“Maybe he had a couple of drinks with Miss Duckworth and got reckless.”
“He didn’t drink. She probably had a drink or two, but Andy didn’t have any bad habits. He was kind of straitlaced. I always thought he’d make a good minister of the gospel if he hadn’t gone into the junk business. He was really dedicated. It’s a calling, you know. It gets to be your whole life.”
“Could it have been suicide?”
“Oh, no! Andy wasn’t the type.”
“You never know what goes on in people’s heads—or what kind of trouble—”
“I couldn’t believe it. Not about Andy.”
Qwilleran drew his pipe and tobacco pouch from the pocket of his tweed sports coat. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Go right ahead. Would you like a can of C.C.’s beer?”
“No, thanks. I’m on the wagon.”
With fascination Iris watched the sucking in of cheeks and soft oompah-oompah of pipe lighting. “I wish C.C. smoked a pipe. It smells so good!”
The newsman said, “Do you suppose Andy might have been killed by a prowler?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you think of a motive for murder?”
Iris pressed down on the iron while she thought about it. “I don’t know . . . but I’ll tell you something if you’ll promise not to tell C.C. He would kid me about it . . . . It was Andy’s horoscope. I just happened to read it in the paper. The Daily Fluxion has the best horoscopes, but we get the Morning Rampage because it has more pages, and we need lots of paper for wrapping china and glass.”
“And what did the Morning Rampage have to say about Andy?”
“His sign was Aquarius. It said he should beware of trickery.” She gave Qwilleran a questioning glance. “I didn’t read it till the day after he was killed.”
The newsman puffed on his pipe with sober mien. “Not what you would call substantial evidence . . . . Was Andy engaged to the Duckworth girl?”
“Not officially, but there was a lot of running back and forth,” Iris said with raised eyebrows.
“She’s very attractive,” Qwilleran remarked, thinking about the Dragon’s eyes. “How did she react after Andy was killed?”
“She was all broken up. My, she was broken up! And that surprised me, because she had always been such a cool cucumber. C.C. said Andy probably got her in a family way before he died, but I don’t believe it. Andy was too honorable.”
“Maybe Andy was more human than you think.”
“Well, he died before Halloween, and this is almost Christmas, and the Dragon’s still as skinny as a rake handle . . . . But she’s changed. She’s very moody and withdrawn.”
“What will happen to Andy’s estate?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Maus is handling it. Andy’s parents live upstate somewhere.”
“How did the other dealers feel about Andy? Was he well liked?
Iris reflected before she answered. “Everyone re- spected Andy—for his ability—but some people thought he was too much of a goody.”
“What do you mean?”
“How shall I explain? . . . In this business you have to grab every advantage you can. You work hard without letup and don’t make any money. Some months we can hardly make the payments on this house, because C.C. has tied up his cash in something crazy—like the pot-bellied stove—that we won’t be able to sell.” She wiped her damp forehead on her sleeve. “So if you see a chance to make a good profit, you grab it . . . . But Andy was always leaning over backwards to be ethical, and he condemned people who were trying to make an extra dollar or two. I don’t say he was wrong, but he carried it too far. That’s the only thing I had against him . . . . Don’t say that in the paper. On the whole he was a wonderful person. So considerate in unexpected ways!”
“In what ways?”
“Well, for one thing, he was always so nice to Papa Popopopoulos, the fruit man. The rest of us just ignore the lonely old fellow . . . . And then there was Ann Peabody. When the antique dealers had a neighborhood meeting, Andy always made sure that Ann attended, even if he had to carry her. She’s ninety years old and still runs a shop, although she hasn’t sold so much as a salt dip in four years.” The iron was making light passes over a red and grey striped sport shirt. “One good thing about being in this business—you don’t have to iron white shirts.”
“Was Andy successful—financially?”
“He made a go of it, I guess. He also sold articles to magazines and taught an evening class in antiques at the Y.W.C.A. In this business everybody has to have some kind of job on the side—or else a rich uncle. C.C. is a professional picket. He was on the picket line this morning in that bitter cold.”
