“Hi, Mr. Q,” several called out as he pushed through to the box office. The window was shuttered, but there was a light inside, and Carol admitted him through the side door.
“Can you believe this crowd?” she remarked. “Looks like we’ve got a hit show! . . . Now, here’s what you do. When customers first come up to the window, ask them what date they want, and pull the seating chart for that performance. Seats already sold have been x-ed out on the chart.”
The chart of the auditorium showed twelve rows of seats on the main floor and three in the balcony—twenty seats to the row, divided into left, right, and center sections.
“Next, ask them how many tickets they want and where they want to sit. All seats are the same price. Then you take the tickets out of this rack; they’re in cubbyholes labeled according to row. Be sure to x-out the seats they’re buying . . . Then take their money. No credit cards, but personal checks are okay. Any questions?”
“What’s that other rack?”
“Those are reserved tickets waiting to be picked up. You probably won’t have any pickups so early in the game, but you’ll get phone orders. When you sell tickets by phone, put them in the pickup rack, and don’t forget to x-out the seats on the chart.” Carol pulled out a drawer under the counter. “There’s the till, with enough small bills to make change. Lock it when you’re through, and lock the box office when you leave.”
“What do I do with the keys?”
“Put them in the bottom of the tall-case clock in the lobby. It’s all very simple.”
The hard part, Qwilleran discovered, was on the other side of the window. He opened the shutters and faced his public. They had formed a queue, and there were about forty in a line that snaked around the lobby.
The first at the window was a small, nervous woman with graying hair and wrinkled brow. “Do you know me?” she asked. “I’m Jennifer’s mother.”
“Jennifer?” he repeated.
“Jennifer Olson. She’s in the play.”
“No doubt you’ll want tickets for opening night,” he guessed, reaching for the Wednesday chart.
“Yes, ten tickets. Our whole family is going.”
“Here’s what’s available, Mrs. Olson. Do you want them all in the same row, or a block of seats?”
“What would a block be like?”
“It could be two rows of five, one behind the other, or three shorter rows bunched together.”
“I don’t know. Which do you think would be best?”
“Well, it’s like this,” Qwilleran explained. “If you take a block, it can be closer to the stage. To get a full row you’ll have to sit farther back.”
“Why is that?”
“Because,” he said patiently, “tickets have already been sold in various rows at the front of the auditorium, as you can see by this chart.” He pushed the seating plan closer to the glass and waited for Mrs. Olson to find her reading glasses.
Frowning at the chart, she said, “Which is the front?”
“Here’s the stage. As you can see, the entire front row is still available, if you don’t mind sitting that close.”
“No, I don’t think we should sit in the front row. It might make Jennifer nervous.”
“In that case, the next full row available is H. That’s the eighth row.”
“I wonder if Grandma Olson will be able to hear from the eighth row.”
“The acoustics are very good,” he assured her.
“What are those?” Mrs. Olson asked.
The customers standing in line were getting restless. The man behind her kept looking at his watch with exaggerated gestures. A young woman had a child in a stroller whose fretting had escalated to screams. An older woman leaning on a quad-cane was volubly indignant. And the front doors opened and closed constantly as frustrated ticket purchasers left and new ones arrived.
Qwilleran said, “Mrs. Olson, why don’t you walk down into the auditorium and try sitting in the various rows to see how you like the location? Meanwhile, I can take care of these other customers . . . Take your time, so that you’re sure.”
There was a groan of relief as she left, and Qwilleran was able to serve the entire lineup by the time she returned. The selection had dwindled considerably, but he could offer her an irregular block of seats in the center section.
“But we need three aisle seats,” she said. “My husband is with the volunteer fire department and will have to leave if his beeper goes off. My sister has anxiety attacks and sometimes has to rush out in a hurry. And Grandpa Olson has a bad leg from the war and has to stretch it in the aisle.”
“Left leg or right leg?” Qwilleran asked.
