Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Wasn't There

"Ouch!" she said and then added impishly, "Wouldn't you like a second-string girlfriend for your youthful moments?" "This is good tea," he said, although he disliked tea.

"You must have used two tea bags "Are you as... uh.. compatible with your present inamorata as you were with me?" "What is this? The third degree? I think you're exceeding your privilege as a medical practitioner." She was not easily deterred.

"Didn't you ever think you'd like to have sons, Qwill? Polly is a little old for that." "Frankly, no!" he said, irritated at her intrusion into his privacy.

"Nor daughters. I'm a bachelor by chance, choice, and temperament, and offspring are outside my frame of reference." "With all your money you should have heirs." "The Klingenschoen Foundation is my sole beneficiary, and they'll distribute my estate for the benefit of the county, the population of which is 11,279, according to Big Mac. So I have 11,279 heirs--a respectable heirship, I'd say.

" "You're not drinking your tea." "Furthermore, I resent suggestions for the disposition of my financial assets." "Qwill, you're getting to be a grouchy old bachelor. I think marriage would be good for you.

I speak as your medical adviser." She transferred to the arm of his chair.

"Don't move! I want to check the bump on your head." "Excuse me," he said and went into the bathroom, where he counted to ten... and then a hundred and ten before facing her again. She had kicked off her shoes and was now lounging on the bed against a bank of pillows.

"Won't you join me?" she invited playfully.

"I like red pajamas." He made a point of pacing the floor and saying nothing.

"Let me explain something, Qwill," said Melinda in a reasonable tone.

"Three years ago I wanted us to marry because I thought we'd have a lot of fun together. Now I have a couple of other reasons. The Goodwinter clan is dying out, and I want sons to carry on the name.

I'm very proud of the Goodwinter name. So I'll make you a proposition--since one has to be conventional in Moose County. If you will marry me, you can have your freedom at the end of three years, and our children will resume the name of Goodwinter. We might even have a go-o-od time together." "You're out of your mind," he said, suddenly suspecting that the strange look in her eyes was insanity.

"The second reason is... I'm broke!" she said with the impudent frankness that he had once found attractive.

"All I'm inheriting from my dad is obligations and an obsolete mansion." "The K Foundation can help you over the rough spots. They're committed to promoting health care in the community." "I don't want institutional support. I want you!" "To put it bluntly, Melinda, the answer is no!" "Why don't you think about it? Let the idea gel for a while?" Qwilleran walked to the door and, with his hand on the knob, said, "Let me tell you something, and this is final. If I marry anyone, it will be Polly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need some rest... Don't forget your shoes." If Melinda felt the hellish fury of a woman scorned, the Goodwinter pride prevented her from showing it.

"Take a couple of aspirin and call me in the morning, lover," she said with an insolent wink as she brushed past him, carrying her loafers.

Huffing angrily into his moustache, Qwilleran dictated a few choice words into the tape recorder before snapping it off. He was reading a booklet about the Mackintosh clan when Arch Riker walked into the room at eleven o'clock.

"You're awake, Qwill! Did you get any rest?" "Melinda dropped in to take my pulse, and I couldn't get rid of her.

The girl is getting to be a nuisance." "I guessed that would happen.

You may have to marry Polly in self-defense. If Polly doesn't want you, how about Amanda? I'll let you have the lovely Amanda." "This is no joke, Arch." "Well, I'm ready to hit the sack. How about you?

Polly's with the Lanspeaks and the Comptons, playing Twenty Questions.

Amanda's winning at cards with the MacWhannells and Bushy; no doubt she's cheating. Dwight is out on the terrace practicing the tin whistle; he'll be lucky if someone doesn't shoot him." "Once a reporter, always a reporter," Qwilleran commented.

"I haven't seen Irma. Her voice was very hoarse at the dinner table.

Too much chatter on that blasted microphone! And her evenings in the damp night air can't do anything for her vocal cords... How's the bump on your head, Qwill?" "It's subsiding, but I'd like to know who yelled "Look out" and why!" That was the end of Day Five. Day Six began at dawn when Qwilleran was awakened by screams in the hall and frantic banging on someone's door.

Riker was sitting up in the other bed, saying, "What's that? Are we on fire?" There were sounds of running feet, and Qwilleran looked out in the hall as other heads appeared in other doorways. The innkeeper rushed past them and disappeared into ationumber Eleven, occupied by Polly and Irma.

"Oh, my God!" Qwilleran shouted over his shoulder.

"Something's happened to the girls!" As he started down the passageway, the innkeeper's wife was ahead of him. Her husband shouted to her, "Ring up the constable! One o' the lassies had an attack! Ring up the constable!" Qwilleran hurried to the room at the end of the hall and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Polly standing there in her nightgown.

She was weeping in her hands. Melinda, in pajamas, was bending over the bed. He threw his arms around Polly.

"What happened?" "I think she's dead!" she sobbed.

"I woke up suddenly a few minutes ago and felt that ghastly sense of death. I called Melinda." Polly burst into a fresh torrent of tears.

Still holding her, Qwilleran said to Melinda, "Is there anything I can do?" Others were crowding into the room in their nightclothes.

"Get everyone out of the room--and out of the hall-until the authorities have been here. Out! Out! I'll talk to all of you downstairs, later." The concerned bystanders wandered back to their rooms, whispering: "Is Irma dead?" "What was it? Does anyone know what happened?" "This is terrible! Who'll notify her parents?" "It'll kill them! She's their only child, and they're getting on in years." "She was only forty-two last birthday.

" Lyle Compton nudged Qwilleran.

"Do you think something happened out on the moor?" Quickly they dressed and gathered downstairs in the small parlor, and the innkeeper's wife served hot tea, murmuring sympathetic phrases that no one understood or really heard. In everyone's mind the question was nagging: What do we do now? They were aware of vehicles arriving in the courtyard and then departing, and eventually Melinda walked into the parlor in robe and slippers, with uncombed hair and no makeup. She looked wan and troubled. The group fell silent as she faced them and said in a hollow voice, "Irma was the first patient to walk into my clinic--and the real reason for my coming on this trip. And I've lost her!" When someone asked the cause of death, Qwilleran turned on his tape recorder. At this moment he could feel only compassion for this young doctor; she was so distraught.

"Cardiac arrest," Melinda said wearily.

"With her heart condition she should never have undertaken this project. She had this driving ambition, you know, and she was such a perfectionist." Polly said, "I didn't know she had a bad heart. She never mentioned her symptoms, and we were the best of friends." "She was too proud to admit to any frailty, and too independent to take my advice or even medication. It could have saved her." Carol said, "But, Irma, of all people! Who would think--his She was always so cool and collected. She never hurried or panicked like the rest of us." Melinda explained, "She internalized her emotions--not a healthy thing to do." "What was the time of death?" Qwilleran asked.

"About three A.M." I would say. Does anyone know what time she came in?" Polly said, "I don't know. I never waited up for her. She told me not to." "What happens now?" Larry asked.