The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  Qwilleran took the suggestion and phoned the newspaper office, leaving a message with the secretary. It was a relief to find that Riker was out of the building. The editor would have tried to harangue him into changing his mind. Whatever Qwilleran proposed to do, his old friend insisted that it was too reckless, too impractical, too frivolous, or too expensive.

  Now he was suffering from lack of sleep and the exertion of ladder climbing, and Polly’s postcard had induced a state of numb indifference. He flopped on his bed, narrowly missing two dormant lumps of fur, and slept until he was disturbed by two active cats, who were themselves disturbed by noises in the corridor. There were voices, and sounds of luggage handling, and the opening and closing of doors. Someone was moving in! In the groggy state of first awakening, he wondered why anyone would move into the Domino Inn at a time like this, when everyone else was moving out.

  He roused himself, combed his hair, washed his face, and went downstairs, where he was met by a wide-eyed Lori. “You’ll never guess!” she said. “A new guest just registered! She has beautiful luggage, and she was brought here in a splendid carriage! She says she knows you!”

  “What’s her name?” he asked warily.

  “Elizabeth Cage. I wanted to ask why she’d check into a place with shuttered windows, but then…” Lori looked at Qwilleran slyly. “I thought it might be something private between you two.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Upstairs, unpacking. She’s in the Lakeview Suite across from you.”

  “This comes as a total surprise. Do we have any meatloaf sandwiches left over from the fire?”

  “That’s about all—including the whole meatloaf you gave us. I’m not prepared to serve dinner guests, you know.”

  “She doesn’t eat much, so don’t fuss and don’t apologize. I’ll go upstairs,” he said irritably, “to see what this is all about.”

  The young woman who opened the door was dressed in a caftan and seemed very glad to see him.

  “Liz! What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “My family left this noon, taking both boats, and I told Mother I didn’t wish to go. I told her I’m moving to Pickax City.”

  “You’re a very impulsive young woman! You don’t know anything about Pickax.” He was thinking, Arch is right; I should mind my own business.

  “Will you come in? I’d offer you tea, but I suppose there’s no room service today.”

  “Not today, and not ever! And if the storm hits hard, there may be no lights, no water, and no ferries to the mainland. The only boat left in the downtown marina belongs to Domino Inn, and the storm could reduce it to splinters. Have all the boats left the Grand Island Club?”

  “Yes, but…if I may use the telephone, I think I can arrange something.”

  “Go down and tell Mrs. Bamba what you have in mind. She’ll let you use the office phone…And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an errand to do.”

  He wanted to walk away from the situation and consider the complications involved if Liz should move to Pickax. Could she handle her own living arrangements, face responsibility, make wise decisions? Or would she require and expect a full-time guardian? That was a role he was not prepared to play. He had come to the island to help Nick, and he had stepped into…the peat bog, so to speak.

  Qwilleran walked to Harriet’s Family Café, not expecting it to be open but hoping to follow up their previous conversation. Two men—who proved to be her cousins from the village—were shuttering the windows, while she supervised with tough authority. When she saw Qwilleran, she walked toward him with a solemn step and an anguished face.

  “Isn’t it terrible about the fire?” she moaned. “We had to notify the fire marshal. He comes up from Down Below if anyone dies—or if the chief suspects arson.”

  “But you and the other volunteers did a heroic job, Harriet. It could have been much worse.”

  “I know, but I feel bad because I knew her! I knew June Kale all her life, and I know her pa.”

  “June Kale? I thought her name was Halliburton.”

  “She got married once. It didn’t last long. Yep, she grew up on the island and went to high school on the mainland, like I did, but she was really bright. Never took piano lessons till ninth grade, and next thing we knew, she was teaching music and playing the piano in big halls. She got kinda stuck-up then—didn’t want anybody to know she came from Providence Island, but she visited her ma and pa a lot, and I give her credit for that!…My! They were so proud of their daughter! Her ma’s dead now, and her pa must be all broke up. I feel terribly sorry for him. He’s the caretaker at The Pines.”

