Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Came To Breakfast

As for Qwilleran, he found the island disturbingly different from the primitive scene he remembered. He had seen the photographs in the newspaper, but experiencing the altered environment was entirely unreal. The lake-front was fringed with the masts of sailboats and the superstructures of deepwater trolling vessels. A ferryboat, halfway between a tug and a barge, was unloading vacationers with luggage, and another was returning to the mainland carrying day-trippers with sunburn. Overlooking the marina was the rustic facade of the new Pear Island Hotel, artfully stained to look fifty years old. It was three stories high and a city-block long, with a porch running the entire length. Much had been said in the national publicity about the long porch and its fifty Cocking chairs. Behind the hotel, making a dark-green backdrop, were tall firs and giant oaks that had been there before the first castaways were stranded on the shore.

Qwilleran thought, This is the forest primeval, and the pines and the hemlocks are murmuring "Ye gods! Wha" happened?"

The hotel was flanked by rows of rustic storefronts, each with a hitching post. Window-shoppers strolled along wooden sidewalks called "the boardwalk" in the publicity releases.

Nick said, "This is what the XYZ people call downtown."

"It resembles a movie set," Qwilleran remarked. "At least they had the good taste not to paint yellow lines on the black-top."

"Right! Don Exbridge wants to keep everything as natural as possible. The only motor vehicles permitted are police, ambulance, and fire, and they can't use sirens because of the horses. They use beepers."

There was indeed a unique hush along the waterfront, resulting from the absence of combustion engines—just a murmur of voices, the clop-clop of hooves, and the screams of seagulls and excited youngsters.

Nick hailed a horse-drawn conveyance, loaded the luggage, and said "Domino Inn" to the old man hunched sullenly over the reins. Without answering, he shook the reins, and the horse moved forward.

"What prompted the name of your inn?" Qwilleran asked.

"Well, it was a private lodge in the Twenties, and the family that owned it was nuts about dominoes. We bought it completely furnished, including a couple-dozen sets of dominoes. My name is really Dominic, you know, so Lori thought we were destined to own the place and call it the Domino Inn. It's different, anyway."

The downtown pavement and boardwalk ended, and the road became a dusty mix of sand, gravel, and weeds. "This is called West Beach Road," Nick went on. "It should be sprayed with oil, but the county is tight-fisted. They're getting all the new tax money, but they don't want to supply any services." He waved to a mounted security officer in red coat and stiff-brimmed hat. "We get spectacular sunsets on the west beach. Farther up the road is the exclusive Grand Island Club, where the rich folks have always had their clubhouse, private marina, and big summer estates. Where we are, the lodges are outside the Golden Curtain, as it's called, and they've been rezoned commercial. There are three B-and-Bs. We get a nice class of people at our inn—quiet—very friendly. Do you play dominoes?"

"No!" Qwilleran replied promptly and with resolve.

"I know you like exercise. We have a sandy beach for walking, or you can rent a bike and pedal up to Lighthouse Point. It's all uphill, but is it great coasting down! Try it! There's also a nature trail through the woods. If you like hunting for agates, go to the public beach on the other side of the island. It's all pebbles, no sand."

"Can you keep the public off this beach? I thought the law had been changed in this state."

"The public-access ordinance applies only to new owners like us," Nick explained. "Members of the Grand Island Club come under a grandfather clause, or so they say. I don't know how legal it is, but they get away with it."

"Where do the natives live?"

"In Piratetown, back in the woods, very isolated. Tourists are discouraged from going there."

There were fewer vehicles, cyclists, and joggers on West Beach Road than Qwilleran expected, leading him to ask, "How's business?"

"Well, it started off with a bang, but it's slowing down. Lori says people are busy with weddings and graduations in June. It'll pick up in July. We hope. We don't know, yet, how harmful the negative publicity is going to be."

They passed six hikers with oversize backpacks, trudging single-file on their way to the ferry, and Nick said they had been hang gliding on the sand dune near the lighthouse.

The Siamese had been quiet in their carrier, which was on the floor of the wagon, close by Qwilleran's feet, but now there was a rumble of discontent. Before he could give them any soothing reassurances, a two-wheeled horse cab passed them, headed for downtown, and the passenger—a woman in a floppy-brimmed sunhat— waved and gave him a roguish smile. Taken by surprise, he only nodded in her direction.

"Who was that woman?" he asked Nick, although he thought he recognized the white makeup and red hair.

"Who? Where? I didn't notice. I was looking at the backpackers. They've got some healthy-looking girls in that group. I'm not good at names and faces, anyway. Lori says I've got to work on that if I'm gonna be an innkeeper. In my job, people are just numbers."

Qwilleran was hardly listening to the rambling discourse. The redhead was one person whom he actively disliked, and Polly shared his sentiments. Fortunately she was going in the opposite direction, and there was luggage piled in the cab. He allowed himself to wonder what she had been doing at Pear Island; it was hardly her kind of resort. Perhaps she had been a guest behind the Golden Curtain; that was more likely.

They had been ascending gradually after leaving downtown, and now the beach was below them, reached by steps, and the woods loomed on the other side. The road curved in and out along the natural shoreline, and when the wagon rounded a bend and stopped, Qwilleran let out a yelp. "Is that yours, Nick? I don't believe it! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Wanted to surprise you. It's the only one on the island—maybe the only one in the world!"

Domino Inn was a large ungainly building with small windows, completely sided with a patchwork of white birchbark. Qwilleran thought, Why would anyone strip a whole forest of white birches to produce such an eyesore? How could they get away with it? He answered his own question: Because no one cared, back in the Twenties. Then he asked himself, Why would they buy such a thing? Why would the K Foundation finance it?

Misconstruing his silence for awe, Nick said proudly, "I thought you'd be impressed. It was written up in most of the out-of-state publicity."

To Qwilleran it looked vaguely illegal. It looked like a firetrap. It could be, or should be, riddled with termites. Mentally he renamed it the Little Inn of Horrors.

The wagon turned into the driveway and stopped at a flight of wooden steps that led up to a long porch. There were no rocking chairs, but there were porch swings hanging from chains. Immediately the front door flew open, and Lori came bounding down the steps to give Qwilleran a welcoming hug. His former secretary was now an innkeeper and mother of three, but she still wore her long golden hair in girlish braids tied with blue ribbons.