The Cat Who Sniffed Glue (16 page)

"How much he want?"
"I don't know. He's dead. But the estate might be willing to sell."
"Give 'em ten apiece."
"Is that a firm offer?"
"Take it or leave it be." The captain poured an amber liquid from a flask into a mug and took a swig. Qwilleran departed with his gunboat picture, grumbling at Koko for giving him a false clue. It never occurred to him that he might have misinterpreted Koko's maneuver.
-Scene Six-
Place: The Goodwinter Farmhouse
Museum
Time: Sunday evening
Introducing: IRIS COBB, resident
manager of the Museum
QWILLERAN carried a wicker picnic hamper into the cats' apartment. "All aboard for the Goodwinter Museum!" he announced. The Siamese, who had been sunning drowsily on a windowsill, raised their heads-Koko with anticipation, Yum Yum with apprehension. While the male hopped eagerly into the hamper, the female - suspecting another visit to the clinic - raced around the room faster than the eye could see. Qwilleran intercepted her in midair, dropped her into the travel coop and closed the lid.
Koko scolded her with macho authority and she hissed with feminist spunk as Qwilleran carried the hamper downstairs to the energy-efficient two-door that served his transportation needs. He also transferred the cats' commodes to the car. They now had a matched pair of oval roasting pans with the handles sawed off to fit the floor of the back seat.
It was a half-hour drive to the museum in North Middle Hummock - out Ittibittiwassee Road and across the Old Plank Bridge, then past the Hanging Tree, where a wealthy man once dangled from a rope. Beyond were prosperous farms and country estates. At the end of a lane lined with maple trees stood the rambling farmhouse, sided with cedar shakes that had long ago weathered to a silvery gray. Qwilleran had visited the house before, when it was occupied by the socially prominent Mrs. Goodwinter. Now the property of the Historical Society, it had been restored to the way it looked one hundred years before.
He drove to the west wing and unloaded the two roasting pans. "Where shall I put these?" he asked without ceremony when his former housekeeper greeted him at the door.
"Oh, you have two litterpans now!" she said in surprise.
"A new arrangement - at the request of our Siamese princess."
"Put the pans in the bathroom," she said. "I put a bowl of water in there and a placemat for their dinner. They always loved my pot roast."
"Who didn't?" Qwilleran said over his shoulder as he returned to the car for the hamper. When he opened the lid two necks stretched upward and two heads swiveled to survey the scene. Then the cats emerged cautiously and began a systematic exploration of the resident manager's apartment.
With these important matters concluded, Qwilleran observed the amenities. "You're looking very well," he told his hostess. "'Your new responsibilities agree with you."
Her cheerful face, framed by a ruffled pink blouse, was radiant as she peered through the thick lenses of pink-rimmed glasses. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Q!"
"How are your eyes, Mrs. Cobb?"
"No worse, thank heaven." She was a plump and pleasant woman, overly good-hearted, inclined to be sentimental, and brave in the face of the tragedies that had marked her life.
"How do you feel about living out here alone? Do you have a good security system?"
"Oh, yes, I feel very safe. Our only problem, Mr. Q, is mice. We've been thoroughly inspected by the carpenter, mason, plumber, and electrician, and none of them can figure out how the mice are getting in. There's an ultrasonic thing, but it doesn't discourage them. I've set traps with peanut butter and caught three."
"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 w 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 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 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 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 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 rolle;d 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 roll top 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 Caf‚ 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 Caf‚, 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 Caf‚. 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."