The Cat Who Wasn't There

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  The family-type seating on the bus and at meals, as suggested by Irma, became a discordant game of musical chairs. Qwilleran avoided sitting with Melinda. No one wanted to sit with Grace Utley or Glenda MacWhannell. Arch Riker was always getting stuck with Zella Chisholm. Both Dwight and Bushy had a desire to sit with Melinda. Melinda kept trying to sit with Qwilleran. And Amanda often ended up with Big Mac.

  The bus traveled on single-track roads most of the time, so passengers worried about meeting another vehicle head-on, but Bruce wheeled the bus up and down hills and around endless curves with reckless abandon, causing Glenda MacWhannell to scream at the roller-coaster effect and Zella Chisholm to complain of car sickness.

  Hour after hour Irma talked into the microphone, and the monotony of her voice put the riders to sleep, especially after lunch. In the afternoon they would wake up for tea and shortbread at some modest cottage that advertised “Teas” on a modest signboard. Then, at the end of the day, everyone would stumble off the bus, stiff and sore, to check into a quaint inn tucked into a glen or overlooking a loch. In this way Day One, Day Two, and Day Three became a blur.

  Qwilleran said to Riker, “I can’t remember what we saw yesterday or what we had for dinner last night. If I weren’t recording some of this on tape, I’d get home and never know I’d been here.”

  “I’m not even sure where we are,” said his roommate.

  The inns, adapted from old stone stables and ruined abbeys, were cozy and rustic, and since there were no room keys—only bolts inside the bedroom doors—Grace Utley had to entrust her jewel cases to the innkeeper’s safe. Amanda complained that there were no ice machines, no telephones or TV in the bedrooms, and no washcloths in the bathrooms. Glenda MacWhannell worried about fire.

  At the dinner hour, the women reported in skirts and heels, the men in coats and ties, while Mrs. Utley outshone them all with four strands of sapphire beads accented with a chunk of carved white jade, or a necklace of black onyx and gold, clasped at the collarbone with lapis lazuli. Thus arrayed, they dined on fresh salmon or roast lamb with neeps and tatties, served by the jovial innkeeper and his rosy-cheeked daughters.

  Come morning, the group would be herded aboard the bus once again, only to wait for the late Grace Utley. There was usually a misty rain at the start of each day, but the afternoon sun made the waters of the lochs and kyles sparkle like acres of diamonds.

  On one wet morning they visited a damp and chilly castle with a moat and a drawbridge, a massive gate and a stone courtyard, and a Great Hall hung with armor and ancestral portraits. Here a guide recited a catalogue of battles, conquering heroes, scandals, ghosts, and assassinations, after which the visitors were free to explore regal apartments, dungeons, and staircases carved out of solid rock. Windows were small, passages were narrow, and doorways were low.

  “The early Scots must have been pygmies,” Qwilleran said as he stooped to maneuver his six-feet-two through a low doorway.

  “Look out!” someone yelled.

  Turning to check the danger, Qwilleran straightened up and struck his head on the stone lintel above. The blow knocked him to his knees, and he saw blinding flashes of light and heard distant screams and calls for help. Next he was being seated on a bench, and Melinda was checking his pulse and lifting his eyelids, all the while asking questions: “Do you know your name? . . . What day is it? . . . Do you know where you are?”

  At this point, Qwilleran was feeling more anger than pain, and he snapped, “Shakespeare wrote Macbeth. Moose County is north of the equator. Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to go outside and sit in the bus while you people finish your sightseeing and buy your postcards.”

  Dwight Somers volunteered to go with him.

  “I’ve had enough castle for one day,” Qwilleran told him.

  “Same here. How did they exist in that damp, gloomy environment?”

  “They didn’t. If they weren’t murdered in their twenties, they died of pneumonia in their thirties.”

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you, Qwill: Have you done any theatre?”

  “Only in college. At one time I was planning to be an actor, until a wise professor steered me into journalism, and I must admit that a little acting experience doesn’t hurt in my profession.”

  “I was sure you had training. You have a very good voice. I wish you’d take a role in Macbeth.”