“What was he picketing?”
“I don’t know. He goes wherever the agency sends him. He likes the work, and it pays time and a half in bad weather.”
“Does Miss Duckworth have a sideline?”
“I doubt whether she needs one. I think she has money. She sells very fine things—to a select clientele. She has a Sheraton card table over there that I’d commit murder to own! It’s priced way out of my class.”
“I was surprised to find such an expensive shop in Junktown.”
“I suppose she wanted to be near her boy friend. In this business, location is unimportant; customers will go anywhere to find what they’re looking for.”
“But isn’t there some risk in having valuable things in a neighborhood like this?” Qwilleran asked.
Iris frowned at him. “You’re just like everyone else! You think an old neighborhood that’s run down is a hotbed of crime. It’s not true! We don’t have any trouble.” She fell silent as she concentrated on the collar of a blouse.
The newsman stood up. “Well, I’d better get back to work—try out the new typewriter—and see if I can write something about the auction.”
“By the way,” said Iris, “there’s a box of old keys on that Empire chest. See if one of them fits your lock.”
He glanced in the box and saw nothing but old-fashioned keys, four inches long. “I don’t need to lock my door,” he said.
Returning to his apartment, Qwilleran opened the door and reached in for the wall switch that activated three sources of light: the reading light near the Morris chair, the floor lamp standing at the desk, and the hand-painted relic on the tilted table. Then he looked for the cats, as he always did upon coming home.
There they were—sitting on the two gilt chairs like two reigning heads of state on their thrones—with brown paws tucked fastidiously under white breasts and brown ears worn like two little crowns.
“You guys look pretty contented,” Qwilleran remarked. “Didn’t take you long to feel at home.”
Koko squeezed his eyes and said, “Yow,” and Yum Yum, whose eyes were slightly crossed, peered at Qwilleran with her perpetual I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look and murmured something. Her normal speaking voice was a soprano shriek, but in her softer moments she uttered a high-pitched “Mmmm” with her mouth closed.
The newsman went to work. He opened the typewriter case, hit a few keys on his newly acquired machine and thought, Andy may have been prudent, ethical, intelligent, and good-looking, but he kept a scruffy typewriter. It was filled with eraser crumbs, and the ribbon had been hammered to shreds. Furthermore, the missing letter was not the expendable Z but the ubiquitous E. Qwilleran began to write:
“Th* spirit of th* lat* Andr*w Glanz hov*r*d ov*r Junktown wh*n th* tr*asur*s of this highly r*sp*ct* d d*al*r w* r* sold at auction to th* cr*am of th* city’s junk*rs.”
He described the cream: their purposely raffish clothes, their wacky conversations, the calculated expressions on their faces. He had made no notes during the day; after twenty-five years of newspapering, his mind was a video tape recorder.
It was slow work, however. The tavern table was rickety. The lack of an E was frustrating, and the asterisks—inserted for the benefit of the typesetter—dazzled his eyes. Between paragraphs, moreover
, a pair of piercing eyes kept boring into his consciousness. He knew that kind of stare. It indicated one of two things. The elegant Miss Duckworth was either myopic—or frightened.
At one point Qwilleran was alerted by a low rumble coming from Koko’s throat, and soon afterward he heard footsteps slowly mounting the stairs and entering the front apartment. Some minutes later he heard a telephone ring in the adjoining rooms. Then the heavy footsteps started down the hall again.
Qwilleran’s curiosity sent him hurrying to the door for a close-up of the man who wore a Santa Claus cap. He saw instead a Napoleonic bicorne perched squarely above a round face that lacked eyebrows.
The man threw up his hands in exaggerated surprise. His small bloodshot eyes stretched wide in astonishment. “Sir! You startled us!” he said in an overly dramatic voice.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. I just moved in here. My name’s Qwilleran.”
“Welcome to our humble abode,” said the man with a sweeping gesture. He suddenly looked down. “And what have we here?”
Koko had followed Qwilleran into the hall and was rubbing against the stranger’s rubber boots in an affectionate way.
