Lillian Braun - The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern

"No answer," he told Bunsen. "What now?" "I don't know. Do you suppose Koko got lonesome and decided to go visiting?" "He wanted some more of that curried chicken." "He must have hopped from balcony to balcony — all the way around. Crazy cat! Lyke must have let him in and then gone out himself. He said he had a date." "What are you going to do?" Bunsen said.

"Leave him there till morning, that's all." "I can get him back." "What? How could you get him back? He couldn't hear you with the door closed over there, and even if he could, how would he open the sliding door?" "Want to bet I can't get him back?" The photographer leaped up on the side railing of the balcony and teetered there, clutching the corner post.

"No!" yelled Qwilleran. "Get down from there!" He was afraid to make a sudden move toward the man balancing on the narrow toprail. He approached Bunsen slowly, holding his breath.

"No sweat!" the photographer called out, as he leaped across the five-foot gap and grabbed the post of the next balcony. "Anything a cat can do, Odd Bunsen can do better!" "Come back! You're out of your mind!… No, stay there! Don't try it again!" "Odd Bunsen to the rescue!" yelled the photographer, as he ran the length of the balcony and negotiated the leap to the next one. But first he plucked a yellow mum from the neighbor's window box and clenched it in his teeth.

Qwilleran sat down and covered his face with his hands.

"Ya hoo!" Bunsen crowed. "Ya hoo!" His war cries grew fainter, drowned by the whistling wind as he progressed from railing to railing around the inside curve of the Villa Verandah. Here and there a resident opened a door and looked out, without seeing the acrobatic feat being performed in the darkness.

"Ya hoo!" came a distant cry.

Qwilleran thought of the three double martinis and the two — no, three — brandies that Bunsen had consumed. He thought of the photographer's wife and six children, and his blood chilled.

There was a triumphant shout across the court, and Bunsen was waving from Lyke's balcony. He tried the sliding door; it opened. He signaled his success and then stepped into the silvery-gray living room. At his entrance Koko jumped down from his perch and scampered away.

I hope, Qwilleran told himself, that nincompoop has sense enough to bring Koko back by land and not by air.

From where the newsman stood, he could no longer see Bunsen or the cat, so he went indoors and waited for the errant pair to return. While waiting, he made two cups of instant coffee and put some cheese and crackers on a plate.

The wait was much too long, he soon decided. He went to the corridor and listened and looked down its carpeted curve. There was no sign of life — only mechanical noises from the elevator shaft and the frantic sounds of a distant TV.

He returned to the balcony and scanned the south wing. There was no activity to be seen in Lyke's apartment, except for the busy images on the TV screen.

Qwilleran gulped a cup of coffee and paced the floor. Finally he went to the telephone and asked the operator to try Lyke's apartment again. The line was busy.

"What's that drunken fool doing?" "Pardon?" said the operator.

Returning once more to the balcony, Qwilleran stared across the court in exasperation. When his telephone rang, he jumped and sprinted for it.

"Qwill," said Bunsen's voice, several tones lower than it had been all evening. "We've got trouble over here." "Koko? What's happened?" "The cat's okay, but your decorator friend has had it." "What do you mean?" "Looks as if Lyke's dead." "No!…No!" "He's cold, and he's white, and there's an ugly spot on the rug. I've called the police, and I've called the paper.

Would you go down to the car and get my camera?" "I gave you the car keys." "I put them in my raincoat pocket, and I dropped my raincoat in your front hall. I think I'd I better stay here with the body." "You sound sober all of a sudden," Qwilleran said.

"I sobered up in a hurry when I saw this." By the time Qwilleran arrived at Lyke's apartment with Bunsen's camera, the officers from the police cruiser were there. Qwilleran scanned the living room. It was just as they had photographed it in the afternoon, except that the TV in the Chinese cabinet was yakking senselessly and there was a yellow mum on the carpet, where Bunsen had dropped it.

"As soon as I came through the door," Bunsen said to Qwilleran, "Koko led me into the bedroom." The body was on the bedroom floor, wrapped in a gray silk dressing gown. One finger wore a large star sapphire that Qwilleran had not seen before. The face was no longer handsome. It had lost the wit and animation that made it attractive. All that was left was a supercilious mask.

Qwilleran glanced about the room. The tiger skin had been removed from the bed, neatly folded, and laid on a bench. Everything else was in perfect order. The bed showed no indication of having been occupied.

Bunsen was hopping around the room looking for camera angles. "I just want to get one picture," he told the officers. "I won't disturb anything." To Qwilleran he said, "It's hard to get an interesting shot. The Picture Desk won't run gory stuff any more. They get complaints from the P.T.A., little old ladies, the American Legion, the D.A.R., vegetarians — " "What did you do with Koko?" Qwilleran said.

"He's around here somewhere. Probably destroying the evidence." Qwilleran found Koko in the dining room, sitting under the table as if nothing had happened. He had assumed his noncommittal pose, gathered in a comfortable bundle on the gold-and-blue Chinese rug, looking neither curious nor concerned nor guilty nor grieved.

When the detectives from the Homicide Bureau arrived, Qwilleran recognized a pair he had met before. He liked the heavy-set one called Hames, a smart detective with an off-duty personality, but he didn't care for Wojcik, whose nasal voice was well suited to sarcasm.

Wojcik gave one look at Qwilleran and said, "How'd the press get here so fast?" The patrolman said: "The photographer was here when we arrived. He let us into the apartment. He's the one who found the body and reported it." Wojcik turned to Bunsen. "How did you happen to be here?" "I came in through the window." "I see. This is the fifteenth floor. And you came in through the window." "Sure, there are balconies out there." Hames was ogling the sumptuous living room. "Look at this wallpaper," he said. "If my wife ever saw this — " Wojcik went into the bedroom and after that onto the balcony. He looked at the ground fifteen stories below, and he gauged the distance between balconies. Then he cornered Bunsen. "Okay, how did you get in?" "I told you — " "I suppose you know you smell like a distillery." Qwilleran said: "Bunsen's telling the truth. He jumped from balcony to balcony, all the way from my place on the other side." "This may be a silly question," said the detective, "but do you mind if I inquire why?" "Well, it's like this," said the photographer. "We were across the court — " "He came to get my cat," Qwilleran interrupted. "My cat was over here." Hames said: "That must be the famous Siamese that's bucking for my job on the force. I'd like to meet him." "He's in the dining room under the table." "My wife's crazy about Siamese. Some day I've got to break down and buy her one." Qwilleran followed the amiable detective into the dining room and said quietly: "There's some- thing I ought to tell you, Hames. We were here this afternoon to photograph the apartment for Gracious Abodes, and David Lyke removed some valuable art objects before we took the pictures. I don't know what he did with them, but they were valuable, and I don't see them anywhere." There was no reaction from the detective, who was now down on his knees under the table.

"As I recall," Qwilleran went on, "there was a Japanese screen in five panels, all done in gold. And a long vertical scroll with pictures of ducks and geese. And a wood sculpture of a deer, almost life-size, and very old, judging from its condition. And a big china bowl. And a gold Buddha about three feet high." From under the table Hames said, "This guy's fur feels like mink. Are these cats very expensive?" It was Wojcik who roused the neighbors. The apartment across the hall was occupied by an elderly woman who was hard of hearing; she said she had retired early, had heard nothing, had seen no one. The adjoining apartment to the east was vacant; the one on the other side produced a fragment of information.