Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Turned On and Off

"Sorry to bother you," he said. "I'm Hollis Prantz. I have a shop down the street. Just heard the bad news about brother Cobb." Qwilleran nodded with the appropriate amount of gloom.

"Rotten time of year to have it happen," said Prantz. "I hear Mrs. Cobb has left town." "She went to Cleveland for the funeral." "Well, tell you why I came. Cobb was saving some old radios for me, and I could probably unload them in my shop during the shindig tomorrow. Mrs. Cobb would appreciate it, I'm sure. Every little bit helps at a time like this." Qwilleran waved toward The Junkery. "Want to go in and have a look?" "Oh, they wouldn't be in their shop. Cobb had put them aside in his apartment, he said." The newsman took time to pat his moustache before saying, "Okay, go on upstairs," and he added, "I'll help you look." "Don't trouble yourself. I'll find them." The dealer bounded up the stairs, two at a time.

"No trouble," Qwilleran insisted, following as quickly as he could and trying to catch a glimpse of the man's boot soles. He stayed close behind as Prantz opened a coat closet, the window seat, the armoire.

"Look, friend, I hate to take up your time. I know you must be busy. You're writing that series for the paper, they tell me." "No problem," said Qwilleran. "Glad to stretch my legs." He watched the dealer's eyes as they roved around the apartment and returned repeatedly to the desk — the apothecary desk with its tall bank of miniature drawers. Crowded on top of the lofty superstructure were some pewter candlesticks, the stuffed owl, a tin box, a handful of envelopes, and the Cobbs' overworked radio.

"What I'm interested in," said Prantz, "is equipment from the early days — crystal sets and old beehive radios. Not so easy to come by…. Well, sorry to trouble you." "I'll be in to see your shop," Qwilleran said, ushering him out of the apartment.

"Sure! It's a little unusual, and you might get a bang out of it." The newsman looked at the dealer's footwear. "Say, did you buy those boots around here? I need a pair like that." "No, these are old," said Prantz. "I don't even remember where I bought them, but they're just ordinary boots." "Do the soles have a good grip?" "Good enough, although the treads are beginning to wear slick." The dealer left without offering Qwilleran a view of his soles, and the newsman telephoned Mary Duckworth at once. "What do you know about Hollis Prantz?" he asked.

"Not much. He's new on the street. He sells tech-tiques, whatever they may be." "I noticed his shop the first day I was here. Looks like a TV repair shop." "He has some preposterous theories." "About what?" "About 'artificially accelerated antiquity. Frankly, I haven't decided whether he's a prophetic genius or a psychopath." "Has he been friendly with the Cobbs?" "He tries to be friendly with everyone. Really too friendly. Why are you interested?" "Prantz was just over here. Invited me to see his shop," the newsman said. "By the way, have you ever been to the Ellsworth house?" "No, I haven't, but I know which one it is. The Italianate sandstone on Fifteenth Street." "When you go scrounging, do you ever take Hepplewhite?" "Scrounging! I never go scrounging! I handle nothing but eighteenth century English." After his conversation with Mary, Qwilleran looked for Koko. "Come on, old boy," he said to the room at large. "I've got an assignment for you." There was no response from Koko, but Yum Yum was staring at the third shelf of the book cupboard, and that meant he was snuggling behind the biographies. That's where Qwilleran had first met Koko — on a shelf between the lives of Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci.

He pulled the cat out and showed him a tangle of blue leather straps and white cord. "Do you know what this is?" Koko had not worn the harness since the day in early autumn when he had saved Qwilleran's life. On that occasion he had performed some sleight-of-paw with the four yards of nylon cord that served as a leash. Now he allowed the halter to be slipped over his head and the belt to be buckled under his soft white underside. His body pulsed with a rasping purr of anticipation.

"We'll leave Yum Yum here to mind the house," Qwilleran told him, "and we'll go and play bloodhound." As soon as the apartment door was opened, Koko bounded like a rabbit toward the furniture stacked at the front end of the hall, and before Qwilleran could haul in the cord, the cat had squeezed between the spindles of a chair, scuttled under a chest of drawers, circled the leg of a spinning wheel, and effectively tangled the leash, leaving himself free to sniff the finial hidden in the jumble.

"You think you're smart, don't you?" Qwilleran said, as he worked to free the cord and extricate the cat. Some minutes later, he lugged the protesting Koko, squirming and squawking, to the door of the Cobb apartment. "I have news for you. This is where we're going to explore." Koko sniffed the corner of the worn Oriental rug before setting foot on it.

Then, to Qwilleran's delight, he walked directly to the apothecary desk, stopping only to scratch his back on a copper coalhod filled with magazines. At the desk Koko hopped to the chair seat and then to the writing surface, where he moved his nose from right to left across an envelope that had come in the mail.

"Find anything interesting?" Qwilleran inquired, but it was only a telephone bill.

Next Koko reared on his haunches and regarded the bank of small drawers — twenty-four of them with white porcelain knobs — and selected one on which to rub his jaw. His white fangs clicked on the white ceramic, and Qwilleran gingerly opened the drawer he indicated. It contained a set of false teeth made of wood. Guiltily the newsman opened other drawers and found battered silver spoons, primitive eyeglasses, tarnished jewelry, and a few bracelets made of hair.

Most of the drawers were empty.

While Qwilleran was thus occupied, a feather floated past his nose. Koko had stealthily risen to the top of the drawer deck and was nuzzling the stuffed owl.

"I might have known!" Qwilleran said in disgust. "Get down! Get away from that bird!" Koko sailed to the floor and stalked haughtily from the apartment, leading the newsman behind him on a slack leash.

"I'm disappointed in you," the man told him. "You used to be good at this sort of thing. Let's try the attic." The attic room had been romantically remodeled to resemble a barn, the walls paneled with silvery weathered planks and hung with milking stools, oil lanterns, and old farm implements. A papier-m?ch‚ steer, relic of a nineteenth century butcher shop, glared out of a comer stall, and a white leghorn brooded on a nest of straw, In the center of the room, chairs were arranged in a circle, and Qwilleran was fascinated by their decrepitude, He noted an ice cream parlor chair of wire construction, badly bent; a Windsor with two spindles missing; a porch rocker with one arm, and other seating pieces in various stages of collapse. While he was viewing these derelicts, Koko was stalking the white feathered biddy on her nest.

The man yanked the leash. "I don't know what's happened to you," he said. "Pigeons — owls — hens! I think I'm feeding you too much poultry. Come on. Let's go." Koko rushed downstairs and clamored to get into his apartment, where Yum Yum was calling him with high, pitched mews.

"Oh, no, you don't! We have one more investigation to make, And this time try to be objective." In Ben's apartment furniture was herded together with- out plan, and every surface was piled high with items of little worth. Ben's long knitted muffler was draped incongruously over the chandelier, dangling its soiled tassels, and his many hats — including the silk topper and the Santa Claus cap — were to be seen on tables, hatracks, chair seats and lamp chimneys.

Qwilleran found the apartment layout similar to his own, with the addition of a large bay window in the front. With one ear tuned to the sound of a downstairs door opening, he stepped cautiously into each room, finding dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and a ring in the bathtub, as he had expected, In the dressing room, jammed to the ceiling with bundles and boxes, he looked for boots, but Ben, wherever he was, had them on his feet.