilleran replied promptly and with resolve.

  “I know you like exercise. We have a sandy beach for walking, or you can rent a bike and pedal up to Lighthouse Point. It’s all uphill, but is it great coasting down! Try it! There’s also a nature trail through the woods. If you like hunting for agates, go to the public beach on the other side of the island. It’s all pebbles, no sand.”

  “Can you keep the public off this beach? I thought the law had been changed in this state.”

  “The public-access ordinance applies only to new owners like us,” Nick explained. “Members of the Grand Island Club come under a grandfather clause, or so they say. I don’t know how legal it is, but they get away with it.”

  “Where do the natives live?”

  “In Piratetown, back in the woods, very isolated. Tourists are discouraged from going there.”

  There were fewer vehicles, cyclists, and joggers on West Beach Road than Qwilleran expected, leading him to ask, “How’s business?”

  “Well, it started off with a bang, but it’s slowing down. Lori says people are busy with weddings and graduations in June. It’ll pick up in July. We hope. We don’t know, yet, how harmful the negative publicity is going to be.”

  They passed six hikers with oversize backpacks, trudging single-file on their way to the ferry, and Nick said they had been hang gliding on the sand dune near the lighthouse.

  The Siamese had been quiet in their carrier, which was on the floor of the wagon, close by Qwilleran’s feet, but now there was a rumble of discontent. Before he could give them any soothing reassurances, a two-wheeled horse cab passed them, headed for downtown, and the passenger—a woman in a floppy-brimmed sunhat—waved and gave him a roguish smile. Taken by surprise, he only nodded in her direction.

  “Who was that woman?” he asked Nick, although he thought he recognized the white makeup and red hair.

  “Who? Where? I didn’t notice. I was looking at the backpackers. They’ve got some healthy-looking girls in that group. I’m not good at names and faces, anyway. Lori says I’ve got to work on that if I’m gonna be an innkeeper. In my job, people are just numbers.”

  Qwilleran was hardly listening to the rambling discourse. The redhead was one person whom he actively disliked, and Polly shared his sentiments. Fortunately she was going in the opposite direction, and there was luggage piled in the cab. He allowed himself to wonder what she had been doing at Pear Island; it was hardly her kind of resort. Perhaps she had been a guest behind the Golden Curtain; that was more likely.

  They had been ascending gradually after leaving downtown, and now the beach was below them, reached by steps, and the woods loomed on the other side. The road curved in and out along the natural shoreline, and when the wagon rounded a bend and stopped, Qwilleran let out a yelp. “Is that yours, Nick? I don’t believe it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Wanted to surprise you. It’s the only one on the island—maybe the only one in the world!”

  Domino Inn was a large ungainly building with small windows, completely sided with a patchwork of white birchbark. Qwilleran though
t, Why would anyone strip a whole forest of white birches to produce such an eyesore? How could they get away with it? He answered his own question: Because no one cared, back in the Twenties. Then he asked himself, Why would they buy such a thing? Why would the K Foundation finance it?

  Misconstruing his silence for awe, Nick said proudly, “I thought you’d be impressed. It was written up in most of the out-of-state publicity.”

  To Qwilleran it looked vaguely illegal. It looked like a firetrap. It could be, or should be, riddled with termites. Mentally he renamed it the Little Inn of Horrors.

  The wagon turned into the driveway and stopped at a flight of wooden steps that led up to a long porch. There were no rocking chairs, but there were porch swings hanging from chains. Immediately the front door flew open, and Lori came bounding down the steps to give Qwilleran a welcoming hug. His former secretary was now an innkeeper and mother of three, but she still wore her long golden hair in girlish braids tied with blue ribbons.

  “I could barely wait for you to see it!” she cried with excitement. “Wait till you see the inside! Come on in!”

  “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to unload the cats first. They might express their emotions in some unacceptable way, if they don’t de-coop soon. I’ll feed them and then come in to register.”

  “Do you need catfood? Do you need litter?”