  “Does he live in the gatehouse?”

  “Yep, as far back as I can remember. June grew up there—with electric light, a bathroom, telephone, and all that.”

  Qwilleran was asking himself questions, and answering them. Did June want to live in the north country to be near her parents? She was too brittle, too worldly for that kind of sentiment. Did she really rent Five Pips to avoid disturbing her elderly neighbors?…Or so her father could steal in to visit her via the nature trail? Neither. The voices drifting across the yard after dark weren’t those of father and daughter. They were young, bantering, teasing, laughing voices. The parties didn’t sound like auditions either.

  “Do you want some coffee or ice cream?” Harriet asked.

  “No, thanks. I just came to see how you are. You must be exhausted after being up all night. Do you plan to stay here during the storm?”

  “Nope. I’ll be sitting with my ma in the village. It’s gonna be a bad one! My cousins are putting up the shutters to save the glass.”

  Qwilleran turned away as if to leave and then added as an afterthought, “The fire is the sixth incident in less than three weeks, and the fourth to result in a death. If you have any idea who’s involved, now is the time to come forward.”

  Harriet’s face became flushed, and she clenched and unclenched her fists. “The fire was an accident! How could it be anything else? She was smoking in bed. She always smoked a lot. Her ma and pa tried to stop her, but they couldn’t.”

  “Okay, leave the fire out of it,” Qwilleran said.

  “You told me you knew something about the other incidents. You knew someone who was responsible.”

  “I was wrong. That was a mistake. It was just village gossip,” she said, walking away and shouting to the cousins who were shuttering the windows.

  Qwilleran walked away, too, thinking, Once an islander, always an islander. Harriet had decided to remain loyal. Actually, her transparent denials only confirmed his suspicions.

  The WPKX announcer said, “A storm watch is now in effect for all shoreline communities. The Disaster Center has issued evacuation directives for all occupants of beach property. Two fronts are approaching at the rate of five miles an hour and could converge over northern Moose County and adjoining lake areas by midnight. Severe thunderstorms, winds of seventy to a hundred miles an hour, and rising lake levels are expected.”

  The storm was indeed closing in on all sides, as four persons gathered around the kitchen table at the Domino Inn. Nick had installed the last of the shutters and had nailed planks across the front and back doors to prevent them from bursting open. He also nailed a towel-wrapped two-by-four across the bottom of each door to keep the rain from pouring across the threshold.

  Lori served a pickup supper in the kitchen, around a big square table with piano legs and scarred top. There were meatloaf sandwiches, and there was a homemade soup that was thick and grayish in color, but it tasted good. The only recognizable ingredient was alphabet pasta. She explained, “It’s full of chicken broth and veggies, but I puree them so the kids won’t know what they’re eating, and the alphabet letters keep them from thinking about it too much.”

  Since the pasta alphabet contained all twenty-six letters—as opposed to twelve in the domino game—Qwilleran was able to spell papilionaceous, a word that had once won him a spelling championship
and a trip to Washington. Liz had the good manners to be amused by the soup and tolerant of the sandwiches.

  Lori said, “Ms. Cage arranged for us to dock the Double-Six at the Grand Island Club.”

  “Yeah, it worked out great!” Nick said. “I took the boat up there, and they rolled it into a concrete boat-house. Then one of the guys drove me home in a snappy little cart. He said he’d always wanted to see the four big tree trunks inside our lodge.”

  Liz told them that the west beach had never experienced much damage from summer storms. “We might lose a few tree branches or shingles, but we’ve never been inconvenienced by loss of power, because we have generators. So it surprised me that Mother wanted to leave this time.”

  It was no surprise to Qwilleran. The queen mother, he guessed, wanted to whisk her daughter away from his radical influence. Thinking the Bambas deserved an explanation, he said, “Ms. Cage has been wanting to relocate in Pickax, and she thought this would be an appropriate time, storm or no storm.”

