The Cat Who Came to Breakfast

by Lilian Jackson Braun

  “Enough of this sentimentality!” he said to the Siamese, and he made a meatloaf sandwich. They muddled through the evening, hearing sounds of yet another audition at Five Pips. The atmosphere was calm, and the unceasing thunder seemed to be coming from several directions. Shortly before midnight he gave the cats their bedtime treat and retired, taking care to close the bedroom door. When the weather was threatening, they liked to crowd into his bed. He thought he would have trouble sleeping, but…

  Qwilleran was sound asleep when the disturbance started outside his door—first the yowling, then the urgent scratching on the door panels. He sat up in bed and checked the hour; it was almost two o’clock. Then he smelled smoke. It was not tobacco this time; it was something burning. He checked his own kitchen burners hastily and then stepped outside with a flashlight.

  Black smoke was issuing from the cottage next door. Without a second’s hesitation he ran to Five Pips and pounded on the door, shouting “June! June! Fire!” The door was locked. He tried to kick it in, but he was wearing only light slippers. He lunged at it, but it held fast. He smashed the front window with his flashlight and then ran up the lane to ring the firebell. He clanged it again and again. Lights appeared instantly in certain windows of the inn, and Nick’s voice shouted. “Where is it?”

  “The last cottage!”

  “Get out! Get everybody out!”

  Qwilleran ran back to pull on some clothes—he was still in pajama bottoms and slippers—and stuff the cats into their carrier. He could hear a motor vehicle in the distance and the emergency beep—beep—beep. As soon as he emerged, lugging the carrier, Nick was running down the lane in full firefighting gear.

  “Get everybody to the inn!” he yelled.

  Now the motors of heavy vehicles could be heard on the still night air. The family in the first cottage—parents and two children—stood outside, confused and frightened.

  “Go to the inn!” Qwilleran shouted. “Keep out of the way! The fire trucks are coming!” Already the police car was rounding the building.

  In the lounge, where guests were standing around in nightclothes and robes, the Bamba cats hissed and growled at the sight of the caged Siamese invading their territory.

  “Take them upstairs and shut them up in any vacant room,” Lori said to Qwilleran. She was moving among the guests and saying, “Everything’s under control…Don’t be alarmed…The fire trucks are on the way…We’ve got plenty of water in the lake…There’s no wind tonight, so it won’t spread.”

  From the upstairs window Qwilleran saw the police car floodlighting the burning building. Black smoke billowed from the windows. Then the tanker and pumper arrived, and a line was run down to the lake. Soon his own cottage was being hosed down with torrents of water. An ambulance lumbered onto the scene, and a stretcher was rushed to the end of the lane. When another firefighter came running, helmet in hand, he recognized Harriet Beadle; she went to work as a backup on the hose.

  The Siamese, sensing the tension of the emergency, were solemnly quiet when he released them from the carrier and left them alone.

  Downstairs Lori said, “I’m fixing coffee for the firefighters. Does anyone want to help make sandwiches?”

  “I can do that,” Qwilleran offered. While she cut lunchmeat and separated cheese slices, he spread mayonnaise on bread. “I saw her being loaded into the ambulance,” he said gruffly.

  “We were afraid she’d get us into trouble,” Lori said in a quiet voice. “She was so self-willed.”

  “Today she was walking around the yard with a lighted cigarette and an ashtray, and she told me she was observing house rules. I assumed she had reformed, but she had company tonight, and they may have been careless.”

  Lori looked out the window. “I don’t see flames. They must have contained the fire. Thank God there’s no wind. You won’t be able to use your cottage, Qwill. We’ll make up a suite, and you can spend the rest of the week upstairs…Listen! I hear the chopper. They’re taking her to the mainland.”

  The other guests were sent back to bed, but Qwilleran stayed and helped serve coffee and sandwiches to the sooty-faced volunteers, who reported to the inn in shifts to take a breather. Some would stay on duty all night, watching for hot spots. He talked to the chief and then phoned the night desk of the Moose County Something.

