Qwilleran suddenly realized he had never been inside a barn. He had seen them in the distance while speeding down a highway, and an apple barn was included with the Klingenschoen property, but he had not inspected it. Now, gazing upward at the vast space under the roof, crisscrossed with timbers, he felt the same sense of awe he had experienced in Gothic cathedrals.
Homer saw him gazing upward. "That's a double hay-mow," he explained. "The timbers are sixty feet long, fourteen inches square. Everything's put together with mortise-and-tenon construction - no nails. All white pine. You don't see white pine any more. It was all lumbered out."
He pointed out the marks of the hand axe and hewing adze. "The main floor was called the threshing floor. The boards are four inches thick. It takes a solid floor like this to support a loaded hay wagon - or those danged printing presses."
It was then that Qwilleran noticed the contents of the barn. Wooden packing crates and grotesque machines resembling instruments of torture stood about the straw-strewn floor.
"This is only part of it," the old man went on. "The rest of the crates are down in the stable. Senior Goodwinter was obsessed with handprinting. Every time an old printshop went out of business or modernized, he bought their obsolete equipment. Never got around to taking inventory or even opening the crates. He just kept on collecting."
"That's where I come in!" said a jarring voice behind them. Vince Boswell stood silhouetted in the open doorway. "My job is to find out what's in those crates and catalogue the stuff so they can start a printing museum," he said in his penetrating voice. It was easy to believe he had been an auctioneer. "Yesterday I uncrated a wooden press that's eighteenth century."
"You carry on," Homer told him. "I want to go back to the house before my legs give out. I'm getting a pain in my knees." He retreated down the grassy ramp.
At that moment a doll-size figure came trudging toward the ramp, wearing doll-size blue jeans and a wisp of a red sweater. She carried a green plastic pail in one hand and a yellow plastic spade in the other. She was followed by an anxious mother, running and calling in a small voice, "Baby! Baby! Come back here!"
Vince looked at them and stiffened. "Can't you control that kid?" he demanded. "Get her out of here. It isn't safe."
Verona scooped the child into her arms, the pail and spade flying in opposite directions.
"My pail! My shovel!" Baby screamed. Qwilleran gathered them up and handed them to her.
"Say thank you," Verona murmured.
"Thank you," said Baby automatically. As they retreated up the lane she looked back toward the barn with longing. There was something disturbingly adult about her, Qwilleran thought, and she was so unhealthily thin.
With a shrug Boswell said, "I'll show you what I've found here, if you're interested." He pointed to a contraption with fancy legs. "That's a Washington toggle press, 1827. I've found old typecases, composing sticks, a primitive cylinder press, woodblocks - all kinds of surprises. I open a crate and never know what I'll find." He picked up a crowbar and wrenched the top off a wooden box. It was packed with straw. "Looks like a hand-operated papercutter."
"I'm vastly impressed," said Qwilleran as he edged toward the door.
"Wait up!" Boswell said in piercing tones. "You haven't seen the half of it yet."
"I must confess," said Qwilleran, "that I'm not greatly interested in mechanical equipment, and some of those presses look diabolical." He nodded toward something that seemed half sewing machine and half guillotine.
"That's a treadle press," said the expert. "And this one's an Albion. And that one's a Columbian. When the counterpoise lever moves, the eagle goes up and down." The Columbian was a cast-iron monster embellished with eagle, serpents, and dolphins.
"Amazing," said Qwilleran in a minor key. "You must tell me more about this fascinating subject some other time." He consulted his watch and headed for the ramp.
"Would you care to have a bowl of soup with the wife and me?"
"Thank you for the invitation, but I'm expecting an important phone call."
Boswell picked up a walkie-talkie from the top of a crate. "Coming home to lunch, Verona," he said. "How about some tomato soup and a hot dog?"
The two of them closed the big doors, latching them with the crude hook and eye, and walked down the grassy ramp. Then Boswell drove away in his rusty van and Qwilleran strolled back to the house, grateful to escape the stilletto-voiced expert with the textbook patter. Why did he need a walkie-talkie? Why didn't he simply stand on the ramp and yell? How could the delicate Verona endure that deafening delivery? It irked him that she and Baby were expendable, that they could be shipped back to Pittsburgh like unwanted merchandise if Vince was named Mrs. Cobb's successor. That he should even presume to follow in her footsteps was obscene, Qwilleran told himself.
As he opened the door to the west wing, a furry blur whizzed past his ankles and flew off the steps. With a roar Qwilleran made a flying tackle, grabbing the cat's slippery body in both hands. They landed in a pile of leaves.
"Oh no, you don't, young man!" Qwilleran scolded as he carried him back into the house. "Where do you think you're going? To the Jellicle Ball with the bamcats? Or are, you interested in printing presses?"
As he spoke the words he dropped the cat on the floor, and Koko made a surprised four-point landing. As for Qwilleran, the idea that flashed across his mind at that moment made his moustache curl.
Exactly what, he asked himself, is in those unpacked crates? Printing presses? Or something else...
-13-
QWILLERAN'S NEW-FOUND suspicions regarding the printing presses were relegated to the back burner as he faced the exigencies of the day. There was a long telephone conversation with the CEO of the K Fund and then a follow-up call to Kristi at the Fugtree farm.
"Nothing to report," she said wearily. "The police keep dropping in. They've put up road blocks around the county, expecting Brent to make a getaway in a stolen car, but no car thefts have been reported. Where's your car? I looked for it with the binoculars, and it wasn't in the yard. I was just going to phone you."
"It's locked up in the steel barn, but I appreciate your concern."
"The board of health is here again, and the men who do dead stock removal. It's too painful to watch. I can't bear to see them hauling away my beautiful Black Tulip and my sweet little Geranium."
"It's a terrible thing," Qwilleran said, "but you must put it behind you and think about your next step."
"I know. I must think constructively. That's what I've been trying to do. My friend says he'll help me fix up the house if I want to open a restaurant or bed-and-breakfast. But first I've got to unload all my mother's junk. I don't know whether to have a big garage sale or a big bonfire. And it will take money to get the house into shape. I don't know how much I'll get from the insurance. Oh, God! I don't want the insurance money! I just want to wake up and find Gardenia and Honeysuckle waiting to be milked and looking at me with those soulful eyes. I love goat farming!"
"I know you do, Kristi, but whether you start another herd or a B-and-B, the Klingenschoen Fund would like to help you register the house as a historic place. If you're interested, they're prepared to offer you a grant to cover research and renovation."
"Am I interested! Am I interested! Oh, Qwill, that would be neat - really neat! Wait till I tell Mitch."
"Mitch? Do you mean Mitch Ogilvie, by any chance?"
"Yes. He says he knows you. And Qwill, could I ask you a big favor? He's applied for the job of resident manager at the museum. Would you put in a few good words for him? He feels about the museum the same way I feel about goats. And he can't be a desk clerk at the hotel forever. He has too much to offer."
"Isn't he the one who tells ghost stories to the kids at Halloween?"
"Yes, and he really makes their teeth chatter!"