The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, Ate Danish Modern, Turned on and Off

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “If there’s been a crime committed, it should be exposed,” Qwilleran persisted.

  “All right,” said Riker. “If you want to investigate, go ahead. But do it on your time and wait until after Christmas. The way your antique series is shaping up, you’ve got a good chance to win first prize.”

  By the time Qwilleran returned to Junktown, Ivy had spread the word that he was a private detective operating with two evil-eyed Siamese cats who were trained to attack.

  “Is it true?” asked the young man in sideburns and dark glasses at the Junque Trunque.

  “Is it true?” asked the woman who ran the shop called Nuthin’ But Chairs.

  “I wish it were,” Qwilleran said. “I’m just a newspaperman, doing a job that isn’t very glamorous.”

  She half closed her eyes. “I see you as a Yorkshire Windsor. Everyone resembles some kind of chair. That dainty little Sheraton is a ballet dancer. That English Chippendale looks just like my landlord. You’re a Yorkshire Windsor . . . . Think about it for a while, and all your friends will turn into chairs.”

  After listening to this woman’s conversation and Ivy’s speculations and Hollis Prantz’s dubious theories, Qwilleran was relieved to meet Mrs. McGuffey. She seemed to be a sensible sort.

  He asked about the name of her shop, and she explained, “They’re all wooden containers. The noggin has a handle like a cup. The piggin has a stave, and it’s used as a dipper. The firkin is for storage.”

  “Where do you get your information?”

  “From books. When I have no customers, I sit here and read. Nice work for a retired schoolteacher. If there’s any book on American history or antiques that you’d like to borrow, just ask.”

  “Do you have anything on the history of Junktown? I’m especially curious about the Cobb mansion.”

  “Most important house on our street! Built by William Towne Spencer, the famous abolitionist, in 1855. He had two younger brothers, James and Philip, who built smaller replicas next door. Also a spinster sister, Mathilda, blind from birth and killed at the age of thirty-two when she fell down the stairs of her brother’s house.” She spoke with an authority that Qwilleran welcomed. He had had his fill of hearsay and addled theories.

  “I’ve noticed that Junktown residents are prone to fall and kill themselves,” he said. “Strange that it started way back when.”

  The dealer shook her head mournfully. “Poor Mrs. Cobb! I wonder if she’ll be able to continue running the shop without her husband.”

  “He was the sparkplug of Junktown, they tell me.”

  “Probably true . . . but confidentially, I abhorred the man. He had no manners! You don’t act that way in a civilized society. In my opinion the real loss to the community was Andrew Glanz. A fine young man, with great promise, and a real scholar! I say this with pride, because it was I who taught him to read—twenty-five years ago, up north in Boyerville. My, he was a smart boy! And a good speller. I knew he would turn out to be a writer.” The lines in her face were radiant.

  “He wrote features on antiques?”

  “Yes, but he was also writing a novel, about which I have mixed emotions. He gave me the first ten chapters to read. I refrained from discouraging him, naturally, but . . . I’m afraid I do not approve of today’s sordid fiction. And yet that is what sells, they say.”

  “What was the setting of Andy’s novel?”

  “The setting was authentic—a community of antique dealers similar to ours—but the story involved all sorts of unsavory characters: alcoholics, gamblers, homosexuals, prostitutes, dope peddlers, adulterers!” Mrs. McGuffey shuddered. “Oh, dear! If our street were anything like that book, I believe I would close up shop tomorrow!”

  Qwilleran stroked his moustache. “You don’t think there’s anything like that going on in Junktown?”

  “Oh, no! Nothing at all! Except . . .” She lowered her voice and glanced toward a customer who had wandered into the store. “I wouldn’t want you to repeat this, but . . . they say that the little old man at the fruit stand is a bookkeeper.”

  “You mean a bookmaker? He takes bets?”

  “That’s what they say. Please don’t put it in the paper. This is a respectable neighborhood.”

  The customer interrupted. “Excuse me. Do you have any butter molds?”

  “Just one moment,” the dealer said with a gracious smile, “and I’ll be glad to help you.”