  “Reporting fire at Pear Island resort. Discovered at one-fifty-five A.M. Confined to one cottage at Domino Inn on West Beach Road. Occupant removed by volunteer rescue squad and airlifted to mainland. Check Pickax hospital for condition. Adult female. Check sheriff for release of name. Got it?…Ten volunteer firefighters, one tanker, and one pumper responded. No injuries. Water pumped from lake. Calm atmosphere averted forest fire and damage to other buildings. Probable cause of fire: smoking in bed, according to fire chief. Got it?…Okay, now listen here: If the victim dies, police will withhold her name temporarily, but I can tell you that she was Dr. June Halliburton, head of music for Moose County schools. Check Lyle Compton for bio. She was also summer director of entertainment for the Pear Island Hotel. Check Don Exbridge of XYZ Enterprises for comments…Okay?”

  As he hung up, Qwilleran said to himself, Lyle will be shocked! So will Dwight. So will the Rikers. And there goes Derek’s job as assistant director—if such a job ever existed.

  Lori was finally persuaded to get some rest, but Qwilleran was still manning the coffeemaker at six A.M., when the news was broadcast by WPKX:

  “A fire in a cottage on Pear Island claimed the life of one person early this morning. Volunteer firefighters responded to the alarm and were able to contain the blaze that originated in a smoldering mattress. Cause of death was asphyxiation resulting from smoke inhalation. The victim, an adult female from the Pickax area, was airlifted from the island by sheriff’s helicopter but was dead on arrival at Pickax General Hospital. The name is withheld pending notification of relatives.”

  After a few hours of sleep Qwilleran was roused by the yowling of two Siamese, who wanted their breakfast, fire or no fire. He ventured down the lane and salvaged a can of red salmon from Four Pips. The family in Two Pips was packing up and leaving, and most of the guests in the inn were checking out. They said the continuous thunder made them nervous. According to weather reports, the storm would reach Moose County and environs in twenty-four hours.

  A pale and weary Lori was serving scrambled eggs and toast, that was all, and when Qwilleran inquired about Nick, she said, “He took the kids and cats to the mainland at eight o’clock this morning. He’s dropping them at his mother’s house—nine cats, including the new kittens. Then he’ll come right back. There’s a lot of cleanup to do, as well as securing everything against the storm. High winds and thunderstorms are predicted. That means shuttering windows and removing anything that could blow away.”

  “I’ll help, if someone will tell me what to do.”

  “First, you might bring all your belongings from Four Pips,” she said. “And now that our cats have gone, yours can have the run of the inn.”

  “But not until I can supervise them,” Qwilleran stipulated.

  There was no fire damage at Four Pips, but the acrid smell of smoke and a mustiness from the drenching of the roof had permeated everything, including his clothing. Once more he bundled shirts, pants, and socks into pillow cases and carried them to the Vacation Helpers.

  Wordlessly he tossed the bundles on the reception table.

  “Oh, no! Not again!” said Shelley.

  “How fast can you have it ready?”

  “Two hours. Is it smoke damage? I heard about the fire. Too bad about the woman who died. Did you know her? Was she young?” In a high state of excitement induced by the approaching storm, Shelley talked nonstop, asking questions without waiting for answers. “Did you hear the storm warning on the radio? Did you see the ladders out in front? Some of our roomers are shuttering the windows. Mr. Ex wants all hotel employees to leave the island, but some of us are going to ride it out. We’ll have plenty of beer a
nd meatloaf sandwiches, and we’ll have a ball! They predict gale winds or worse, but this building is good and solid. If there’s high water, it’ll be bad for the hotel. We’re on a higher elevation, so I don’t worry, do you? Have you ever gone through a hurricane?”

  On the way out, Qwilleran encountered Derek Cuttlebrink, leaving with a duffelbag, and he asked the young man, “Are you one of the rats deserting a sinking ship?”

  “Yeah…well…I’m laid off—for how long, I don’t know—so I might as well go home and see my girl. How d’you like this thunder? It hasn’t stopped since yesterday noon. It spooks me!”

  “The ancient gods of the island are having a bowling tournament,” Qwilleran said, adding in a lower voice, “Did Merrio come up with any more information? Let’s walk down to the beach.”

