The latter said, "Zoe is a lovely woman, incapable of such a heinous plot. And she sure knows how to wear clothes!"
To which Professional Suspicion replied, "She's pretty eager to have her husband's murder blamed on the critic, now that he's gone and can't defend himself. She keeps coming up with scraps of information - strictly afterthoughts - that make Mountclemens look like a heel."
"But she's so gentle and appealing and talented and intelligent! And that voice! Like velvet."
"She's a smart dame, all right. Two people stabbed... and she gets the jackpot. It would be interesting to know how those maneuvers were engineered. Butchy may have done the dirty work, but she isn't bright enough to hatch the plot. Who gave her the key to the back door of the gallery? And who told Butchy to vandalize the female figure - in order to throw suspicion on a cockeyed male? Zoe wasn't even interested in Butchy; she was just using her."
"Yes, but Zoe's eyes! So deep and honest."
"You can't trust a woman with eyes like that. Just stop and think what probably happened on the night of Mountclemens' murder. Zoe phoned him to arrange a rendezvous, saying she'd drive into the deserted alley and sneak in the back way. That's probably the way she always did it. She'd blow the horn, and Mountclemens would go out and unlock the patio gate. But the last time it happened, it wasn't Zoe standing there in the dark; it was Butchy - with a short, wide, sharp, pointed blade."
"But Zoe is such a lovely woman. And that gentle voice! And those knees!"
"Qwilleran, you're a dope. Don't you remember how she got you out of the way on the night of Mountclemens' murder by inviting you to dinner?"
That evening Qwilleran went home and sat down and said to Qwilleran, "You fell for that helpless-female act and let her make you a stooge.... Remember how she sighed and bit her lip and stammered and called you so understanding? All the time she was building up her case with hints, alibis, painful revelations.... And did you notice that nasty gleam in her eye today? It was the same savage look she put in that cat picture at the Lambreth Gallery. Artists always paint themselves. You've found that out."
Qwilleran was plunged in the depths of his big arm, chair, pulling on a pipe that had burned out some minutes before. His silence weighted the atmosphere, and a shrill protest eventually came from Koko.
"Sorry, old fellow," said Qwilleran. "I'm not very sociable tonight."
Then he sat up straight and asked himself, What about that station wagon? Did Mountclemens drive it to New York? And whose was it?
Koko spoke again, this time from the hallway. His conversation was a melodic succession of cat sounds that had a certain allure. Qwilleran walked out to the hall and found Koko frolicking on the staircase. The cat's slender legs and tiny feet, looking like long-stemmed musical notes, were playing tunes up and down the red-carpeted stairs. When he saw Qwilleran, he raced to the top of the flight and looked down with an engaging follow-me invitation in his stance and the tilt of his ears.
Qwilleran suddenly felt indulgent toward this friendly little creature who knew when companionship was needed. Koko could be more entertaining than a floor show and, at times, better than a tranquilizer. He gave much and demanded little.
Qwilleran said, "Want to visit your old stamping ground?" He followed Koko and unlocked the critic's door with the key he carried.
Trilling with delight, the cat walked in and explored the apartment, savoring every corner.
"Have a good smell, Koko. That woman from Milwaukee will be coming soon, and she'll sell the place and take you home with her, and then you'll have to live on beer and pretzels."
Koko - as if he understood and wished to comment - paused in his tour and sat down on his spine for a brief but significant washup of his nether parts.
"I gather you'd rather live with me."
The cat ambled toward the kitchen, sprang to his old post on the refrigerator, found it cushionless, complained, and jumped down again. Hopefully he reconnoitered the comer where his dinner plate and water bowl used to be. Nothing there. He hopped lightly to the stove, where the burners tantalized him with whiffs of last week's boiled-over broth. From there he stepped daintily to the butcher's block, redolent with memories of roasts and cutlets and poultry. Then he nuzzled the knife rack and dislodged one blade from the magnetic bar.
"Careful!" said Qwilleran. "You could cut off a toe." He put the knife back on the magnet.
As he lined it up with the other three blades, his moustache flagged him, and Qwilleran had a sudden urge to go down to the patio.
He went to the broom closet for the flashlight and wondered why Mountclemens had gone down the fire escape without it. The steps were dangerous, with narrow treads partly iced.
Had the critic thought he was going down to meet Zoe? Had he thrown his tweed coat over his shoulders and gone down without a flashlight? Had he taken a knife instead? The fifth knife that belonged on the magnetic rack?
Mountclemens had left his prosthetic hand upstairs. A man so vain would have worn it to meet his paramour, but he wouldn't need it to kill her.
Qwilleran turned up the collar of his corduroy jacket and stepped carefully down the fire escape, accompanied by a curious but enthusiastic cat. The night was cold. The alley kept its after-hours silence.
The newsman wanted to see how the patio gate opened, in what direction the shadows fell, how visible an arriving visitor would be in the darkness. He examined the solid plank gate with its heavy Spanish lock and strap hinges. Mountclemens would have remained partly hid, den behind the gate as he opened it. One swift movement by the visitor would have pinned him to the wall. Some, how Mountclemens had failed to take his intended victim by surprise. Somehow the murderer had managed to get the jump on him.
While Qwilleran mused and ran the flashlight over the weathered bricks of the patio, Koko discovered a dark stain on the brick floor and sniffed it intently.
Qwilleran grabbed him roughly about the middle. "Koko! Don't be disgusting!"
He went back up the fire escape, carrying the cat, who writhed and squalled as if he were being tortured.
