The French doors of the solarium were open, admitting early-evening zephyrs that dissipated somewhat the impact of Penelope’s perfume. Drifting in from the trio in the foyer were Cole Porter melodies that created the right touch of gaiety and sophistication.
When the butler approached with a silver tray of potables, the Goodwinters recognized the local retailing tycoon and exchanged incredulous glances, but they maintained their poise.
“Champagne, madame,” Lanspeak intoned, “and Catawba grape juice.”
Penelope hesitated, looked briefly at her brother, and chose the nonalcoholic beverage.
Qwilleran said, “There are mixed drinks if you prefer.”
“I consider this an occasion for champagne,” Alexander said, taking a glass with a flourish. “History is made tonight. To our knowledge this is the first festive dinner ever to take place at the Klingenschoen mansion.”
“The Klingenschoens were never active in the social life of Pickax,” his sister said with elevated eyebrows.
The guests circulated, remarked about the size of the rubber plants, admired the Siamese, and made smalltalk.
“Hello, Koko,” Roger said bravely, but the cat ignored him. Both Koko and Yum Yum were intent upon circling Penelope, sniffing ardently and occasionally sneezing a delicate whispered chfff.
The guest of honor was teasing Sharon about the primitive airport.
“Don’t laugh, Mr. Riker. My grandmother arrived here in a covered wagon, and that was only seventy-five years ago. Our farms didn’t have electricity until 1937.”
To Junior, Riker said, “You must be the world’s youngest managing editor.”
“I’m starting at the top and working my way down,” Junior said. “My ambition is to be a copyboy for the Daily Fluxion.”
“Copy facilitator,” the editor corrected him.
At a signal from the hostess the butler carried a silver tray of small envelopes to the gentlemen, containing the names of the ladies they were to take into the dining room. “Dinner is served,” he announced. The musicians switched to Viennese waltzes, and the guests went into dinner two by two. No one noticed Koko and Yum Yum bringing up the rear, with tails proudly erect.
Penelope, escorted by Qwilleran, whispered, “Forgive me if I sounded curt yesterday. I had received bad news, although that is no excuse. My brother sees no reason why your memorial to Tiffany Trotter should be inappropriate.”
The great doors of the dining room had been rolled back, and the company gasped at the sight. Sixteen wax candles were burning in the silver candelabra, and twenty-four electric candles were aglow in the staghorn chandeliers, all of this against a rich background of linenfold paneling and drawn velvet draperies. There were comments on the magnificent centerpiece. Then the guests savored the terrine of pheasant, and Qwilleran noticed—from the corner of his eye—two dark brown tails disappearing under the white damask.
Seated at the head of the table, he had Penelope on his right and Amanda on his left. At one point he described the incident caused by Hackpole’s dog, also his decision to make a formal complaint.
Amanda said, “It’s about time somebody blew the whistle on that lamebrain. If our mayor wasn’t such an ass, he wouldn’t let Hackpole get away with it.”
Penelope promptly launched a more genteel topic. “Everyone is tremendously pleased to hear, Mr. Qwilleran, that you might present this house to the city as a museum.”
“The city won’t appreciate it,” Amanda retorted. “They’ll find it costs a few bucks to heat the place and pay the light bill, and they’ll rezone the Circle and sell it for a rooming house.”
It seemed to Qwilleran that the conversation at the other end of the table was progressing with more finesse. While he labored to get Roger and Junior talking, he could hear Riker telling newspaper stories, Alexander extolling the social life in Washington, Melinda describing her week in Paris, and Sharon and Mildred laughing about the naive tourists in Mooseville.
“Chfff!” The Siamese were still under the table. Yum Yum was looking for a shoelace to untie, and Koko was listening to the guests’ voices with rapt concentration.
By the time the salmon croquettes were served, the host was finding it difficult to keep a dialogue alive. Junior seemed speechless with awe; no doubt he had never seen an epergne nor eaten terrine of pheasant. Roger was eating, but he seemed somewhere else. Penelope appeared preoccupied; at best her remarks were guarded, and she was not sipping her wine. As for the outspoken Amanda, she was becoming drowsier by the minute.