  They sat on the steps leading down to the abandoned beach, and Derek said, “I don’t know if this has anything to do with the Chicken Stink or not. That’s what they call the food poisoning behind the chef’s back,” he explained with a grin. “But here goes: The hotel doesn’t buy all its food from the mainland. Some of the islanders bring the chef fresh fish, goat cheese, and rabbit, but no chicken.”

  “Do they simply walk into the kitchen and peddle their goods?”

  “They used to, but now the back door is kept locked, and vendors have to be on the chef’s list. But when the hotel first opened, Merrio remembers a man who used to bring fresh herbs to sell. The chef was glad to get them. He’s French, you know, and they always make a big thing of fresh herbs. Fresh or dry, I don’t see that it makes any difference.”

  A connection flashed across Qwilleran’s mind: Does the chef know Noisette? Are they a couple? Is that why she’s here? Is that why she has a suite at a secluded inn? Is the chef paying for it? Was it the chef drinking with her in the Buccaneer Den on Sunday night?

  “So how’m I doin’?” Derek asked.

  “Mission accomplished. Next assignment: Kamchatka.” He handed Derek some folded bills. “Now you’d better get in line for the ferry.”

  Qwilleran helped Nick carry the hurricane shutters out of the basement, and then he helped carry the porch furniture indoors. By that time his laundry would be finished, and he walked up to Vacation Helpers. Shelley had two neat packages of folded clothing waiting for him, plus a foil-wrapped brick of something that looked all too familiar.

  She said, “This is your Thursday meatloaf, just out of the oven. Would you like to take it with you? It may not be as good as before, because it’s all-beef. Do you mind? Midge’s regular recipe calls for two parts beef and one part rabbit, but she couldn’t get any rabbit meat today.”

  “I can live with that,” Qwilleran said agreeably.

  He had a hunch, and it proved to be correct. As soon as he returned to his suite at the inn, he gave the Siamese a taste of rabbitless meatloaf, and they gobbled it, yowling for more.

  “Cats!” he said in exasperation. “Who can understand them?”

  They were adjusting to their new environment readily. It was the bridal suite. The furniture was new, the chairs luxuriously cushiony, the colors soft. There was none of the overscaled, bargain-priced fabric that decorated the rest of the inn. There were too many knickknacks for Qwilleran’s taste, and the pictures on the wall were Victorian Romantic; he removed two of them over the sofa and substituted the gilded leather masks. He had also brought the maroon velvet box from Four Pips.

  “How would you guys like to play the numbers?” he asked.

  Koko was in good form. The first dominoes he swished off the table spelled gale. Next came one of his favorites: lake, which could be shuffled to spell leak.

  Qwilleran said to him, “If the weatherman is correct, there’s going to be a leak in the plumbing of Mount Olympus tomorrow.”

  After that the words were ordinary: idea, blade, gable, hack, deaf (or fade) and deal (or lead). Then five of Koko’s favorite dominoes landed on the floor: 3-3, 2-2, 6-6, 2-3, and 4-5. As usual, Qwilleran was able to spell field. There was no particular significance to field until the next draw, which consisted of 2-4, 1-3, 6-3, 6-6, and 0-5. Although the pips were different, they reduced to the same digits, which corresponded to the same letters: field. It had been one of the cat’s favorites from the start. A tremor rippled across Qwilleran’s upper lip. For the first time it occurred to him that field could be shuffled to spell filed. He hurried from the room and ran downstairs to have a look at the porch. The crawl space underneath was ventilated with panels of wood lattice. He found Nick hanging shutters on the south side of the building. “How do we get under the porch?” he asked. “I’d like to put Koko on a leash and have him look at the underside of the steps.”

  “There are removable panels at each end. You need a high-powered flashlight—maybe two. I’ll go with you.”

  Qwilleran never traveled with the Siamese without taking their harnesses. Yum Yum abhorred the idea, but Koko always liked to be buckled up.

  Downstairs Nick had removed the access panel and had two battery-operated lanterns.

