The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal

by Lilian Jackson Braun; Nye

“I’d like to speak with Amberton.”

  “He’s in Arizona. Steve drove him to the airport yesterday, but he has all the information—Steve, I mean—if you want to talk to him.”

  “Is he there? Let me speak with him.”

  “He’s . . . no, he’s at the farm, but—uh—he’d be glad to come up and see you. Wednesday is his day off.”

  “Okay. Wednesday afternoon,” Qwilleran said.

  “Tell him to come equipped with facts and figures.”

  “Ummm . . . could I come with him and bring Robbie? I’d like you to meet Robbie.”

  “All right. Make it about one-thirty.”

  Qwilleran hung up the phone slowly and thoughtfully, telling himself, This is insane! And yet . . . he had lived in Pickax for four years, and he was becoming restless. As a journalist Down Below he had lived the life of a gypsy, switching newspapers, moving from city to city, seeking challenges, accepting new assignments. His present circumstances required him to live in Moose County for five years or forfeit the Klingenschoen inheritance. He had one more year to go . . .

  “What do you think about this, Koko?” he asked the cat, who was sitting nearby with his ears cocked and his tail flat out on the floor.

  “Yow!” said Koko.

  Absentmindedly, automatically, Qwilleran picked up the scattered typeblocks. There were now three on the floor. One was the rabbit. One was a skunk. The other was a horse’s head.

  ELEVEN

  DRIVING SOUTH TO Lockmaster for Grummy’s funeral on Tuesday morning, Qwilleran crossed the county line into horse country with its hilly pastureland, picturesque fences, and well-kept stables. Horses were being exercised. Riders were practicing jumps. A large recreation vehicle was pulling away from a posh farmhouse, drawing a horse trailer. One could adapt to that kind of life, he thought: horse shows, equitation events, steeplechasing, show jumping, carriage driving.

  The funeral services were held in an impressive brick church overlooking Inglehart Park on the riverbank, after which Qwilleran drove to the cemetery with the MacDiarmids.

  “Grummy was the last Inglehart around here,” said Kip. “The others are scattered all over the country. We seem to have a big population turnover—old families moving out, new ones moving in. The equestrian environment attracts them.”

  “Do you consider Lockmaster a good place to live?” Qwilleran asked.

  “Are you thinking of moving down here?” the editor countered. “If so, we’ve got a place for you at the paper. We’ll put your column on page one.”

  The cemetery was an old one located on a wooded hill, and Grummy was laid to rest in a large family plot dominated by an Inglehart monument befitting a founder of the town. At the instant of interment her Bird Club associates released flights of doves, and the mourners raised their heads and watched them disappear into the sky.

  “I’m sorry I knew her such a short time,” Qwilleran said. “She might have converted me to birding. No one else has succeeded.”

  On the way back to town, Kip pointed out big-name horse farms, the Riding and Hunt Club, kennels of the Lockmaster Hounds, the Fox-hunters’ Club, and other points of interest related to the local passion. Moira sat quietly alongside him in a pensive mood.

  From the backseat Qwilleran asked, “Is a horse farm a good investment?”

  “I doubt it. The average one around here is a status symbol or a private obsession, to my way of thinking,” Kip said. “Do you like horses? Do you ride?”

  “The horse is an animal I admire greatly. They’re beautiful beasts, but I’ve never had any particular desire to sit on one. I might enjoy living among them, though, if I didn’t have to do any of the work.”

  “The Ambertons are selling their farm, and they have good stock and the best of everything in facilities.”

  “Horse breeding is a high-risk venture, you know,” Moira put in quietly.

  “What do you know about their stablemaster?”

  “Steve? He hasn’t been here long,” Kip replied, “but people say he’s an excellent trainer. You saw how Son of Cardinal came through on Saturday. From what I hear, he knows the business inside out.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “Various places—New York State, Kentucky, Tennessee, I believe.”

  “Why is he working in Lockmaster?” Qwilleran asked.

  The driver changed his grip on the wheel and looked out the side window before answering. “I suppose he liked the environment . . . and the opportunity to move around. The Ambertons travel around the country, eventing.”