The waltz rhythms emanating from the foyer were soporific, Qwilleran thought, and he wished the musicians would try Mozart or Boccherini. Yet, Melinda’s immediate tablemates were pleasantly animated.
In desperation he tried one subject after another. “Birch Tree’s motorbike has a stereo cassette player, cruise control, and an intercom. I prefer pedaling an old-fashioned one-speed bicycle on Ittibittiwassee Road—smooth pavement, sparse traffic, and that eerie Buckshot Mine . . . . You know a lot about mining history, Roger. What were the other nine mines?”
Roger blinked his eyes and said listlessly, “Well . . . there was the Goodwinter . . . and the Big B . . . and the Dimsdale.”
“And the Moosejaw,” his wife called out from her place farther down the table.
“The Moosejaw . . . and the Black Creek. How many is that?”
“That’s only six, dear.”
“Well . . . there was the Honey Hill and . . . Did I mention Old Glory?”
“Don’t forget Smith’s Folly, dear.”
“Smith’s Folly. There, that’s it!” Roger concluded with relief.
Qwilleran had been counting on his fingers. “Including Buckshot, that’s only nine.”
“He forgot the Three Pines,” Sharon said. “That’s where they had the big cave-in a few years ago. Even the Daily Fluxion wrote it up.”
“Chfff!” There was another sneeze under the table.
The lamb bûcheronne was served, and Penelope asked, “Are you doing any writing, Mr. Qwilleran?”
“Only letters. I get a tremendous amount of mail.”
“I understand you answer each letter personally in a most gracious way. That’s really very charming of you.”
Qwilleran could hear a familiar yukking sound under the table and hoped Koko was only expressing an opinion of the conversation and not throwing up on Penelope’s shoe. He could also hear Mildred, far down the table, telling Alexander about her talented art student who had left town without explanation and virtually disappeared.
“A great pity,” she said, “because she came from a poor family, and she could have gone to college on a scholarship and achieved some kind of success.”
Alexander said with authority, “Great numbers of young women escape their humdrum existence in small towns every year, and they are assimilated into urban life, sometimes with—ah—great success. Many women professionals in New York and Washington were refugees, so to speak, from rural areas. We lose this talent because we fail to provide encouragement and opportunities and rewards.”
“Chfff!”
“It’s too bad,” Mildred said, “that we don’t do as much for artists as we do for farmers.”
Throughout the salad course Qwilleran persevered in promoting table talk, and he was relieved when the wild raspberry trifle was served. At that point he made an announcement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, absent from this table is an important member of our household who wears many hats—those of resident manager, curator of the collection, registrar, and official appraiser. And no one has a better right to wear the hat of a master chef. We are indebted to Iris Cobb for preparing this dinner tonight. I would like to ask her to join us at the table for dessert.”
There were murmurs of approval as he went to the kitchen and returned with the flustered housekeeper, and there was applause when he pulled up a chair and seated Mrs. Cobb between himself and Penelope. The attorney merely stiffened her spine.
&nbs
p; When coffee and liqueurs were served in the drawing room, Qwilleran’s somnolent tablemates began to revive. A few gathered in a chatty group around the life-size portrait of a young woman with a wasp waist and bustle, circa 1880.
“She was a dance-hall girl before he married her,” Amanda said. “Look at that bawdy twinkle in her eye.”
“Let’s hear some stories, Roger,” Junior urged. “Tell us about the K Saloon.”
“Tell the one about Harry,” Sharon suggested.
Roger had snapped out of his malaise. “Do you think I should?”
“Why not?”
“Go ahead!”