  “What happened to Andy’s manuscript?” Qwilleran asked as he headed for the door.

  “I believe he gave it to his friend, Miss Duckworth. She was begging to see it, but,” Mrs. McGuffey concluded triumphantly, “he wanted his old schoolmarm to read it first.”

  SEVENTEEN

  With savage glee the humidity decided to turn into a cold ugly rain. Qwilleran hurried to The Blue Dragon as fast as his knee would permit.

  “I’m going to do some illegal scrounging tonight,” he announced to Mary Duckworth. “Ben Nicholas is going to show me the ropes.”

  “Where is he taking you?”

  “To an old theatre on Zwinger Street. He said it’s boarded up, but he knows how to get in through the stage door. All I want is the experience, so I can write a piece about the preservationists who risk arrest to salvage historic architectural fragments. I think the practice should be publicized with a view to having it sanctioned.”

  Mary beamed her admiration for him. “Qwill, you’re talking like a confirmed junker! You’ve been converted!”

  “I know a good story when I see one, that’s all. Meanwhile, would you mind lending me the manuscript of Andy’s novel? Mrs. McGuffey was telling me about it, and since it’s all about Junktown—”

  “Manuscript? I have no manuscript.”

  “Mrs. McGuffey said—”

  “Andy allowed me to read the first chapter, that was all.”

  “What happened to it, then?”

  “I have no idea. Robert Maus would know.”

  “Will you phone him?”

  “Now?”

  Qwilleran nodded impatiently.

  She glanced at the tall-case clock. “This is an inconvenient time to call. He’ll be preparing dinner. Is it really so urgent?”

  Nevertheless, she dialed the number.

  “William,” she said, “may I speak with Mr. Maus? . . . Please tell him it’s Mary Duxbury . . . . That’s what I was afraid of. Just a moment.” She turned to Qwilleran. “The houseboy says Bob is making hollandaise for the kohlrabi and can’t be interrupted.”

  “Tell him the Daily Fluxion is about to print a vile rumor about one of his clients.”

  The attorney came to the telephone (Qwilleran could visualize him, wearing an apron, holding a dripping spoon) and said he knew nothing about a manuscript; nothing had turned up among the papers of the Andrew Glanz estate.

  “Then where is it?” Qwilleran asked Mary. “Do you suppose it was destroyed—by someone who had reason to want it suppressed? What was in the chapter that you read?”

  “It was about a woman who was plotting to poison her husband. It immediately captured one’s interest.”

  “Why didn’t Andy let you read more?”

  “He was quite secretive about his novel. Don’t you think most writers are sensitive about their work before it’s published?”

  “Perhaps all the characters were drawn from life. Mrs. McGuffey seemed to think they were wildly imaginary, but I doubt whether she’s in a position to know. She’s lived a sheltered life. Perhaps Andy’s story exposed a few Junktown secrets that would prove embarrassing—or incriminating.”

  “He wouldn’t have done anything like that! Andy was so considerate—”

  Qwilleran clenched his teeth. So considerate, so honest, so clever, so intelligent. He knew it by heart. “Perhaps you were in the story, too,” he told Mary. “Perhaps that’s why Andy wouldn’t let you read farther. You may have been so transparently disguised that your position would be revealed and your family would crack down on you.”


  Mary’s eyes flashed. “No! Andy would never have been so unkind.”

  “Well, we’ll never know now!” Qwilleran started to leave and then turned back. “You know this Hollis Prantz. He says he used to be in the paint and wallpaper business and he retired because of a weak heart, and yet he’s as agile as a fox. He was varnishing display cases when I was there today—”

  “Varnishing?” Mary asked.

  “He said he was getting ready for the Block Party tomorrow, and yet he has very little merchandise to offer.”

  “Varnishing on a day like this? It will never dry! If you varnish in damp weather, it remains sticky forever.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s a fact. You may think it’s dry, but whenever the humidity is high, the surface becomes tacky again.”

  Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. “Strange mistake to make, isn’t it?”

  “For someone who claims he’s been in the paint business,” Mary said, “it’s an incredible mistake!”