“It’s his left leg. He took shrapnel.”
“Then you’ll have to take the left of the center section or the left of the right section.”
“Oh, dearie me! It’s so confusing. There are so many people to please.”
Helpfully Qwilleran suggested, “Why not let me select a block of tickets for you, and if your family decides they’re not right, bring them back for exchange.”
“That’s a wonderful idea!” she cried gratefully. “Thank you, Mr. Q. You have been so helpful. And I must tell you how much I enjoy your column in the paper.”
“Thank you,” he said. “That will be sixty dollars.”
“And now I need eight more for Saturday night,” she said. “They’re for Jennifer’s godparents and her boyfriend’s family.”
It crossed Qwilleran’s mind that Jennifer probably had two lines to speak, but diplomatically he asked, “Is your daughter playing Lady Macbeth?”
“Oh! How strange you should mention that!” Mrs. Olson seemed flustered. “She’s really doing Lady Macduff, but . . .”
“That’s a good role. I’m sure you’ll be proud of her.”
The woman scanned the lobby and then said confidentially, “Jennifer has learned all of Lady Macbeth’s lines—just in case.”
“Was that her own idea?” Qwilleran was aware that understudies were a luxury the Theatre Club had never enjoyed.
In a near-whisper she said, “Mr. Somers, the director, asked her to do it and not tell anyone. You won’t mention this, will you?”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he said.
When Jennifer’s mother had left, he thought, So! Dwight is doubting Melinda’s capability to play the lead! And she’s already making errors in prescriptions! What is happening to her?
Despite Qwilleran’s desire to be rid of Melinda, he could hardly ignore her plight. They had been good friends once. Quite apart from that, he had a newsman’s curiosity about the story behind the story.
The towering clock in the theatre lobby finally bonged four, and he counted the money, balanced it against the number of tickets sold, locked up, hid the keys, and walked home slowly. Ambling through the cool woods he began to think about Bushy’s photographs, particularly three Highland scenes.
There was a lonely moor without a tree or a boulder or a lost sheep—totally empty and isolated except for a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere, and Bushy had added a woman digging for a coin in the depths of her shoulder bag.
One was a haunting scene of a silvery loch in which floated an uninhabited island with a ruined castle reflected in the still water. In the background a gray, mysterious mountain rose steeply from the loch, and in the foreground a woman sat on a stone wall reading a paperback with her back to the view.
Then there was a riot of flowers behind a rustic fence and garden gate, on which hung the sign:
Be ye mon or be ye wumin,
Be ye gaun or be ye cumin,
Be ye early, be ye late,
Dinna fergit taeSHUT THE GATE!
In Bushy’s picture there was a woman in the garden, and the gate stood open.
The series ought to be titled “Tourism,” Qwilleran thought, and as soon as he reached the barn he hunted up Bushy’s yellow boxes and pulled out the three photos. Each one had its surface defaced by Koko’s rough tongue,
and in each photo the woman was Melinda.
THIRTEEN
THAT WAS THE week that Moose County was discovered by the media. Overnight it became the Teddy Bear Capital of the nation. Qwilleran’s story and Bushy’s photographs ran in the Moose County Something with a teaser on the front page and the full treatment on the back page. It was picked up by the wire services and published in several major newspapers around the country, and a television crew flew up from Down Below on Thursday to film the collection and interview the collectors.
During the week there was also a series of break-ins in the affluent Purple Point area, but this untimely happening was played down while the TV people were around. It was also the week of the Goodwinter tag sale, and on Friday afternoon Qwilleran attended the preview.
