If he heads west, he'll probably wind up in Mexico." "You can also go west by heading east," said Cokey.
Qwilleran reached over and patted her hand. "Smart girl." "Do you think he'd trust the houseboy with the jades?" "You've got a point. Maybe Paolo didn't take the loot. Maybe he was dispatched to Mexico as a decoy. If that's the case, where are the jades hidden?" The answer was a large silence filling the room. Qwilleran clicked his pipe on his teeth. Cokey clicked her knitting needles. The record player clicked as another disc dropped on the turntable. Now it was Brahms.
Finally Qwilleran said, "You know that game Koko and I play with the dictionary?" He proceeded with circumspection. "Lately Koko's been turning up some words that have significance…. I shouldn't talk about it. It's too incredible." "You know how I feel about cats," said Cokey. "I'll believe anything." "The first time I noticed it was last Sunday morning. I had forgotten to fix his breakfast, and when we played the dictionary game he turned up hungerly." Cokey clapped her hands. "How clever!" "On the next try he turned up feed, but I didn't catch on until he produced meadow mouse. Apparently he was getting desperate. I don't think he really cares for mice." "Why, that's like a Ouija board!" "It gives me the creeps," said Qwilleran. "Ever since the mystery in Muggy Swamp, he's been flushing out words that point to G. Verning Tait, like bald and sacroiliac. He picked sacroiliac twice in one game, and that's quite a coincidence in a dictionary with three thousand pages." "Is Mr. Tait bald?" "Not a hair on his head. He also suffers from a back ailment…. Do you know what a koolokamba is?" Cokey shook her head.
"It's an ape with a bald head and black hands. Koko dredged that one up, too." "Black hands! That's poetic symbolism," Coker said. "Can you think of any more?" "Not every word pertains to the situation. Sometimes it's visceripericardial or calorifacient. But one day he found two significant words on one page: rubeola and ruddiness. Tait has a florid complexion, I might add." "Oh, Qwill, that cat's really tuned in!" Coker said. "I'm sure he's on the right track. Can you do anything about it?" "Hardly." Qwillerau looked dejected. "I can't go to the police and tell them my cat suspects the scion of a fine old family…. Still, there's another possibility…." "What's that?" "It may be," said Qwilleran, "that the police suspect Tait, too, and they're publishing the houseboy theory as a cover-up."
19
Qwilleran arrived home from Cokey's apartment earlier than he had expected. Cokey had chased him out. She said they both had to work the next day, and she had to fix her hair and iron a blouse.
When he arrived at the Villa Verandah, Koko greeted him with a table-hopping routine that ended on the desk.
The red light on the telephone was glowing. The phone had been ringing, Koko seemed to be saying, and no one had been there to answer.
Qwilleran dialed the switchboard.
"Mr. Bunsen called you at nine o'clock," the operator told him. "He said to call him at home if you came in before one A.M." Qwilleran consulted his watch. It was not yet midnight, and he started to dial Bunsen's number. Then he changed his mind. He decided Cokey was right about the importance of image. He decided it would not hurt to enhance his own image — the enviable one of a bachelor carousing until the small hours of the morning.
Qwilleran emptied his coat pockets, draped his coat on a chair back, and sat down at the desk to browse through the Tait file of newspaper clippings. Koko watched, lounging on the desk top in a classic pose known to lions and tigers, curving his tail around a Swedish crystal paperweight.
The newsprint was in varying shades of yellow and brown, depending on the age of the news item. Each was rubber-stamped with the date of publication. It was hardly necessary to read the stamp; outmoded typefaces, as well as mellowed paper, gave a clue to the date.
First Qwilleran shuffled through the clippings hastily, hoping to spot a lurid headline. Finding none in a cursory search, he started to read systematically: three generations of Tait history in chronological disorder.
Five years ago Tait had given a talk at a meeting of the Lapidary Society. Eleven years ago his father had died.
There was a lengthy feature on the Tait Manufacturing Company, apparently one of a series on family-owned firms of long standing; organized in 1883 for the manufacture of buggy whips, the company was now producing car radio antennas. Old society clippings showed the elder Taits at the opera or charity functions. Three years ago G. Verning Tait announced his intention of manufacturing antennas that looked like buggy whips. A year later a news item stated that the Tait plant had closed and bankruptcy proceedings were being instituted.
Then there was the wedding announcement of twenty-four years ago. Mr. George Verning Tait, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Verning H. Tait of Muggy Swamp, was taking a bride. The entire Tait family had gone to Europe for,the ceremony.
The nuptials had been celebrated at the home of the bride's parents, the Victor Thorvaldsons of — Qwilleran's eyes popped when he read it. "The Victor Thorvaldsons of Aarhus, Denmark." He leaned back in his chair and exhaled into his moustache.
"Koko," he said, "what do you suppose Harry Noyton is pulling off in Aarhus?" The cat opened his mouth to reply, but there was not enough breath behind his comment to make it audible.
Qwilleran's watch said one o'clock, and he hurried through the rest of the clippings until he found what he was looking for. Then he dialed Odd Bunsen's number excitedly.
"Hope I didn't get you out of bed," he said to the photographer.
"How was your date, you old tomcat?" Bunsen demanded.
"Not bad. Not bad." "What were you doing on Merchant Street this morning?" "How do you know I was on Merchant Street?" "Aha! I saw you waiting for a bus on the southwest corner of Merchant and State at eleven fifty-five." "You don't miss a thing, do you?" Qwilleran said. "Why didn't you stop and give me a lift?" "I was going in the other direction. Brother! You were getting an early start. It wasn't even lunchtime." "I had a doctor's appointment." "On Merchant Street? Ho ho HO! Ho ho HO!" "Is that all you called about? You're a nosy old woman." "Nope. I've got some information for you." "I've got some news for you, too," said Qwilleran. "I've found the skeleton in the Tait closet." "What is it?" "A court trial. G. Verning Tait was involved in a paternity suit!" "Ho ho HO! That old goat! Who was the gal?" "One of the Taits' servants. She got a settlement, too. According to these old clippings it must have been a sensational trial." "A thing like that can be a rough experience." "You'd think a family with the Taits' money and position would settle out of court-at any cost," Qwilleran said. "I covered a paternity trial in Chicago several years ago, and the testimony got plenty raw…. Now, what's on your mind?
What's this information you've got for me?" "Nothing much," said Bunsen, "but if you're going to send those photographs to Tait, you'd better make it snappy.
He's leaving the country in a couple of days." "How do you know?" "I ran into Lodge Kendall at the Press Club. Tait's leaving Saturday morning." "For Mexico?" asked Qwilleran as his moustache sprang to attention.
"Nope. Nothing as obvious as that! You'd like it if he was heading for Mexico, wouldn't you?" the photographer teased.
"Well, where is he going?" "Denmark!"
Qwilleran waked easily the next morning after a night of silly dreams that he was glad to terminate. In one episode he dreamed he was flying to Aarhus to be best man at the high-society wedding of two neutered cats.
Before leaving for the office, he telephoned Tait and offered to deliver the photographs of the jade the next day.