Three Complete Novels: The Cat Who Tailed a Thief/the Cat Who Sang for the Birds/the Cat Who Saw Stars

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “There’s something debonair about it,” Qwilleran said.

  It was golden oak, heavily varnished, with a hand-caned seat and nine turned spindles—almost pencil-thin—and a deep top rail that had a decorative design pressed into it. Two turned finials on top, like ears, gave it a playful fillip but would be practical handgrips.

  The dealer said, “This may have been a knock-off of an earlier and more expensive design—with the top rail carved, and a price tag more like two fifty. The ones I’ve seen around here are all in the ninety-four-cent class. The seat on this one has been recaned. I’ll make you a good price if you’re interested.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Qwilleran said, meaning that he had no intention of buying. “But I’ll definitely come back for the wheel in a couple of days . . . What do you know about the restaurant across the way?” he added as Arnold accompanied him to the door.

  “I hear the food’s good.”

  “Have you had contact with Owen Bowen?”

  “Only through Derek. He’s working there part time, you know. Derek said the entry—where customers wait to be seated—needed some spark. So we put our heads together, and I lent them a setup for the summer months—some Waterford crystal in a lighted china cabinet. We brought it up from the Lockmaster store. And that so-and-so from Florida never picked up the phone to say thank-you, let alone send over a piece of pie. Phreddie has better manners than Owen Bowen!”

  Qwilleran’s watch told him that the lunch hour had ended at Owen’s Place, and his intuition had told him that Derek would be heading for Elizabeth’s Magic to relax and report on events. Qwilleran headed in the same direction, stopping only for a hot dog and two copies of the Moose County Something. On the way he thought about another reader-participation stunt: He could take a census of pressed-back chairs in Moose County! . . . Run a photograph of the one at Arnold’s . . . Ask, “Do you own one or more of these historic artifacts? Send us a postcard.” Arch Riker chaffed Qwilleran about his postcard parties, although he knew very well that subscribers looked forward to the monthly assignments and talked about them all over the county.

  On Oak Street there were three contiguous storefronts, each with a windowbox of petunias: Elizabeth’s Magic in the center, flanked by a realty agent and a hair stylist. When Qwilleran opened the door, an overhead bell jangled, and three persons turned in his direction: Elizabeth and two customers of retirement age, one tall and one short. They had been his neighbors in Indian Village.

  “Ladies! What brings you to the haunts of coot and hern?” he asked.

  They greeted him happily. “That’s Tennyson!” said the tall one.

  “My favorite poem: The Brook,” said the other.

  They were the Cavendish sisters, retired from distinguished teaching careers Down Below. Qwilleran had rescued one of their cats when it became entangled in the laundry equipment. “I hear you’re living in Ittibittiwassee Estates,” he said.

  “Yes, they gave us an apartment with pet privileges.”

  “We’d never go anywhere without Pinky and Quinky.”

  “We’re here to see the play tonight.”

  “They have an activities bus that takes residents on day-trips.”

  “How is Koko?”

  “And how is that dear Yum Yum?”

  “They find the beach stimulating,” he said, “and the screened porch is their university. Koko studies the constellations at night and does graduate work in crow behavior during the day.”

  “He’s such an intellectual cat!” said the tall sister.

  “Yum Yum is majoring in entomology but yesterday distinguished herself by saving a life.”

  “Really?” the sisters said in unison.

  “You know how birds knock themselves groggy by trying to fly through a window screen or pane of glass . . . Well, a hummingbird flew into the porch screen and got its long beak caught in the mesh. It was fluttering desperately until Yum Yum jumped to a nearby chairback and gave the beak a gentle push with her paw.”

  “She’s so sweet!” the short sister said.

  “Wouldn’t you know she’d be a humanitarian?” the other one said.

  More likely, she thought it was a bug on the screen, Qwilleran mused.

  The bell over the door jangled, and they all turned to see Derek Cuttlebrink barging into the shop. “Just got off work,” he announced. “Five hours till curtain time. Got any coffee?” He loped to the rear of the store. Qwilleran followed after exchanging pleasantries with the sisters and giving Elizabeth one of his newspapers.