“Well, it was like this—and it’s true . . . . One of the regular customers at the K Saloon was a miner named Harry, and eventually he drank himself to death. He was laid out at the furniture store, which was also the undertaking parlor, and his buddies decided he should have one last night at his favorite watering hole. So they smuggled him out of the store and put him on a sledge—it was the dead of winter—and off they went to the K Saloon. They propped Harry up at the bar, and all the patrons paid their respects and drowned their grief. Finally, at three in the morning, Harry’s friends put him on the sled again and whipped up the horses. They were singing and feeling no pain, so they didn’t notice the corpse sliding off the tail of the icy sledge. When they got back to the furniture store—no Harry! They spent the rest of the night looking for him, but the snow was drifting and they didn’t find Harry until spring.”
There were gasps and groans and giggles, and Qwilleran said, “They were a bunch of necrophiliacs—that is, if the story is really true. I suspect it’s apocryphal.”
Penelope gave a small cough and said in a firm voice, “This has been a delightful evening, and I regret we must say good night.”
Alexander said, “I emplane for Washington at an early hour tomorrow.”
Amanda nudged Riker and said in a stage whisper, “They can’t run the country without him.”
The Mooseville group also departed. Riker drove Amanda home. Mrs. Cobb went upstairs to collapse. Qwilleran and Melinda had a drink in the kitchen with the butler, the footmen, and the string trio, praising them for their performances. Then, when everyone had left, host and hostess kicked off their shoes in the library and indulged in postprandial gossip.
Melinda said, “Did you notice Penelope’s reaction when you brought the cook to the table? She considered it the major faux pas of the twentieth century.”
“She didn’t take a drink all evening. I think she wanted champagne, but her brother vetoed it.”
“Alex doesn’t like her to drink; she talks too freely. How did you like her perfume, lover? It’s something she asked me to bring from Paris.”
“Potent, to say the least,” Qwilleran said. “She was sitting on my right, you know, and I lost my sense of smell. By the time the fish was served, I couldn’t taste anything. Junior was sitting next to her, and he looked glassy eyed, as if he’d been smoking something. Amanda almost passed out, and Roger couldn’t remember the names of the ten defunct mines. It was the perfume, I’m sure. The cats kept sneezing.”
“I had to smuggle it in,” Melinda confessed. “They don’t allow it to be sold in this country.”
“If you ask me, it’s some kind of nerve gas. What’s it called?”
“Fantaisie Féline. Very expensive . . . . Am I seeing things, or is that a pickax in the corner?”
“The Pickax Boosters presented it to me. I might mount it over the fireplace, or use it as a paperweight, or swing it at stray dogs when I’m biking.”
At that moment Koko stalked into the library, giving Qwilleran his gimlet stare.
“By the way,” Qwilleran said, “do you know anything about the Three Pines Mine?”
Melinda looked amused. “The shaft house is a notorious lovers’ lair, darling. Why? Are you interested? At your age?”
TWELVE
The morning after the party Qwilleran drove Riker to the airport under threatening skies. “We’re going to get the rain the farmers have been praying for and the tourist industry has been praying against.”
“I hope my plane takes off before it closes in,” Riker said. “Not that I’m in a hurry to get back to the Fluxion. I wouldn’t mind living up here. Why don’t you buy the Picayune? I’ll come up here and run it for you.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“I do! It would be a staggering challenge.”
“We’d have to fire Benjamin Franklin and spend ten million on new mechanical equipment . . . . What did you think of Melinda?”
“Remarkable young woman. Does she wear green contacts? Are those her own eyelashes?”
“Everything is absolutely real,” Qwilleran assured him. “I’ve checked it out.”
“You know, Qwill, the gold diggers will be after you now. You’d be better off to marry a girl like Melinda and settle down. Her family is well-off; she has a profession; and she thinks you’re tops.”
“You’re generous with your advice this morning.” Qwilleran never liked to be told what to do.
“Okay, here’s another shot. Why don’t you quit hunting for the missing housemaid? You could get a bullet in the head—like the girl on the tractor.”
Watching Riker’s plane gain altitude, Qwilleran recalled that his friend had always tried to discourage his investigations—and had never succeeded. This time his own discretion was telling him, however, to wait for more developments before presenting the case to Chief Brodie. All he had to offer at this moment was circumstantial evidence, speculation, a sensitive moustache, and a smart cat.
