In the blue wing chair, the Siamese were indulging in a mutual grooming session. Had they chosen that chair because it was Mrs. Cobb's favorite or because they knew the upholstery enhanced the blue of their eyes? Qwilleran watched them - beautiful creatures, vain, and mysterious.
He said to Koko, "When you sat in the kitchen window, staring at the barnyard, did you know something irregular was happening out there?"
Koko, intent on flicking a facile tongue around Yum Yum's left ear, paid no attention. Why, Qwilleran asked himself, are cats either smotheringly attentive or infuriatingly indifferent? He went on - doggedly:
"When you tunneled under rugs were you trying to tell me something? Or were you just amusing yourself?"
Koko extended his services to Yum Yum's snowy throat, and she raised her chin in ecstasy. Qwilleran could remember when Koko expected the female to do the laundering. Times had changed.
"And how about all that muttering and mumbling?" he demanded. "Were you talking to yourself or conversing with an invisible presence?"
Both cats settled down with paws tucked under in contentment, totally oblivious.
As Qwilleran sat brooding in his chair and dimly perceiving the blue wing chair opposite, he could almost feel Iris Cobb's presence. At that precise moment two brown: noses lifted, four brown ears swiveled, two sets of whiskers twitched. Something was about to happen. Qwilleran braced himself for a pink apparition, bearing cookies. Ten seconds later, the telephone rang.
Qwilleran took the call in the bedroom. "Hello?... Of course I remember you! How's everything Down Below?... I don't know. What's the proposition?... A penthouse, did you say? Sounds good, but I'll have to discuss it with my bosses. Where can I reach you?..."
He returned to the parlor and addressed the blue wing chair. "How would you guys like to spend the winter in the Crime Belt instead of the Snow Belt?"
The chair was vacant. They had sensed another change of address. Qwilleran's eyes automatically rose to the top of the Pennsylvania German Schrank. Not there. But he noticed a hump in the hearth rug and another hump in the rug before the sofa. Both humps were eloquently motionless.
The End