"What murder?" Qwilleran paused. "Aren't you talking about David Lyke?" "I'm talking about G. Verning Tait! What's happened to David?" "He's dead. He was shot last Monday night." "David dead! My God! Who did it?" "They don't know. It happened in his apartment. In the middle of the evening." "Somebody break in?" "It doesn't appear so." "Why would anyone want to kill David? He was a fantastic guy!" "What was it you heard on the radio over there?" Qwilleran asked.
"About Tait's arrest. Mrs. Tait's family couldn't believe it when they heard the news." Qwilleran sat up straight. "You know her family?" "Just met them. Fine people. Her brother's working with me on the hush-hush deal I told you about. Don't forget: I promised you the Fluxion will get the scoop!" "What's the nature of it?" "I'm financing a fantastic manufacturing process. Qwill, I'm going to be the richest man in the world!" "Is it a new invention?" "A scientific discovery," Noyton said. "While he rest of the world is fooling around with outer space, the Danes are doing something for man-kind here and now." "Sounds great!" "Until I got over here, I didn't know what it was all about. I just took her word that it was something world-shaking." "Whose word?" "Mrs. Tait's." "She tipped you off to her brother's discovery?" "Well, you see, Dr. Thorvaldson needed financing, and she knew her husband couldn't swing it. She'd heard about me and thought I could handle it. Of course, she wanted a kickback — under the able, so to speak." Noyton paused.
"This is all off-the-record, of course." Qwilleran said: "Tait was heading for Denmark. He probably expected to invest the insurance money." There was some interference on the line. "Are you still there?" Qwilleran said.
Noyton's voice had faded. "Listen, I'll call you tomorrow — can you hear me? — as soon as everything's sewed up legally…. This is a lousy connection…. Hope they nab David's killer. So long! Call you within twenty-four hours." It was Saturday, but Qwilleran went into the office to work ahead on the next issue of Gracious Abodes. He was determined, now, that Fran Unger should not get the magazine away from him. He hoped also to see Percy and say "I told you so," but the managing editor was attending a publishers' conference in New York. During the day Qwilleran made two important phone calls — one to the hospital to inquire about the cat, and one to the Middy Studio to make a dinner date with Cokey.
When he went home in the late afternoon to feed Koko, he found a scene of frantic activity. Koko was careening drunkenly around the apartment. He was playing with his homemade mouse — a game related to hockey, basketball, and tennis, with elements of wrestling. The cat skidded the small gray thing over the polished floor, pounced on it, tossed it in the air, batted it across the room, pursued it, made a flying tackle, clutched it in his forepaws, and rolled back and forth in ecstasy until the mouse slipped from his grasp, and the chase began again. With an audience Koko was inclined to vaunt his prowess. As Qwilleran watched, the cat dribbled the mouse the length of the living room, gave it a well-aimed whack, and scored a goal — directly under the old Spanish chest. Then he trotted after it, peered under the low chest, and raised his head in a long, demanding howl.
"No problem," said Qwilleran. "This time I'm equipped." From the hall closet he brought the umbrella that Mrs. Hawkins had so conveniently forgotten. The first sweep under the chest produced nothing but dust, and Koko increased the volume of his demands. Qwilleran got down on the floor and poked the finial into far dark corners, fishing out the jade button that had disappeared a few days before. Koko's clamor was loud and unceasing.
The next sweep of the umbrella brought forth something pink!
Not exactly pink, Qwilleran told himself, but almost pink… and it looked vaguely familiar. He had an idea what it was. And he knew very well how it had managed to get there.
"Koko!" he said sternly. "What do you know about this?" Before the cat could answer with a guttural sound and a wrestling match with an invisible enemy, Qwilleran went to the telephone and rapidly dialed a number.
"Cokey," he said, "I'm going to be late picking you up. Why don't you take a cab to the Press Club and meet me there?… No, just a little business emergency I've got to handle… All right. See you shortly. And I may have some news for you!" Qwilleran turned back to the cat. "Koko, when did you eat this pink stuff? Where did you find it?"
When Qwilleran arrived at the Press Club, Cokey was waiting in the lobby, sitting in one of the worn leather sofas.
"There's trouble," she said. "I can read it in your face." "Wait till we get a table, and I'll explain," he said. "Let's sit in the cocktail lounge. I'm expecting a phone call." They went to a table with a red-checked tablecloth, well patched and darned.
"There's been an unexpected development in connection with David's murder," Qwilleran began, "and Koko's involved. He was in David's apartment when the fatal shot was fired, and he apparently ate some wool. When I brought him home that night, he looked odd. I thought he'd had a fright. Now I'm inclined to think it was a stomachache. I suppose cats get stomachaches." "He couldn't digest the wool?" Cokey said.
