The Cat Who Turned on and Off (9 page)

“Thanks,” said Qwilleran.

He started down the front steps and halted abruptly. That toothbrush that Yum Yum had brought him! It had a blue handle, and the handle of his old toothbrush, he seemed to recall, was green . . . . Or was it?

Qwilleran walked to The Blue Dragon with a long stride, remembering the vulnerable Mary of the night before, but he was greeted by another Mary—the original one—aloof and inscrutable in her Japanese kimono. She was alone in the shop. She sat in her carved teakwood chair, as tall and straight as the wisp of smoke ascending from her cigarette.

“I got your message,” he said, somewhat dismayed at the chilly reception. “You
did
say you wanted to see me, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I am very much disturbed.” She laid down the long cigarette holder and faced him formally.

“What’s the trouble?”

“I used poor judgment last night. I am afraid,” she said in her precise way, “that I talked too much.”

“You were delightful company. I enjoyed every minute.”

“That’s not what I mean. I should never have revealed my family situation.”

“You have nothing to be afraid of. I gave you my word.”

“I should have remembered the trick your Jack Jaunti played on my father, but unfortunately the Scotch I was drinking—”

“You were completely relaxed. It was good for you. Believe me, I would never take advantage of your confidence.”

Mary Duckworth gave him a penetrating look. There was something about the man’s moustache that convinced people of his sincerity. Other moustaches might be villainous or supercilious or pathetic, but the outcropping on Qwilleran’s upper lip inspired trust.

Mary took a deep breath and softened slightly. “I believe you. Against my will I believe you. It’s merely that—”

“Now may I sit down?”

“I’m sorry. How rude of me. Please make yourself comfortable. May I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’ve just had soup at The Three Weird Sisters.”

“Clam chowder, I suppose,” said Mary with a
slight curl of the lip. “The shop always reminds me of a fish market.”

“It was very good chowder.”

“Canned, of course.”

Qwilleran sensed rivalry and was inwardly pleased. “Any bad dreams last night?” he asked.

“No. For the first time in months I was able to sleep well. You were quite right. I needed to talk to someone.” She paused and looked in his eyes warmly, and her words were heartfelt. “I’m grateful, Qwill.”

“Now that you’re feeling better,” he said, “would you do something for me? Just to satisfy my curiosity?”

“What do you want?” She was momentarily wary.

“Would you give me a few more details about the night of the accident? It’s not morbid interest, I assure you. Purely intellectual curiosity.”

She bit her lip. “What else can I tell you? I’ve given you the whole story.”

“Would you draw me a diagram of the room where you discovered the body?” He handed her a ball-point pen and a scrap of paper from his pocket—the folded sheet of newsprint that was his standard equipment. Then he knocked his pipe on an ashtray and went through the process of filling and lighting.

Mary gave him a skeptical glance and started to sketch slowly. “It was in the workroom—at the rear of Andy’s shop. The back door is here,” she said.
“To the right is a long workbench with pigeonholes and hangers for tools. Around the edge of the room Andy had furniture or other items, waiting to be glued or refinished or polished.”

“Including chandeliers?”

“They were hanging overhead—perhaps a dozen of them. Lighting fixtures were Andy’s specialty.”

“And where was the stepladder?”

“In the middle of the room there was a cleared space—about fifteen feet across. The stepladder was off to one side of this area.” She marked the spot with an X. “And the crystal chandelier was on the floor nearby—completely demolished.”

“To the right or left of the ladder?”

“To the right.” She made another X.

“And the position of the body?”

“Just to the left of the stepladder.”

“Face down?”

She nodded.

Qwilleran drew long and slowly on his pipe. “Was Andy right-handed or left-handed?”

Mary stiffened with suspicion. “Are you sure the newspaper didn’t send you to pry into this incident?”

“The
Fluxion
couldn’t care less. All my paper wants is an entertaining series on the antiquing scene. I guess I spent too many years on the crime beat. I’ve got a compulsion to check everything out.”

