Read The Cat Who Tailed a Thief Online
Authors: Lilian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Tailed a Thief (10 page)
The two men applied themselves, almost reverently, to the Queen Mum’s cake, and there was little conversation for a while.
“How did you get interested in dolls?” Qwilleran asked then.
“When I gave up hunting, I needed a new hobby. History was my minor in college, and Vivian was getting into classic dolls, so I started researching historic dollmakers in England, France, and Germany—almost a hundred of them. It’s good for a couple to have a hobby they can share, and it’s good to be learning something.”
“What did Vivian collect before classic dolls?”
“Primitives. Old Moose County dolls that the pioneers made for their kids. Carved and painted wood, stuffed flour sacks, all that type of thing.”
Qwilleran remarked that he had yet to see a doll on the premises.
“All upstairs. In glass cases.”
“Under lock and key?”
“Never thought it necessary, but now. . . ” Kemple shrugged.
Qwilleran pointed to another photo in the wall grouping: a pretty young blond woman. “Your daughter?”
“Yes, that’s Tracy, around the time she was married.”
“She looks familiar.”
“You’ve seen her at the Old Stone Mill. She works lunches there, dinners at the Boulder House Inn. She’s a waitress.
Server
is what they want to be called now. She could have had a nice job in the insurance office, but she likes meeting people, and she likes those big tips! And believe me, she gets them! She has a nice personality . . . More coffee? Or do you want to see the dolls?”
Upstairs in the six-bedroom house there were three rooms outfitted with museum-type cases. The first room contained primitives made between 1850 and 1912. One doll consisted of thread spools strung together so that the arms and legs moved. Another was carved from the crotch of a small tree, with the forked branches for legs. A stuffed stocking had crudely stitched features: crossed eyes, crooked nose, upside-down mouth.
“Ugly,” Kemple said, “but every one was loved by some little kid.”
“Who has access to these rooms?” Qwilleran asked.
“Personal friends, serious collectors, and groups we belong to—that’s all. During the holidays we had Vivian’s Sunday-school class and then the historical society. In our will we’re leaving the primitives to the Goodwinter Farm Museum. The classics will be sold to put our grandkids through college. They’re appreciating in value all the time.”
“I’d like to see the classics.”
Dazzling was the word for the two rooms displaying the china, porcelain, wax, bisque, and papier-mâché beauties. Twelve to twenty inches tall, they had pretty faces, real hair, and lavish costumes. There were hoop skirts, bustles, elaborate hats, muffs, parasols, kid boots, tiny gloves, and intricate jewelry. Rich fabrics were trimmed with lace, embroidery, ruffles, buttons, and ribbons.
Kemple pointed out French fashion “ladies,” character dolls, brides, and pudgy infants. Flirty dolls with “googly” eyes that moved from side to side reminded Qwilleran of Danielle; he had always suspected she was not quite real.
Ever the historian, Kemple pointed out that the older dolls had small heads, long arms, and a look of surprise. Then came plump cheeks, soulful eyes with lashes, and tiny pursed lips. Parted lips showing tiny teeth were a later development.
Qwilleran was fascinated by certain facts about the wax dolls. Some had human hair set in the wax head with a hot needle, hair by hair. Wax had a tendency to melt or crack, and kids had been known to bite off a piece and chew it like gum.
“Little cannibals!” Qwilleran said. He listened patiently as Kemple discussed patent dates, dollmakers’ logos, and the construction of jointed and unjointed dolls. Then he asked about the doll that had been stolen. It was carved and painted wood, eight inches tall, and very old. The paint was badly worn, and it was thought to have come from a native American village on the banks of the Ittibittiwassee River. It might have been more of a talisman than a toy.
“It was the first that ever disappeared from our collection,” Kemple said. Then he lowered his voice to a rumble. “It was found in Lenny Inchpot’s possession, you know.”
“In his locker,” Qwilleran corrected him, “while he was out of town. Police had to cut the padlock, yet Lenny says he never locked it, and I believe him. I’ve asked my own attorney to take the case. It’s my opinion that he was framed.”
Kemple looked relieved. “Glad to hear that. Tell your attorney I’ll go as a character witness at the hearing if he wants me to. That boy’s been in this house hundreds of times. He was Tracy’s boyfriend when they were in high school. He had a reputation as a prankster, but he wouldn’t do anything like stealing from people.”
“Aren’t we all pranksters at that age?”
“Yes, but his were clever. Let me tell you about one. Everybody knew the mayor was having an affair with a woman who worked at the post office. One night Lenny painted big yellow footprints on the pavement, leading from the city hall to the post office. The cop on the nightbeat saw him doing it, but it was such a good joke he looked the other way. It was the kind of paint that washes off, and fortunately it didn’t rain till the whole town had seen it. That was our Lenny! Vivian and I considered him a future son-in-law.”