  The two men sat in the black nylon sling chairs with plastic cups of coffee. “I never touch the stuff when I’m on duty,” Derek said.

  “How’s business?”

  “Great at lunchtime. I’m not there at night, so I don’t know what kind of crowd they get for dinner.”

  “Do you and your boss hit it off well?”

  “Oh, sure. We get along. He needs me, and he knows it. I don’t have to take any of his guff.” He lowered his voice. “I know more about the food business than he does. At least I’ve cracked a book or two. He’s just a joe who likes to eat and thinks it would be a kick to own a restaurant. They’re wrong! It’s one of the hardest, most complicated businesses you could pick. Owen happened to latch on to a great chef. She’s a creative artist, trained at one of the best chef schools. She’s really dedicated! Besides that, she’s a nice person—much younger than he is. And not as stuffy. He expects to be called Mr. Bowen. She says, ‘Call me Ernie.’ Her name is Ernestine. She works like a dog in the kitchen while he goofs off and goes fishing.”

  “Whatever he happens to reel in, I suppose, goes on the menu as catch-of-the-day. At market price.”

  “Well . . . no. It’s a funny thing, but Owen says Ernie isn’t comfortable with lake fish, being a Floridian, so he fishes for the sport. Whatever he catches, he throws back. The guy’s nuts!”

  “Hmmm,” Qwilleran said, smoothing his moustache. “What’s your bestseller at lunchtime?”

  “Skewered potatoes, hands down.”

  “I’ve heard people talk about them. What are they?”

  Derek yelled, “Liz, got any skewers left?”

  “A few,” she said. “I’ve placed another order, and Mike’s turning them out as fast as he can, but we can hardly keep up with the demand.”

  She showed Qwilleran a set of the foot-long needles of twisted iron with sharp points. At the opposite end each had a decorative medallion for a fingergrip. She said, “If you bake potatoes on skewers, the baking time is shortened, and they’re flakier, more flavorful, and more nutritious.”

  “Who says so?” Qwilleran said. “It sounds like a scam to me.”

  “I don’t know how it originated, but it seems to be an accepted fact. It was Derek’s idea to put skewered potatoes on the menu, and Ernie bought a dozen to start. Now she wants more.”

  “Here’s why they’re popular,” Derek said. “The potatoes are unskewered and dressed at tableside for dramatic effect. Dining in a fine restaurant is part showbiz, you know. People like the special attention they get with tableside service, like fileting a trout or tossing a Caesar salad or flaming a dessert. I do the ritual myself. I put on a good show. Come and have lunch some day.”

  “I’ll do that. Meanwhile, I’m having dinner there tonight before the play.”

  “That reminds me . . .” He jumped out of his chair and headed for the front door.

  “Break a leg!” Qwilleran shouted after him.

  “Qwill, have you seen today’s paper?” Elizabeth asked. “Look at the announcement on page five.”

  He unfolded the newspaper he had been carrying and read a boxed announcement:

  YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET, HARDLY

  Do you like the way folks speak in Moose County?

  Do you have pet peeves about English as she is spoken?

  Do you think “whom” should be eliminated from the English language?

  Are you confused about him-and-m
e and he-and-I?

  ASK MS. GRAMMA

  Her column stars next week on this page. Write to her at the Moose County Something. Queries and complaints will receive her attention.

  “Well, that’s a surprise, to say the least,” Qwilleran said. “Readers have been clamoring for editorial comment on the sloppy English common in Moose County, but it remains to be seen whether a column on good grammar will accomplish anything. What’s your reaction, Elizabeth?”

  “Frankly, I think the people who need it most won’t read it, and what’s more, they see nothing wrong with the way they speak. Their patois was learned from their parents and is spoken, most likely, by their friends.”

  Qwilleran said, “My question is: Who will write it? Jill Handley on the staff could do it, or some retired teacher of English. But that’s Junior Goodwinter’s problem. We’ll wait and see.”