  Moira spoke up sharply. “Why don’t you tell the truth, Kip?” She turned to face Qwilleran. “He got into trouble Down Below, doping racehorses.”

  Her husband said, “I’m sure he’s clean now.”

  The car was slowing, and she was unbuckling her seatbelt. “Maybe so,” she said, “but most owners are afraid of him.” She hopped out in front of the insurance agency where she worked. “Next time we see you, Qwill,” she said with a wave of the hand, “let’s hope it’s a happier occasion.”

  They drove on, and Kip said, “Why don’t you stick around and have dinner with us tonight?”

  Suddenly Qwilleran wanted to return to Pickax. “Thanks, but I’m due home at five o’clock.”

  “Okay. Next time. By the way, that’s a very generous reward Pickax is offering in the VanBrook case. We picked it up and ran a short piece in yesterday’s paper.”

  “I hope it gets results,” Qwilleran said absently. He was pondering Moira’s statements.

  “Where do you want to be dropped off?”

  “My car’s parked at the church . . . Moira seems to have reservations about Steve, doesn’t she?”

  “Well, he’s not a bad guy . . . but we were all at a party at the Hunt Club on New Year’s Eve—a boozy affair, you know—and Steve got out of line, rather crudely. Moira took umbrage, to put it mildly. She’s still miffed. It wasn’t anything serious. He was drunk. He likes his liquor, and he likes women.”

  Qwilleran picked up his car and stopped at a phone booth to call Polly at the Pickax library. “Correction,” he said. “I can be home in time for dinner. If you’re free, we could go to the Mill.” She accepted, and he found himself driving back to Pickax faster than usual.

  At the barn Koko greeted him with the excited chasing that meant a message on the answering machine. He checked it out and immediately put in a call to Susan Exbridge, suspecting an auspicious development in the Dennis Hough situation that had been bothering her.

  “Darling! I have exciting news!” she exclaimed. “Hilary’s attorney in Lockmaster called me about liquidating the estate, and he came up here today to discuss it. He’s Torry Bent of Summers, Bent & Frickle, and he’s the personal representative for the estate.”

  “Did you go through Hilary’s house?”

  “Yes, he had a key, which he turned over to me after he decided I had credentials and an honest face. It’s a strange place, and I do mean strange! The upstairs rooms are filled to the ceiling with boxes of books, and one room is full of dead plants!”

  “What will you do with all those books?”

  “God knows! Secondhand books are an absolute glut on the market, but we’ll open all the boxes—what a job!—and hope to find something rare and valuable. Edd Smith will be able to advise us on that.”

  “I’ll be glad to help you open boxes,” Qwilleran said with alacrity. “I’m very good at sorting books, and after tomorrow night I have nothing scheduled.”

  “Qwill, you’re a darling! How about Thursday morning? I’ll take you to lunch. I took Torry to lunch at the Mill, and he was quite impressed!”

  “By the restaurant or the liquidator?”

  “Both, if I’m tuned in to the right channel, and I might add that he’s a charmer! Also, he’s divorced—tra la!”

  On this salubrious note the conversation ended, and Qwilleran marked Thursday for Susan in his datebook—something he would avoid mentioning to the chief librar
ian.

  When he called for Polly at her carriage house, she was wearing a vibrant pink blouse with her gray suit—her other gray suit, reserved for social occasions.

  “That color is becoming to you,” he said. “What do you call it?”

  “Fuchsia. You don’t think it’s too intense?”

  “Not at all.”

  It was a short drive to the Old Stone Mill on the outskirts of town, and they filled the time with comments on the weather: the highs and lows, humidity and visibility, yesterday and today. At the restaurant they were shown to Qwilleran’s favorite table, and he ordered the usual dry sherry for Polly and the usual Squunk water for himself. When the drinks arrived, they both raised their glasses and said “Cheers!”

  There was a lull before Polly ventured, “Whose funeral did you attend?”

  “Vicki Bushland’s grandmother. A splendid woman, eighty-eight years old and an enthusiastic birder. You would have liked her.”

  “You seem to be gravitating toward Lockmaster lately.”

  “It’s very pleasant country down there,” he said, “and there’s a horse farm coming up for sale that might be an investment for the K Fund. I believe I could get interested in horses without trying too hard.”