Before returning home he bought a pink cashmere sweater at Lanspeak’s and had it gift-wrapped. At Diamond Jim’s he selected a gold necklace and dropped it off at the clinic, where a shingle at the entrance showed signs of fresh paint:
DR. HALIFAX GOODWINTER, M.D.
DR. MELINDA GOODWINTER, M.D.
As he approached the K mansion he was first aware of a police car, then a traffic jam, then a crowd of onlookers in the street. A bell was tolling a single solemn note as a funeral procession lined up and Tiffany’s casket was carried from one of the churches on the Circle.
And then it started to rain. It rained violently, almost in anger.
Qwilleran went to his desk to write a note of condolence to Steve Trotter, with an offer of an annual scholarship in Tiffany’s name. As he wrote, the telephone started to jangle with thank-you calls from the dinner guests. Junior had never eaten such good food. Sharon wanted the recipes. Mildred praised everything but thought that Alexander Goodwinter was a stuffed shirt. Amanda was hung over.
“Golly, that was a good party,” the designer croaked into the phone. “I’ve got a hangover that would kill a horse. Did I say anything I shouldn’t last night?”
“You were a model of propriety, Amanda,” said Qwilleran.
“Cripes! That’s the last thing I ever wanted to be. I leave that to my cousins.”
“I’ve just driven Arch to the airport. He enjoyed your company immensely.”
“He’s my type! Get him up here again—soon!”
When Melinda phoned to thank him for the necklace, she complained that his line had been continually busy.
“All our dinner guests have been calling,” he said. “Everyone except Penelope.”
“Penny won’t phone. She’ll write a very proper thank-you note on engraved stationery, sealed with wax. Did Arch get away before the rains came?”
“He did, and he gave me some parting advice: (a) get married and (b) forget about the Daisy Mull mystery. I plan to take at least one of his suggestions.”
At lunchtime he presented his gift to Mrs. Cobb.
“Oh, Mr. Qwilleran! Pink is my favorite, and I’ve never had anything cashmere. You shouldn’t have done it. Did they all like the food last night?”
“Your dinner will make history,” he assured her, “and when you see Mrs. Fulgrove, tell her that everyone admired her handwriting.”
&nbs
p; “When she was writing the place cards,” Mrs. Cobb said, “she told me something. I don’t know whether I should repeat it.”
“Go ahead.” Qwilleran’s remark was offhand, but his moustache was bristling with curiosity.
“Well, she works three times a week at the Goodwinter house, you know, and she overheard Miss Goodwinter and her brother having a terrible row—yelling and everything. She said it was kind of frightening because they’re always so nice to each other.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“She couldn’t hear. She was cleaning the kitchen, and they were upstairs.”
At that moment a particularly objectionable burst of music came from the upper regions of the K mansion. “I see our star boarder is still on the premises,” Qwilleran said.
“He’s almost finished, but his bill is going to be enormous, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t worry. The estate will pay for it, and I’ll tell them to deduct for five breakfasts, eight lunches, seven gallons of coffee, a case of beer, and a visit to the ear doctor. I think my hearing is permanently impaired.”
“Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you must be joking.”
It rained hard for forty-eight hours, until the stone-paved streets of Pickax were flooded. Downtown Main Street, with its hodgepodge of architectural styles, was a parody of the Grand Canal. Grudgingly Qwilleran stayed indoors.
On the third day the rain ceased, and the wet fieldstone of the K mansion sparkled like diamonds in the sunshine. A brisk breeze started to dry up the floods. The birds sang. The Siamese rolled on the solarium floor and laundered their fur in the warm rays.
It was shortly after breakfast when an unexpected visitor arrived at the back door.
Mrs. Cobb hurried to the library to find Qwilleran. “Steve Trotter is here to see you. It looks like he’s had a lot to drink.”
Qwilleran dropped his newspaper and went to the kitchen, where the painter in off-duty jeans and T-shirt was leaning unsteadily against the doorjamb, his face slack and his eyelids drooping.
The Cat Who Played Post Office Page 13