  Before going home, Qwilleran drove to Fishport once more. The burlap sack was still covering the sign on the lawn, but there were no police cars in the drive. Qwilleran thought he could knock on the door and ask, as a friend, how things were going. “Is there anything I can do?” was always a key to unlocking confidences.

  He knocked on the door, and no one answered. He knocked again. Someone could be seen moving around inside the house—someone who obviously did not want to be bothered. He drove away.

  SIX

  Before going to dinner and the theater, Qwilleran fed the cats and treated them to a reading session. They were currently enjoying the sheep book Far from the Madding Crowd. They usually sat on the porch—Qwilleran in a lounge chair, Yum Yum on his lap, and Koko on the back of the chair, looking over his shoulder. If Qwilleran dramatized the story, Koko would get excited and inch forward. Then the cat’s whiskers would tickle the man’s ear. The episode that Qwilleran read on this occasion was an ear tickler—the tragic event for which the novel was famous.

  An inexperienced sheepdog made a fatal mistake. His sire, old George, had the wisdom of a veteran sheepkeeper, but the young one had too much enthusiasm and too little sense. His job was to chase sheep, and he chased them. It was the jangling of bells on fast-running sheep that alerted the farmer one dark night. He called the dogs, and only George responded.

  Shouting the shepherd’s cry of “Ovey! Ovey! Ovey!” the man ran to the hill. There were no sheep in sight, but the young dog was standing on the edge of the chalk cliff, gazing down below. He had chased the flock until they broke through a hedge and a rail fence and plunged to their death. Lost were two hundred ewes and the two hundred lambs they would have birthed. The farmer was financially ruined, and the poor dog was shot.

  Qwilleran slapped the book shut. He had been reading with emotion, and his listeners sensed the tension in his voice. Though it described a nineteenth-century farm in a fictional English county called Wessex, it resembled Moose County, where sheep farming supported so many families. There was a heavy silence on the porch—until the telephone rang.

  “Excuse me,” he said, dislodging Yum Yum from his lap.

  The caller was Sarah Plensdorf, the conscientious office manager at the Something. “I’m sorry to bother you on your vacation, Qwill, but I had a request for your phone number from a woman who seemed very young and very shy. When I told her to write you a letter, she insisted that she had an urgent message for you. I took her number and said I’d try to reach you. She was calling from Fishport.”

  “Give me the number. I’ll call her,” he said. “You handled it well, Sarah.”

  “You’re to ask for Janelle.”

  When he phoned the number, a soft, whispery voice said, “Safe Harbor Residence.”

  He had to think a moment. Was this the home for widows of commercial fishermen? He said, “Is there someone there by the name of Janelle?”

  “This is . . . Janelle,” she said hesitantly. “Is this . . . Mr. Qwilleran?”

  “Yes. You called my office.” Her slowness of speech made him speak in a clipped manner. “You have an urgent message?”

  “It’s from one of our residents. The widow of . . . Primus Hawley. She’s made a lovely . . . gift for you.”

  He huffed into his moustache. That would be Doris Hawley’s mother-in-law. She was embroidering something for him . . . probably Home Sweet Home bordered with roses. He glanced at Koko, who was at his elbow, listening. “Very kind of her,” he said.

  “Would it be too much trouble to . . . pick it up? She’s ninety years old. She’d be . . . thrilled to meet you.”

  Koko was staring at his forehead, and Qwilleran found himself saying, “No trouble at all. I have great respect for the commercial fishing community. I wrote a column on the blessing of the fleet this spring.”

  “I know! We have it in the parlor . . . in a lovely frame!”

  “I’ll drop in some day next week.”

  “Could you come . . . sooner?” she asked in her shy but persistent way.

  “Well then, Monday afternoon.”

  There was a pause. “Sooner?”

  “All right!” he said in exasperation. “Some time tomorrow afternoon.”

  There was another pause. “Could you tell us exactly when? She has to . . . have her nap.”

  After promising to be there at two o’clock, Qwilleran hung up and was surprised to see Koko running around in circles. “If you could drive,” he said to the cat, “I’d send you to pick it up!”

