Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Smelled A Rat

First there was a German shepherd from the Moose County sheriff’s department, trained for search and rescue. He had found lost children, missing persons, fugitives, and accident victims. He listened modestly as his handler extolled his intelligence and perseverance. “Henever-gives-up!”

From Bixby County came a black Labrador retriever trained for drug searching. She amused the audience by retrieving a folded towel again and again with unflagging enthusiasm. Her handler said, “In training sessions, narcotics of different kinds are wrapped in the towel. In a drug raid she can spot nine kinds of contraband.”

The audience waited expectantly for another extraordinary dog, when who should amble on stage but the six-foot-eight Derek Cuttlebrink with his guitar. The audience screamed and applauded. After strumming a few chords with a bouncy rhythm, Moose County’s favorite young-man-about-town sang with a nasal twang:

I found my puppy in Pickax At the animal shelter one day.

I was feeling down

When I come to town, And I took him home to stay.

He was jest a li’l white puppy With a black spot round his eye,

But he bumbled and he yipped,

And he nuzzled and he nipped, And he kissed my blues goodbye.

“Sing it again!” everyone yelled.

He strummed a few chords. “Everybody sing!”

Loudly, and unsure of the lyrics, they sang, “I found my puppy in Pickax… da-duh, da-da-da da da da da …”

Polly groaned.

“They like it,” Qwilleran said.

“It’s the kind of inane jingle that haunts one. I’ll have to hum the Hallelujah Chorus to get it out of my mind.”

Derek loped off the stage with the lazy, long-legged gait that his groupies adored.

“You know, Qwill, Maggie Sprenkle commissioned him to write it for the occasion, but he wouldn’t take money for it.”

“And rightly so,” Qwilleran said as he looked at his watch. “Excuse me while I check the bidding.” No one but him and the fictitious Ronald Frobnitz had placed a bid on the Danish rug. He raised the bid to a thousand under his own name, telling himself it was a good cause. Then he checked the porcelain parrots. Bidders had been active. A minute before the deadline, he raised the bid under his name.

A bell rang, and bidders flocked to the display tables. There were groans of disappointment and cries of success. He wrote checks for the rug and the parrots and presented the latter to Polly. “This is your Christmas gift.”

“You’ve already given me my Christmas gift,” she protested, showing a handsome cameo ring, “and it’s only October.”

“This is your Christmas gift for next year.”

Arch paid for his tin matchbox, and Mildred asked him to write a check for a Chinese porcelain bowl she had bought.

Qwilleran said to Maggie Sprenkle, “I was hoping you’d donate the French crystal pitcher I admired at your house when I was there. I would have bid high on it.”

“You have good taste, Qwill. That’s a St. Louis lead crystal martini pitcher from the steamship Liberte. It’s documented. Mr. Sprenkle and I crossed the Atlantic many times on the French liners.”

The foursome drove back to Indian Village, saying, “Good haul! Lots of laughs! .. . Wasn’t Derek a scream! … Maggie says a lot of kittens and puppies were adopted.” They laid Qwilleran’s new rug and said, “Not my taste, but gorgeous! … Absolutely wild! … Why, it’s in Siamese colors!”

When the guests had gone, the Siamese emerged from nowhere, cautiously, to confront the wonder that had been added to their world. Yum Yum never walked across an area rug of any size or composition, always taking the long way around to reach her destination, and the new obstacle was six by eight, with deep pile. Even Koko was dubious about the wild tumble of yarns. With ears and whiskers back, he sniffed the edge and put forth a trembling paw to test it-dead or alive? They both jumped when the phone rang. It was the attorney, G. Allen Barter.

“What’s up, Bart?” Qwilleran asked briskly. Such a call on a Sunday sounded urgent.

“I just had a call from the hospital. Eddington Smith died this afternoon. Heart attack. He’d had a history of heart trouble, you know. He was able to press the medical-alert button, but they couldn’t save him. He was one of our pro bono clients, so they called me. He has no family.”

“This is astounding!” Qwilleran said. “I saw him in the store yesterday, and he was in a playful mood, although he never looked healthy… . Well, what can I say? A lot of us will miss him…. And wait a minute, Bart! What about Winston?”

“We’ll find a good home for him.”

“Meanwhile, someone should feed him.”

“We’ll send one of our clerks over.”

“He eats only sardines.”

“Cynthia knows that. She fed Winston last year while Edd was hospitalized.”

Qwilleran said, “I’ll write an obit for tomorrow’s paper. I probably knew him as well as anyone did.”

“Yes, he considered you more of a friend than a customer. You may know that his will makes you heir to the bookstore, building and all.”

“What! He used to joke about it, but-“

“It was no joke, but we can talk about that later. Meanwhile, yes-you’re the right one to do the obituary.”

four

Qwilleran knew what time she would be leaving for work on Monday morning. He waited on his doorstep until her small car backed out of its underground slot, then went to meet her.

She lowered the car window. “Qwill! You can’t imagine how perfect the parrots are on my mantel. Beautiful glaze! Wonderful shade of green! And so tasteful! I can’t help wondering who donated them.”

“I’m curious about the Danish rug. No one in this neck of the woods has any contemporary. Where has it been for the last fifty years? It accomplishes what Fran wanted; it sparks the whole room. She’s sending over a few more items with decorative pizzazz.”

“Have the cats pronounced their verdict about the rug?” Polly asked.

“The jury is still out. They’ll have to deliberate for a couple of days… . But on a serious note, Polly, have you heard about Eddington Smith? It was on the air.”

“I haven’t been listening.”

“He died yesterday. Heart attack.”

“Oh, that dear man!” Polly said. “He was approaching eighty and was never healthy, but he did all the repairs and bookbinding for the library-in that stuffy back room. We shall miss him.”

“I stayed up half the night writing his obituary,” Qwilleran said, “and I must admit it’s one of my better pieces of funerary prose. Would your board of directors consider a memorial to Eddington-an annual scholarship or essay contest for the lower grades, or both? The K Fund would go fifty-fifty.”

“Definitely. I’ll call a special meeting tonight.”

“Be sure to send a release to the newspaper.”

“I will…. What are you doing today, Qwill?”

“Just puttering around.”

When the black commercial van came slowly down River Road, Yum Yum disappeared, but Koko hopped on and off the windows ill in excitement, as if he knew this was an authorized delivery. The door of the van was tastefully lettered in gold: Amanda’s Studio of Interior Design. The driver was a big, blond fellow in a black nylon jacket lettered on the back: MUDVILLE CURLERS.

Qwilleran went out to meet him. “Are you on the curling team in Sawdust City?”

“Yep,” said the young man as he started to unload.

“I hear that’s quite an interesting sport.”

“Yep.”

First he brought in the square brown lampshade for the square-based copper lamp. It was obviously ten times better than the former shade, which was round and ivory-colored.

Next came the bowl of shiny red apples and the pair of red pillows for the sofa, followed by a crate of five plant pots filled with red geraniums.