Cat Who Saw Red

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  Maus waved the chlorinated product away with an imperious gesture. “We drink only bottled water,” he said, “and we wish to consult the sommelier.”

  The wine steward arrived, wearing chains and keys and a properly pompous air, and Maus selected a champagne. Then the two diners perused the menu, which was only slightly smaller than the Sunday edition of the Fluxion, offering everything from aquavit to zabaglione, and from avocado suprême rémoulade to zucchini sauté avec hollandaise.

  “I might note, in passing,” said the attorney sadly, “that the late Mrs. Maus inevitably ordered chopped sirloin when we dined here.”

  Qwilleran had not realized that Maus was widowed. “Didn’t your wife share your interest in haute cuisine?”

  After some studied breathing Maus replied: “Not that I can, with any good conscience, admit. She once used my best omelet pan for, I regret to say, liver and onions.”

  Qwilleran clucked his sympathy.

  “I suggest we start, if it meets with your approval, Mr. Qwilleran, with the ‘French bunion soup,’ as it was called in our ménage. Mrs. Maus, as it happened, was a chiropodist by profession, and she had the . . . unfortunate habit of discussing her practice at the dinner table.”

  Onion soup was served, crusted with melted cheese, and Qwilleran manfully limited himself to three sips. “How did you happen to buy the pottery?” he inquired.

  Maus considered his answer carefully. “It was an inheritance,” he said at length. “The building was a bequest from my wife’s uncle, Hugh Penniman, a patron of the arts and collector of ceramics in particular, who conceived the building as an art center . . . in which capacity it functioned—at great expense to the philanthropist himself—until his death . . . after which it passed to his two sons, who declined the bequest, considering it a white elephant (under the terms imposed by the will) . . . whereupon it fell to my wife and subsequently to me.”

  “What were the terms of the will?”

  “The old gentleman stipulated that the building must continue to serve the arts, as it were—a proviso synonymous with economic folly in the opinion of my wife’s cousins, and not without reason, artists being largely insolvent, as you must be aware. However, I devised the . . . not uninspired expedient of renting the studios to gourmets (since gastronomy is viewed, in the eyes of its practitioners, as an art). At the same time I chose to . . . reactivate the pottery operation, which—I surmised—would prove to be a financial liability with favorable tax consequences, if you follow me.”

  This recital of facts was terminated by the arrival of the eels in green sauce.

  “I’ve been hearing about a drowning scandal in connection with the pottery,” Qwilleran remarked.

  “When did it happen?”

  The attorney drew a slow breath of exasperation. “That unhappy incident is, I assure you, ancient history. Yet time and time again your newspaper—a publication for which I entertain only limited admiration, if you will pardon my candor—your newspaper disinters the episode and publishes unsavory headlines designed, one can only infer, to titillate a readership of less than average intellect. Now that the building has fallen under my aegis, it is to be hoped there will be no further publicity on the subject. If you are in a position to exert any influence to this end, I shall be indeed . . . grateful.”

  “By the way,” Qwilleran said, “I don’t think you should lock the door between the pottery and the apartments. The fire marshal would take a dim view of that.”

  “The fire door has not, to my knowledge, been locked at any time.”

  “It was locked this morning—from the inside.”

  Maus, intent on savoring a morsel of eel, made no reply.

  “Is Graham considered a good potter?” Qwilleran asked.

  “He is, I am inclined to believe, an excellent technician, with a thorough knowledge of materials, equipment, and the operation of a pottery. The creative talent belongs chiefly, it appears to me, on the distaff side of the family.”

  “You may not have heard the news,” Qwilleran said, “but Mrs. Graham has left her husband. I believe she consulted you about getting a divorce. Well, last night—in the small hours—she cleared out.”

  Maus continued chewing thoughtfully and then said, “Unfortunate, to say the least.”

  Qwilleran searched the attorney’s face for some revealing reaction but saw only an imperturbable countenance and preoccupied eyes, one of them ringed with a bruise, now turning purple.

