“No, I don’t happen to know,” Qwilleran said, rather testily. More softly he added, “Would you be good enough to call Janice and Sharon MacGillivray and find out?”
“Be glad to,” she said. “Then I’ll know what to wear.”
Qwilleran turned to Dingwall. “It’s more complicated than I thought. The florist will deliver the flowers to you Saturday morning.”
All the way home from the lakeshore, Qwilleran tried to devise an idea for his Tuesday “Qwill Pen” column. It would have to be original, worthwhile, thought-provoking, entertaining, and easy to write. Nothing came to mind. That meant resorting to another book review.
“Book!” he shouted as he walked into the barn, and Koko soared from the floor to the top shelf and dislodged a slender book that Qwilleran had purchased because it was written by the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Sadly, neither man nor cat had enjoyed it, and it had been relegated to the shelf. Why did the bibliocat draw attention to it again? Koko never did anything without a reason.
Qwilleran packed the tote bag with cats, refreshments, and the paperback copy of The Hunting of the Snark. He said, “We all need some fresh air.”
They trooped purposefully to the gazebo, and—relaxing in his favorite lounge chair—Qwilleran promptly dozed off. After all, the events of the night had deprived him of sleep.
It was not long before he was aroused by a cacophony of weird sounds from Koko, who was staring through the screen toward the bird garden. There was movement in the shrubbery. Then the branches parted, and out stepped one of those elongated birds with snakelike neck, red wattle, scrawny body, and long, scaly legs.
Then, to compound the mystery, the bird was followed by fifteen or more small replicas, a few inches high. Their composure was definitely greater than that of the watchers in the gazebo. As the cats stared in disbelief, the large bird returned to the shrubbery, followed by the swarm of obedient clones.
On a wild hunch Qwilleran phoned the Hotel Booze and asked Gary, “What’s that Turkey Trot announced on the bulletin board in your lobby?”
“That’s the monthly meeting of the Outdoor Club. They’re having a popular speaker from somewhere in Minnesota. He’ll talk about wild turkeys. Everybody welcome. Tomorrow night at seven o’clock. Are you interested in wild turkeys?”
“Just curious.”
ELEVEN
Qwilleran arrived at the Hotel Booze early for the turkey lecture, hoping to have a burger in a dark corner of the café and then sneak into the meeting hall at the last minute. Unfortunately, his presence at any event led the general public to believe he was covering it for the newspaper or planning to write a “Qwill Pen” column.
An excited crowd could be heard gathering in the lobby, waiting for the doors of the banquet hall to open. More than a hundred seats had been set up. There was plenty of standing room, and Qwilleran slipped in at the last moment, positioning himself near the door—not for fear of fire (although it crossed his mind) but in order to make a swift getaway after the program.
There was an excited hubbub in the hall. Club members had heard tonight’s speaker before. There were cries of “Here he comes! Here’s Harry!”
An athletic-looking man of middle age jogged down the side aisle of the hall and leaped to the low platform. “Greetings, friends! Any friend of wildlife is a friend of mine.”
(Loud response)
The room darkened, and a large screen at the back of the platform filled with a portrait of a long-necked bird with beard, wattles, dewlaps, and saucer eyes.
“This odd-looking creature is the wild turkey. There were flocks of them in the woods when the Pilgrim Fathers landed here, and there are probably millions of them today. Benjamin Franklin suggested making it the national bird, but the old boy had a sense of humor, and I think he was kidding. It would hardly seem appropriate for half the population to be shooting the national bird to put food on the table.
“In many states it is still the chief game bird, with an estimated hundred thousand in some states. Ordinances regulate open seasons, hunting weapons, and even methods of luring the prey. It makes one curious to know more about this remarkable species.
“Most of you (like myself) are nature lovers and not game hunters, so let me tell you some interesting facts about this unusual species. First of all, did you ever see such a funny-looking geezer? His neck’s too long, his head’s too small, his eyes are too big, his body is out of proportion! He looks as if he was designed by a committee.”