  “No, thank you. We’re well equipped.”

  Nick instructed the driver to continue around to the rear and then down the lane to the fourth cottage. The sandy lane was marked with a rustic street sign: PIP COURT. It reminded Qwilleran of a poultry disease and other illnesses, and he inquired about it. The spots on dominoes are called pips, he was told.

  The five cottages, hardly larger than garages, were stained a somber brown, and the door of each was painted black with white pips. The fourth cottage was identified with a double-two.

  “Yours is called ‘Four Pips,’ and it’s deeper in the woods than the first three. The cats can watch birds and rabbits from the screened porch in back. Here’s the key. You go in, and I’ll offload everything.”

  The doorstep was hardly large enough to accommodate a size-twelve shoe, and when Qwilleran unlocked the giant domino, he stepped into the smallest living quarters he had experienced since an army tent. He was a big man, accustomed to living in a four-story barn, and here he was faced with a tiny sitting room, snug bedroom, mini-kitchen, and pocket-size bathroom. True, there was a screened porch, but it was minuscule and rather like a cage. How could he exist in these cramped quarters for two weeks with a pair of active animals?

  There was more. Someone had painted the walls white and dressed them up with travel posters. Then someone had gone berserk and camouflaged furniture, bed, and windows with countless yards of fabric in a splashy pattern of giant roses, irises, and ferns.

  “How do you like everything?” Nick asked as he looked for places to put the luggage. “Not much extra floor space,” he admitted, “and the place gets a little musty when it’s closed up.” He rushed around opening windows. The kitchenette was new, he said, and the plumbing was new, although it took a while for the water to run hot. The cottages had originally been built for servants.

  “Did I hear a gunshot?” Qwilleran asked.

  “Just rabbit hunters in the woods. From Piratetown…If there’s anything else you want, just whistle.”

  Qwilleran switched on two lamps and mentioned that he could use a higher wattage for reading.

  “Will do. And now I’ve got to take Jason back to the mainland. I’ll see you next weekend…G’bye, kids,” he said to the occupants of the portable cage.

  They emerged from the carrier with wary whiskers, their bodies close to the floor and their tails drooping. They sniffed the green indoor-outdoor carpeting. They sniffed the slipcovers critically and backed away. Qwilleran sniffed, too; “musty” was not quite the word for the pervading aroma. He thought it might be the dye in the gaudy slipcovers. They really belonged in the grand ballroom of a hotel in South America, he thought.

  Before unpacking, he stripped the rooms of the homey touches that Lori had supplied and put them in drawers: doilies, dried flowers, figurines, and other knickknacks. The Siamese watched him until a knock on the door sent them scuttling under the bed. A small boy stood on the doorstep, holding out a brown paper bag.

  “Thank vou,” Qwilleran said. “Are these my light bulbs?”

  The messenger made a long speech that was unintelligible to a middle-aged, childless bachelor. Nevertheless, he made an effort to be sociable. “What’s your name, son?”

  The boy said something in an alien tongue and then ran back to the inn. In closing the door Qwilleran saw a notice nailed to an inside panel, along with a large No Smoking sign:

  WELCOME TO DOMINO INN

  For your pleasure, convenience, and

  safety we provide the following:

  At the Inn

  Breakfast in the sunroom, 7 to 10 A.M.

  Games, puzzles, books, magazines, and newspapers

  in the Domino Lounge

  Public telephone on the balcony landing

  Television in the playroom

  Fruit basket in the lounge. Help yourself

  In Your Cottage

  Set of dominoes

  Two flashlights

  Oil lamps and matches

  Umbrella

  Mosquito spray

  Fire extinguisher

  Ear plugs

  The notice was signed by the innkeepers, Nick and Lori Bamba, with an exhortation to “have a nice stay.”