  The distinguished epicure was engrossed in evaluating the green sauce. He said, “The parsley, it is safe to say, was added a trifle too soon . . . although, as you must know, much controversy can be generated on the subject of herbs. At the Meritorious Society of Gastronomes last evening we enjoyed a stimulating symposium on oregano. The discussion, it eventuated, grew quite . . . stormy.”

  “Is that how you got that mouse?” Qwilleran asked.

  The attorney tenderly touched his left eye. “In the heat of argument, I regret to report, one of our members—an impetuous individual—thrust his fist in my direction at an inopportune time.”

  The main course and a bottle of white wine were now served in a flurry of excitement by seven members of the restaurant staff. Maus tasted the wine and sent it back, complained about a cigar at the next table, and detected a soupçon too much tarragon in the sauce.

  Qwilleran viewed with mounting hunger the dish of veal and mushrooms, aswim in delicate juices. He determined, however, to adhere to his regimen: three bites and quit. After the first bite he said to Maus, “Do you think Max Sorrel would make a good personality story for my column?”

  The attorney sagely nodded approval. “His restaurant is experiencing certain—shall we say?—difficulties at this time, and it is undoubtedly true that some manner of . . . favorable comment in the press would not go unappreciated. I deem it inadvisable to elucidate, but Mr. Sorrel, I am sure, will be happy to discuss the matter with you, if you so . . . desire.”

  “And what about Charlotte Roop?”

  Maus laid down his knife and fork, which he was manipulating in the European manner. “Ah, there is a jewel! Do not allow yourself to be misled by the fluttering spinster facade. Miss Roop is a successful career woman with remarkable executive ability and integrity of the highest order. If she suffers from certain character defects, it behooves us to leave them unmentioned.”

  Qwilleran took his second bite. “Rosemary Whiting seems to be very nice. A perfect lady.”

  “A Canadian,” Maus said. His face was beatific as he savored the veal, having come to terms with the excess of tarragon.

  “What’s her special interest in food?”

  “Mrs. Whiting, it pains me to say, is a purveyor of health foods. You may have heard her panegyrics to soybeans and sunflower seeds.”

  “And Hixie Rice, I understand, is a food writer.”

  Maus raised his hands in a dignified gesture of resignation. “The young lady writes, in the course of duty, those appalling menus for third-rate restaurants: ‘Today’s special—a delectable ragout blending tender tidbits of succulent baby lamb with garden-sweet carrots, pristine cubes of choice Michigan potato, and jewellike peas—all in a tasty sauce redolent of the Far East.’ That effusion of baroque prose indicates, as you may be aware, yesterday’s leftovers drowning in canned gravy . . . with sufficient curry powder to camouflage the rancidity.”

  Qwilleran took his third bite. “William is an interesting character, too.”

  “He prattles to excess, alas, and boasts no useful skills, but he is congenial, and his bridge game is not without merit.”

  The captain and the waiters had been observing, with increasing alarm, Qwilleran’s dilatory attitude toward the food, and now there was a stir among the staff as the head chef came storming from the kitchen.

  He walked directly toward Qwilleran and demanded, “You no like my cooking?”

  “A true gourmet never stuffs himself,” the newsman replied calmly. “The food is excellent, r
est assured. I’d like to take the rest of this veal home to my cats.”

  “Gatti! Santa Maria! So now I cook for gatti!” The chef threw up his hands and charged back to the kitchen.

  After the braised fennel amandine and the tossed salad with nasturtium seeds, and the chestnut puree in meringue nests, and the demitasse, Qwilleran reached in his pocket for his pipe and drew forth the turquoise beetle that Koko had found near the waterfront. “Ever see that before?”

  Maus nodded. “Mrs. Graham had the charm to present to each of us a scarab—as a token, so to speak, of good fortune. Mine has, unhappily, disappeared—an omen that bodes no good, one would imagine.”

