Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Turned On and Off

Mrs. Cobb chuckled. "Probably that the auctioneer was letting things go too cheap. There were some terrific buys." "All the junkers call Andy's death an accident, but I met someone on the street who said he was murdered." "No, it was an accident. The police said so. And yet…" Her voice trailed away.

"What were you going to say?" "Well… it seems strange that Andy would be careless enough to slip and fall on that thing. He was a very… a very prudent young man, you know." Qwilleran smoothed his moustache hurriedly. "I'd like to hear more about Andy," he said. "Why don't I go and get my luggage and the cats…?" "You'll take the apartment?" Mrs. Cobb clapped her hands. "I'm so glad! It will be nice to have a professional writer in the house. It will give us class, if you know what I mean." She gave him a key to the downstairs door and accepted a month's rent.

"We don't bother to lock our doors up here," she said, "but if you want a key, I'll find you one." "Don't worry about it. Nothing that I own is worth locking up." She gave him a mischievous look. "Mathilda walks right through doors, anyway." "Who?" "Mathilda. Our ghost." Qwilleran went back to his hotel and made one telephone call before packing his suitcases. He called the Photo Lab at the Daily Fluxion and asked for Tiny Spooner.

"How'd the pictures turn out, Tiny?" "Fair. They're on the dryer. Can't say they're graphically articulate. Too many incongruous shapes." "Leave them in the Feature slot, and I'll pick them up Monday. And Tiny," Qwilleran said, "I want to ask you one question. Give me the truth. Did you or didn't you — " "I was nowhere near that blasted crockery. I swear! I looked at it, that's all, and it started to jiggle." "And how about the chandelier and the big mirror?" "Don't try to pin those on me, either! So help me, I was twenty feet away when they let loose!"

The cats knew something was afoot. When Qwilleran returned to Medford Manor, both were huddled in wary anticipation.

"Come on, you guys. We're moving out of Medicare Manor," Qwilleran said.

From the closet he brought the soup carton with airholes punched in the side. Koko had been through this routine twice before, and he consented to hop in, but Yum Yum was having none of it.

"Come on, sweetheart." Yum Yum responded by turning into a lump of lead, her underside fused to the carpet and anchored by twenty efficient little hooks. Only when Qwilleran produced a can opener and a small can with a blue label did she loosen her grip. With a sensuous gurgle in her throat, she leaped onto the dresser.

"All right, sister," the man said as he grabbed her. "It was a dirty trick, but I had to do it. We'll open the chicken when we get to Junktown." When Qwilleran and his two suitcases, four cartons of books, and one carton of cats arrived at the Cobb mansion, he hardly recognized his apartment. The dentist's chair and parlor organ were gone, and the pot-bellied stove from the auction was standing in one corner. Two lamps had been added: a reading lamp sprouting out of a small brass cash register, and a floor lamp that had once been a musket. The elderly battle-ax over the fireplace still glowered at him, and the depressing rug was still grieving on the floor, but there were certain improvements: a roll-top desk, a large open cupboard for books, and an old-fashioned Morris chair-a big, square contraption with reclining back, soft black leather cushions, and ottoman to match.

As soon as Qwilleran opened the soup carton, Yum Yum leaped out, dashed insanely in several directions, and ended on top of the tall cupboard. Koko emerged slowly, with circumspection. He explored the apartment systematically and thoroughly, approved the red-cushioned seats of the two gilt chairs, circled the pot-bellied stove three times and discovered no earthly use for it, leaped to the mantel and sniffed the primitive portrait, afterwards rubbing his jaw on the corner of the frame and tilting the picture askew. Then he arranged himself attractively between two brass candlesticks on the mantelshelf.

"Oh, isn't he lovely!" exclaimed Mrs. Cobb, appearing with a stack of clean towels and a cake of soap. "Is that Koko? Hello, Koko. Do you like it here, Koko?" She looked at him in a near-sighted way, waggling a finger at his nose and speaking in the falsetto voice with which cats are often addressed — an approach that always offended Koko. He sneezed in her face, enveloping her in a gossamer mist.

