Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Said Cheese

"GruyŠre, anyone?" he asked, expecting a yowl from Koko. When there was no response, he said, "All the more for me!... How about some double-cream Brie?" Still there was no reaction. Qwilleran reeled off a list of the world's great cheeses, including goat's-milk feta, but Koko - who had become a cheese gastronome during the Explo - was silent.

What did it mean? He never did anything - hardly anything - without a reason. Abnormal behavior on his part always signified an attempt to communicate information. Now the answers were known; the case was closed; and Qwilleran realized, in retrospect, the meaning of Koko's messages:

The cat had sensed that the evildoer could be identified by a sound like GruyŠre, and Brie suggested the unwitting, unwilling accomplice. To a cat's ear Gruyere, Brie, Greer, and Aubrey would be merely sounds, like TREAT or BOOK; to Koko's ear they had significance. If the scientists Down Below ever found out about the psychic cat, they would charter flights to Pickax to test Koko's brain and count his whiskers... No way! Qwilleran thought.

Then he slapped his forehead as another possibility occurred to him. "Oh, no!" he said aloud. "Feta... Fetter... cookbook... Iris Cobb... meatloaf!" The Siamese had been fond of their former housekeeper, and they missed her special meatloaf, the secret of which...

Qwilleran's ruminations were interrupted by a low rumble in Koko's chest, followed by a leap to the bookshelves.

Okay, we'll have a read. Brekekekex ko-ax ko-ax!" With Koko on the arm of his chair and Yum Yum on his lap, he continued his reading of The Frogs.

The dialogue brought back memories. He had played Dionysus in the college production. His mother was living then, and she had attended three nights in a row. He had never forgotten his line: Who knows if death be life and life be death, and breath be mutton broth, and sleep a sheepskin? He remembered his costume, too: heavy robes befitting an Olympian god, but they were hot under the lights, and he thought he would drown in his own perspiration. That was a long time ago. Now he was living in a barn and reading The Frogs to an audience of two cats.

When he reached his favorite line, he found the translation quite different from the one he had known. He read it seriously, with meaningful pauses: "Who knows whether living is dying... and breathing is eating... and sleeping is a wool blanket?"

"Yow!" said Koko with equal seriousness.

Qwilleran felt a tingle on his upper lip as he guessed the answer to a puzzling question: Why did the bees attack Victor Greer? It was the wool blanket, of course! The old man's heavy woolen blanket from Germany! Did Aubrey realize what he was doing? Did he know the blanket was wool? In the confusion of the situation, did he forget that bees are antagonized by wool?... Or did Aubrey purposely take the wool blanket to the cabin? Later, when he found the body, he wept because, as he said, he would not have to shoot Lenny.

"How about that, Koko? Do you have an opinion?" The cat was sitting in a tall, stately pose on the arm of the chair. He swayed slightly. His blue eyes were large and fathomless.

"Okay, we'll playa game. If Aubrey purposely caused Victor Greer's death, blink!"

Qwilleran stared into Koko's eyes. Koko stared back. It was eyeball to eyeball. The trancelike impasse between man and cat went on and on. Qwilleran forgot to breathe. With all thought and feeling suspended, he was crossing over into hypnosis; he had to blink.

Koko had won. Aubrey was absolved. But then... Koko always won.

The End