Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Turned On and Off

The telephone rang. "Qwill," said Mary's pleasing voice, "are you doing anything about your knee? You looked as if you were in pain tonight." "I used cold compresses until the swelling went down." "What you need now is a heat lamp. May I offer you mine?" "I'd appreciate it," he said. "Yes, I'd appreciate it very much." In preparation for his session with the heat lamp, Qwilleran put on a pair of sporty walking shorts that had survived a country weekend the previous summer and admired himself in the long mirror on the dressing room door, at the same time pulling in his waistline and expanding his chest. He had always thought he would look admirable in Scottish kilts. His legs were straight, solid, muscular and moderately haired-just enough to look virile, not enough to look zoological. The puffiness around the left knee that had destroyed its perfection had now subsided, he was glad to note.

He told the cats, "I'm having a guest, and I want you guys to use some discretion. No noisy squabbles! No flying around and disturbing the status quo!" Koko squeezed his eyes and tilted his whiskers in what looked like a knowing smile. Yum Yum exhibited indifference by laundering the snow-white cowlick where her fur grew in two directions on her breast.

When Mary arrived, carrying a basket, Koko looked her over from an unfriendly distance.

"He's not overwhelmed with joy," she said, "but at least he's civil this time." "He'll get used to you," Qwilleran assured her.

In her basket she had homemade fruitcake and an espresso maker, as well as a heat lamp. She plugged in the little silver coffee machine and positioned the infrared lamp over Qwilleran's knee and then sat in the twiggy rocker.

Immediately the country bumpkin of a rocking chair looked gracefully linear and organically elegant, and Qwilleran wondered why he had ever thought it was ugly.

"Do you have any idea what caused the outburst in the Cobb apartment?" she asked.

"Just another of the cockeyed things that happen in this house…. By the way, I wonder why Hollis Prantz didn't attend the meeting." "Half the dealers stayed away. They probably knew we'd collect money for flowers." "Prantz was here this afternoon, looking for some antique radios the Cobbs were supposed to be saving for him — or so he said. Does that make sense?" "Oh, certainly. Dealers make most of their money by selling to each other…. How does the heat feel? Is the lamp too close?" Soon a rushing, bubbling roar in the kitchen announced that the espresso was ready. It alarmed Yum Yum, who ran in the opposite direction, but Koko made it his business to march into the kitchen and investigate. With a mixture of pride and apology Qwilleran said, "Koko's a self-assured fellow, but Yum Yum's as nervous as a cat; when in doubt, she exits. She's what you might call a pussycat's pussycat. She sits on laps and catches mice — all the things cats are supposed to do." "I've never owned a cat," Mary said as she poured the coffee in small cups and added a twist of lemon peel. "But I used to study them for their grace of movement when I was dancing." "No one ever owns a cat," he corrected her. "You share a common habitation on a basis of equal rights and mutual respect… although somehow the cat always comes out ahead of the deal. Siamese particularly have a way of getting the upper hand." "Some animals are almost human…. Please try this fruitcake, Qwill." He accepted a dark, moist, mysterious, aromatic wedge of cake. "Koko is more than human. He has a sixth sense. He seems to have access to information that a human couldn't collect without laborious investigation." Qwilleran heard himself saying it, and he hoped it was still true, but deep in his heart he was beginning to wonder.

Mary turned to look at the remarkable animal. Koko was sitting on his spine with one leg in midair as he washed the base of his tail. He paused with pink tongue extended and returned her admiring gaze with an insolent stare. Then, having finished his ablutions, he went on to the ritual of sharpening his claws. He jumped on the daybed, stood on his hind legs and scratched the papered wall where the book pages overlapped and corners were beginning to curl up tantalizingly.

"No! Down! Scram! Beat it!" Qwilleran scolded. Koko obeyed, but not until he had finished the sharpening job and taken his time about it.

