The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern (11 page)

Then Qwilleran's thoughts turned to his own cat. Once before, when the crime was murder, Koko had flushed out more clues with his cold wet nose than the Homicide Bureau had unearthed by official investigation. Koko seemed to sense without the formality of cogitation. Instinct, it appeared, bypassed his brain and directed his claws to scratch and his nose to sniff in the right place at the right time. Or was it happenstance? Was it a coincidence that Koko turned the pages of the dictionary to hungerly and feed when breakfast was behind schedule?
Several times on Sunday afternoon Qwilleran had suggested playing the word game, hoping for additional revelations, but the catchwords that Koko turned up were insignificant: oppositional and optimism, cynegetic and cypripedium.
Qwilleran entertained little optimism; and cypripedium, which turned out to be a type of orchid also called lady's- slipper, only reminded him of Cokey's toes wiggling in the luxuriant pile of the goat-hair rug.
Still, Qwilleran's notion about Koko and the dictionary persisted. A tremor ran through Qwilleran's moustache.
Odd Bunsen, at the wheel of the car, asked: "Are you sick or something? You're sitting there shivering and not saying a word." "It's chilly," said Qwilleran. "I should have worn a topcoat." He groped in his pocket for his pipe.
"I brought a raincoat," said Bunsen. "The way the wind's blowing from the northeast, we're going to get a storm.
The trip to Lost Lake Hills took them through the suburbs and into farm country, where the maple trees were beginning to turn yellow. From time to time the photographer gave a friendly toot of the horn and wave of his cigar to people on the side of the road. He saluted a woman cutting grass, two boys on bicycles, an old man at a rural mailbox.
"You have a wide acquaintance in this neck of , the woods," Qwilleran observed.
"Me? I don't know them from Adam," said Bunsen, "but these farmers can use a little excitement. Now they'll spend the whole day figuring who they know that drives a foreign car and smokes cigars." They turned into a country road that showed the artful hand of a landscape designer, and Qwilleran read the directions from a slip of paper. " 'Follow the lakeshore, first fork to the left, turn in at the top of the hill.' " "When did you make the arrangements for this boondoggle?" the photographer wanted to know.
"At Lyke's party Saturday night." "I hope they were sober. I don't put any stock in cocktail promises, and this is a long way to drive on a wild-goose chase." "Don't worry. Everything's okay. Natalie wants David to get some credit for decorating the house, and Harry Noyton is hoping our story will help him sell the place. The property's worth a quarter million." "I hope his wife doesn't get a penny of it," Bunsen said. "Any woman who'll give up her kids, the way she did, is a tramp." Qwilleran said: "I got another phone call from Denmark this morning. Noyton wants his mail forwarded to Aarhus.
That's a university town. I wonder what he's doing there." "He sounds like a decent guy. Wouldn't you know he'd get mixed up with a dame like that?" "I don't think you should judge Natalie until you've met her," Qwilleran said. "She's sincere. Not overly bright, but sincere. And I have an idea people take advantage of her gullibility." The house at the end of the winding drive was of complex shape, its pink-brick walls standing at odd angles and its huge roof timbers shooting off in all directions.
"It's a gasser!" said Bunsen. "How do you find the front door?" "Lyke says the house is organic contemporary. It's integrated with the terrain, and the furnishings are integrated with the structure." They rang the doorbell, and while they waited they studied the mosaic murals that flanked the entrance-swirling abstract designs composed of pebbles, colored glass, and copper nails.
"Crazy!" said Bunsen.
They waited a considerable time before ringing the bell again.
"See? What did I tell you?" the photographer said. "No one home." "It's a big house," said Qwilleran. "Natalie I probably needs roller skates to get from her weaving studio to the front door." A moment later there was a click in the lock, and the door swung inward a few inches, opened with caution. A woman in a maid's uniform stood there, guarding the entrance inhospitably.
"We're from the Daily Fluxion," Qwilleran said.
"Yes?" said the maid, standing her ground.
"Is Mrs. Noyton home?" "She can't see anybody today." The door began to close.
"But we have an appointment." "She can't see anybody today." Qwilleran frowned. "We've come a long way. She told us we could see the house. Would she mind if we took a quick look around? We expect to photograph it for the paper." "She doesn't want anybody to take pictures of the house," the maid said. "She changed her mind." The newsmen turned to look at each other, and the door snapped shut in their faces.