“I’ve never seen him do that before,” Qwilleran said. “Koko usually doesn’t warm up to strangers right away.”
“They know! They know! Ben Nicholas is the friend of bird and beast!”
“You have a shop next door, I understand. I’m with the Daily Fluxion, and I’m writing a series on Junktown.”
“Pray visit us and write a few kind words. We need the publicity.”
“Tomorrow,” Qwilleran promised.
“Till then!” With an airy wave of the hand the dealer started downstairs, his ridiculously long scarf dragging on the carpeted treads behind him. “A customer awaits us,” he explained. “We must be off.”
Mrs. Cobb was right, Qwilleran thought. Ben Nicholas was an idiot, but Koko evidently approved.
Again all was quiet in the hall beyond Qwilleran’s door. Recklessly the newsman wrote about things he did not understand (a M*iss*n armorial sucri*r, *arly Am*rican tr**n, and A Qu*zal compot* in quincunx d*sign), making frequent trips to the dictionary.
After a while, as he sat there pounding out copy with the two long fingers of each hand, he thought he saw—out of the corner of his eye—something moving. He turned his head and looked over his roll-top desk just in time to see the door slowly opening inward. It opened a few inches and stopped.
“Yes? Who is it?” Qwilleran demanded.
There was no answer. He jumped up and went to the door, opening it wide. No one was there, but at the end of the hall, in a jumble of furniture, there was a flicker of movement. Qwilleran pressed his weary eyeballs with his fingers and then stared at the confusion of mahogany, pine, and walnut—legs, lids, drawers, seats, and backs He saw it again—behind a low blanket chest. It was the tip of a brown tail.
“Koko!” he said sharply.
There was no reply from the cat.
“Koko, come back here!” He knew it was Koko; there was no kink in the tail tip.
The cat ignored him, as he customarily did when concentrating on important business of his own.
Qwilleran strode down the hall and saw Koko disappear behind the parlor organ. The man could guess how the cat had managed to get out. Old houses had loosely fitting doors with weak latches, or else they had swollen doors, thick with paint, that refused to close at all. Koko had pulled the door open with his claws. He was clever about doors; he knew when to pull and when to push.
The man leaned over a marble-topped commode and peered behind the parlor organ. “Get out of there, Koko! It’s none of your business.”
The cat had leaped to a piano stool. He was sniffing intently. With whiskers back, he moved his nose like a delicate instrument up and down the length of a sharp metal object with a brass ball at its base.
Qwilleran’s moustache bristled. The cat had walked out of the apartment and had gone directly to the finial. He was sniffing it with mouth open and fangs bared, a sign of repugnance.
Qwilleran reached behind the organ and grabbed Koko around the middle. The cat squawked as if he were being strangled.
“Mrs. Cobb!” the man called through the open door of his landlady’s apartment. “I’ve changed my mind. I want a key.”
While she rummaged through the keybox, he touched his moustache gingerly. There was an odd feeling in the roots of it—a tingling sensation he had experienced several times before. It always happened when there was murder in the air.
SIX
Late that evening Qwilleran sampled the abolitionist’s library and became fascinated by a volume of bound copies of The Liberator, and it was after midnight when he realized he had nothing in the apartment for breakfast. He had noticed an all-night grocery on the corner, so he put on his overcoat and the latest acquisition in his wardrobe, a porkpie hat in black and white checked tweed with a rakish red feather. It was the reddest red feather he had ever seen, and he liked red.
He locked the door with a four-inch key and went down the squeaking stairs. Snow had begun to fall—in a kindly way this time, without malice—and Qwilleran stood on the front steps to enjoy the scene. Traffic was sparse, and with the dimness of the outdated streetlights and the quaintness of the buildings and the blessing of the snow, Junktown had an old-time charm. The snow sugared the carved lintels of doors and windows, voluted iron railings, tops of parked cars, and lids of trash cans.