  Qwilleran said, “This is a wild shot, but we might find evidence of tampering.” First he let Koko wander about the porch, now empty of swings and chairs. The cat sniffed in desultory fashion for a few minutes and then went directly to the third step from the top. In a low voice Qwilleran said, “He knows the trouble spot. Let’s crawl underneath.”

  He went first, with Koko leading. Nick followed with the second lantern. It was a long crawl through damp sand, detritus, and skeletons of small animals. They made slow progress, as Koko was distracted by many items of catly interest. When they reached the steps, Nick flashed his lantern up at the new construction—treated wood, solidly braced and nailed—but the cat was interested only in the sand below. There were sawed-off remnants of lumber and new galvanized nails dropped by the carpenter. There were also fragments of old rusty nails and something else half-buried in the sand. Koko was digging for it—an old hack saw blade. Qwilleran’s moustache bristled as he remembered the dominoes: hack and blade and filed.

  He said to Nick, “Do you see what I see?”

  “A couple of swipes with that thing would cut through a rusty nail like a piece of cake.”

  “Don’t touch it. It’s our evidence,” Qwilleran said.

  “You know, Nick, when my barn was being converted, there were rusty nails in the hundred-year-old timbers, and the carpenter whacked them with a metal file. They broke like breadsticks.”

  “So now the question is: Who whacked the nails under our steps?”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  They crawled out, dragging a reluctant cat. Nick wanted to finish the shuttering. Qwilleran wanted another look at the domino records he had been keeping. He also wanted to check the post office before it closed.

  Upstairs, Yum Yum greeted the returning hero with assorted reactions; he brought with him the scent of untold mysteries. Koko, when divested of his leather trappings, took a half hour to launder his fur thoroughly. Qwilleran checked the records for words and numbers that would trigger a thought process.

  Lead, depending on how it was pronounced, could refer to a metal with chemically poisonous properties, or it could be another name for leash. Words with K, L, and J reflected Koko’s preference for high-pip dominoes: 5-6, 6-6, and 5-5. In general he favored doubles—like 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, and 4-4—suggesting a sense of order or balance.

  Next Qwilleran examined his own shuffling of letters: Field became filed; idle could be lied; lake and leak appeared on the list every day. Why? Because Koko liked 5-6 and 6-6? The letters, Qwilleran now realized, could also spell kale, a kind of cabbage of which he was not fond, or the name of a local family. There were Kales, Beadles, and Lawsons all over the island, someone had said.

  “Yow!” said Koko in a tone that made Qwilleran’s moustache bristle again.

  He glanced at his watch. There was no time to lose.

  “Be right back,” he said to the Siamese, who gazed at him with their so-what? ex
pression.

  The postal clerk at General Delivery, who had disappointed him so many times, was pleased to hand him two pieces of mail. The postcard he read immediately. It was written in Polly’s usual telegraphic style:

  Wonderful country. Good birding. Sarah is fun! She’s helped me make a very important decision. Details later. Arrive airport 7:35 Friday. Love, Polly

  Qwilleran’s suspicions were confirmed. So be it! He huffed into his moustache with resignation. It would make some changes in his life. It would never be the same without Polly.

  The other piece of mail was a letter in a Pear Island Hotel envelope, with “D.S.” inked above the return address. He put it in his pocket. At the moment, and under the circumstances, what did he care about Noisette’s last name?

  Qwilleran was somewhat subdued as he helped shutter the windows of the inn. Nick said, “They darken the rooms completely, so we’ll leave one window uncovered in each room—until the last minute. After that, we live with artificial light, like prison inmates—unless there’s a power failure. That means no lights, no water, no refrigeration. We’re filling the bathtub with water—and also some five-gallon jugs for drinking. Lori has a campstove that’s all right for heating canned food and boiling coffee, but that’s about all. The radios operate on batteries, and we have plenty of oil lamps and flashlights, but it won’t be fun. If you don’t want to stay, Qwill, I’ll understand. I’ll take you back to the mainland while the lake’s still calm.”

  “I’ll stay,” Qwilleran said.

  “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you want to phone anyone on the mainland, tell them we’re on high ground, and the building is solid, constructed with huge timbers and thick planks. No shortcuts or substitutions or imitations.”