  “What did you have in mind for me?” Qwilleran asked. “Banquo’s ghost? One of the three witches? Lady Macbeth?”

  “You’re not too far off base. In Shakespeare’s time she was played by an actor in drag, but he didn’t have a moustache. How about doing Macduff? He has a couple of great scenes, and I don’t think the guy we’ve cast is going to work out.”

  “That’s a sizable part,” Qwilleran objected. “It would be tough to learn lines after so many years away from the stage . . . No, Dwight, I’d better stick to my role as theatre reviewer for the paper. Have you cast Lady Macbeth?”

  “Yes, I gave the role to Melinda. She has a certain quality for Lady Macbeth. She brought a script with her on the trip, and she’s been working on her lines.”

  Members of the party were emerging from the castle and sauntering across the drawbridge.

  “Melinda’s an interesting woman,” Dwight went on. He paused, waiting for an affirmative comment. When none was forthcoming, he said, “We both have apartments at Indian Village, and I’ve been seeing her quite often but not getting very far.” There was another pause. “I’m getting the impression I might be trespassing on your territory.”

  “No problem,” Qwilleran assured him.

  “This is the first time I’ve lived in a town as small as Pickax, and I don’t want to violate any codes.”

  “No problem,” Qwilleran said.

  When the group started climbing into the bus, everyone expressed concern about his condition, but Melinda examined the bump on his head and announced there was no bleeding.

  Their destination that night was a picturesque inn converted from a bothy, with numerous additions, confusing levels, and angled hallways. The beds were comfortable, however, and the furnishings were engagingly old, with a homey clutter of doilies, knickknacks, vases of heather, baskets of fruit, and the ubiquitous tea-maker. Coils of rope were provided under the windows for escape in case of fire.

  The Bonnie Scots tourists were booked for two nights, and Irma had promised them a free day, absolutely unstructured, after several days of hurtling around in the bus. They could enjoy the luxury of unpacking their luggage, putting their belongings away in bureau drawers, and hanging clothes in the wardrobes that served as closets.

  After a dinner of sheep’s head broth, rabbit casserole, and clootie dumplings, Qwilleran excused himself, saying he had a headache and wished to retire early, although the chief reason was a desire to get away from his fellow travelers.

  From the main hall he went up half a flight of stairs, turned left into a narrow passage, then to the right and three steps down, through a glass door and up a ramp, and finally to the left, where he bumped into a bewildered Grace Utley, clutching her necklace in panic.

  “Are you lost?” he asked. “It isn’t hard to do.”

  “I took the wrong turn somewhere, dear heart,” she said. “We’re in Number Eight.”

  “Then you should be in the other wing. Follow me.”

  After he had conducted her to the hallway leading to Number Eight, she seemed reluctant to let him go. “Mr. Qwilleran,” she began in her grating voice, “I shouldn’t mention this, but . . . do you think Ms. Hasselrich is carrying on with that bus driver?”

  “What do you mean by carrying on?” he asked.

  “It’s the way she looks at him, and they have secret conversations in a foreign language. Last night, when I looked out my window, I could see them on the moor in the moonlight . . . yes!”

  “Could have been ghosts,” he said archly. “They haunt the moors all the time. Pay no attention,
Mrs. Utley.”

  “Please call me Grace,” she said. “How do you feel after your accident, dear heart?”

  “Just a slight headache. I’m retiring early.”

  Other women in the group had raised eyebrows over Irma’s secret nightlife, but Lyle had said, “The woman works sixteen hours a day! She’s entitled to some R&R, and ours is not to question where or with whom.”

  Qwilleran returned to his room and changed into the red pajamas that Polly had given him for a Valentine, hoping for a few hours of solitude. The others were sipping Drambuie in front of the fire, or playing cards, or watching TV in the keeping room.

  Lounging in a passably comfortable chair, he began to dictate the day’s experiences into his tape recorder: “Today we visited the island where Macbeth was buried in 1057 . . .”

  He was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Now, who the devil is that?” he muttered. He hoped it was not Grace Utley. Worse yet, it was Melinda.