  Later, the rain turned to a treacherous wet snow as fine as fog, and Qwilleran went to a cheap clothing store in the neighborhood to buy a red hunting cap with earflaps. He also borrowed the Cobb flashlight and crowbar in preparation for his scrounging debut.

  But first he had an invitation to drop in on Russell Patch at the cocktail hour to hear the twenty thousand dollar sound system. He went home and trussed Koko in the blue harness. The leash had unaccountably disappeared, but it was not necessary for a social call. The harness alone made Koko look trim and professional, and it afforded a good grip while Qwilleran was carrying the cat down the street.

  “This trip,” he explained to his purring accomplice, “is not purely in the pursuit of culture. I want you to nose around and see if you can turn up anything significant.”

  The carriage house was two doors away, and Qwilleran tucked Koko inside his overcoat to keep him dry. They entered through the refinishing shop, and their host led them up a narrow staircase to a dazzling apartment. The floor was a checkerboard of large black and white tiles, and a dozen white marble statues on white pedestals were silhouetted against the walls, some of which were painted dull black, some shiny red.

  Russell introduced his roommate, a sallow young man who was either shy or furtive and who wore on his finger a diamond of spectacular brilliance, and Qwilleran introduced Koko, who was now riding on his shoulder. Koko regarded the two strangers briefly and dismissed them at once by turning and staring in the opposite direction.

  The music that filled the room was the busy kind of fiddling and tootling that made Qwilleran nervous. It came at him from all directions.”

  “Do you like baroque music?” Russ asked. “Or would you prefer another type?”

  “Koko prefers something more soothing,” Qwilleran replied.

  “Stan, put on that Schubert sonata.”

  The sound system occupied a bank of old kitchen cabinets transformed into an Italian Renaissance breakfront, and Koko immediately checked it out.

  “Stan, make us a drink,” Russell ordered. “Say, that cat isn’t vicious at all. I heard he was a wild one!”

  “If you also heard that I’m a private eye, it’s a lie,” said Qwilleran.

  “Glad of that. I’d hate to see anyone loafing around Junktown digging up dirt. We’ve worked hard to build a good image here.”

  “I dug up an interesting fact, however. I learned your friend Andy was writing a novel about Junktown.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Russ. “I told him he was wasting his time. Unless you dish out a lot of sex, who buys novels?”

  “Maybe he did just that. Had you read the manuscript?”

  Russ laughed. “No, but I can guess what it was like. Andy was a prune, a real prune.”

  “The funny thing is that the manuscript has disappeared.”

  “He probably scrapped it. I told you how he was—a perfectionist.”

  Qwilleran accepted the ginger ale he had requested and said to Stan, “Are you in the antique business?”

  “I’m a hairdresser,” Stan said quietly.

  “A lucrative field, I hear.”

  “I do all right.”

  Russ volunteered, “If you want to know what really keeps him in Jaguars and diamonds, he plays the stock market.”

  “Are you interested in the market?” Stan asked the newsman.

  “To tell the truth, I’ve never had anything to invest, so I’ve never made a study of it.”

  “You don’t have to know much,” Stan said. “You can go in for no-load mutuals or do like me. I have a discretionary account, and my broker doubles my money every year.”

  “You mean that?” Qwilleran lighted his pipe thoughtfully. He was making a computation. If he won one of the Fluxion’s top prizes, he could run it up to . . . two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two thousand in five years. Perhaps, after all, he was wasting his time trying to make murders out of molehills.

  As for Koko, he had checked the place out and was now lounging near a heat register, ignoring the Schubert.

  “Say, I’d like to try something,” Russ said. “I’ve got some electronic music that hits the high frequencies—white noise, computer music, synthesized sound, and all that. Let’s see if the cat reacts. Animals can hear things beyond the human range.”

  “Okay with me” Qwilleran said.

  The Schubert came to an end, and then the thirty-six speakers gave out a concert of whines and whinnies, blats and bleeps, flutterings and tweeterings that baffled the eardrums. At the first squawk Koko pricked up his ears, and in a moment he was on his feet. He looked bewildered. He ran across the room, changed course and dashed back erratically.