“What happened?”
“Tracy eloped with a football player from Sawdust City. She’s impulsive. It didn’t last, and she and Bobbie came home to live with us. Then Lenny’s girlfriend was killed, and he started coming to the house again.”
“How did Tracy react to his arrest?”
“She was troubled, I could tell, but she wouldn’t talk to me. She’ll talk to her mother, though. I’ll be glad when Vivian gets home.” He paused to reflect on family secrets. “You see, Tracy’s always one to go for the main chance, and now she’s set her sights on Carter Lee James. My fatherly instinct is flashing red. I don’t want her to be disappointed again. It seems to me that all the women are flipping over him.”
“Understandably,” Qwilleran said. “He has a likable personality, good looks, and a glamorous profession.”
“That’s for sure, and my daughter is a beautiful young woman. James has wined and dined her a few times, and her hopes are up. She comes home late with stars in her eyes. What can I say? She’s a grown woman. She wants a husband, a father for Bobbie, and a home of her own. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Not to digress, but. . . how does she feel about the Pleasant Street project?”
“Oh, she’s all for it! She says it’ll make our neighborhood world-famous. I’m not sure that prospect appeals to me. . . But look! Why am I burdening you with my problems?”
“No burden. No burden at all,” Qwilleran said. “I can put myself in your shoes. I know exactly how you feel.” He had an interviewer’s talent for empathy, and often it was genuine.
Driving home from Pleasant Street, he was glad he had no parental responsibilities. It was mid-afternoon, and it had been a day of diffused activity, little of which really concerned him. It was his congenital curiosity that involved him in the problems of others. What he needed now was a good shower, a dish of ice cream, and an absorbing book.
The Siamese were sleeping soundly. Only when he opened the refrigerator door did they wake and report to the kitchen for a lick of French vanilla. After that, Yum Yum ran around in joyful circles, but Koko read Qwilleran’s mind. That cat knew it was booktime and stood on his hind legs at the hutch cupboard and sniffed titles.
There were favorites brought from the barn, recent purchases from Eddington Smith, and gifts from friends who knew Qwilleran’s fondness for old books. Koko’s nose traveled up and down each spine, moving from one to the other until it finally stopped, like the planchette on a Ouija board. It stopped at
Ossian and the Ossianic Literature,
the book written by A. Nutt.
Qwilleran thought, Is he expressing an uncomplimentary opinion about me? Or does he really want to hear about ancient Gaelic poetry?
Although not in the mood for a scholarly study of a centuries-old mystery, Qwilleran gave it a try. He read aloud, and after a while all three of them were asleep in the big lounge chair.
By the end of January, Qwilleran had several leads for
Short and Tall Tales,
and one that particularly appealed to him was the story of Hilda the Clipper. It was funny, old-timers said, and yet it was sad. She was an eccentric woman who had terrorized the entire town of Brrr seventy years before. Brrr, so named because it was the coldest spot in the county, was a summer resort town situated on a promontory overlooking the big lake. In winter it resembled an iceberg in the North Atlantic.
The person said to know the details of the Hilda saga was Gary Pratt, proprietor of the Black Bear Café in Brrr, and Qwilleran drove out to see him one day. The noon rush was over, but one could still order a bearburger—not related to
Ursus americanus
but simply the best ground beef sandwich in the county.
The café was in a hotel on the highest point in town; a sign on the roof, visible for miles, said: ROOMS. . . FOOD. . . BOOZE. A kind of poetry in the internal vowels made it memorable, and it had been there as long as anyone could remember, guiding trawlers and pleasure boats into harbor.
Affectionately known as the Hotel Booze, the plain, boxlike structure dated back to the rough-tough days of mining and lumbering. Gary Pratt had inherited it along with its debts and code violations. Wisely he had preserved its dilapidated appearance, which appealed to boaters and commercial fishermen, while making just enough repairs to satisfy the county license bureau.
He leaned on the bar while Qwilleran sat on a wobbly bar stool, eating a bearburger. Gary was a big bear of a man, having a lumbering gait and a shaggy black mop of hair, with beard to match. “Glad you agreed to be grand marshal of the Ice Festival, Qwill.”
“I wasn’t aware I’d agreed,” Qwilleran muttered between bites. “Who else is in the parade?”
“The queen, wrapped in synthetic polar-bear skins and riding in a horse-drawn sleigh. Dogsleds drawn by packs of huskies. A fleet of motorbikes with riders in polar-bear costumes. Two high-school bands on flatbeds. Eight floats celebrating winter sports. And torch bearers on cross-country skis.”
Qwilleran refrained from making the cranky remarks that came to mind. The festival, after all, was going to be good for the county, and hundreds of go-getters were working hard to make it a success. Besides, the sandwich he was eating was courtesy of the house.
“Tell me about your book,” Gary said. “What’s the idea?”
