Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Moved A Montain

"In what way?"

"Well, for one thing, the board of education wouldn't let us use the school auditorium or playfield, and the city wouldn't let us use the community house, but one of the pastors stuck his neck out and let us use the church basement. I'll never forget him—the Reverend Perry Lump-ton."

"Is he the one with the contemporary-style building on the way to the golf club?"

"No, he has the oldest church in town, sort of a historic building."

"And what was Hawkinfield's reaction?"

"He wrote an editorial about 'church interference in secular affairs, in opposition to the economic welfare of the community which it pretends to serve.' Those were the very words! But that wasn't the end of it. The city immediately slapped some code violations on the old church building. Hawkinfield was a real stinker."

"If your brother is innocent," Qwilleran asked, "do you have any idea who's guilty?"

Chrysalis shook her head. "It could be anybody. That man had a lot of secret enemies who didn't dare cross him. Even people who played along with him to save their skins really hated his guts, Forest said."

"Were there no witnesses to the crime?"

"No one actually saw it happen. The police said there was a struggle and then he was pushed over the cliff. All the evidence introduced at the trial was circumstantial, and the state's witnesses committed perjury."

Qwilleran said, "I'd like to hear more about this. Would you have dinner with me some evening?" One of his favorite diversions was to take a woman to dinner. Beauty and glamor were no consideration, so long as he found her interesting, and he was aware that women were equally enthusiastic about his invitations. Chrysalis hesitated, however, avoiding his eyes. "How about tomorrow night?" he suggested. "I'll pick you up here at closing rime."

"We're closed Mondays."

"Then I'll pick you up at home."

"You couldn't find the house," she said.

"I found it once," he retorted.

"Yes, but you weren't looking for it, and when you got there, you didn't know where you were. I'd better meet you at Tiptop."

Qwilleran, before returning home with his four batwing capes, decided to drive to the valley to have his Sunday dinner ahead of the Father's Day rush. After he parked he looked up at the mountains. Little Potato, though inhabited, looked lushly verdant, while Big Potato was blemished with construction sites, affluent estates carved out of the forest, and Hawk's Nest Drive zigzagging through the wooded slopes. He found himself being drawn into a controversy he preferred to avoid; he had come to the Potatoes to think about his own future, to make personal decisions.

At the Five Points Cafe the Father's Day Special was a turkey dinner with cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, and nips. "Hold the nips," he said when he ordered, but the plate came to the table with a suspicious mound of something gray alongside the scoop of mashed potatoes. He was in Turnip Country, and it was impossible to avoid them. As he wolfed the food without actually tasting it, his mind went over the story Chrysalis had told him. He recalled Koko's initial reaction to the Queen Anne chair and the French door at the scene of the crime. How would Koko react to the veranda railing that the carpenter had been called in to repair? It overhung a hundred-foot drop, straight down except for projecting boulders on its craggy facade. Qwilleran could reconstruct the scene: a chair thrown through the glass door and a violent struggle on the veranda before Hawkinfield crashed through the railing and fell to his death.

Upon returning to Tiptop he conducted a test, buckling Koko into his harness and walking him around the veranda on a leash. The cat pursued his usual order of business: indiscriminate tugging, balancing on the railing, examining infinitesimal specks on the painted floorboards.

When they reached the rear of the house, however, he walked cautiously to the repaired railing, then froze with tail stiffened, back arched, and ears flattened. Qwilleran thought, He knows something happened here and exactly where it happened!

"Who did it, Koko?" Qwilleran asked. "Tater or Spud?"

The cat merely pranced in circles with distasteful stares at the edge of the veranda.

The experiment was interrupted by the telephone; answering it, Qwilleran heard a woman's sweet voice saying, "Good afternoon, Mr. Qwilleran. This is Vonda Dudley Wix, a columnist for the Gazette. Mr. Carmichael was good enough to give me your phone number. I do hope I'm not interrupting a blissful Sunday siesta."

"Not at all," he said in a monotone intended to be civil but not encouraging.

"Mr. Qwilleran, I would dearly love to write a profile of you and your exploits, which Mr. Carmichael tells me are positively prodigious, and I'm wondering if I might drive up your glorious mountain this afternoon for an impromptu interview."

"I'm afraid that would be impossible," he said. "I'm getting dressed to go out to a party."

"Of course! You're going to be tremendously popular! A journalistic lion! And that's why I do so terribly want to write about you before all the best people engulf you with invitations. I promise," she added with a coy giggle, "to spell your name right."

"To be perfectly frank, I don't plan to be social while I'm here. My purpose is to do some necessary work in quiet seclusion, and I'm afraid any mention in your popular column would defeat my purpose."

"Have no fear, Mr. Qwilleran. I would cover that aspect in my profile and even envelop you in a protective air of mystery. Perhaps I might run up to see you tomorrow."

As a columnist himself, Qwilleran knew his reaction when a subject declined to be interviewed; he considered it a personal affront. Yet, he had no intention of being peeled as one of Vonda Dudley Wix's potatoes. He said, "I'm still in the process of getting settled, Ms. Wix, and tomorrow I have another appointment downtown, but I could meet you somewhere for a cup of coffee and talk for a few minutes. Just tell me where to meet you."

"Oh, please come to my house and have tea!" she cried. "I live on Center Street in a little Victorian gingerbread cottage. Tell me when it's convenient for you."

"How about ten-thirty? I have an appointment at eleven-fifteen, but I can give you half an hour."

"Delightful! Beyond my wildest dreams!" she said. "May I have a Gazette photographer here?"

"Please—no photos," Qwilleran said.

"Are you sure? You're such a handsome man! I saw you lunching at the club, and I adore your moustache! It's so romantic!"

"No pictures," Qwilleran said firmly. Why, he wondered, did strangers feel free to talk to him about his moustache? He never said, "I like the size of your nose . . . Your ears are remarkably flat. . . You have an unusual collarbone." But his moustache was considered in the public domain, to be discussed without permission or restraint.

When he concluded his conversation with the columnist, he found Koko sitting on Lord Fitzwallow's sideboard with ears askew, waiting for a recap.

"That was Vonda Tiddledy Winks," Qwilleran told him as he unbuckled his harness.

"Yow," said Koko, who never wasted words.