  When Qwilleran arrived at Owen’s Place, the first thing he noticed in the small foyer was a lighted case of sparking cut crystal. He looked for a card saying “Courtesy of Arnold’s,” but there was no credit given. Otherwise the interior was mostly white, with accents of pink and yellow and a great many potted plants, hanging baskets, and indoor trees. He could tell at a glance that they were from The Greenery in Lockmaster, a place that rented plastic foliage for all occasions. Altogether it was not a bad scene: The large casement windows on both long walls were open, and their white louvered shutters framed them pleasantly.

  Half the tables were taken, and there was a hum of excitement from show-goers headed for an opening-night performance. For a beach crowd they were dressed decently, and Qwilleran was glad he had worn his striped seersucker coat. As he stood waiting in the entry, several heads were turned in his direction, and hands waved.

  Owen Bowen, handsomely tanned, came forward with a frown wrinkling his fine features. “Reservation?”

  “No, sorry.”

  The host scanned the room. “How many?”

  “One.”

  That required another study of the situation. “Smoking or non-smoking?”

  “Non.”

  After painful cogitation, he conducted Qwilleran to a small table and said, “Something from the bar?”

  “Squunk water on the rocks, with lemon zest.”

  “What was that?”

  Qwilleran repeated it and explained that it was a mineral water from a natural spring at Squunk Corners, but he said he would settle for club soda.

  The menu was unusual by Moose County standards: veal loin encrusted with eggplant, spinach, and roasted red peppers, with sun-dried tomato demiglaze—that sort of thing. Qwilleran played it safe with a lamb shank osso bucco on a bed of basil fettuccini. The soup of the day was a purée of cauliflower and Gorgonzola served in a soup plate with three spears of chives arranged in a triangle on the creamy surface.

  While a self-conscious waitstaff took orders and served the food, the host seated guests and served drinks with an air of zero hospitality. Latticework in the rear of the room screened the bar, the cash register, and a window into the kitchen, where Qwilleran caught glimpses of a young woman in a chef’s towering toque. Her face had a look of extreme concentration and a kitchen pallor.

  Other diners started leaving at seven-fifteen, saying they were concerned about parking facilities. When Qwilleran arrived at the Botts farm, vehicles lined both shoulders of the highway as far as one could see, and others were being directed into designated pastures. He himself had a press
card that admitted him to a lot behind the dairy barn.

  Show-goers gathered in the barnyard, reluctant to go indoors. It was a beautiful evening, and this was a festive celebration. The Rikers were there. “How was Owen’s Place?” they asked.

  Qwilleran was pleased to report that the food was excellent. “The chef is nouvelle, but not too nouvelle. The host is a cold fish. If you don’t like cold fish, I suggest you go for lunch, when Derek is on duty.” Then, half turning his back to Arch, he asked Mildred, “Has your sensitive husband recovered from the mortification of knitting in public?”

  “Don’t be fooled, Qwill. He’s enjoying the notoriety. He even got a fan letter from a mechanic in Chipmunk.”

  Arch said, “I hope the play’s better than the precurtain conversation. Let’s go in.”

  “Curtain time!” an usher was shouting to the crowd milling about the barnyard.

  There was no curtain in the theater, and there were no backs on the seats. Bleachers, providing good sight lines, filled one end of the barn, while an elevated stage occupied the other. Although the set was sketchy, the audience could imagine a fashionable country house with a terrace off to the right.

  The lights dimmed; the haunting electronic sounds faded; and the play began—with headstrong characters insisting that UFOs were figments of the imagination. Meanwhile, a spaceship was landing in a rose garden offstage with green lights spilling onstage. Enter: a Visitor from outer space, almost seven feet tall. The audience howled as they recognized their favorite actor. He wore a Civil War uniform and sideburns and explained to the earthlings that he had miscalculated and landed in the wrong century. It was a challenging role for Derek, who was in almost every scene of the play.

  During intermission, when the audience was glad to leave the bleachers for a few minutes, Qwilleran listened to their comments:

  Elizabeth Hart: “Isn’t he talented? He does everything well.”

  Lyle Compton: “Will that guy ever stop growing?”

  Arch Riker: “This play puts UFOs where they belong: in a comic strip.”