Лилиан Браун - The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal

"You got a cow?" Cuttlebrink asked. "That be an udder sponge."

"It would be good for washing the car ," Qwilleran said, although he intended it for cleaning and sanitizing the cats' turkey roaster.

The old man shrugged and wagged his head at the eccentricity of cityfolk. "You from Pickax?"

"I've lived there for a while."

"Thought so."

Paint thinner. Goat feed. Fuses. Axle grease. Razor blades. Red bandannas. Pitch forks. Swine dust. Another kind of work glove.

"You seem to have just about everything," Qwilleran remarked.

"Yep. What folks want. No fancy stuff."

"Do you happen to have any clay bubble pipes? I'd like to get some for my young ones."

The storekeeper hoisted himself off the barrel and hobbled to the rear of the store, where he climbed a shaky ladder, one unsure step at a time. On the top shelf he found a cardboard box in the last stages of decay and brought it down, one unsure step at a time.

"You amaze me," Qwilleran said with admiration. "How do you manage to find things?"

"They ain't lost."

The box held half a dozen clay pipes that had once been white but were now gray with dust.

"Good! I believe I'll take them all."

"Won't be none left to sell," Cuttlebrink objected. "How about five?" "Sell ya four."

Qwilleran paid for the four pipes, the sponge, and a dill pickle, and the sale was rung up on an old brass cash register on which was taped a crayoned sign: BROWNING GUNS WANTED. The storekeeper hobbled back to his barrel, and the three travelers went on their way.

At the county line the terrain changed from rocky pastureland to rolling green hills. This was Lockmaster's famous hunting country, where miles of fences dipped and curved across the landscape, and here and there an opulent farmhouse with barns and stables crowned a hill. Then came the restaurant known as the Palomino Paddock, with luxury cars in the parking lot, after which the highway became Main Street.

In the nineteenth century wealthy shipbuilders and lumber barons chose to build their residences fronting on the chief thoroughfare, to be admired and envied by all. With affluent families striving to outdo each other, houses as large as resort hotels were lavished with turrets, balconies, verandahs, bowed windows, bracketed roofs, decorative gables, and stained glass.

Zoning had changed with the times, however. Now they were upscale rooming houses, gourmet bed-and-breakfast establishments, law offices, insurance agencies. One imposing structure was a funeral home, another a museum, another the Bushlands' photographic studio. Having inherited it from Vicki's side of the family, they combined business with living quarters. It was a massive three- story frame building with a circular tower bulging from the southwest corner.

Qwilleran drove under the porte cochere that sheltered the side door, saying to his passengers, "We're here! I expect you to be.on your best behavior for the next forty-eight hours. If you cooperate, you may wind up on the cover of a slick magazine." There was no reply. Were they asleep? He turned to see two pairs of blue eyes staring at him with inscrutable intensity as if they knew something that he did not know.

Leaving the Siamese and their gear in the car, Qwilleran lugged his own traveling bag to the carriage door and rang the bell. He was greeted by Vicki in a chef's apron.

"Excuse me for arriving early," he said. "I thought I might explore the town."

"Good idea!" exclaimed his hostess. "Come on in.

Bushy's in his darkroom and can't be disturbed, and I'm wrestling with pie crust, but your room's ready and you can go straight up. We're giving you our really grand guestroom in the southwest corner. You can put the cats in the connecting room; I know they're used to having their own pad."

"Truthfully I'd prefer to have them with me," he said. "In a new environment I like to keep a fatherly eye on them."

"Whatever makes you comfortable, Qwill. Make yourself at home."

He walked slowly and wonderingly across the broad foyer and up the wide staircase, observing the carved woodwork, gaslight fixtures converted for electricity, velvety walls hung with ancestral portraits in oval frames, and the jewel-like stained glass in the windows. The choice guestroom was in the front of the house, a large, square space ballooning into a circular bay - actually the base of the tower. Furnished with canopy bed, writing desk, chaise, wingback chairs, dresser, highboy, blanket chest, and scattering of ruby-red Oriental rugs, it was homey enough for a week's stay. Nothing matched, but family heirlooms gave it a hospitable togetherness. In the circular bay, rimmed with window seats, there was a round table holding a bowl of polished apples, a dish of jelly beans, and magazines devoted to photography and equestrian arts. There was also a four-page newsletter titled Stable-chat - a collection of steeplechase news and horsey gossip listing S. W. O'Hare as publisher and Lisa Amberton as editor.

Qwilleran sampled a red jelly bean, the only color he considered worth eating, and went downstairs for the cats' accoutrements. When at last he brought the carrier into the room, its occupants emerged cautiously and slithered under the bed, where they remained.

"For your future reference," he said, addressing the bed, "your cushion's on the chaise; your water dish and commode are in the bathroom; and I'm going for a walk."

He went down to the kitchen in search of Vicki, who was cutting Z-shaped vents in the crusts of two apple pies. "May I ask you the significance of the Z?" he asked. "Or is it a horizontal N?"

"I don't know," she said. "My mother always did it that way, so I do it that way. How's everything upstairs?"

"Everything's fine. The room looks very comfortable. You have quite a collection of antiques."

"It's all been handed down in the family, with each generation adding its own touch, for better or worse. My great- great-grandfather Inglehart built the house. Grandmother Inglehart lives on the third Boor. We call her Grummy. Are you going to drive around town?"

"I prefer to walk. Which way shall I go?"

"Well, you might go down the hill to the courthouse and turn right on Fourth Street. That's where all the stores are. It ends at the river. Originally both banks of the river were crammed with sawmills and shipyards. Now there's Inglehart Park on one side and condos on the other."

"Do you have a bookstore?"

"Two doors beyond the city hall. It's a cast-iron storefront where Bushy's grandfather used to have his watch-the- birdie photo studio before World War I."

Qwilleran enjoyed walking and sightseeing, and as he strode down the hill he was amazed at the huge houses, masterpieces of architectural gingerbread, their details accentuated with two or even three colors of paint. They looked festive compared to the stolid stone mansions of Pickax! He found the store with the cast-iron front and bought a book on horsemanship. In the basement there were used books, but City of Brotherly Crime was not among them. At an antique shop he found a collection of printshop mementos and bought a small engraving of a whale.

Many of the stores capitalized on the horseyness of Lockmaster. Equus was a men's store. The Tacky Tack Shop displayed gaudy sweatshirts, T-shirts, and posters with a steeplechase theme. In the Foxtrottery everything from paper napkins to fireplace andirons had a horse or fox motif, but nothing appealed to Qwilleran. And then he spotted the public library!

It was obviously built from the same set of Greek temple blueprints that produced the Pickax library - with the same classical columns, the same seven steps, the same pair of ornamental lampposts. He entered, expecting a Shakespeare quotation on a chalkboard in the vestibule, but there was only a bulletin board announcing new video releases. He asked for the chief librarian whom he knew only as Polly's friend, Shirley.