  Lori expressed surprise and pleasure. “You’ll like Pickax,” she said. “The population is only three thousand, but the town has some good things going for it, including a very good theater club. Also, they’re getting a community college.” She turned and looked brightly and expectantly at Qwilleran, who had authorized the Klingenschoen Foundation to underwrite the new institution. He had no intention of picking up the cue, however, and said not a word about the college or the theater club or anything else in Pickax. He was not going to encourage this impulsive and eager and reputedly flaky young woman to move into his backyard. Instead he said to her, “You might prefer Lockmaster in the adjoining county. They have horse farms and carriage collectors and driving clubs.”

  “I’ve never cared about joining clubs,” she said. “What I enjoy is a leisurely drive down a country lane. I would have my favorite horse shipped to Pickax; I suppose he could be stabled there. And my brother William would let me have the physician’s phaeton.”

  Lori said, “If you like country lanes, you’ll love Moose County. It has very picturesque countryside.”

  Shut up, Lori, Qwilleran thought. He said, “I don’t know whether picturesque is the right word. The terrain has a ravaged look because of the strip mining and overcutting of forests earlier in the century. Abandoned mines and abandoned quarries are everywhere. They can be an eyesore.”

  “Yes, but the abandoned shafthouses are like romantic monuments to the past,” said Lori, her eyes sparkling. He wanted to kick her under the table, but even his long legs couldn’t reach.

  Nick, noticing his scowl and sensing his purpose, said, “There’s a lot of industry coming into Pickax—like plastics, auto parts, and electronics—but the major industry is the federal prison covering hundreds of acres and housing ten thousand convicted felons.”

  Lori said, “Yes, but the prison is famous for its flower gardens, tended by inmates. People come from all over to photograph them.”

  Oh, God! Qwilleran thought. He said, “Does anyone play dominoes? We may have to play a lot of dominoes before this storm is over.”

  Thunder claps were coming closer, and lightning bolts made themselves felt like electric shocks. Even the solid wood shutters couldn’t keep the flashes from outlining the windows like blue neon.

  After dessert—ice cream on a stick—Qwilleran excused himself and went upstairs to the bridal suite, intending to remain in seclusion until the rains came. Then he would go downstairs to offer help and moral support to the Bambas and the uninvited guest. He tried to read, but thoughts of the present dilemma crowded the words from the page. He felt burdened with a sense of failure. In his search for clues and evidence he had nothing to show but hunches, suspicions, and a hack saw blade.

  The air was heavy with portent, and the cats, huddled close to him, kept looking at the ceiling. Suddenly there was a clap of thunder directly overhead, like the crack of doom. Koko jumped two feet in the air and went into orbit. Circling madly around the suite he kicked a table lamp, sent knickknacks flying, terrorized Yum Yum, and sideswiped one of the leather masks over the sofa.

  “Stop!” Qwilleran bellowed as he rescued the expensive artwork—it was the tragedy mask—but Koko was wound up and continued the rampage until his internal springs ran down. Then he flicked his tongue nonchalantly over random patches of fur. At one point he stopped and, with tongue hanging out and one hind leg held aloft, he stared at Qwilleran’s forehead.

  “Let’s play dominoes,” Qwilleran said, stroking his moustache.

  At the same moment there was another shattering thunderbolt. The rain slammed into the building, and the lights flickered momentarily, but they played the game. Koko’s penchant for white spots resulted in words like click, balked, jack, deckle, ilk and the ubiquitous lake. Just as Qwilleran was trying to make a word out of 4-4, 5-6, 3-5, 0-1, 5-5, 3-6, 6-6, and 2-3, there was a light tap on the door.

  There stood Liz in her caftan, carrying an oil lamp. “I’m sorry to trouble you,” she said, “but would you show me how to light this lamp, in case there’s a power failure?” She handed him a box of kitchen matches. “These were with the lamp.”

  “Come in,” he said brusquely, “and close the door to keep the cats from escaping. In stormy weather they sometimes go berserk.” He removed the glass chimney, turned up the wick, and tried to strike a match. “These are no good. They’re damp. Let’s try mine. Islands are always damp. Shoes mildew, nails rust, crackers get soggy, and matches don’t strike. You should know about that; you’ve spent summers here.”

