The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  "There's nothing down in that old kitchen except dust," said Qwilleran, and then his moustache tingled, and he had a singular feeling that the cat knew more than he himself did.

  He picked up the flashlight, rolled up the corner of the tapestry, unbolted the door, and went down the narrow service stairs. Koko was waiting at the bottom, making no sound, but when Qwilleran picked him up, he felt the cat's body vibrating, and he felt tension in every muscle.

  Qwilleran opened the door and let it swing into the old kitchen, quickly flashing his light around the entire room. There was nothing there to warrant Koko's restlessness. Qwilleran trained the flashlight on the easel, the littered table, the canvases stacked against the walls.

  And then with a disturbing sensation on his upper lip he realized there were fewer canvases than he had seen the night before. The easel was empty. And the robot propped on the sink was gone.

  Momentarily off his guard, he lost his hold on Koko, and the cat jumped to the floor. Qwilleran swung around and flashed the light into the dining room. It was empty, as before.

  In the kitchen Koko was stalking something — with stealth in every line of his body. He jumped first to the sink, teetered on the edge while he scanned the area, then noiselessly down to a chair, then up to the table. As he ran his nose over the clutter on the tabletop, his mouth opened, his whiskers flared, and he showed his teeth, while with one paw he scraped the table around the palette knife.

  Qwilleran stood in the middle of the room and tried to assemble his thoughts. Something was happening here that made no sense. Who had been in this kitchen? Who had removed the paintings — and why? The two pictures of robots had disappeared. What else had been taken?

  Qwilleran placed the flashlight on a tiled counter, so that the light fell on the few remaining canvases in the room, and he turned one around.

  It was a Scrano! A blaze of orange and yellow triangles, the canvas was painted in the Italian artist's smooth, slick style, and yet it had a feeling of depth that made Qwilleran reach out to touch the surface. Down in the comer was the famous signature, daubed in block letters.

  Qwilleran set it aside and turned another painting around to face the room. Again, triangles! These were green on blue. Behind this canvas there were more — gray on brown, brown on black, white on cream. Proportions and arrangements varied, but the triangles were all pure Scrano.

  A throaty murmur from Koko attracted Qwilleran's attention. The cat was sniffing the orange triangles on the yellow background. Qwilleran wondered what it was worth. Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? Perhaps even more, now that Scrano would paint no more.

  Had Mountclemens been cornering the market? Or were these forgeties? And in either case… who was stealing them?

  Koko's nose covered the surface of the painting in great detail, as if he were experiencing the texture of the canvas, visible under the pigment. When he came to the signature, his neck was stretched, and he tilted his head first to one side and then to the other, as he strained to get close to the letters.

  His nose moved from right to left, first tracing the 0, then studying the N, moving on to the A, sniffing the R with gusto as if it were something special, then on to the C, and finally lingering over the S.

  "Remarkable!" said Qwilleran. "Remarkable!"

  He hardly heard the turning of a key in the back door, but Koko heard it. The cat vanished. Qwilleran froze as the door slowly opened.

  The figure that stood in the doorway made no move. In the half light Qwilleran saw square shoulders, heavy sweater, square jaw, high square brow.

  "Narx!" said Qwilleran.

  The man came to life. He sidled into the room, reaching for the table. His eyes were on Qwilleran. With a lunge he seized the palette knife and rushed forward.

  Suddenly… shrieks… snarls! The room was full of flying things — swooping down, across, back, up, and over!

  The man ducked. The hurtling bodies were quicker than the eye. They screamed like harpies. They flew down, under, up, across. Something hit him in the arm. He faltered.

  In that half moment Qwilleran pounced on the flash, light and swung it with all his force.

  Narx staggered back, went down. There was a sharp, rending crack as his head struck the tiled counter. He slumped slowly to the floor.

  16

  It was five,thirty at the Press Club, and Qwilleran was relating the story for the hundredth time. All day Monday the personnel of the Daily Fluxion had been filing past his desk to hear the details firsthand.

  At the Press Club bar Odd Bunsen said, "I wish I'd been there with my camera. I can picture our hero phoning the police with one hand and holding up his pants with the other."

  "Well, I had to tie Narx with my belt," Qwilleran explained. "When his head hit the tile counter, he was out cold, but I was afraid he'd come around while I was phoning the police. I'd already tied his wrists with my neck, tie — my good Scotch tie — and the only thing I had for his ankles was my belt."

  "How did you know it was Narx?"

  "When I saw that square face and those square shoulders, I thought of those pictures of robots, and I knew this man must be the artist. Painters, I've been told, always put some quality of themselves on canvas — whether they paint kids or cats or sailboats. But Koko was the one who made it all clear when he read Scrano's signature back, wards."

  Arch said, "How does it feel to be playing Dr. Watson to a cat?"

  Odd said, "What about the signature? That's something I missed?"

  "Koko read the signature on this painting," Qwilleran explained, "and he spelled it out backwards. He always reads backwards."

