Lilian Braun - The Cat Who Turned On and Off

I always thought he'd make a good minister of the gospel if he hadn't gone into the junk business. He was really dedicated. It's a calling, you know. It gets to be your whole life." "Could it have been suicide?" "Oh, no! Andy wasn't the type." "You never know what goes on in people's heads-or what kind of trouble — " "I couldn't believe it. Not about Andy." Qwilleran drew his pipe and tobacco pouch from the pocket of his tweed sports coat. "Mind if I smoke?" "Go right ahead. Would you like a can of C. C.'s beer?" "No, thanks. I'm on the wagon." With fascination Iris watched the sucking in of cheeks and soft oompah-oompah of pipe lighting. "I wish C. C. smoked a pipe. It smells so good!" The newsman said, "Do you suppose Andy might have been killed by a prowler?" "I don't know." "Can you think of a motive for murder?" Iris pressed down on the iron while she thought about it. "I don't know… but I'll tell you something if you'll promise not to tell C. C. He would kid me about it…. It was Andy's horoscope. I just happened to read it in the paper. The Daily Fluxion has the best horoscopes, but we get the Morning Rampage because it has more pages, and we need lots of paper for wrapping china and glass." "And what did the Morning Rampage have to say about Andy?" "His sign was Aquarius. It said he should beware of trickery." She gave Qwilleran a questioning glance. "I didn't read it till the day after he was killed." The newsman puffed on his pipe with sober mien. "Not what you would call substantial evidence…. Was Andy engaged to the Duckworth girl?" "Not officially, but there was a lot of running back and forth," Iris said with raised eyebrows.

"She's very attractive," Qwilleran remarked, thinking about the Dragon's eyes. "How did she react after Andy was killed?" "She was all broken up. My, she was broken up! And that surprised me, because she had always been such a cool cucumber. C. C. said Andy probably got her in a family way before he died, but I don't believe it. Andy was too honorable." "Maybe Andy was more human than you think." "Well, he died before Halloween, and this is almost Christmas, and the Dragon's still as skinny as a rake handle..

.. But she's changed. She's very moody and withdrawn." "What will happen to Andy's estate?" "I don't know. Mr. Maus is handling it. Andy's parents live upstate somewhere." "How did the other dealers feel about Andy? Was he well liked?" Iris reflected before she answered. "Everyone respected Andy — for his ability — but some people thought he was too much of a goody." "What do you mean?" "How shall I explain?… In this business you have to grab every advantage you can. You work hard without letup and don't make any money. Some months we can hardly make the payments on this house, because C. C. has tied up his cash in something crazy — like the pot-bellied stove — that we won't be able to sell." She wiped her damp forehead on her sleeve. "So if you see a chance to make a good profit, you grab it…. But Andy was always leaning over backwards to be ethical, and he condemned people who were trying to make an extra dollar or two. I don't say he was wrong, but he carried it too far. That's the only thing I had against him…. Don't say that in the paper. On the whole he was a wonderful person. So considerate in unexpected ways!" "In what ways?" "Well, for one thing, he was always so nice to Papa Popopopoulos, the fruit man. The rest of us just ignore the lonely old fellow…. And then there was Ann Peabody. When the antique dealers had a neighborhood meeting, Andy always made sure that Ann attended, even if he had to carry her. She's ninety years old and still runs a shop, although she hasn't sold so much as a salt dip in four years." The iron was making light passes over a red and gray striped sport shirt. "One good thing about being in this business — you don't have to iron white shirts." "Was Andy successful — financially?" "He made a go of it, I guess. He also sold articles to. magazines and taught an evening class in antiques at the Y. W.C.A. In this business everybody has to have some kind of job on the side — or else a rich uncle. C. C. is a professional picket. He was on the picket line this morning in that bitter cold." "What was he picketing?" "I don't know. He goes wherever the agency sends him. He likes the work, and it pays time and a half in bad weather." "Does Miss Duckworth have a sideline?" "I doubt whether she needs one. I think she has money. She sells very fine things — to a select clientele. She has a Sheraton card table over there that I'd commit murder to own! It's priced way out of my class." "I was surprised to find such an expensive shop in Junktown." "I suppose she wanted to be near her boy friend. In this business, location is unimportant; customers will go anywhere to find what they're looking for." "But isn't there some risk in having valuable things in a neighborhood like this?" Qwilleran asked.

Iris frowned at him. "You're just like everyone else! You think an old neighborhood that's run down is a hotbed of crime. It's not true! We don't have any trouble." She fell silent as she concentrated on the collar of a blouse.

The newsman stood up. "Well, I'd better get back to work — tryout the new typewriter — and see if I can write something about the auction." "By the way," said Iris, "there's a box of old keys on that Empire chest. See if one of them fits your lock." He glanced in the box and saw nothing but old-fashioned keys, four inches long. "I don't need to lock my door," he said.

Returning to his apartment, Qwilleran opened the door and reached in for the wall switch that activated three sources of light: the reading lamp near the Morris chair, the floor lamp standing at the desk, and the hand-painted relic on the tilted table. Then he looked for the cats, as he always did upon coming home.

There they were — sitting on the two gilt chairs like two reigning heads of state on their thrones — with brown paws tucked fastidiously under white breasts and brown ears worn like two little crowns.

"You guys look pretty contented," Qwilleran remarked. "Didn't take you long to feel at home." Koko squeezed his eyes and said, "Yow," and Yum Yum, whose eyes were slightly crossed, peered at Qwilleran with her perpetual I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about look and murmured something. Her normal speaking voice was a soprano shriek, but in her softer moments she uttered a high-pitched «Mmmm» with her mouth closed.

The newsman went to work. He opened the typewriter case, hit a few keys on his newly acquired machine and thought, Andy may have been prudent, ethical, intelligent, and good-looking, but he kept a scruffy typewriter. It was filled with eraser crumbs, and the ribbon had been hammered to shreds. Furthermore, the missing letter was not the expendable Z but the ubiquitous E. Qwilleran began to write: "Th* spirit of th* lat* Andr*w Glanz hov*r*d ov*r Junktown wh*n th* tr*asur*s of this highly r*sp*ct*d d*al*r w*r* sold at auction to th* cr*am of th* city's junk*rs." He described the cream: their purposely raffish clothes, their wacky conversation, the calculated expressions on their faces. He had made no notes during the day; after twenty-five years of newspapering, his mind was a video tape recorder.

It was slow work, however. The tavern table was rickety. The lack of an E was frustrating, and the asterisks — inserted for the benefit of the typesetter — dazzled his eyes. Between paragraphs, moreover, a pair of piercing eyes kept boring into his consciousness. He knew that kind of stare. It indicated one of two things. The elegant Miss Duckworth was either myopic — or frightened.

At one point Qwilleran was alerted by a low rumble coming from Koko's throat, and soon afterward he heard footsteps slowly mounting the stairs and entering the front apartment. Some minutes later he heard a telephone ring in the adjoining rooms. Then the heavy footsteps started down the hall again.