As they drove back to town, Qwilleran brooded about the rude rejection. "It doesn't sound like Natalie. What do you suppose is wrong? She was very friendly and agreeable Saturday night." "People are different when they're drinking." "Natalie was as sober as I was. Maybe she's ill, and the maid took it on herself to brush us off." "If you want my opinion," said Bunsen, "I think your Natalie is off her rocker." "Stop at the first phone booth," said Qwilleran. "I want to make a call." From a booth at a country crossroad the newsman dialed the studio of Lyke and Starkweather and talked to David. "What's going on?" he demanded. "We drove all the way to Lost Lake Hills, and Natalie refused to see us. The maid wouldn't even let us in to look at the layout." "Natalie's a kook," David said. "I apologize for her. I'll take you out there myself one of these days." "Meanwhile, we're in a jam - with a Wednesday deadline and no really strong story for the cover." "If it will help you, you can photograph my apartment," said David. "You don't have to give me a credit line. Just write about how people live at the Villa Verandah." "All right. How about this afternoon? How about two o'clock?" "Just give me time to buy some flowers and remove some art objects," the decorator said. "There are a few things I wouldn't want people to know I have. Just between you and me, I shouldn't even have them." The newsmen had a leisurely lunch. When they eventually headed for the Villa Verandah, Qwilleran said, "Let's stop at the pet shop on State Street. I want to buy something." They were battling the afternoon traffic in the downtown area. At every red light Bunsen saluted certain attractive pedestrians with the motorist's wolf whistle, touching his foot tenderly to the accelerator as they passed in front of his car.
For every traffic officer he had a loud quip. They all knew the Fluxion photographer, and one of them halted traffic at a major intersection while the car with a press card in the windshield made an illegal left turn into State Street.
"What do you want at the pet shop?" Bunsen asked.
"A harness and a leash for Koko, so I can tie him up on the balcony." "Just buy a harness," said the photographer. "I've got twelve feet of nylon cord you can have for a leash." "What are you doing with twelve feet of nylon cord?" "Last fall," Bunsen said, "when I was covering football games, I lowered my film from the press box on a rope, and a boy rushed it to the Lab. Those were the good old days! Now it's nothing but crazy decorators, ornery women, and nervous cats. I work like a dog, and I don't even get a credit line." The newsmen spent three hours at David Lyke's apartment, photographing the silvery living room, the dining room with the Chinese rug, and the master bedroom. The bed was a low platform, a few inches high, completely covered with a tiger fur throw, and the adjoining dressing room was curtained off with strings of amber beads.
Bunsen said, "Those beads would last about five minutes at my house - with six kids playing Tarzan! " In the living room the decorator had removed several Oriental objects, and now he was filling the gaps with bowls of flowers and large vases of glossy green leaves. He arranged them with a contemptuous flourish.
"Sorry about Natalie," he said, jabbing the stem of a chrysanthemum into a porcelain vase. "Now you know the kind of situation a decorator has to deal with all the time. One of my clients gave his wife the choice of being analyzed or having the house done over. She picked the decorating job, of course, and took out her neuroses on me.... There!" He surveyed the bouquet he had arranged, and disarranged it a little. He straightened some lampshades. He pressed a hidden switch and started the fountain bubbling and splashing in its bowl of pebbles. Then he stood back and squinted at the scene with a critical eye. "Do you know what this room needs?" he said. "It needs a Siamese cat on the sofa." "Are you serious?" Qwilleran asked. "Want me to get Koko?" Bunsen protested. "Oh, not No nervous cats! Not in a wide-angle time exposure." "Koko isn't nervous," Qwilleran told him. "He's a lot calmer than you are." "And better looking," said David.
"And smarter," said Qwilleran.
Bunsen threw up his hands and looked grim, and within a few minutes Koko arrived to have his picture taken, his fur still striated from a fresh brushing.
Qwilleran placed the cat on the seat of the sofa, shifted him around at the direction of the photographer, folded one of the velvety brown forepaws under in an attitude of lordly ease, and arranged the silky brown tail in a photogenic curve. Throughout the proceeding Koko purred loudly.
"Will he stay like that without moving?" Bunsen asked.
"Sure. He'll stay if I say so." Qwilleran gave Koko's fur a final smoothing and stepped back, saying, "Stay! Stay there!" And Koko calmly stood up, jumped to the floor, and walked out of the room with vertical tail expressing his indifference.