Goodwinter Boulevard was a broad, quiet avenue off Main Street with two stone pylons at the entrance to give it an air of exclusivity. A cul-de-sac with a landscaped median and old-fashioned street lights, it extended the equivalent of three blocks, ending at a vest-pocket park with an impressive monument. The granite monolith rose about twelve feet and bore a bronze plaque commemorating the four Goodwinter brothers who founded the city. Their mansions—and those of other tycoons who had made fortunes in mining and lumbering—lined both sides of the boulevard. Qwilleran usually found it a pleasant place for a walk, having interesting architecture and virtually no traffic—only an occasional car turning into a side drive and disappearing into a garage at the rear.
Friday afternoon was different. The ban on curb parking was lifted, and both sides of the street were lined with parked cars bumper-to-bumper, while other vehicles cruised hopefully and continually, waiting for someone to leave. Many had to give up and park on Main Street. As for the sidewalks, they teemed with individuals going to and from the preview, with a large group gathered in front of No. 180.
Qwilleran approached a woman on the fringe of the crowd and asked her what was happening.
She squealed in delight at recognizing his moustache and said, “Oh, you’re Mr. Q! They won’t let us in until some of the others come out. I’ve been out here since eleven. Wish I’d brought my lunch.”
No one showed impatience. They chatted sociably as they edged closer to the entrance of the mansion. Qwilleran slipped around to the rear and used his press card for admittance, although the well-known overgrown moustache would have accomplished the same end.
He entered a kitchen large enough to accommodate three cooks, where a Bid-a-Bit employee at the coffee urn offered him a cup. He accepted and sat down on a kitchen chair just as Foxy Fred walked in from the front of the house, wearing a red jacket and his usual western hat. Qwilleran, turning on his tape recorder, asked him, “How do you size up this collection?”
“Four generations of treasures going at giveaway prices!” said the auctioneer, who was not known for understatement. “Most prestigious sale in the history of Moose County! Fifty or seventy-five years from now, our grandkids will be proud to say they own a drinking mug or a pair of nail clippers that belonged to a great twentieth-century humanitarian!”
“But Fred, this kind of sale raises havoc with a quiet neighborhood,” Qwilleran said. “Why didn’t you cart the goods away and hold an auction in a tent out in the country?”
“The customer requested a tag sale, and the customer is always right,” said Foxy Fred, gulping down a cup of coffee. “Well, I gotta get back where the action is.”
In the large rooms on the main floor the ponderous heirloom furniture had been pushed back and rugs had been rolled up. Long folding tables were loaded with china, crystal, silver, linens, and bric-a-brac. The interior had the sadness of a house that had not seen a formal dinner, afternoon tea, or cocktail party for twenty-five years, the span of Mrs. Goodwinter’s illness.
Curious crowds moved up and down the aisles, examining the items, checking the prices and muttering comments, while red-jacketed attendants announced repeatedly, “Keep moving, folks! Lots more waiting to get in.” There were also three roving security guards, making themselves highly visible and looking seriously watchful.
Qwilleran dodged from aisle to aisle, asking viewers, “Why are you here? . . . See anything you like? . . . How are the prices? . . . Will you come back tomorrow to buy? . . . Did you know the Goodwinter family?” He himself spotted a silver pocketknife he wouldn’t mind buying; engraved with the doctor’s initials, it was priced at $150.
Upstairs, the crowds were less dense. Chests and dressers and disassembled beds were pushed back, and long tables were piled with blankets, towels and such. Clothing filled portable racks. One room, which was empty, had obviously been Melinda’s; she had removed her furnishings to her apartment, but her distinctive fragrance lingered.
At the rear of the second floor there was a large room that no one entered, although an occasional viewer would poke a head through the doorway and back away quickly. It was two stories high and had three large north windows. This had been Dr. Hal’s studio. Hanging in every wall space and filed on floor-to-ceiling shelves like books were brightly colored paintings on stretched canvas or rectangles of wallboard, and hundreds more were stacked on the Bid-a-Bit tables. It was the output, Qwilleran surmised, of twenty-five lonely years. None was bigger than an ordinary book. All were flat, two-dimensional depictions of animals against unrealistic landscapes of kelly green and cobalt blue. Red cats and turquoise dogs stood on hind legs and danced together. Orange ducks with purple beaks faced each other and quacked sociably. Tigers and kangaroos flew overhead like airplanes. These were the “animules” that had caused old Mr. Hornbuckle both wonderment and amusement.