  FOUR

  “HOW DO YOU feel, lover?” Melinda asked as she stood in the passage outside Qwilleran’s room. “You seemed rather quiet during dinner.”

  “After conversing with the same crowd for five days, I’m running out of things to say and also the patience to listen,” he said.

  “May I come in? I want to check your pulse and temperature. Sit down over there, please.” She entered in a cloud of scent that had enchanted him three years ago; now it seemed too sweet, too musky. She inserted a thermometer in his mouth, counted his pulse, raised his eyelids, and looked at his eyeballs. “You’re still legally alive,” she said as she drew a flask from her official black bag. “Would you like a little nip for medicinal purposes?”

  “You’ve forgotten I can’t have alcohol, Melinda.”

  “Where’s your tea-maker? We’ll have a nice cup of tea, as they say over here.” She filled the pot with water from the bathroom tap. “How do you like the tour so far?”

  “There’s too much of everything. Too much food, too much conversation, too much bus travel, too many tourists.”

  Melinda sauntered around the room in familiar fashion. “Your room looks comfortable. The doubles are better than the singles. I’m at the end of the hall in Number Nine—for your future reference—and the furnishings give me gastro-intestinal turbulence. I have a wonderful view of the loch, though. Perhaps Arch would like to exchange with me,” she said with a mischievous glance.

  “Does anyone know the name of this loch? They all look alike to me,” said Qwilleran, an expert at ignoring hints.

  “Well, tell me about you, Qwill. What have you been doing for the last three years?”

  “Sometimes I wonder. The years speed by.” He was in no mood to socialize or particularize.

  “Apparently you’re not married yet.”

  “It’s fairly well accepted in Moose County that I’m not suitable grist for the matrimonial mill.”

  Melinda poured two cups of tea and splashed something from the flask into her own cup. “I was hoping we could pick up where we left off.”

  “I’ll say it again, what I’ve said before, Melinda. You belong with a man of your own age—your own generation.”

  “I like older men.”

  “And I like older women,” he said with brutal candor.

  “Ouch!” she said and then added impishly, “Wouldn’t you like a second-string girlfriend for your youthful moments?”

  “This is good tea,” he said, although he disliked tea. “You must have used two teabags.”

  “Are you as . . . uh . . . compatible with your present inamorata as you were with me?”

  “What is this? The third degree? I think you’re exceeding your privilege as a medical practitioner.”

  She was not easily deterred. “Didn’t you ever think you’d like to have sons, Qwill? Polly is a little old for that.”

  “Frankly, no!” he said, irritated at her intrusion into his privacy. “Nor daughters. I’m a bachelor by chance, choice, and temperament, and offspring are outside my frame of reference.”

  “With all your money you should have heirs.”

  “The Klingenschoen Foundation is my sole beneficiary, and they’ll distribute my estate for the benefit of the county, the population of which is 11,279, according to Big Mac. So I have 11,279 heirs—a respectable heirship, I’d say.”

  “You’re not drinking your tea.”

  “Furthermore, I resent suggestions for the disposition of my financial assets.”

  “Qwill, you’re getting to be a grouchy old bachelor. I think marriage would be good for you. I speak as your medical adviser.” She transferred to the arm of his chair. “Don’t move! I want to check the bump on your head.”

  “Excuse me,” he said and went into the bathroom, where he counted to ten . . . and then a hundred and ten before facing her again. She had kicked off her shoes and was now lounging on the bed against a bank of pillows.

  “Won’t you join me?” she invited playfully. “I like red pajamas.”

  He made a point of pacing the floor and saying nothing.

  “Let me explain something, Qwill,” said Melinda in a reasonable tone. “Three years ago I wanted us to marry because I thought we’d have a lot of fun together. Now I have a couple of other reasons. The Goodwinter clan is dying out, and I want sons to carry on the name. I’m very proud of the Goodwinter name. So I’ll make you a proposition—since one has to be conventional in Moose County. If you will marry me, you can have your freedom at the end of three years, and our children will resume the name of Goodwinter. We might even have a go-o-od time together.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” he said, suddenly suspecting that the strange look in her eyes was insanity.