“A collection of stories and legends about the early days of Moose County, to be published by the K Fund and sold in gift shops. Proceeds will go to the historical museum. How do you happen to know about Hilda?”
“My father and grandfather told the story so many times, I learned it by heart. Are you gonna record it?”
“Yes. Let’s go to your office, where it’s quieter.”
The following account was later transcribed:
My grandfather used to tell about this eccentric old woman in Brrr who had everybody terrorized. This was about seventy years ago, you understand. She always walked around town with a pair of hedge clippers, pointing them at people and going
click-click
with the blades. Behind her back they laughed and called her Hilda the Clipper, but the same people were very nervous when she was around.
The thing of it was, nobody knew if she was just an oddball or was really smart enough to beat the system. In stores she picked up anything she wanted without paying a cent. She broke all the town ordinances and got away with it. Once in a while a cop or the sheriff would question her from a safe distance, and she said she was taking her hedge clippers to be sharpened. She didn’t have a hedge. She lived in a tar-paper shack with a mangy dog. No electricity, no running water. My grandfather had a farmhouse across the road, and Hilda’s shack was on his property. She lived there rent-free, brought water in a pail from his handpump, and helped herself to firewood from his woodpile in winter.
One night, right after Halloween, the Reverend Mr. Wimsey from the church here was driving home from a prayer meeting at Squunk Corners. It was a cold night, and cars didn’t have heaters then. His model T didn’t even have side curtains, so he was dressed warm. He was chugging along the country road, probably twenty miles an hour, when he saw somebody in the darkness ahead, trudging down the middle of the dirt road, and wearing a bathrobe and bedroom slippers. She was carrying hedge clippers.
Mr. Wimsey knew her well. She’d been a member of his flock until he suggested she quit bringing the clippers to services. Then she gave up going to church and was kind of hostile. Still, he couldn’t leave her out there to catch her death of cold. Nowadays you’d just call the sheriff, but there were no car radios then, and no cell phones. So he pulled up and asked where she was going.
“To see my friend,” she said in a gravelly voice.
“Would you like a ride, Hilda?”
She gave him a mean look and then said, “Seein’ as how it’s a cold night . . . ” She climbed in the car and sat with the clippers on her lap and both hands on the handles.
Mr. Wimsey told Grandpa he gulped a couple of times and asked where her friend lived.
“Over yonder.” She pointed across a cornfield.
“It’s late to go visiting,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather I should take you home?”
“I told you where I be wantin’ to go,” she shouted, as if he was deaf, and she gave the clippers a
click-click.
“That’s all right, Hilda. Do you know how to get there?”
“It’s over yonder.” She pointed to the left.
At the next road he turned left and drove for about a mile without seeing anything like a house. He asked what the house looked like.
“I’ll know it when we get there!”
Click-click.
“What road is it on? Do you know?”
“It don’t have a name.”
Click-click.
“What’s the name of your friend?”
“None o’ yer business! Just take me there.”
She was shivering, and he stopped the car and started taking off his coat. “Let me put my coat around you, Hilda.”
“Don’t you get fresh with me!” she shouted, pushing him away and going
click-click.
Mr. Wimsey kept on driving and thinking what to do. He drove past a sheep pasture, a quarry, and dark farmhouses with barking dogs. The lights of Brrr glowed in the distance, but if he steered in that direction, she went into a snit and clicked the clippers angrily.
Finally he had an inspiration. “We’re running out of fuel!” he said in an anxious voice. “We’ll be stranded out here! We’ll freeze to death! I have to go into town to buy some gasoline!”
It was the first time in his life, he told Grandpa, that he’d ever told a lie, and he prayed silently for forgiveness. He also prayed the trick would work. Hilda didn’t object. Luckily she was getting drowsy, probably in the first stages of hypothermia. Mr. Wimsey found a country store and went in to use their crank telephone.
In two minutes a sheriff deputy drove up on a motorcycle. “Mr. Wimsey! You old rascal!” he said to the preacher. “We’ve been looking all over for the Clipper! Better talk fast, or I’ll have to arrest you for kidnapping!”
What happened, you see: Hilda’s dog had been howling for hours, and Grandpa called the sheriff.
“Great story!” Qwilleran said. “Is there a sequel? What happened to Hilda?”
“Well, for her own protection the county put her in a foster home, and she had to surrender her hedge clippers. The whole town breathed a lot easier.”
“How long had they tolerated her threats?”
“For years! People were long-suffering in those days. They were used to the hardships of pioneer living. Their motto was: Shut up and make do! Is life better in the Electronic Age, Qwill? Sometimes I think I was born too late. My mother lives Down Below, and one night she had dinner in a neighborhood restaurant. The computer was down, and not a single employee could add up a dinner check! Geez! I’m only thirty-five, but I feel like a dinosaur because I can add and subtract.”