(Laughter)
“But they must have plenty of sex appeal, because they’re among the most prolific wildlife. The female lays fifteen eggs. The baby turkeys are called poults.”
Qwilleran thought, That’s what I saw—a mother turkey with her fifteen poults.
There followed the kind of statistics the audience liked. The wild turkey can run twenty miles an hour and fly fifty miles an hour. The birds roost in the branches of oak and pine trees. They feed on grasses, nuts, berries, and insects. They communicate with clucks, gobbles, yelps, cackles, and purrs.
Qwilleran thought, Ye gods! These are the noises Koko has been making! . . . Where did he learn the language? . . . Has he been luring turkeys back to Moose County after a thirty-year absence? . . . Impossible!
Qwilleran slipped out of the meeting hall. At least it was a comfort to know that the odd-looking creatures in the bird garden were real and not a hallucination.
In the lobby, a pleasant-looking woman was sitting at a long table with stacks of what resembled chocolate brownies in individual plastic sacks.
“Good evening,” he said in the musical voice he reserved for such occasions.
“Is the program over?” she asked.
“Not quite. He’s showing slides. But I have another appointment.”
She saw him staring hungrily at the stack of small bundles on the table. “These are turkey calls,” she said. “Harry makes them as a hobby. I’m his wife, Jackie.”
He took her extended hand and pressed it warmly. “Your husband is an excellent speaker, and he really knows his subject. You say, Harry makes these?”
“Out of fine hardwood. It’s quite an art. It’s also therapeutic, too. We lost our two sons in a boating accident at summer camp . . .”
Why, Qwilleran wondered, was she telling him these tragic intimacies? It was, of course, because his sympathetic mien led strangers to unburden themselves.
“Harry channels his emotions into something worthwhile. He sells them at cost to raise money for summer camps for physically challenged children. He donates the total proceeds. There’s a wonderful crowd here tonight. I think he’ll sell them all.”
Jackie was reciting her story so bravely that Qwilleran was moved to say, “How much are they? I’ll take three.”
“Shall I show you how they work? You don’t have to be a hunter, you know, to call turkeys. You can just go out in the woods and hold conversations with the birds, simply by scratching the striker on the hardwood block in different ways.”
She demonstrated and gave Qwilleran one to try. It was simple—even primitive. He produced purrs and gobbles and clucks and yelps.
He took the turkey calls home and locked them in a desk drawer and tried not to think about them. He had other things to do. The dress rehearsal was Wednesday night, the Scots were gathering in their tartans on Thursday evening, and he was still collecting material for his column on Agatha Burns. As for Koko, he knew there was something significant in that drawer, and he hung around the desk.
It was unfortunate that Qwilleran had been unable to tape Harry’s lecture—the way he described the iridescent plumage of the species, the fanning of the tail with its white stripe, the reddish head of the male and bluish head of the female, and their remarkable field of vision and acute hearing. The ones who visited the barn had apparently heard Koko’s clucking and gobbling from the woods where they resided. And since Moose County was said to have no turkeys, they might even have come from the adjoini
ng county!
Then Qwilleran asked himself, Why am I wasting my time on the turkey situation? I have a show to rehearse and a column to write!
On Wednesday at seven P.M., Qwilleran reported to the Hotel Booze with his script, costume, and props, plus a professional-quality recorder and its two satellite speakers, all for the dress rehearsal.
Maxine looked prim in a high-necked short-waist and a puffy brown wig over her short hair. “It’s the Gibson Girl look,” she said. “All the rage before World War One. My hairdresser looked it up. The wig just arrived air express.”
Qwilleran could not help comparing Maxine’s enthusiasm and attention to detail to Lish’s cold efficiency and her concern with “What does it pay?”
In the meeting hall, the rows of chairs had been straightened; the platform was equipped with two tables, two chairs, and an old office hall tree on which the newscaster would hang his jacket and hat, after shaking off the fake snow.
“Okay if I watch?” Gary Pratt asked.