At the nearby intersection there was a glow on the whitened sidewalks, spilling out from the grocery, the drugstore, and the bar called The Lion’s Tail. A man came out of the bar, walking with uncertain dignity and clutching for a handrail that did not exist. A girl in tight trousers and spotted fur jacket sauntered past the Cobb mansion, staring at passing cars. Catching sight of Qwilleran, she slithered in his direction. He shook his head. Ben Nicholas emerged from his shop next door and walked toward the bar, slowly and solemnly, moving his lips and paying no attention to the newsman on the steps.
Turning up his coat collar, Qwilleran went to Lombardo’s grocery. It was an old-fashioned market with $4.95 Christmas trees heaped on the sidewalk and, inside, a smell of pickles, sausage, and strong cheese. He bought instant coffee and a sweet roll for his breakfast and some round steak and canned consommé for the cats. He also selected some cheese—Cheddar for himself, cream cheese for Yum Yum, and a small wedge of blue for Koko, wondering if the domestic product would be acceptable; Koko was used to genuine Roquefort.
Just as the newsman was leaving the store, the eyes that had been haunting his thoughts all evening materialized in front of him. The blue-white porcelain complexion was wet with snow, and the lashes were spangled with snowflakes. The girl stared and said nothing.
“Well, as you can see, I’m still hanging around the neighborhood,” he said to break the silence. “I’ve moved into the Cobb mansion.”
“You have? You really have?” Miss Duckworth’s expression brightened, as if living in Junktown constituted an endorsement of character. She pushed her fur hood back from her blue-black hair, now piled in a ballerina’s topknot.
“The auction was an interesting experience. A lot of dealers were there, but I didn’t see you.”
She shook her head wistfully. “I thought of going, but I lacked the courage.”
“Miss Duckworth,” said Qwilleran, coming boldly to the point, “I’d like to write a tribute to Andy Glanz, but I need more information. I wish you’d fill me in.” He could see her shrinking from the suggestion. “I know it’s a painful subject for you, but Andy deserves the best we can give him.”
She hesitated. “You wouldn’t quote me directly, would you?”
“Word of honor!”
“Very well,” she said in a small voice, searching Qwilleran’s face for reassurance. “When?”
“Sooner the better.”
“Would you like to come over to my place tonight?”
“If it isn’t too late for you.”
“I always stay up half the night.” She said it wearily.
“I’ll take my groceries home and be right over.”
A few minutes later Qwilleran went striding through the snow to The Blue Dragon with an elation that was only partly connected with the Andy Glanz story, and he soon found himself sitting on a stiff velvet sofa in the gold and blue living room and enjoying the aroma of sandalwood furniture wax. The belligerent dog had been penned up in the kitchen.
The girl explained, “My family disapproves of this neighborhood, and they insist I keep Hepplewhite for protection. Sometimes he takes his job too seriously.”
“There seems to be a sharp division of opinion about Junktown,” said Qwilleran. “Is it really a bad neighborhood?”
“We have no trouble,” Miss Duckworth said. “Of course, I observe certain precautions, as any woman should if she lives alone.”
She brought a silver coffeepot on a silver tray, and Qwilleran watched her silky movements with admiration. She had the long-legged grace he admired in Koko and Yum Yum. What a sensation she would make at the Press Club on Christmas Eve! he told himself. She was wearing slim, well-fitted trousers in a delectable shade of blue, and a cashmere sweater dyed to match, probably at great expense.
“Have you ever done any fashion modeling?” he asked.
“No.” She smiled patiently, as if she had been asked a thousand times before. “But I did a great deal of Modern Dance at Bennington.”
She poured one cup of coffee. Then, to Qwilleran’s surprise, she reached for a crystal decanter with a silver label and poured Scotch for herself.
He said, “Well, I rented Mrs. Cobb’s apartment this afternoon and moved in immediately—with my two roommates, a pair of Siamese cats.”
“Really? You hardly look like a man who would keep cats.”
Qwilleran eyed her defensively. “They were orphans. I adopted them—first the male and then, some months later, the female.”
“I’d like to have a cat,” she said. “Cats seem to go with antiques. They’re so gentle.”
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, Ate Danish Modern, Turned on and Off Page 5