  “There was never any problem,” she said. “The air-conditioning controlled the humidity.”

  The matches in the bridal suite were equally damp. “It will be a joke,” he said, “if there are thirty oil lamps on the premises and no matches.”

  “Would anyone have a cigarette lighter?”

  “Not at the Domino Inn! No cigarette lighters, no automatic weapons, and no illegal drugs. Did you hear about the fire last night?”

  Liz nodded sadly. “The woman who died was the daughter of our steward. The poor man is almost out of his mind. When we were growing up, she was like my big sister, and I heard something this morning that was very upsetting.” She moistened her lips and lowered her eyes.

  “Please sit down,” Qwilleran said. “Would you like a glass of water? That’s all I can offer.”

  She perched on the edge of a chair and took a dainty sip.

  “Where did you hear this upsetting news?”

  “I was in the stable, giving Skip his daily dose of affection in his stall. He’s such a loving animal! And I heard two men in the tack room, having a very heated argument. I knew the voices. One was my brother, and the other was our steward. They’ve always been friendly, and it was a shock to hear them shouting at each other. I know it’s bad form to eavesdrop, but Jack has never had any respect for me, so I didn’t feel guilty about listening.”

  “Did you learn what the trouble was?”

  Before she could reply, there was another violent crack of thunder overhead. A purple flash seeped into the room, and the lights went out! Liz uttered an involuntary cry.

  “Well, I guess that’s it!” he said. “We’d better go downstairs. I have a flashlight. We’ll go across the hall and get the one in your room—and hope the Bambas have dry matches.”

  Nick met them at the foot of the stairs. “Come into the family room. We’re lighting lamps. Sorry about this. We should have a generator, but there’ve been so many other things to do and buy.”

  “Qwill,” Lori called from the office door, “why don’t you bring Koko and Yum Yum down?”

  For the next five hours, four persons and two animal companions huddled together as sheets of rain assaulted the building and the wind screamed through the treetops like a hundred harmonicas. At the storm’s apex, when the turbulence was directly over the island, the thunder was a series of explosions, each louder than the last, making the ground shudder. There were moments when the building quake
d enough to rattle glasses and tilt pictures. At such moments Lori sat quietly with eyes closed and lips moving as she hugged Koko for security. Qwilleran held Yum Yum, mumbling reassurances. Both cats were wide-eyed, and their ears swiveled wildly.

  Nick produced a jug of red wine, saying, “We might as well be drunk as the way we are.”

  Qwilleran had to exercise intense willpower to refuse. “How long can it last?” he shouted above the din.

  “It’s passing over.”

  Now there were several seconds or even a full minute between thunderclaps, and the purple flashes were weaker, but the rain still bombarded the building. Occasionally there was a loud crack as a tree limb snapped off, followed by a jarring thump as it landed on the roof. No one mentioned it, but all must have been thinking, What if a tree comes through the roof? What if tons of water pour into the building?

  Now at least it was possible to talk and be heard, although there was no conversation as such—merely spoken thoughts:

  “It still sounds like a locomotive roaring past!”

  “The ancient gods of the island are snarling and gnashing their teeth.”

  “Thank God we sent the kids to the mainland.”

  “They’ll be getting it over there, too.”

  “Have you ever seen one as bad as this?”

  “The cats are very good. Koko is tense, though.”

  “Yum Yum has been trembling nonstop.”

  “Did you look at the wind gauge, Nick?”

  “It broke the gauge. Must’ve reached a hundred.”

  “Wonder how high the lake is.”

  “If it reaches road-level, we could have a washout.”

  “Did anyone ever read High Wind in Jamaica?”

  Sometimes the wind stopped for one blessed moment, then resumed its attack from another direction. When, in the small hours of the morning, the tumult ceased, there was stunned silence in the small room. Everyone claimed to be weary.

  “Anyone hungry?” Lori asked.

  It was sleep that everyone craved. The oil lamps were extinguished, and flashlights guided the survivors through the black rooms.