Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal

"Sure. No problem. Anything you want." Bushy was wandering about, checking camera angles. "Everywhere you look, it's a picture! And there are lots of places to spot a light under a balcony or behind a beam if I want to light a corner."

"What can I do to help?"

"Nothing. You've got plenty of electric outlets, I see. I might have to move some of the furniture slightly."

"So if you don't need me, Bushy, I'll go out and do a few errands. Help yourself to cold drinks in the fridge. For coffee just press the Brew button. See you later! If the phone rings, my answering machine will pick it up. Be sure the cats don't run outdoors."

Leaving the barn, Qwilleran was intercepted by Brodie. "Where's Dennis Hough?" he demanded. He pronounced it Howe.

"I don't know," Qwilleran said. "I haven't been in touch with him since Saturday. Now that the barn's finished he won't be coming around any more."

"He hasn't been home since the party."

"Probably drove to St. Louis to see his family. Doesn't Fran know where he went?"

Brodie grunted unintelligibly. "This company called Huff & Puff doesn't even have an office."

Qwilleran explained patiently, "My barn was his first job. All he needed was a phone for lining up workmen and supplies, so he worked out of his apartment."

"Do you know how to reach him in St. Louis?"

"No, but I'm sure directory assistance can tell you. His name is pronounced Huff, but it's spelled H-o-u-g-h. Give him time to get down there; it's a long drive."

Qwilleran walked downtown. Most of Pickax was within walking distance, and he was accustomed to using his legs, being a former pavement pounder from the Concrete Belt. The rest of Pickax depended on wheels.

En route to Lois's Luncheonette for breakfast he stopped at the used bookstore, an establishment he could never pass without entering. This time he had a mission. Eddington Smith had recently acquired a large library from an estate, and Qwilleran was hoping to find a copy of his own best-selling book written eighteen years before. During the ups and downs of his life following those halcyon days he had not salvaged a single copy, but now that his fortunes had changed, he was always on the lookout for City of Brotherly Crime by James M. Qwilleran. He had used a middle initial in those days. Professional book detectives had been unable to unearth the book; public libraries no longer had the title in the stacks or in the catalogue. Yet, doggedly he continued the hopeless hunt, like a parent searching for a lost child.

The store called Edd's Editions was a gloomy cave filled with gray, dusty, musty hardcover books as well as paperbacks with torn covers and yellowed edges. Eddington materialized from the shadows at the rear of the store.

"Find my book?" Qwilleran asked.

"Not so far, but I haven't unpacked everything yet," said the conscientious old bookseller. "Did the police find any evidence?"

"You know as much as I do, Edd."

"I couldn't sleep last night. 'Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.' " Eddington amazed his customers by having a quotation for every occasion.

"Who said that?"

"Webster, I think."

"Which one?"

"I don't know. How many are there?"

At that moment a smoky Persian, whose voluminous tail dusted the books, walked sedately toward Qwilleran and sat down on a biography of Sir Edmund Backhouse.

"Am I to consider that a recommendation?" Qwilleran asked. "Or is Winston just resting?"

"It looks like an interesting book," said the bookseller. "He was a British orientalist and sort of a mystery man."

"I'll take it," said Qwilleran, who could never walk out of a bookstore without making a purchase.

At Lois's Luncheonette he sat at the counter and ordered eggs over lightly, country fries extra crisp, rye toast dry, and coffee right away; no cream.

"Whatcha think of the murder, Mr. Q?" asked the waitress, whose nametag read Alvola.

" 'Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out,' " he recited with declamatory effect.

"Is that Shakespeare?" she asked. Thanks to Henry VIII, the Bard was the fad of the month among young people in Pickax. In October it would be a rock star or comic strip hero. "It sounds like Shakespeare," said Alvola knowledgeably.

"No, it was some other dude," Qwilleran said as he buried his nose in his book. Actually he was listening to the conversation at nearby tables. No one was mourning the principal; all were fearful that the killer might prove to be a well-known citizen, or a student, or a friend, or a neighbor. It was fear mixed with excitement, expressed with a certain amount of relish. Qwilleran thought, This case will never be solved; no one in Moose County wants it to be solved.

His next stop was Amanda's Design Studio, where he dropped in to see Fran Brodie. On the job she wore three-inch heels, and her skirts rose higher than most Pickax hemlines - facts that were not lost on her client. "Where's your boss?" he asked.

"Amanda's gone to a design center Down Below. Is anything happening at the barn?"

"Various authorities are there, doing their duty. No one is talking, of course. I keep my nose out of it."

"Dad told Mother that they found traces of foam rubber in the car, meaning it had been used as a silencer."

"But the cats heard it. They can hear a leaf fall."

"Want to hear something ironic?" the designer asked. "Hilary ordered custom- made treatments for twenty windows - the whole main floor - and they arrived by motor freight this morning. This morning! I called Amanda, and she had a fit."

"What does his house look like?"

"It's one of those stone houses on Goodwinter Boulevard, you know. The main floor is done in Japanese; he did it himself. The window treatments we ordered for him last month are shoji screens. I've never been upstairs, but he told me the bedrooms are filled with books."

Thinking of City of Brotherly Crime Qwilleran said, "I wouldn't mind seeing that place."

"I have the key, and Amanda wants the screens to be on the premises when we file our claim on the estate. Would you like to help me deliver them?"

"When?" he asked with unusual eagerness.

"I'll have to let you know, but it'll be soon."

As he was leaving the studio he said, "We've got to do something about the fish-bowl effect at the barn. The Peeping Toms are having a field day." What had once been the huge barn door was now a huge wall of glass.

"Mini-blinds would solve the problem," the designer said. "I'll drop in and measure the windows. I still have your key."

Qwilleran's planned destination was the public library, a building that looked like a Greek temple except for the bicycle rack and the book-drop receptacle near the front steps. As he walked through the vestibule he automatically turned his head to the left, where a chalkboard displayed the Shakespeare quotation of the day - one of Polly's pet ideas. He expected to see Murder most foul. Instead, he read: Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs. The wedding in Lockmaster had put her in a romantic mood.

In the main hall the clerks gave him the bright greeting due the richest man in the county who was also their supervisor's companion of choice. To delude them he first browsed through the new-book shelves and punched a few keys on the computer catalogue before sauntering up the stairs to the mezzanine. Here the daily papers were scattered on tables in the reading room, and here Polly presided over the library operation in a glass-enclosed office. She was seated behind her desk, wearing her usual gray suit and white blouse, but she was looking radiant, and her graying hair still showed the special attention it had received in preparation for the wedding.

"You are looking... especially well!" he greeted her. "Evidently you enjoyed your weekend." He took a seat in one of the hard oak armchairs that had come with the building in 1904.