  "Oh, naturally. It's an old Siamese custom."

  "That's when I realized that Scrano, the painter of the triangles, was also O. Narx, the painter of the robots. Their painted surfaces had the same slick metallic effect. A few minutes later the robot himself walked into the house and came at me with a palette knife. He would have got me, too, if Koko hadn't come to the rescue."

  "Sounds as if that cat's in line for a Civilian Citation. What did he do?"

  "He went berserk! And one Siamese flying around in a panic looks and sounds like a pack of wildcats. Zoom — screech — wham! I thought there were six animals in that room, and that fellow Narx was one bewildered guy."

  "So Scrano is a fake," said Arch. "Yep. There's no Italian recluse hiding out in the Umbrian Hills," said Qwilleran. "There's only Oscar Narx manufacturing triangle pictures for Mountclemens to plug in his column and sell in his art gallery."

  "Funny why he wouldn't use his own name," said Odd.

  Then Arch said, "But Mountclemens' last column said there wouldn't be any more stuff from Scrano."

  "I think Mountclemens was planning to eliminate Oscar Narx," said Qwilleran. "Maybe Narx knew too much. I suspect our critic was not on that three o'clock plane the day of Lambreth's murder. I suspect he had an accomplice who used the plane ticket and entered Mountclemens' name on the passenger list. And I'll bet that accomplice was Narx."

  "And then Mountclemens took a later flight," said Arch.

  "Or drove to New York," said Qwilleran, "in the mysterious station wagon that was parked behind the gallery in the late afternoon. Zoe Lambreth heard her husband talking about it on the phone."

  Odd Bunsen said, "Mountclemens was crazy to let an, other guy in on the plot. If you're going to commit murder, go it alone, I always say."

  "Mountclemens wasn't stupid," said Qwilleran. "He probably had a clever alibi figured out, but something went wrong."

  Arch, who had been hearing fragments of Qwilleran's story all day, said, "What makes you so sure Mountclemens was going to kill somebody when he went down to his backyard?"

  "Three reasons." Qwilleran was enjoying himself. He was speaking with authority and making large gestures. "First, Mountclemens went down to the patio to meet someone, and yet this vain man left his prosthetic hand upstairs. He wasn't going to greet a guest, so he didn't need it. Second, he did not take the fla
shlight, although the steps were icy and treacherous. Third, I suspect he took a kitchen knife instead; there's one missing."

  Qwilleran's audience was hanging on every word.

  "Apparently," he went on, "Mountclemens failed to take Narx by surprise. Unless he could surprise him and sink the knife in his back as Narx came through the gate, there was a good chance that the younger man would overpower the critic. Narx is a powerful, looking adversary, and it was one hand against two."

  "How do you know Mountclemens went downstairs to meet someone?"

  "He had on his lounging coat. He probably had his topcoat over his shoulders while waiting for Narx, then threw it off to get ready for action. Narx would unlock the gate, which swings into the patio, and Mountclemens would be waiting behind it, ready to knife him in the back. He probably planned to deposit the body in the alley, where the murder would be blamed on a tramp. It's that kind of neighborhood."

  "If Narx is as formidable as you say," said Arch, "how did that fool think he could pull off the job with one hand?"

  "Vanity. Everything Mountclemens did, he did superbly. It gave him an impossible conceit And I think I know why he failed this time. It's only a guess, but here's how I figure it: When Narx was unlocking that patio gate, he was alerted to Mountclemens' presence."

  "How?"

  "He smelled that lime-peel scent that Mountclemens always wore."

  "Cr-r-razy!" said Odd Bunsen.

  Arch said, "Narx might have gotten away with murder if he hadn't come back for those paintings."

  "Two murders," said Qwilleran, "if it hadn't been for Koko."

  "Anybody want another drink?" Arch said. "Bruno, let's have two more martinis and a tomato juice…. Make it three martinis. Here comes Lodge Kendall."

  "Skip the tomato juice," said Qwilleran. "I've got to leave in a couple of minutes."

  Kendall was hurrying with news. "Just came from Headquarters," he said. "Narx is finally able to make a statement, and the police have his story. It's just the way Qwill said. Narx painted the Scrano pictures. Every time he came to town, he camped out in Mountclemens' vacant apartment, but mostly he worked in New York. He brought the stuff here by station wagon, posing as Scrano's New York agent."

  "Did he mention the three o'clock plane flight?"

  "Yes. He was the one who used Mountclemens' ticket." Odd said, "Then Mountclemens — that hammerhead — let him in on the plot."

  "No. Narx was innocent at that stage of the game. You see, he had just come to town with the wagon, and Mountclemens told him to fly right back to New York to meet a big buyer who was due in unexpectedly from Montreal. Mountclemens said he had just arranged this deal by phone — in Narx's name, the way he conducted all Scrano business. Narx understood he was to hustle back and meet the Canadian in New York at five o'clock and sell him a flock of Scrano paintings. It sounded logical enough to Narx. After all, he was front man for the operation. So Mountclemens turned his own ticket over to Narx, drove with him to the airport, and saw him off on the three o'clock plane."