The man explained to his guest. "Koko was given a dictionary for a scratching pad, and now he thinks he can use any printed page for a pedicure. Sometimes I'm convinced he can read. He once exposed a series of art forgeries that way." "Are you serious?" "Absolutely…. Tell me, is there much fakery in antiques?" "Not in this country. An unscrupulous dealer may sell a nineteenth century Chippendale reproduction as an eighteenth century piece, or an artist may do crude paintings on old canvas and call them early American primitives, but there's no large-scale faking to my knowledge…. How do you like the fruitcake? One of my customers made it. Robert Maus." "The attorney?" "Do you know him? He's a superb cook." "Wasn't he Andy's lawyer? Quite an important attorney for a little operation in Junktown," Qwilleran remarked.

"Robert is an avid collector and a friend of mine. He represented Andy as a courtesy." "Did his legal mind ever do any questioning about Andy's so-called accident?" Mary gave him an anxious glance. "Are you still pursuing that?" Qwilleran decided to be candid. He was tired of hearing about Andy's superlative qualities from all the women in Junktown. "Are you aware," he said, "that it was Andy who tipped off the police to Cobb's scrounging?" "No, I can't believe — " "Why did he squeal on Cobb and not on Russ or some of the other scroungers? Did he have a grudge against Cobb?" "I don't — " "It may be that Andy also threatened Cobb-threatened to tell Iris about his philandering. I hate to say this, Mary, but your friend Andy was a meddler — or else he had an ax to grind. Perhaps he considered that Cobb was trespassing on his own territory when he visited Cluthra." Mary flushed. "So you found out about that, too!" "I'm sorry," said Qwilleran. "I didn't want to embarrass you." She shrugged, and she was attractive when she shrugged. "I knew that Andy was seeing Cluthra. That's why we quarreled the night he was killed. Andy and I weren't really committed. We had an understanding. Not even an understanding — just an arrangement. But I'm afraid I was beginning to feel possessive." She reached over and clicked off the heat lamp. "That knee has broiled long enough. How does it feel?" "Better. Much better." Qwilleran started to fill his pipe. "After Andy left your house that night — to meet the prospective customers — what route did he take?" "He went out my back door, through the alley and into the back of his shop." "And when you followed, you went the same way? Did you see anyone else in the alley?" Mary gave Qwilleran a swift glance. "I don't think so. There might have been one of those invisible men from the rooming house. They slink around like ghosts." "How much time had elapsed when you followed Andy?" She hesitated. "Oh… about an hour…. More fruitcake, Qwill?" "Thanks. During that time the customers may have come, found the front door locked, and gone away — unaware that Andy lay dead in the back room. Before they arrived, someone else could have followed Andy into his shop through the back door — someone who had seen him enter…. Let's see, how many buildings stand between your house and Andy's store?" "Russ's carriage house, then the variety store, then this house, then the rooming house where Ben has his shop." "That building and your own place are duplicates of this house, aren't they?" Qwilleran asked. "Only narrower." "You're very observant. The three houses were built by the same family." "I know Russ lives upstairs over his workshop. Who's his roommate? Is he in the antique business?" "No. Stanley is a hairdresser." "I wonder where Russ gets all his dough. He owns the carriage house, wears custom-made boots, has twenty thousand dollars worth of sound equipment, stables a white Jaguar…. Is he on the up-and-up? Did Andy think he was simon-pure? Maybe Andy was getting ready to put the finger on him. Where does Russ get his dough? Does he have a sideline?" "I only know that he's a hard worker. Sometimes I hear his power tools at three o'clock in the morning." "I wonder — " Qwilleran stopped to light his pipe. "I wonder why Russ lied to me tonight. I asked him if he'd been scrounging at the Ellsworth house, and he denied it. Yet I could swear that those crutches and those white boots had been through that house." "Dealers are sensitive about their sources of supply," Mary said. "It's considered bad form to ask a dealer where he acquires his antiques, and if he answers you at all, he never feels bound to state the truth. It's also bad form to tell a dealer about your grandmother's attic treasures." "Really? Who decrees these niceties of etiquette?" Mary smiled in a lofty way that Qwilleran found charming. "The same authority who gives newspapers the right to invade everyone's privacy." "Touch‚!" "Did I tell you about finding the twenty dollar bill?" she asked after they had gazed at each other appreciatively for a few seconds.