The girl studied his sober gaze and the downcurve of the ample moustache, and her voice became
tender. “You miss your former work, don’t you, Qwill? I suppose antiques seem rather mild after the excitement you’ve been accustomed to.”

“It’s an assignment,” he said with a shrug. “A newsman covers the story without weighing the psychic rewards.”

Her eyes flickered downward. “Andy was right-handed,” she said after a moment’s pause. “Does it make any difference?”

Qwilleran studied her sketch. “The stepladder was here . . . and the broken chandelier was over here. And the finial, where he fell, was . . . to the left of the ladder?”

“Yes.”

“In the middle of the floor? That was a strange place for a lethal object like that.”

“Well, it was—toward the edge of the open space—with the other items that had been pushed back around the walls.”

“Had you seen it there before?”

“Not exactly in that location. The finial, like everything else, moved about frequently. The day before the accident it was on the workbench. Andy was polishing the brass ball.”

“Was it generally known that he owned the finial?”

“Oh, yes. Everyone assured him he had bought a white elephant. Andy quipped that some fun-type suburbanite would think it was a fun thing for serving pretzels.”

“How did he acquire it in the first place? The
auctioneer said it came from an old house that had been torn down.”

“Andy bought it from Russell Patch. Russ is a great scrounger. In fact, that’s how he fractured his leg. He and Cobb were stripping an empty house, and Russ slipped off the roof.”

“Let me get this straight,” Qwilleran said. “Andy didn’t believe in scrounging, and yet he was willing to buy from scroungers? Technically that finial was hot merchandise.”

Mary’s shrug was half apology for Andy and half rebuke for Qwilleran.

He smoked his pipe in silence and wondered about this girl who was disarmingly candid one moment and wary the next—lithe as a willow and strong as an oak—masquerading under an assumed name—absolutely sure of certain details and completely blank about others—alternately compassionate and aloof.

After a while he said, “Are you perfectly satisfied that Andy’s death was accidental?”

There was no response from the girl—merely an unfathomable stare.

“It might have been suicide.”

“No!”

“It might have been attempted robbery.”

“Why don’t you leave well enough alone?” Mary said, fixing Qwilleran with her wide-eyed gaze. “If rumors start circulating, Junktown is bound to suffer. Do you realize this is the only neighborhood in town that’s been able to keep down crime?
Customers still feel safe here, and I want to keep it that way.” Then her tone turned bitter. “I’m a fool, of course, for thinking we have a future. The city wants to tear all of this down and build sterile high-rise apartments. Meanwhile, we’re designated as a slum, and the banks refuse to lend money to property owners for improvements.”

“How about your father?” Qwilleran asked. “Does he subscribe to this official policy?”

“He considers it entirely reasonable. You see, no one thinks of Junktown as a community of living people—merely a column of statistics. If they would ring doorbells, they would find respectable foreign families, old couples with no desire to move to the suburbs, small businessmen like Mr. Lombardo—all nationalities, all races, all ages, all types—including a certain trashy element that does no harm. That’s the way a city should be—one big hearty stew. But politicians have an à la carte mentality. They refuse to mix the onions and carrots with the tenderloin tips.”

“Has anyone tried to fight it?”

“C.C. has made a few attempts, but what can one man accomplish?”

“With your name and your influence, Mary, you could get something done.”

“Dad would never hear of it! Not for a minute! Do you know how I am classified at the Licensing Bureau? As a junk dealer! The newspapers would have a field day with
that
item . . . . Do you see that Chippendale chair near the fireplace? It’s priced two
thousand dollars! But I’m licensed as a Class C junk dealer.”

“Someone should organize this whole community,” Qwilleran said.

“You’re undoubtedly right. Junktown has no voice at City Hall.” She walked to the bay window. “Look at those refuse receptacles! In every other part of town the rubbish is collected in the rear, but Junktown’s alleys are too narrow for the comfort of the city’s ‘disposal engineers,’ and they require us to put those ugly containers on the sidewalk. Thursday is collection day; this is Saturday, and the rubbish is still there.”