Qwilleran stood in the rear hall with door ajar and awaited his cue. The house lights dimmed, the stage lights came up, and Maxine stepped to the front of the stage to deliver her welcoming remarks. Then she sat down at the sound machine, and the WPKX musical signature filled the hall for a minute or two, interrupted by the taped voice of the station announcer reading commercials about fifteen-cent pineapples and motorcars complete with windshields and headlights.
Then, as the music resumed, Qwilleran rushed onstage, throwing off his snow-covered outerwear and glancing anxiously at his watch. Maxine waited for his signal, the music faded, and for the next half hour the newscaster spoke directly to the audience over his fake mike and interviewed eyewitnesses on his fake telephone.
At the end of the rehearsal, Gary rushed to the stage, bellowing, “Bravo!” He clapped the newscaster on the back and hugged the studio engineer. “Come to my office, Qwill, when you’ve packed your gear. I’ve got important news for you.”
“Good or bad?”
“Both!”
TWELVE
When Qwilleran reported to the hotel office after the dress rehearsal, Gary said, “Your throat must be dry after all that nonstop talking. What’ll it be?”
“Squunk water, please. What’s the bad news?”
“Lish and Lush are on the way here from Wisconsin!”
“Did she get the letter from the attorney?”
“Apparently, because she wanted to reserve a couple of rooms here. I told her we were sold out for the holiday weekend. She asked if they could park in the lot and sleep in the car. I told her our license doesn’t cover campouts. Then she asked for your phone number, Qwill. I thought fast. I told her it had been changed and your number was unlisted.”
“You think fast on your feet, Gary.”
“Yeah, well . . . I was sitting down. I figured that you didn’t want her and her weird boyfriend as houseguests. Anyway, I said she could leave a message for you at the newspaper. You can take it from there. Brrr has plenty of campsites where you can sleep in your car and use the camp facilities, but the thing of it is, I’m afraid she’s gonna make a stink about losing Mount Vernon. She’s a crafty one! Ask anybody. Do you think I should notify the authorities?”
“It wouldn’t hurt!” Qwilleran was beginning to regret he’d commissioned her to research Koko’s antecedents. That little four-legged sleuth had known there was something fishy about her from the beginning! “So, what’s the good news, Gary?”
“Well! The reservations for the Great Storm show are all taken! We’ve got to add more performances! Even though there’s no charge for admission, they’re plunking down ten- and twenty-dollar donations!”
Qwilleran said, “I hope they won’t be disappointed. The script isn’t as sensational as the one for the Big Burning.”
“It’s you they want to see and hear, you chump! And what I heard and saw tonight—terrific! We should add Sunday matinees and some more evening performances in July and August.”
“Well,” he said modestly. Actually, before switching to journalism, Qwilleran had wanted to act on the stage. (He had also wanted to be a pro ballplayer or jazz pianist, but that was another story.) “How does Maxine feel about added performances? I don’t want to make do with substitutes.”
“My wife is suddenly stagestruck! She’s talking about taking the show on the road!”
Qwilleran spent the next morning polishing his column about Agatha Burns, aware that it should sound like a tribute to a hundred-year-old and not an obituary. There was an early deadline for Friday’s Something, which would hit the street at ten A.M. with a banner headline: HAPPY 200TH!
He walked downtown to file his copy and stopped at the florist shop to order centerpieces for the wedding dinner. Claudine greeted him effusively, even though her big blue eyes looked at him with apprehension.
“Do you have any short lilies?”
She paused and glanced around the shop. “I never heard of short lilies. They grow on long stems—as a rule, that is. But I could call our supplier in Chicago. How soon do you have to have them?”
“They’re for a dinner party Saturday evening, and I’ve been instructed to order two low arrangements of mixed white and yellow lilies, without any stuffing.”
“I suppose we could cut the stems short.”
“Do you have low bowls?”
Two low bowls of imitation cut glass were produced and discussed. Was it necessary to have matching bowls? How many blooms would each contain? Four would be too few and six too many, but five would pose a problem: three yellow and two white, or vice versa? The solution: one bowl with white predominating and the other with yellow predominating, to be delivered to Boulder House for the Qwilleran table.