"The cats will like it here," she said, straightening the picture that Koko had nudged. "They can watch the pigeons in the backyard." She bustled into the bathroom with the towels, and as soon as she turned her back, Koko scraped his jaw with vengeance on the corner of the picture frame, pitching it into a forty-five-degree list.

Qwilleran cleared his throat. "I see you've made a few changes, Mrs. Cobb;" "Right after you left, a customer wanted that dentist's chair, so we sold it. Hope you don't mind. I've given you the pot-bellied stove to fill up the empty corner. How do you like your roll-top desk?" "My grandfather — " "The tavern table will be nice for your typewriter. And what do you usually do about your personal laundry? I'll be glad to put it through the automatic washer for you." "Oh, no, Mrs. Cobb! That's too much trouble." ".Not at all. And please call me Iris." She drew the draperies across the windows-velvet draperies in streaked and faded gold. "I made these out of an old stage curtain. C. C. got it from a theatre that's being torn down." "Did you do the wall behind the bed?" "No. That was Andy's idea." The wall was papered with the yellowed pages of old books, set in quaint typefaces.

"Andy was quite a bookworm." "As soon as I unpack and feed the cats," Qwilleran said, "I'd like to talk to you about Andy." "Why don't you come across the hall when you're settled? I'll be doing my ironing." And then she added, "C. C. has gone to look at a Jacobean dining room set that someone wants to sell." Qwilleran emptied his suitcases, lined up his books in the open cupboard, put the cats' blue cushion on top of the refrigerator-their favorite perch — and drew their attention to the new location of the unabridged dictionary which served as their scratching pad. Then he walked across the hall to the Cobbs' apartment. The first thing he noticed was ironing in the big kitchen, and she invited him to sit on a rush-seated chair (A-522-001) at a battered pine table (D-573-091).

"Do you sell out of your apartment?" he asked.

"Constantly! Last Tuesday we had breakfast at a round oak table, lunch at a cherry dropleaf, and dinner at that pine trestle table." "Must be hard work, moving the stuff around, up and down stairs." "You get used to it. Right now I'm not supposed to lift anything. I wrenched my back a couple of months ago." "How did you get my apartment rearranged so fast?" "C. C. got Mike to help him. He's the grocer's son. A nice boy, but he thinks antique dealers are batty. We are, of course," she added with a sly glance at her guest.

"Mrs. Cobb — " "Please call me Iris. Mind if I call you Jim?" "People call me Qwill." "Oh, that's nice. I like that." She smiled at the pajamas she was pressing.

"Iris, I wish you'd tell me more about Andy. It might help me write my story about the auction." She set the electric iron on its heel and gazed into space. "He was a fine young man! Nice personality, honest, intelligent. He was a writer — like you. I admire writers. You'd never guess it, but I was an English major myself." "What did Andy write?" "Mostly articles for antique magazines, but he liked to play around with fiction. Some day I should write a book myself! The people you meet in this business!" "How much do you know about the accident? When did it happen?" "One evening in October." Iris coughed. "He'd been having dinner with the Dragon at her apartment — " "You mean Miss Duckworth?" "We call her the Dragon. She frightens people with that hoity-toity manner, you know. Well, anyway, Andy had dinner with her and then went to his shop for something, and when he didn't return, she went looking for him. She found him in a pool of blood!" "Did she call the police?" "No. She came flying over here in hysterics, and C. C. called the police. They decided Andy had fallen off the stepladder while getting a chandelier down from the ceiling. They found the light fixture on the floor smashed. It was all crystal. Five long curving crystal arms and a lot of crystal prisms." "Is it true that he fell on that sharp finial?" She nodded. "That's one thing that doesn't make sense. Andy was always so careful! In fact, he was a fussbudget. I don't think he would leave that finial standing around where it would be a hazard. Antique dealers are always spraining their backs or rupturing something, but nothing ever happened to Andy. He was very cautious." "Maybe he had a couple of drinks with Miss Duckworth and got reckless." "He didn't drink. She probably had a drink or two, but Andy didn't have any bad habits. He was kind of strait-laced.