  "How come Mountclemens' name was on the passenger list?"

  "According to Narx, they barely made it to the airport by flight time, and Mountclemens said, 'Don't bother to change the name on the ticket. Just go directly to the gate and check in. He said he had decided to drive. He claimed he would start out immediately in Narx's station wagon, stop in Pittsburgh overnight, and arrive in New York Thursday morning."

  Qwilleran said, "I can guess what went wrong."

  "Well," said Kendall, "the sucker from Montreal was nuts about those triangles. He wanted all he could get. So Narx phoned Earl Lambreth and asked him to airfreight some of the older stock that hadn't sold."

  "That's the phone call Zoe overheard."

  "Lambreth said he'd send them by wagon, but Narx told him that Mountclemens and the station wagon were already halfway to Pittsburgh. Lambreth said no, the car was still there, parked in the alley behind the gallery."

  "So Narx smelled a rat."

  "Not until he heard the news of Lambreth's murder and realized Mountclemens had lied. Then he decided to capitalize on it. He hated Mountclemens anyway; he felt like a flunkey — a robot — always carrying out the great man's orders. So he decided to hit him for a bigger cut of the dough that Mountclemens was raking in from Scrano sales."

  Odd said, "Narx was dumb to think he could blackmail a sharp operator like Monty."

  "So Mountclemens laid for him in the patio," said Kendall, "but Narx got the jump and grabbed the knife."

  "Did he say why he returned to the scene?"

  "Mostly to collect some paintings that had his own signature on them. He was afraid the police might start checking. But he also took some Scrano pictures and was going back for more when he ran into Qwill — and that cat!"

  Arch said, "What will happen to the value of Scrano pictures when this story breaks? A lot of investors are going to be jumping out of high windows."

  "Well, I'll tell you something," said Qwilleran. "I've looked at a lot of art in the last few weeks, and if I had some dough to squander, I think I'd buy some nice gray and white triangles by Scrano."

  "Man, you're lost!" said Odd.

  "I forgot to tell you," said Kendall. "Those triangle pictures were a collaboration. Narx says he painted them, but Mountclemens designed them."

  "Very clever," said Qwilleran. "Mountclemens had lost a hand and couldn't paint; Narx had a great technique but no creative imagination. Pretty slick!"

  "I'll bet a lot of artists have ghost-painters," said Odd.

  "Come on, have another tomato juice," Arch invited. "Live it up."

  "No thanks," said Qwilleran. "I'm having dinner with Zoe Lambreth, and I've got to go home and change my shirt."

  "Before you go," said Odd, "maybe I should explain about that lady welder and why I didn't get any pix last week."

  "No rush," said Qwilleran.

  "I went to the school, but she wasn't there. She was home with a couple of sore flippers."

  "What happened?"

  "Remember that guy that fell and killed himself? The Bolton dame tried to save him. He fell against her hands and sprained her wrists. But she'll be back this week, and I'll get your shots."

  "Make them good," Qwilleran said. "Flatter the gal, if you can."

  When Qwilleran arrived home to feed the cat, he found Koko sprawled on the living room carpet taking a bath.

  "Dressing for dinner?" said Qwilleran.

  The pink tongue darted over white breast, brown paws, and fawn flanks. Moistened pads were wiped over velvety brown ears. The lustrous brown tail was clutched between forepaws and groomed with painstaking care. Koko looked surprisingly like a cat and not the supernal creature who reads minds, knew what was going to happen, smelled what he couldn't see, and sensed what he couldn't smell.

  Qwilleran said, "They should have given you a head, line, Koko. Cat Sleuth Sniffs Out Double Murder Clue. You were right every time, and I was wrong every time. No, body stole the gold dagger. Mountclemens didn't take the three o'clock plane. Butchy didn't commit any crimes. Nino wasn't murdered. And Zoe didn't lie to me."

  Koko went on licking his tail.

  "But I still don't have all the answers. Why did you lead me to that closet upstairs. To get Mintie Mouse or to help me find the Ghirotto monkey?

  "Why did you call attention to the knife rack Friday night? Did you want me to know one was missing? Or were you just suggesting some chopped tenderloin?

  "And why did you insist on going downstairs to that kitchen? Did you know Narx was coming?

  "And how about the palette knife? Why were you trying to cover it up? Did you know what was going to happen?"

  Koko went on licking his tail.

  "And another thing: When Oscar Narx came at me with that blade, did you really panic? Were you just a scared cat, or were you trying to save my life?"

  Koko finished his tail and gazed at Qwilleran with a faraway look, as if some divine answer was forming in hi
s glossy brown head. Then he twisted his lithe body into a tortured shape, turned up his nose, crossed his eyes, and scratched his ear with one hind leg and an expression of catly rapture.

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