  “You wouldn’t live down there, would you?”

  “Not right away, but it’s a beautiful setup.” He then gave a glowing description of the Amberton farm. “A delegation is coming up tomorrow for a conference.”

  “It sounds as if you’re serious.”

  “It’s tempting! I have one reservation, however. The stablemaster is highly competent, but he has an unsavory past. Besides having a reputation as a heavy drinker and a womanizer, he was chased out of jobs Down Below for illegal use of drugs in connection with racehorses. Too bad. I believe I mentioned him before. His name is Steve O’Hare.”

  Polly put down her glass abruptly and turned pale.

  “Do you feel all right?” he asked.

  “A little dizzy, that’s all. I skipped lunch—trying to lose a few pounds,” she said with a pathetic smile. “The sherry—”

  “We’ll have the soup served right away.” He signaled the waitress. “Eat a roll. I’ll butter it for you. And don’t worry about losing weight, Polly. I like you best just the way you are.” When the chicken gumbo was served and she had revived, he went on. “Do you realize this is our first dinner together in ten days? And we’ve missed two weekends! That’s no kind of track record for you and me.”

  “I know,” she said ruefully. “We belong together. The last two years have been the best years of my life, dearest.”

  “I could say the same . . . What are we going to do about it?”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  The halibut steaks arrived, with broccoli spears and squash soufflé, and the answer was deferred.

  Polly said, while dealing with a small bone in the fish, “Is there . . . anything new . . . at the barn?”

  “You won’t recognize the orchard. It was damaged by last week’s storm, but the debris has been cleared up and some of the worst trees removed. The number of prowlers has increased since the barn tour. Those who objected to paying five dollars are now trying to get a free peek. I’ve ordered mini-blinds, but it takes three weeks.”

  “Have the tapestries arrived?”

  “Yes, and they’ve been hung. I think you’ll like them. The largest hangs from the railing of the topmost catwalk, and I only hope it’s secure. It’s hooked onto tack-strips, and in our household we’re subject to Yum Yum’s law: If anything can be unhooked, untied, unbuckled, or unlatched, DO IT! She started with shoelaces and advanced to desk drawers. Tapestries may be next on her list, so I’m monitoring the situation closely. Her voice is changing, too. After all, she’s about five years old—a mature female. Frequently she delivers a very assertive contralto yowl that sounds suspiciously like NOW!”

  “What does Koko think about all of this?” Polly asked.

  “He has his own pursuits. Lately he’s been chummy with a cardinal in the orchard. They commune through the window glass, and here’s the astonishing thing: Last Saturday a horse named Son of Cardinal won the fifth race at the steeplechase. Is that a coincidence or not? Suppose Koko could pick winners! He’d be a very valuable animal . . . Did I tell you I met the woman who played in Henry VIII? She’s a retiring, insecure little creature that VanBrook reshaped in the image of Queen Katharine—a Pygmalion act that must have bolstered his ego.”

  Qwilleran was unusually talkative, rambling from one subject to another—evidence that he had missed Polly’s company more than he realized. She, on the other hand, was unusually quiet, simply asking questions.

  At one point she asked, “Did you read the letter that an eleven-year-old girl wrote to the editor of the Something last week?”

  “I never read anything written by eleven-year-old girls,” he stated in his mock-curmudgeon style.

  “There were several replies in Friday’s paper. I knew you were out of town, so I photocopied them for you. It’s about the Tipsy problem.”

  “Problem? What kind of problem?”

  “Read the original letter, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  The communication from one Debbie Watts of Kennebeck had been printed with all the juvenile errors that made Qwilleran wince.

  I am 11 years old in 5th grade. My gramma told me to rite. We have a famly ablum. It has a pitcher of my gramma when she was a girl. She worked at Tipsy’s. They took a pitcher of her and Tipsy out in front. She says Tipsy had white feet. Her feet are white in the pitcher.

  “Hmmm,” Qwilleran said, considering the significance of this revelation. “The portrait in the restaurant has black feet.”

  “Exactly! If the prize goes to a Tipsy look-alike, does that mean black feet or white feet? Now read the replies.”