  Sure, Qwilleran thought, cynically anticipating rain, mosquitoes, forest fires, power outages, stray bullets from the woods, and whatever required ear plugs—all this in a rustic strait-jacket with slipcovers like horticultural nightmares. He located the emergency items listed on the door. Then he found the dominoes in a box covered with faded maroon velvet and put them in a desk drawer, out of sight. The drawers were hard to open, possibly because of island dampness; Yum Yum, who had the instincts of a safecracker and a shoplifter, would be frustrated. When she was frustrated, she screamed like a cockatoo; the ear plugs might be useful, after all. Koko was already eying a wall calendar with malice; it had a large photograph of a basset hound and a tear-off page for each month. It was a giveaway from a maker of dogfood.

  Before dressing for dinner or even feeding the cats, Qwilleran went to the inn to register. On the way he noted that the five cottages were about fifty feet apart. Five Pips had the window shades drawn. Beyond it, at the end of Pip Court, was the start of a woodland trail that looked inviting. In the front window of Three Pips he could see an elderly couple playing a table game. A pair of state-of-the-art bicycles with helmets hanging from the handlebars were parked in front of Two Pips. One Pip appeared to be empty. At the head of the lane, a large cast-iron farm bell was mounted on a post with a dangling rope and a sign: FOR EMERGENCY ONLY. Three stray cats were scrounging around trash cans at the back door of the inn.

  And then Qwilleran mounted the front steps of the inn, entered the lobby, and gazed upward in amazement. The Domino Lounge had a skylight about thirty feet overhead and balcony rooms on all four sides, and the entire structure was supported by four enormous tree trunks. They were almost a yard in diameter. The bark on these monoliths was intact, and the stubby ends of sawed-off branches protruded at intervals.

  There were no guests in evidence at that hour, but the same boy who had delivered the light bulbs was sitting on the floor and playing with building blocks of architectural complexity. As soon as he caught sight of the man with a large moustache, he scrambled to his feet and ran to the door marked OFFICE.

  A moment later, Lori came hurrying into the lounge. “What do you think of it, Qwill? How do you like it?” She waved both arms at the gigantic tree trunks.

  “Words fail me,” he said truthfully. “Are you sure they’re not cast concrete?”

  “They’re the real thing—one of the wonders o
f the world, I think. And I hope you’re impressed by the slipcovers.” All the furniture in the lounge was covered in the same overscale pattern of roses and irises, but with the three-foot tree trunks, they looked good. “I made them all myself. It took six months. I bought an entire factory closeout for practically nothing.”

  They were glad to get rid of it, Qwilleran thought.

  The boy who had summoned his mother was back again, and he said something to Qwilleran in the same mystifying language.

  Lori came to the rescue. “Mitchell wants you to know he saw a flying saucer over the lake last week.”

  “Good for you, son!”

  “Mitchell is four years old, and he’s in charge of deliveries and communications. He’s very enthusiastic about his job,” she said. They went into the office to register. “I hope you like your cottage, Qwill. We also have a bridal suite upstairs, in case you and Polly ever make up your minds.”

  “We’ve made up our minds. Polly and I are happily unmarried until death do us part,” he said gruffly. Then, pleasantly, he asked, “Who painted the cottage doors like dominoes?”

  She raised her right hand. “Guilty! They needed re-finishing, so I thought it would be fun to paint them black with white pips. Nick thought I was crazy, but Don Exbridge is pushing the fun ethic. What do you think, Qwill?”

  “I think it’s crazy…and fun. And what is the purpose of the big bell?”

  “Oh, that! That’s to alert everyone in case of fire. There’s a volunteer fire department—Nick’s on call weekends—but so far, there’s been no alarm—knock on wood.”

  “Nick mentioned that one of your elderly guests took a tumble on the front steps.”

  Lori nodded contritely. “I feel terrible about that! Mr. Harding in Three Pips. He was vicar of a small church in Indiana before he retired. He and Mrs. Harding are such a sweet couple. He’s back from the hospital now and insists he’ll heal faster here than Down Below.”

  “Who repaired the step?” Qwilleran asked.