  Qwilleran paid the check, thankful that the Fluxion was footing the bill; he could have lived for a week on the tip alone. And now he was eager to go home. He had made no notes during the dinner interview, as Maus expounded his culinary tenets. The newsman knew that cautious subjects speak more freely when their words are not being recorded. But he had accumulated plenty of material for a column on Robert Maus, and now it was necessary to collect the piquant quotes from the corners of his mind and get them down on paper before they faded from memory. As soon as the waiters brought the cats’ veal to the table, wrapped in a linen napkin, the two men departed—Maus radiating gustatory satisfaction and Qwilleran feeling vaguely hungry and a trifle sorry for himself.

  When they arrived at Maus Haus, the attorney took his attaché case to the kitchen and Qwilleran climbed the grand staircase, but at the landing he turned right instead of left. A sudden impulse led him to Hixie’s apartment.

  Just as he raised his hand to knock on the door, he heard a man’s voice, and he hesitated. Through the thick oak panel he could hear only the rumble of the masculine voice without distinguishing the words, but the inflections indicated that the man was coaxing and gently arguing. At first it sounded like a television drama, but then Qwilleran recognized the second voice in the dialogue.

  Hixie was saying, “No! That’s final! . . . Thanks a lot but no thanks!” The high pitch of her voice made the words distinguishable.

  There was a wheedling reply from the man.

  “That doesn’t make any difference. You know my terms.” She lowered her voice in answer to a question. “Of course I do, but you shouldn’t have come here. We agreed you’d never come here . . . All right, just one drink, and then you’ve got to leave.”

  Qwilleran knocked on the door.

  There was an abrupt silence and a long wait before Hixie’s heels could be heard clicking on the floor and approaching the door. “Who is it?” She opened the door cautiously. “Oh, it’s you!” she said with a nervous smile. “I was on the telephone. Sorry to keep you waiting.” She did not invite him in.

  “I just wondered if you’d like to go to a cheese-tasting tomorrow afternoon. It’s a press party.”

  “Yes, I’d love it. Where shall I meet you?”

  “How about the lobby of the Stilton Hotel?”

  “That’s fine. You know me! I love to eat.”

  “There’ll be drinks, of course.”

  “Love to drink, too.” She battered her long false eyelashes.

  Qwilleran tried to glance over her shoulder, but the door was only partially open, and the room was in shadow. He saw only a flutter of movement—a bird hopping about in a cage. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  Qwilleran preferred to date women with figures more svelte and clothes more tasteful, but he wanted to ask questions, and he was sure that Hixie liked to babble answers. As he walked around the balcony to Number Six, he was determined to keep an ear tuned for activity across the hall. After “just one drink,” who would slip out of Hixie’s apartment and where would he go? Why, he asked himself, am I such a nosy bastard? But when he unlocked his own door and stepped into the apartment, he forgot his curiosity. The place was a scene of havoc.

  All the pictures on the wall over the bookcase were hanging askew. Several books were on the floor with covers spread and pages rumpled. The wastebasket had been overturned, and its contents were strewn about the tile floor. Cushions had been thrown on the floor, and the desktop was swept clean of all but the typewriter. Burglary? Vandalism? Qwilleran glanced swiftly about him before he took a further step into the room. His foot came down on a small object that crunched and pulverized. He stepped quickly aside. Crunch! There were scores of small brown balls scattered about the floor, and the bearskin rug was missing . . . No, it was huddled under the desk.

  “You devils!” Qwilleran bellowed. Those brown balls were Fishy Fritters! The open carton lay on the kitchen floor, empty, and beside it was the plate on which the untouched Pussy Pâté had dried to a nauseating crust. Now it was clear: The devastation was a protest demonstration staged by two militant cats.

  The culprits themselves were asleep on the bunk, Yum Yum curled up in a tight ball and Koko stretched full length in a posture of complete exhaustion. When Qwilleran unfolded the linen napkin, however, noses were twitching and ears were alerted, and the two reprobates reported to the kitchen to claim—in a bedlam of baritone and soprano yowls—their escalopes de veau sautées à l’estragon.

  “Only a complete sucker would give you a feast after a performance like that,” Qwilleran told them.

  After straightening the pictures and shoveling up the Fishy Fritters from the four corners of the room, he put on his slippers, lit a pipeful of tobacco, and sat down at his typewriter to list his impressions of the Toledo Tombs and the food foibles of the meritorious gastronome.