  The first was signed by a Mrs. G. Wilson Goodwinter of West Middle Hummock. That was an old family name of distinction, and the suburb was an affluent one.

  Little Debbie Watts is correct. My housekeeper’s daughter works in a nursing home Down Below, and one of her patients is an old sailor who knew Tipsy when she lived at Gus’s Timberline Bar on the waterfront. Gus was from Moose County, and during the Depression he came back here and opened a restaurant, bringing Tipsy with him and naming the establishment in her honor. The patient describes Tipsy as having white feet. He is quite definite about it.

  Qwilleran said, “This looks bad for Hixie Rice and her bright idea.”

  “Read on,” Polly instructed him.

  Next was a letter from Margaret DeRoche of Sawdust City:

  My husband’s cousin was the artist who painted the portrait of Tipsy in the 1930s. He was an artist of great integrity and would never paint black feet on a subject if that were not the case. I write because he is not here to defend himself, having passed away three years ago. His name was Boyd Smithers, and he signed the canvas with his initials.

  “The plot thickens,” Qwilleran said. “Here’s one from the Kennebeck Chamber of Commerce. I’ll bet they’re in favor of black feet. This is getting to be a political issue.”

  For fifty years or more Tipsy with black boots has been the image we connect with the restaurant and the town of Kennebeck. Two generations of Moose County residents have raised cats with black boots and named them after Tipsy. Why rock the boat now?

  Polly said, “Read the one from Samantha Campbell. She’s the registrar of the Historical Society.”

  In reference to the Tipsy debate I wish to note that the Historical Society archives contain a Tipsy file of clippings from the late lamented Pickax Picayune. In 1939 a brief article referred to Tipsy as being “all white with a blackhat.” An item in the same paper in 1948 refers to Tipsy’s “black boots.” I mention this to emphasize the necessity of accuracy in the public press, since newspaper accounts go into historical records. Thank you.

  “And thank you, Ms. Campbell,” Qwilleran said. “I should take Koko to the restaurant a
nd let him give the portrait the Siamese Sniff Test. He knows right from wrong.”

  Polly said, “You’re not taking this seriously, Qwill. Read the last one.” It was written by Betty Bee Warr of Purple Point.

  My grandmother, who is in the Senior Care Facility with arthritis real bad in her hands, remembers that a man named Gus brought Tipsy to Kennebeck in the Depression and had an artist paint her picture. When Gus sold his place in the 1940s the new owners paid my grandmother, who did a little painting as a hobby, to touch up the feet with black. They said it would give the picture “more oomph.” Now she realizes she did wrong to paint over it, but she needed the money.

  Qwilleran said, “This is the stickiest mess since the flypaper controversy in the city council meeting, but Hixie and the chamber of commerce will have to cope with it. I’m only a judge, and I have other things on my mind.”

  “Is the mystery of VanBrook’s murder bothering you?” Polly asked, knowing he could be tormented by unanswered questions.

  “No. The mystery of his identity. Was he what he claimed to be or was he a phony? I suspect the latter. Koko knew there was something not quite genuine about him from the beginning. That cat knows a fake when he sniffs it, whether it’s a hairpiece or imitation turkey.”

  Polly sighed. “Do you think Bootsie will ever be as smart as Koko?”

  “Not with a moniker like that! It lacks dignity. Koko’s name is Kao K’o Kung, as you know . . . Will you have dessert?”

  “No, thank you. I’d better not.”

  “Coffee?”

  Polly hesitated, then said sweetly, “Shall we go to my place for coffee?”

  Later that evening, when they were saying good night at her carriage house, Polly mentioned casually, “This weekend may be the last chance to go birding in the wetlands. Shall we?”

  “Sure,” said Qwilleran, after concealing a gulp. “Or we could fly down to Chicago with the Lanspeaks for a ballgame.”

  “That would be nice,” she said.

  He arrived home elated and charged with energy, but it was midnight, and his housemates wanted only their bedtime snack and lights-out. Qwilleran retired to his studio to continue reading the biography of Sir Edmund Backhouse. What a difference: The British sinologist had a winning personality and a deferential manner; VanBrook was all contempt and ego.