Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Went Up The Creek

“Nice night,” Brodie said.

“Yes, I’ll walk around the barn before I go indoors. Three times around is a quarter of a mile, according to the pedometer.”

“Almost forgot, Qwill. My wife wanted to tell you about a thought she had. Everybody knows that Fanny Klingenschoen never gave anything away. Do you think the K Fund’s generosity has Fanny turning over in her grave?”

Qwilleran chuckled. “I only know that a wise man once said three hundred years ago that money is like muck; it doesn’t do any good unless you spread it around.”

Before going inside to give the Siamese their bedtime snack, Qwilleran walked around the barn two times. He wondered, How much of Koko’s involvement in the case has been the extrasensory perception of a cat with sixty whiskers, and how much has been coincidence? As for the cat’s oblique way of communicating (operatic “pirates” suggesting tree pirates) . . . that had to be a mix of happenstance and a vivid imagination.

When he went indoors, he first had to sweep up the shards of the moustache cup. Hunting for dustpan and brush in the broom closet, he called out, “Which one of you rascals pleads guilty to the destruction of a valuable artifact?”

“Yargle!” came the reply—from a cat yowling and swallowing at the same time. Both cats were on the snack bar. Koko was swallowing his last tongueful of chicken liver paté and Yum Yum was looking ruefully at the empty bowl.