Showing much relief, Claudine said she would phone Chicago at once.
In the early afternoon, Qwilleran wandered into the classiest shop in town. Modest gold lettering in one corner of the plate-glass window stated: EXBRIDGE & COBB, FINE ANTIQUES.
Qwilleran asked Susan Exbridge, “Do you ever have any miniature porcelain shoes?”
“No, but I know where to find some. Are you starting a collection? There are some serious collectors here and in Lockmaster.”
“I’ve just met one of them, Edythe Carroll. She invited me to tea the other day, and I thought I’d like to send her a shoe.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Susan said. “Her collection is a very private matter, pursued by her and her husband throughout their married life. She has told me she wants no more, now that he’s gone. The last shoe they found together was a Meissen porcelain while they were vacationing in Germany. Edythe keeps it on her bedside table.”
Qwilleran nodded sympathetically. “I quite understand. There must be a hundred or more in her glass-front cabinet. I must say that miniature shoes strike me as a strange item to collect. What’s the story behind them?”
“Come in the office for a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Every inch of wall space in the office was covered with shelves—for reference books on antiques. Susan noted his appreciative glance at them. “These books belonged to dear Iris Cobb. I owe so much to her.”
“We all do,” Qwilleran said, as he sipped his coffee. Then—“On the question about the shoes, why were they made in the first place?”
“In Victorian times they held matches, toothpicks, salt, snuff. Some were pincushions. There was a great demand for them in the nineteenth century, and porcelain factories in many European countries were turning out high-heeled shoes, boots, slippers, and oxfords—with all kinds of decorations: flowers, birds, cherubs, and so forth. Collectors make a study of the dates, makers’ marks, glazes, et cetera. Prices can run as high as a thousand.”
“Hmmm,” Qwilleran murmured into his moustache. “You know a great deal about the subject, considering you don’t handle it in your shop.”
“I’ve been spending long hours with Edythe,” Susan explained. “After her husband died, she asked
me to help her update the catalogue of her antiques in Mount Vernon. Most were handed down in her family. She was a Goodwinter, you know. And now that she’s decided to donate the house and contents to the community, as a museum, it’s important to have accurate descriptions and values. When she moved to Ittibittiwassee, I helped her select the pieces she wanted to keep. Most important was the china cabinet filled with shoes. Why am I telling you all this?”
“Because you know I’m interested and concerned.”
“And you’re not a gossip. Darling!” She returned to the brittle style she affected. “Are you sure you don’t want to buy something before you leave?”
“How much do you want for that ten-foot breakfront?”
“You couldn’t afford it!” She chased him out of the store.
For Scottish night, Qwilleran wore a kilt in the Mackintosh tartan—red with a fine green line. Polly wore a tartan sash looped under one arm and pinned on the opposite shoulder with a cairngorm; the Duncans shared a colorful tartan with the Robertson clan.
“Qwill! You look so wonderful. I think I shall cry!” she said.
“It’s a matter of the swagger that comes with a kilt. The devil-may-care tilt of a glengarry bonnet over the right eye, the toughness of knowing there’s a dagger in the cuff of one’s knee hose, and the pride of being a Mackintosh.”
“I’ve noticed that persons not entitled to wear Scottish attire seem very . . . ordinary by comparison,” Polly observed with a note of pity in her voice.
The ordinary ones stayed home Thursday night and watched the festivities on television. The TV crews had been in town all day.
In the early evening, the streets radiating from the Hotel Booze were filled with canny Scots who had parked on the outskirts and were walking toward the hub of activity. It was a kaleidoscope of clan tartans in vibrant reds, greens, blues, yellows, and combinations thereof. The wearers all had the quiet pride that Qwilleran had mentioned. He and Polly stopped to have a few words with the MacGillivrays, then the Campbells, the Ogilvies, the MacLeods, and more Campbells.
The Cat Who Talked Turkey Page 9