In Mountclemens' kitchen Koko sat down in the middle of the floor and had a pedicure. His brief walk in the unclean outdoors had soiled his toes, his claws, the pads of his dainty feet. Spreading the brown toes like petals of a flower, he darted his pink tongue in and out - washing, brushing, combing, and deodorizing with one efficient implement.
Suddenly the cat paused in the middle of a lick, his tongue extended and his toes spread in midair. A faint rumble came from his throat, and he unfolded to standing position - tense with subdued excitement. Then deliberately he walked to the tapestry in the long hall and pawed the corner.
"There's nothing down in that old kitchen except dust," said Qwilleran, and then his moustache tingled, and he had a singular feeling that the cat knew more than he himself did.
He picked up the flashlight, rolled up the corner of the tapestry, unbolted the door, and went down the narrow service stairs. Koko was waiting at the bottom, making no sound, but when Qwilleran picked him up, he felt the cat's body vibrating, and he felt tension in every muscle.
Qwilleran opened the door and let it swing into the old kitchen, quickly flashing his light around the entire room. There was nothing there to warrant Koko's restlessness. Qwilleran trained the flashlight on the easel, the littered table, the canvases stacked against the walls.
And then with a disturbing sensation on his upper lip he realized there were fewer canvases than he had seen the night before. The easel was empty. And the robot propped on the sink was gone.
Momentarily off his guard, he lost his hold on Koko, and the cat jumped to the floor. Qwilleran swung around and flashed the light into the dining room. It was empty, as before.
In the kitchen Koko was stalking something - with stealth in every line of his body. He jumped first to the sink, teetered on the edge while he scanned the area, then noiselessly down to a chair, then up to the table. As he ran his nose over the clutter on the tabletop, his mouth opened, his whiskers flared, and he showed his teeth, while with one paw he scraped the table around the palette knife.
Qwilleran stood in the middle of the room and tried to assemble his thoughts. Something was happening here that made no sense. Who had been in this kitchen? Who had removed the paintings - and why? The two pictures of robots had disappeared. What else had been taken?
Qwilleran placed the flashlight on a tiled counter, so that the light fell on the few remaining canvases in the room, and he turned one around.
It was a Scrano! A blaze of orange and yellow triangles, the canvas was painted in the Italian artist's smooth, slick style, and yet it had a feeling of depth that made Qwilleran reach out to touch the surface. Down in the comer was the famous signature, daubed in block letters.
Qwilleran set it aside and turned another painting around to face the room. Again, triangles! These were green on blue. Behind this canvas there were more - gray on brown, brown on black, white on cream. Proportions and arrangements varied, but the triangles were all pure Scrano.
A throaty murmur from Koko attracted Qwilleran's attention. The cat was sniffing the orange triangles on the yellow background. Qwilleran wondered what it was worth. Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? Perhaps even more, now that Scrano would paint no more.
Had Mountclemens been cornering the market? Or were these forgeties? And in either case... who was stealing them?
Koko's nose covered the surface of the painting in great detail, as if he were experiencing the texture of the canvas, visible under the pigment. When he came to the signature, his neck was stretched, and he tilted his head first to one side and then to the other, as he strained to get close to the letters.
His nose moved from right to left, first tracing the 0, then studying the N, moving on to the A, sniffing the R with gusto as if it were something special, then on to the C, and finally lingering over the S.
"Remarkable!" said Qwilleran. "Remarkable!"
He hardly heard the turning of a key in the back door, but Koko heard it. The cat vanished. Qwilleran froze as the door slowly opened.
The figure that stood in the doorway made no move. In the half light Qwilleran saw square shoulders, heavy sweater, square jaw, high square brow.
"Narx!" said Qwilleran.
The man came to life. He sidled into the room, reaching for the table. His eyes were on Qwilleran. With a lunge he seized the palette knife and rushed forward.
Suddenly... shrieks... snarls! The room was full of flying things - swooping down, across, back, up, and over!
The man ducked. The hurtling bodies were quicker than the eye. They screamed like harpies. They flew down, under, up, across. Something hit him in the arm. He faltered.
In that half moment Qwilleran pounced on the flash, light and swung it with all his force.
Narx staggered back, went down. There was a sharp, rending crack as his head struck the tiled counter. He slumped slowly to the floor.
-16-
It was five,thirty at the Press Club, and Qwilleran was relating the story for the hundredth time. All day Monday the personnel of the Daily Fluxion had been filing past his desk to hear the details firsthand.
At the Press Club bar Odd Bunsen said, "I wish I'd been there with my camera. I can picture our hero phoning the police with one hand and holding up his pants with the other."
"Well, I had to tie Narx with my belt," Qwilleran explained. "When his head hit the tile counter, he was out cold, but I was afraid he'd come around while I was phoning the police. I'd already tied his wrists with my neck, tie - my good Scotch tie - and the only thing I had for his ankles was my belt."
"How did you know it was Narx?"
"When I saw that square face and those square shoulders, I thought of those pictures of robots, and I knew this man must be the artist. Painters, I've been told, always put some quality of themselves on canvas - whether they paint kids or cats or sailboats. But Koko was the one who made it all clear when he read Scrano's signature back, wards."
Arch said, "How does it feel to be playing Dr. Watson to a cat?"
Odd said, "What about the signature? That's something I missed?"
"Koko read the signature on this painting," Qwilleran explained, "and he spelled it out backwards. He always reads backwards."
"Oh, naturally. It's an old Siamese custom."
"That's when I realized that Scrano, the painter of the triangles, was also O. Narx, the painter of the robots. Their painted surfaces had the same slick metallic effect. A few minutes later the robot himself walked into the house and came at me with a palette knife. He would have got me, too, if Koko hadn't come to the rescue."