“The weather has fouled everything up,” Qwilleran said.

“You talk like a bureaucrat. Excuses! That’s all we hear.”

Qwilleran had followed her to the window. The street was indeed a sorry sight. “Are you sure Junktown has a low crime rate?” he asked.

“The antique dealers never have any trouble. And I’m not afraid to go out at night, because there are always people of one sort or another walking up and down the street. Some of my rich customers in the suburbs are afraid to drive into their own garages!”

The newsman looked at Mary with new respect. Abruptly he said, “Are you free for dinner tonight, by any chance?”

“I’m dining with my family,” she said with regret. “Mother’s birthday. But I appreciate your
invitation.” Then she took a small silvery object from the drawer of a secretary-desk and slipped it into Qwilleran’s hand. “Souvenir of Junktown,” she said. “A tape measure. I give them to my customers because they always want to know the height, width, depth, length, diameter, circumference, and thickness of everything they see.”

Qwilleran glanced toward the rear of the shop. “I notice nobody’s bought the Mackintosh coat of arms.” He refrained from mentioning that he had dreamed about it.

“It’s still there, pining for you. I think you were made for each other. When the right customer meets the right antique, something electric happens—like falling in love. I can see sparks between you and that piece of iron.”

He gave her a quick glance; she was quite serious. He tugged at his moustache, reflecting that one hundred twenty-five dollars would buy him two suits of clothes.

She said, “You don’t need to pay for it until after Christmas. Why don’t you take it home and enjoy it over the holidays? It’s just gathering dust here.”

“All right!” he said with sudden resolve. “I’ll give you a twenty-dollar deposit.”

He rolled the hoop-shaped coat of arms to the front door.

“Can you manage it alone? Why don’t you ask C.C. to help you carry it up to your apartment?” she suggested. “And don’t drop it on your toe,” she
called out, as Qwilleran struggled down the front steps with his burden.

When he and his acquisition reached the foyer of the Cobb mansion, he stopped to catch his breath, and he heard the ranting voice of C.C. coming from The Junkery.

“You don’t know a piece of black walnut from a hole in your head!” Cobb was saying. “Why don’t you admit it?”

“If that’s black walnut, I’ll eat my crutch. You’re the biggest fake in the business! I’ll give you twenty bucks—no more!”

Qwilleran wrestled the ironwork up the staircase alone.

The cats were asleep in the Morris chair, curled up like Yin and Yang, and Qwilleran did not disturb them. He leaned the coat of arms against the wall and left the apartment, hoping to make three more stops before calling it a day. He had promised to visit Ben’s shop, but first he wanted to meet the talkative Sylvia Katzenhide. He liked garrulous subjects; they made his job so easy.

Arriving at The Sorta Camp shop, he held the door open for a well-dressed man who was leaving with a large purchase wrapped in newspaper, black tubes protruding from the wrappings. Inside the shop a woman customer was haggling over the price of a chair made out of automobile tires.

“My dear,” Sylvia was telling her, “age and intrinsic value are unimportant. Camp is all wit and
whimsy, plus a gentle thumbing of the nose. Either you dig it or you don’t, as my son would say.”

Mrs. Katzenhide was a handsome, well-groomed, self-assured woman who looked forty and was undoubtedly fifty-five. Qwilleran had seen hundreds like her in the women’s auxiliary at the art museum, all identical in their well-cut tweed suits, jersey blouses, gold chains, and alligator shoes. This one had added black cotton stockings as a touch of eccentricity that seemed to be necessary in Junktown.

Qwilleran introduced himself and said, “Was I seeing things, or did a man leave this store with a stuffed—”

“You’re right! A stuffed octopus,” said Mrs. Katzenhide. “Hideous thing! I was glad to get rid of it. That was Judge Bennett from Municipal Court. Do you know the judge? He bought the octopus for his wife’s Christmas present. She’s mad about crawly things.”