  “He doesn’t like it,” Qwilleran protested.

  The music slid into a series of hollow whispers and echoes, with pulsing vibrations. Koko raced across the room and threw himself against the wall.

  “You’d better turn it off!”

  “This is great!” Russ said. “Stan, did you ever see anything like this?”

  From the speakers came an unearthly screech. Koko rose in the air, faster than the eye could register, and landed on top of the stereo cabinets.

  “Turn it off!” Qwilleran shouted above the din.

  It was too late. Koko had swooped down again, landing on Russ Patch’s head, digging in with his claws, until the bellow that came from the man’s throat sent him flying through space.

  Russ touched his hand to his temple and found blood.

  “Serves you right,” said Stan quietly, as he flipped the switch on the stereo.

  Moments later, when Qwilleran took Koko home, the cat was outwardly calm, but the man could feel his trembling.

  “Sorry, old boy,” he said. “That was a dirty trick.”

  He carried Koko back to his apartment and set him gently on the floor. Yum Yum came running to touch noses, but Koko ignored her. He had a long drink of water, then stood on his hind legs and clawed Qwilleran’s trousers. The man picked him up and walked the floor with him until it was time to leave for his next appointment.

  Locking the cats in the apartment, he started for the stairway, but the long forlorn howl behind the closed door tore at his heart. As he went slowly down the stairs, the cries became louder and more piteous, and all Qwilleran’s regrets about Koko’s self-sufficiency vanished. The cat needed him. Inwardly elated, Qwilleran returned and gathered up his eager friend and took him to call on Cluthra.

  EIGHTEEN

  With enticing interrogatives in her voice Cluthra had invited Qwilleran to come later (?) in the evening (?) when they could both relax (?). But he had pleaded another engagement and had played dumb to her innuendos.

  Now at the discreet hour of seven thirty he and Koko took a taxi to Skyline Towers and a swift elevator to the seventeenth floor. Koko did not object to elevators that ascended—only the kind that sank beneath him.

  Cluthra met them in a swirling cloud of pale green chiffon and ostrich feathers. “I didn’t know you were bringing a
friend,” she said with her husky laugh.

  “Koko has had a bad experience this evening, and he didn’t want me to leave him.” Qwilleran told her about Russell’s cruel experiment with electronic music.

  “Beware of young men dressed in white!” she said. “They’ve got something they’re hiding.”

  She ushered him into the cozy living room, which was done entirely in matching paisley—paisley fabric on the walls, paisley draperies, paisley slipcovers—all in warm tones of beige, brown and gold. The fabric gave the room the stifling hush of a closed coffin. Music was playing softly—something passionate, with violins. Cluthra’s perfume was overpowering.

  Qwilleran looked around him at the polliwogs that characterize the paisley pattern and tried to estimate their number. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Half a million?

  “Will you have a drinkie?” Cluthra extended the invitation with a conspiratorial gleam in her green eyes.

  “Just a club soda. No liquor. Heavy on the ice.”

  “Honey, I can do better than that for my favorite newspaper reporter,” she said, and when the drink came, it was pink, sparkling, and heavily aromatic.

  Qwilleran sniffed it and frowned.

  “Homemade chokecherry syrup,” she explained. “Men like it because it’s bitter.”

  He took a cautious sip. The taste was not bad. Pleasant, in fact. “Did you make it?”

  “Lordy, no! One of my kooky customers. She’s made a study of medicinal weeds, and she does this stuff with juniper, lovage, mullein, and I don’t know what else. Mullein puts hair on your chest, lover,” Cluthra added with a wink.

  Qwilleran had taken a seat in a stiff pull-up chair, with Koko huddled on his lap.

  “You’ve picked the only backbreaking chair in the place,” she protested. She herself was now seductively arranged on the paisley sofa surrounded by paisley pillows, carefully concealing her walking cast with the folds of her chiffon gown. Yards of ostrich fluff framed her shoulders, cascaded down her hilly slopes and circled the hem.