  “The second reason is . . . I’m broke!” she said with the impudent frankness that he had once found attractive. “All I’m inheriting from my dad is obligations and an obsolete mansion.”

  “The K Foundation can help you over the rough spots. They’re committed to promoting health care in the community.”

  “I don’t want institutional support. I want you!”

  “To put it bluntly, Melinda, the answer is no!”

  “Why don’t you think about it? Let the idea gel for a while?”

  Qwilleran walked to the door and, with his hand on the knob, said, “Let me tell you something, and this is final. If I marry anyone, it will be Polly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need some rest . . . Don’t forget your shoes.”

  If Melinda felt the hellish fury of a woman scorned, the Goodwinter pride prevented her from showing it. “Take a couple of aspirin and call me in the morning, lover,” she said with an insolent wink as she brushed past him, carrying her loafers.

  Huffing angrily into his moustache, Qwilleran dictated a few choice words into the tape recorder before snapping it off. He was reading a booklet about the Mackintosh clan when Arch Riker walked into the room at eleven o’clock.

  “You’re awake, Qwill! Did you get any rest?”

  “Melinda dropped in to take my pulse, and I couldn’t get rid of her. The girl is getting to be a nuisance.”

  “I guessed that would happen. You may have to marry Polly in self-defense. If Polly doesn’t want you, how about Amanda? I’ll let you have the lovely Amanda.”

  “This is no joke, Arch.”

  “Well, I’m ready to hit the sack. How about you? Polly’s with the Lanspeaks and the Comptons, playing Twenty Questions. Amanda’s winning at cards with the MacWhannells and Bushy; no doubt she’s cheating. Dwight is out on the terrace practicing the tin whistle; he’ll be lucky if someone doesn’t shoot him.”

  “Once a reporter, always a reporter,” Qwilleran commented.

  “I haven’t seen Irma. Her voice was very hoarse at the dinner table. Too much chatter on that blasted microphone! And her evenings in the damp night air can’t do anything for her vocal cords . . . How’s the bump on your head, Qwill?”

  “It’s subsiding, but I’d like to know who yelled ‘
Look out’ and why!”

  That was the end of Day Five.

  Day Six began at dawn when Qwilleran was awakened by screams in the hall and frantic banging on someone’s door.

  Riker was sitting up in the other bed, saying, “What’s that? Are we on fire?”

  There were sounds of running feet, and Qwilleran looked out in the hall as other heads appeared in other doorways. The innkeeper rushed past them and disappeared into Number Eleven, occupied by Polly and Irma.

  “Oh, my God!” Qwilleran shouted over his shoulder. “Something’s happened to the girls!” As he started down the passageway, the innkeeper’s wife was ahead of him.

  Her husband shouted to her, “Ring up the constable! One o’ the lassies had an attack! Ring up the constable!”

  Qwilleran hurried to the room at the end of the hall and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Polly standing there in her nightgown. She was weeping in her hands. Melinda, in pajamas, was bending over the bed. He threw his arms around Polly. “What happened?”

  “I think she’s dead!” she sobbed. “I woke up suddenly a few minutes ago and felt that ghastly sense of death. I called Melinda.” Polly burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

  Still holding her, Qwilleran said to Melinda, “Is there anything I can do?” Others were crowding into the room in their nightclothes.

  “Get everyone out of the room—and out of the hall—until the authorities have been here. Out! Out! I’ll talk to all of you downstairs, later.”

  The concerned bystanders wandered back to their rooms, whispering:

  “Is Irma dead?”

  “What was it? Does anyone know what happened?”

  “This is terrible! Who’ll notify her parents?”

  “It’ll kill them! She’s their only child, and they’re getting on in years.”

  “She was only forty-two last birthday.”

  Lyle Compton nudged Qwilleran. “Do you think something happened out on the moor?”

  Quickly they dressed and gathered downstairs in the small parlor, and the innkeeper’s wife served hot tea, murmuring sympathetic phrases that no one understood or really heard. In everyone’s mind the question was nagging: What do we do now?