  Not without apprehension he glanced at the sheet of paper that he regularly left in the machine, and there he saw one word, neatly typed. He adjusted his glasses and leaned closer. It was in lower case this time . . . a single word: dog!

  In astonishment Qwilleran turned to look at the cat who was industriously licking his paw and washing his face. “Koko!” he said. “This is too much!”

  SEVEN

  Qwilleran intended to set the alarm clock Wednesday night, but he forgot, and on Thursday morning he was awakened instead by a rasping noise at the window. Koko and Yum Yum were sitting on the sill, chattering like squirrels at the pigeons outside the glass, while the birds had the effrontery to strut up and down the outer ledge within inches of the two quivering black noses.

  Qwilleran awoke with a sense of loss. Did it mean that Joy had gone for good? Or was it merely coincidence that Koko had typed “30,” the old newspaper symbol for the end of a story?

  Suddenly he recalled the latest message in the typewriter. Coincidence or not, it was fantastic!

  “D-O-G,” he said aloud, and he leaped out of bed with an urgent question on his mind.

  He intended to ask Robert Maus at the breakfast table but missed him. He asked Mrs. Marron; she was of no help. He asked Hixie when she reported for ham and eggs and country fries with cinnamon toast, but she had not the faintest idea. Dan Graham failed to appear for breakfast, and when Qwilleran telephoned the pottery later, there was no answer. Finally he called Robert Maus at his office.

  “I regret to say that . . . it escapes my memory,” the attorney said, “but allow me to consult a copy of the contract.”

  Qwilleran mumbled an excuse about writing something and needing the information in a hurry.

  “No,” said Maus after consulting the files. “I see no evidence of a middle name or initial.”

  Qwilleran phoned Arch Riker at the office and told him about the three-letter word in the typewriter. He said, “I was sure Dan Graham was the type who’d have a middle name like Otho or Oglebert, and I thought Koko might have been trying to tell me something. He’s come up with some clues in the past that were no less fantastic.”

  “I’m glad he’s learning to spell,” Riker said. “In another six months he should be able to take over your column. How was your dinner last night?”

  “Fine, but I didn’t learn much. Maus gave me an unlikely story about how he got his black eye.”

  “Coming downtown for lunch?”

/>   “No, I want to stay home and write my review of the Toledo Tombs. This gourmet racket is full of absurdities, and it’s going to be hard to strike the right note—halfway between adulation and a horse laugh.”

  “Don’t offend any restaurant owners,” Arch warned him, “or the advertising department will be on my neck . . . Any news about Joy?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Qwilleran had another reason for wanting to stay home: to be near the phone in case she called. He knew it was too soon to expect a message in the mail; she had been gone hardly more than twenty-four hours. And yet he rushed downstairs when the mail delivery came at eleven o’clock and was disappointed to find nothing in his slot in the foyer. Then he convinced himself that any communication from Joy would be addressed to his office; she would be smart enough for that! A letter in her handwriting would be too easily recognized at Maus Haus. He wondered if the post office was equipped to cope with a letter addressed to “Juu Qwwww” at the “Duuy Fwxwu.”

  He spent the next hour at his typewriter, trying to write a slyly objective report on the Toledo Tombs. After several fruitless starts, he abandoned his subject and began a profile of Robert Maus—with his pride (sharp knives, lots of butter) and his numerous prejudices. Maus abhorred tea bags, pressure cookers, canned fruit cocktail, bottled mayonnaise, instant coffee, iceberg lettuce, monosodium glutamate, eggs poached in geometric shapes, New England boiled dinners, and anything resembling a smorgasbord, salad bar, or all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Once or twice Qwilleran stopped and listened. He thought he could hear someone singing. It was rare to hear live song—not radio and not television. Somewhere a man was singing a Scottish air, and the newsman’s Mackintosh blood responded.

  Qwilleran was poking at the keys, quoting Maus on the horror of potatoes baked in foil, when there came a knock on the apartment door. Standing in the hall was his elderly neighbor with her white hair and floury face powder, her crossword puzzle and abundance of costume jewelry.