Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Came To Breakfast

After that, there were fewer dwellings and more open spaces with more patches of sunlight, until the road came to an end at the mountainous sand dune. Here the road forked right to the pebble beach and left into a tangle of weeds and underbrush.

Liz told the horse to whoa. "It was a hard pull through those ruts. Let him rest awhile."

Now what? Qwilleran thought; there seemed to be more on her mind than the welfare of the old nag. She was preoccupied. He said, "This has been a spellbinding experience. It's hard to believe that people live like this. What is that overgrown road to the left?"

"It used to be the villagers" shortcut to the west beach. It was closed when the Grand Island Club originated."

He was searching for a topic that would focus her attention. "That must be the sand dune where the fellow was shot last weekend." Then he told himself, This woman doesn't even read newspapers; she may not know about the shooting.

Liz turned to him abruptly. "Qwill, I think my guardian angel sent me that snake, so I could meet you."

"That's a charming compliment," he said stiffly, "but you paid a high price for a dubious benefit." He hoped this avowal would not lead to embarrassment.

Speaking earnestly, she said, "Ever since my father died, I've had no one to confide in."

"Is something troubling you?" he asked cautiously.

"I had a horrible experience right here on this spot a few years ago, and I've never been able to tell anyone."

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen."

Qwilleran's curiosity went into high gear, but he said in an offhand way, "If it will help you to talk about it, I'll be willing to listen."

She pondered a few minutes, looking tragic in her father's old hat. "Well, I was spending the summer here with my mother. Father had just died, and I felt so alone! Then my brother Jack came up for a few weeks. Mother had just paid a big settlement to get rid of his first wife, and now he had married again. Mother was upset, but Jack was her pet and could wheedle her into anything." Her mind wandered off into realms of family intrigue.

Qwilleran nudged it back on track. "So he came up to The Pines for a few weeks."

"He was doing penance. He was being sweet to Mother and even to me. We played croquet and went sailing, and one day he took me for a drive through the Dark Village, just as Father had done. We took my favorite carriage and favorite horse and a basket lunch to eat on the south beach. I was so happy! I thought I had finally found a big brother who would be my confidant."

The rented horse snorted and stamped his hooves, but Liz was consumed by her memories.

"We drove through the Dark Village and when we came to this fork in the road, he turned left into the weeds. I said, "Where are you going? This road is closed!" His mouth turned down with a nasty expression, and I can't tell you what he said! I can't tell you what he tried to do! I jumped out of the carriage and ran screaming to the beach road. There were some fishermen beaching their boats, and I told them I was from The Pines. I said my brother had played a trick and driven away without me. They remembered my father and took me home in their boat. It was full of wet, slippery, flopping fish, but I didn't care. I was grateful."

"What did you tell your mother?" Qwilleran asked. "I couldn't tell her what happened. She wouldn't have believed me. I told her my mind suddenly went blank. Jack told her I went crazy. Ricky said I was grieving for Father, and the ride through the Dark Village triggered a seizure. I had to have a nurse companion all summer, and Mother sent Jack to Europe while she paid off his second wife. That turned out to be poetic justice, because he met an actress in Italy and married again."

There was a distant rumble on the horizon, and Qwilleran asked, "Is that thunder? Or is Canada being attacked by missiles?"

"It's a long way off," Liz said. "Sometimes we hear distant thunder for two days and nights before the storm reaches us. It's rather exciting."

"Nevertheless, we should take this tired nag back to the stable for his afternoon nap," Qwilleran said.

Downtown he checked the post office—there was no mail from Polly—and hailed a cab to take Liz home.

"I feel as if a great weight has been lifted from my mind and my heart," she said. "Would you be my guest for lunch at the clubhouse some day?"

He agreed, hoping the invitation would be delayed un til he was safely back in Pickax. He had done his gooc deed—two of them, in fact. He had listened sympatheti cally and allowed himself to be adopted as a godfather of sorts. From a practical point of view, meeting the roya family had been unproductive, supplying no material for his column and no leads in his investigation. Further more, if and when he ever wrote his book, it would no be about people like the Appelhardts . . . What prompted this asocial thinking was an immediate concern of his own, prompted by Lyle Compton's casual remark that Polly might decide to stay in Oregon. Qwilleran's uneasiness increased as each day passed without a postcard.

CHAPTER 16

After dropping his lunch date at The Pines, Qwilleran went into the lounge at the Domino Inn to borrow some newspapers. There were few guests in evidence, but that was understandable; it was a weekday, and weather predictions for the next five days were iffy. Thunder still rumbled sporadically. It was not coming any closer; it was simply a warning of something that might never happen.

At the fruit basket he was glad to see that the pears had been replaced by apples. He was helping himself to one red and one green when the vice president in charge of communications and deliveries dashed up to him with two slips of paper, a foil-wrapped package the size of a brick, and an excited announcement in the language that Qwilleran was beginning vaguely to understand. As far as he could construe, either Sherman had had kittens, or Sheba was afraid of thunder, or Shoo Shoo had thrown up a hairball. He nodded and thanked Mitchell and then read his two telephone messages:

-

TO: Mr. Q

FROM: Andrew Brodie

REC'D: Tuesday 1:15 P.M.

MESSAGE: George Dulac. Lake Worth FL

-

To Qwilleran the name sounded Slavic. This was the ill-fated hotel guest who had conversed with a woman in a foreign language. The other message was from Dwight Somers: "Leaving the island. Information you want is in the mail." From these few words Qwilleran deduced that the public-relations man had been fired, possibly for snooping in the hotel's confidential records. If that were the case, Qwilleran rationalized, his friend was better off; he was too good for XYZ; he deserved more civilized working conditions; he could start his own agency.

When Qwilleran returned to Four Pips, he found two restless cats. They could hear the far-off thunder, and they knew instinctively what was in store. They might, in fact, know more than the weather forecasters. Koko was prowling and looking for ways to get into trouble. Yum Yum was murmuring to herself as she tried to open a desk drawer. When Qwilleran opened it to show her that is was empty, that was even more frustrating to her feline sensibility. He tried reading to the Siamese from the editorial page of the Moose County Something, but they were bored. So was he. All three of them were at sixes and sevens.