“Don’t lose the skill,” Qwilleran advised. “Computers may not be here to stay.”
“Let’s go back in the bar and get something to drink. I’m dry,” Gary suggested. “And I want to ask you about something.” He poured coffee for Qwilleran and beer for himself, and then said, “A guy came in here a couple of weeks ago and said he was a restoration consultant from Down Below, doing a lot of work in Pickax. He said this hotel could be a gold mine if I restored it and got it on the National Register, but it would have to be authentic. Well, the thing of it is: My customers like it the way it is—grungy! However, I just told him I couldn’t afford it.”
“What kind of money was he talking about?” Qwilleran asked.
“Twenty thousand up front for his services, plus whatever the contractor would charge for doing the work. Do you know anything about this guy?”
“Carter Lee James. Willard Carmichael spoke highly of him. He’s doing over Pleasant Street as a historic neighborhood—or that’s what the plans are.”
“How come I haven’t read anything in the paper?”
“The project is only now getting under way. He didn’t want any premature publicity.”
“He’s a nice guy, very friendly and down to earth. He had his assistant with him, and she was a real babe.”
Qwilleran said, “She’s his cousin, and she’s Willard’s widow.”
“Oh. . . yeah. . . yeah. Too bad about Willard. I met him at the Boosters Club. He was all excited about the Ice Festival. You say they’re cousins? I bought them a drink when they were here, and they sat in that corner booth. They didn’t act like cousins, if you know what I mean.”
“She flirts with everyone,” Qwilleran said. “She’d flirt with John Wayne’s horse!” Then he asked Gary what he thought about Lenny Inchpot’s arrest.
“They’re nuts! He’s about as guilty as you and me! I know Lenny. He belongs to the Pedal Club. Won the silver in the Labor Day race!”
“I’m sure he’ll get off. G. Allen Barter is taking his case. Then what? One wonders if the police have any other leads.”
Driving home, Qwilleran realized how much he missed his late-night get-togethers with Chief Brodie at the apple barn, when suspicions were aired and official secrets were leaked over Scotch and Squunk water.
* * *
Even before he unlocked his front door, he knew there was a message on the answering machine. Koko was announcing the fact with yowls and body-bumps against the door panels. Given the condo’s quality of construction, it was doubtful how much battering the door could take.
The message was from Celia Robinson, requesting him to call her at the clubhouse before five-thirty, her quitting time. She had a little treat for him and the cats and would drop it off on the way home.
He phoned immediately. “Visitors bearing treats are always welcome. Do you know where we are? Building Five on River Lane. Park in the driveway of Unit Four.”
At five-thirty-three her bright red car pulled in, looking brighter and redder against the maze of snowbanks.
Always jolly, she greeted Qwilleran in a flurry of contagious happiness. “Here’s some goat cheese, a thank-you for steering me to this wonderful job! I only wish it were permanent. . . Hello, kitties!. . . I saw your picture on the front page and cut it out. I’m going to frame it. I bought an extra copy to send to Clayton.” She walked into the living room and flopped into the deep cushions of the sofa, facing the frozen riverbank. “This is a lot smaller than the barn, but you’ve got more of a view. And some new furniture! I never saw a coffee table like this!”
“It’s an old pine woodbox that had four or five coats of paint. Fran Brodie stripped it down to the wood and waxed it.”
“Some people are so clever! It sure is pretty. What do you keep inside?”
“Old magazines. Would you like a mug of hot cider, Celia?”
“No, thanks. I have to go home and cook. Mr. O’Dell is coming to supper. Clayton thinks we should get married. What do you think, Chief?”
“Never mind what I think,” Qwilleran said. “What does Mr. O’Dell think? Has he been consulted?”
Celia screamed with laughter. “He hasn’t said anything, but I know he’s interested. He has a house. I’d hate to leave my apartment. It’s so central.”
“What are your priorities, Celia? Love or location?”
She laughed again, uproariously. “I might have known you’d say that!. . . Well, what I want to tell you: I’ve found a home for the little black dog that Clayton liked. He couldn’t take it home; it would only make trouble with his stepmother. What’s the dog’s name?”
“Cody. A female schnauzer. Who wants to adopt her?”
“A nice young man from the Split Rail Goat Farm. He came to the clubhouse today to give a talk to the Daffy Diggers—that’s a garden club.”
“I know Mitch Ogilvie very well,” Qwilleran said. “Also his partner, Kristi. Cody will be happy with them.”
Confidentially Celia said, “They’re thinking of getting married. I hope they do. He’s such a nice young man!”
“Are you implying that all nice young men make good husbands? I’m a nice middle-aged man, but you don’t see me galloping down the aisle.”
“Oh, lawsy!” She laughed. “I put my foot in it again! Anyway, Mr. Ogilvie said he’d give what’s-her-name a good home.”