"He might have managed the wool, but there was something else in the cloth. After he came home, he must have upchucked the whole thing and hidden it under the Spanish chest. I found it an hour ago." Cokey clapped her hands to her face. "And you recognized it? Don't tell me you actually recognized it!" "Yes, and I think it would have looked familiar to you, too. It was a yellowish-pink wool with gold metallic threads." "Natalie Noyton! That handwoven dress she wore to the party!" Qwilleran nodded. "It appears that Natalie was in Dave's apartment Monday night, and she may have been there when he was shot. At any rate, it was something that had to be reported to the police, so I took the peach-colored wool over to Headquarters. That's why I was late." "What did they say?" "When I left, they were hustling out to Lost Lake Hills. Our police reporter promised to call me here if anything develops." "I wonder why Natalie didn't come forward and volunteer some information to the police?" "That's what worries me," said Qwilleran. "If she had information to give, and the killer knew it, he might try to silence her." The domed ceiling of the club multiplied the voices of the Saturday-night crowd into a roar, but above it came an amplified announcement on the public-address system: "Telephone for Mr. Qwilleran." "That's our night man at Police Headquarters. I'll be right back." He hurried to the phone booth.
When he returned, his eyes had acquired a darkness.
"What's wrong, Qwill? Is it something terrible?" "The police were too late." "Too late?" "Too late to find Natalie alive." "Murdered!" "No. She took her own life," said Qwilleran.
"Evidently a heavy dose of alcohol and then sleeping pills." A sad wail came from Cokey. "But why? Why?" "Apparently it was explained in her diary. She was hopelessly in love with her decorator, and he wasn't one to discourage an affair." "That I know!" "Natalie thought Dave was ready to marry her the moment she got a divorce, and she wanted him so desperately that she agreed to her husband's terms: no financial settlement and no request for child custody. Then last weekend it dawned on her that Dave would never marry her — or anyone else. When Odd Bunsen and I turned up at her house Monday morning and she refused to see us, she must have been out of her mind with disappointment and remorse and a kind of hopeless panic." "I'd be blind with fury!" said Cokey.
"She was blind enough to think she could set things right by killing David." "Then it was Natalie — " "It was Natalie…. Afterward, she went home, dismissed the maid, and lived through twenty-four hours of hell before ending it. She's been dead since Tuesday night." There was a long silence at the table. After a while Qwilleran said, "The police found the peach-colored dress in her closet. The shawl had quite a lot of fringe missing." Then the menus came, and Cokey said: "I'm not hungry. Let's go for a walk-and talk about other things." They walked, and talked about Koko and the new cat whose name was Yu or Freya.
"I hope they'll be happy together," said Cokey.
"I think we're all going to be happy together," said Qwilleran. "I'm going to change her name to Yum Yum. I've got to change your name, too." The girl looked at him d
reamily.
"You see," said Qwilleran, "Koko doesn't like it when I call you Cokey. It's too close to his own name." "Just call me AI," said Alacoque Wright with a wistful droop in her voice and a resigned lift to her eyebrows.
It was Monday when the news of Harry Noyton's Danish enterprise appeared on the front page of the Daily Fluxion under Qwilleran's by-line. In the first edition a typographical error had substituted «devious» for "diverse," but it was a mistake so customary that the item would have been disappointing without it: "Harry Noyton, financier and promoter of devious business interests," said the bulletin, "has acquired the worldwide franchise for a Danish scientist's unique contribution to human welfare — calorie-free beer with Vitamin C added." On the same day, in a small ceremony at the Press Club, Qwilleran was presented with an honorary press card for his cat. On it was pasted Koko's identification photo, with eyes wide, ears alert, whiskers bristling.
"I took his picture," said Odd Bunsen, "that night in David Lyke's apartment." And Lodge Kendall said, "Don't think I had an easy time getting the police chief and fire commissioner to sign it!"
When Qwilleran returned to the Villa Verandah that evening, he entered the apartment with his fingers crossed.
He had brought Yum Yum home from the hospital at noon, and the two cats had had several hours in which to sniff each other, circle warily, and make their peace.
All was silent in the living room. On the green Danish chair sat Yum Yum, looking dainty and sweet. Her face was a poignant triangle of brown, and her eyes were enormous circles of violet-blue, slightly crossed. Her brown ears were cocked at a flirtatious angle. And where the silky hairs of her pelt grew in conflicting directions on her white breast, there was a cowlick of fur softer than down.
Koko sat on the coffee table, tall and masterful, with a ruff of fur bushed around his neck.
"You devil!" said Qwilleran. "There's nothing neurotic about you, and there never was! You knew what you were doing all the time!" With a grunt Koko jumped down from the table and ambled over to join Yum Yum. They sat side by side identical positions, like bookends, with both tails curled to the right, both pairs of ears worn like coronets, both pairs of eyes ignoring Qwilleran with pointed unconcern. Then Koko gave Yum Yum's face two affectionate licks and lowered his head, arching his neck gracefully. He narrowed his eyes, and they became slits of catly ecstasy as the little female recognized her cue and washed inside his ears with her long pink tongue.
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The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern Page 15