"He's calm, all right," said Bunsen. "He's the calmest cat I ever met." While the photographer finished taking pictures, Koko played with the dangling beads in David's dressing room and sniffed the tiger bed- throw with fraternal interest. Meanwhile David was preparing something for him to eat.
"Just some leftover chicken curry," the decorator explained to Qwilleran. "Yushi came over last night and whipped up an eight-boy rijstafel." "Is he the one who cooks for your parties? He's a great chef!" "He's an artist," David said softly. David poured ginger ale for Qwilleran and Scotch for Bunsen.
The photographer said: "Does anyone want to eat at the Press Club tonight? My wife's giving a party for a gaggle of girls, and I've been kicked out of the house until midnight." "I'd like to join you, but I've got a date," said David. "I'll take a raincheck, though. I'd like to see the inside of that club. I hear it's got all the amenities of a medieval bastille." The two newsmen went to the Press Club bar, and Bunsen switched to double martinis while Qwilleran switched to tomato juice.
"Not such a bad day after all," said Qwilleran, "although it started out bad." "It isn't over yet," the photographer reminded him.
"That David tyke is quite a character, isn't he?" "I don't know what to think about that bedroom of his!" said Bunsen, rolling his eyes.
Qwilleran frowned. "You know, he's an agreeable joe, but there's one thing that bugs me: he makes nasty cracks about his friends. You'd think they'd get wise, but no. Everyone thinks he's the greatest." "When you've got looks and money, you can get away with murder." During the next round of drinks Qwilleran said, "Do you remember hearing about a scandal in the Tait family fifteen or twenty years ago?" "Fifteen years ago I was still playing marbles." Qwilleran huffed into his moustache. "You must have been the only marble-player with five o'clock shadow." Then he signaled the bartender. "Bruno, do you recall a scandal involving the G.
Verning Tait family in Muggy Swamp?" The bartender shook his head with authority.
"No, I don't remember anything like that. If there'd been anything like that, I'd know about it. I have a memory like a giraffe." Eventually the newsmen went to a table and ordered T-bone steaks.
"Don't eat the tail," Qwilleran said. "I'll take it home to Koko." "Give him your own tail," said the photographer. "I'm not sharing my steak with any overfed cat. He lives better than I do." "The leash is going to work fine. I tied him up on the balcony before I left. But I have to buckle the harness good and tight or he'll wiggle free. One fast flip and a tricky stretch - and he's out! That cat's a Houdini." There were other things Qwilleran wanted to confide about Koko's capabilities, but he knew better than to tell Bunsen.
After the steaks came apple pie a la mode, following which Qwilleran started on coffee and Bunsen started on brandy.
Qwilleran said, as he lighted his pipe, "I worry about Natalie - and why she wouldn't let us in today. That whole Noyton affair is mystifying. See what you can make out of these assorted facts: Natalie gets a divorce for reasons that are weak, to say the least, although we have only her husband's side of the story. I find an earring in the apartment that Harry Noyton is supposed to use for business entertaining. I also find out that he knows Mrs. Tait. Then she dies, and he leaves the country hurriedly. At the same time, Tait's jades are stolen, after which he also prepares to leave town.... What do you think?" "I think the Yankees'll win the pennant." "You're crocked!" Qwilleran said. "Let's go to my place for black coffee. Then maybe you'll be sober enough to drive home at midnight." Bunsen showed no inclination to move.
"I should bring the cat in off the balcony, in case it rains," Qwilleran said. "Come on! We'll take your car, and I'll do the driving!" "I can drive," said Bunsen. "Perfectly sober." "Then take that salt shaker out of your breast pocket, and let's go." Qwilleran drove, and Bunsen sang. When they reached the Villa Verandah, the photographer discovered that the elevator improved the resonance of his voice.
" 'Oh, how I hate to get up in the morrr-nin - ' " "Shut up! You'll scare the cat." "He doesn't scare easy. He's a cool cat," said Bunsen. "A real cool cat." Qwilleran unlocked the door of 15-F and touched a switch, flooding the living room with light.
"Where's that cool cat? I wanna see that cool cat." "I'll let him in," Qwilleran said. "Why don't you sit down before you fall down? Try that green wing chair. It's the most comfortable thing you ever saw." The photographer flopped into the green chair, and Qwilleran opened the balcony door. He stepped out into the night. In less than a second he was back.
"He's gone! Koko's gone!"
14
A twelve-foot nylon cord was tied to the handle of the balcony door. At the end of it was a blue leather harness buckled in the last notch, with the belt and the collar making a figure eight on the concrete floor.