A sign saying “Pictures $1.00” prompted Qwilleran to run downstairs to the kitchen and phone the high school where Mildred Hanstable taught art as well as home ec.
“She’s in class at this hour,” said an anonymous voice in the school office.
“This is urgent! Jim Qwilleran calling! Get her on the phone!” He was willing to throw his name around when it served a good purpose.
“Just a minute, Mr. Q.”
A breathless art teacher came on the line.
“Mildred, this is Qwill,” he said. “I’m at the Goodwinter house previewing the tag sale, and there’s something here that you must definitely see! How fast can you make it over here?”
“I’m free next hour, but the period’s just started.”
“Cut class! Get here on the double! You’ll be back before anyone misses you. Come in the back way. Use my name.” Meanwhile he went upstairs and closed the door to Dr. Hal’s studio.
When Mildred arrived, they climbed the servants’ stairs from the kitchen, Qwilleran explaining, “Dr. Hal had a secret hobby. He painted pictures.”
“My God!” Mildred gasped when she saw them.
“My words exactly! They’re marked a dollar apiece, and no one is interested. A hundred dollars would be more appropriate. They might sell for a thousand in the right gallery. I don’t know anything about art, but I’ve seen crazier stuff than this in museums.”
“It’s contemporary folk art,” she said. “They’re charming! They’re unique! Wait till the art magazines get hold of these!”
“Wait till the psychologists get their claws into them! It’s the Noah’s Ark of a madman.”
“I’m weak,” Mildred said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Go back to your class. I simply wanted an opinion to corroborate my own hunch.”
“What are you going to do about it, Qwill?”
“First, take the decimal point out of that sign. Then notify the K Foundation.”
Reluctantly the art teacher tore herself away from the bizarre collection, and Qwilleran went back to asking questions downstairs: “Do you collect antiques? . . . Are you a dealer? . . . Have you ever seen a sale to equal this? . . . What do you plan to buy?”
It was while taping their uninspired answers that he caught a glimpse of a bushy-haired, bushy-bearded young man in jeans and faded sweatshirt, wearing
a fanny pack. He was browsing among odds and ends on a table toward the rear of the main floor.
Qwilleran’s moustache bristled; he remembered that shaggy head from the reading room at the public library. It had been three months before, but he was sure this was the person who drove away in a maroon car with a Massachusetts plate and who was later identified as Charles Edward Martin. The man was reading labels on old LP records and fingering household tools. He examined the initials on the silver pocketknife. He picked up a cast-iron piggy bank and shook it; there was no rattle.
Sidling up to him, Qwilleran asked in a friendly way, “Quite a bunch of junk, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said the fellow.
“Find anything worth buying?”
“Nah.”
“What do you think of the prices? Aren’t they a bit high?”
The young man shrugged.
Hoping to hear him say a few words with an eastern accent, Qwilleran remarked, “I have a feeling we’ve met somewhere. Ever go to the Shipwreck Tavern in Mooseville?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where I’ve met you! You’re Ronald Frobnitz!” Qwilleran said.
The subject was supposed to say, “No, I’m Charles Martin,” or better yet, “Chahles Mahtin.” Instead he shook his head and scuttled away.
Noting that the silver pocketknife had scuttled at the same time, Qwilleran followed him to the front door, hindered by the crowds. The man was moving fast enough to make good time but not fast enough to arouse the suspicion of the security guards. Qwilleran thought, That Chahles Mahtin is smaht! He followed him through the milling hordes on the sidewalk—all the way to Main Street, where the suspect drove off in a maroon car with a Massachusetts plate.
The Cat Who Wasn't There Page 16