The designer's eyes grew wide. "Where did you get this picture? Who is he? Is he selling the chair?"
"The man's dead. The chair is in my barn. It's supposed to be a thank-you from Elizabeth for saving her life on the island. If I'd known I was getting this, I'd have thrown her back in the swamp."
"Very funny," Fran said, "but you don't know what you're talking about. This is a twistletwig rocker, a hundred years old, at least. It was the poor man's bentwood, made of willow."
"Well, the poor man can have it! Even Whistler's Mother would think it was ugly. Koko sniffed it and made a face. Yum Yum won't go anywhere near it; that should tell you something!"
"I don't consider Yum Yum an arbiter of taste!" The two females had feuded briefly at one time, and Yum Yum won. "As a matter of fact, it's a beautiful piece of folk art, and a dealer on the East Coast recently advertised one for $2,000."
"You're pulling my leg!"
"I'm not! This is a choice collectible! Do you want to sell? Amanda will give you a thousand without blinking. Is it comfortable?"
"Very, but I still think it's a nightmare masquerading as furniture."
"Go back! You're not ready!" Fran said impatiently. "The chair is linear sculpture! It'll be a dynamic accent for your light, contemporary furniture. Live with it for a while, and you'll be writing a treatise for the "Qwill Pen" on the charms of twistletwig. I'll help you do some research."
She had said the magic word; whenever anyone mentioned material for his column, Qwilleran went on red alert. To save face he pointed to a wooden box on her desk. "What's that? Is that another high-priced collectible?" It was slightly crude, in the size and shape of a two-pound loaf of bread.
"That's an English pencil box," Fran said. "A country piece, rather old. I believe it's walnut. It came from the Witherspoon estate in Lockmaster."
The wood was a mellow brown enhanced by the distress marks of age. The lid was rimmed with a fine line of brass, and there was a small brass key in the lock. Qwilleran lifted the lid and found a shallow compartment.
"You could use it for cufflinks," she suggested.
"I don't use cufflinks. No one in Pickax uses cufflinks! What I need is a place to lock up my pens. One of our resident cat burglars has been swiping them, and I suspect Koko."
"This would be perfect, and you could use the drawer at the bottom for paper clips."
"Yum Yum opens drawers and collects paper clips." He tugged at the drawer. "It's jammed."
"No, it isn't. There's a secret latch."
"I'll take it," he said. "Also my snapshot." Carrying the pencil box under his arm, Qwilleran walked to his car two blocks away; parking was a major problem in downtown Pickax. He could never set foot in the center of town without meeting a dozen acquaintances, and today he threw greetings to his barber, an off- duty patrolman, the cashier from Toodles' Market, and the proprietor of Scottie's Men's Store, who said, "Aye, there's the Laird hi'self!
When will you be comin' in to be measured for a kilt?"
"Not until you hear from my undertaker," Qwilleran retorted.
Then Larry Lanspeak, on the way to the bank, stopped him to ask, "What's that you're carrying? Your lunch bucket?"
"No, a pistol case. I'm on my way to a duel.... How's the play coming, Larry?"
"We've had problems. Fran and the new girl from Chicago wanted to incorporate a pyramid in the forest scenes. Imagine cluttering the stage, complicating the blocking, and confusing the audience with such a senseless gimmick! Carol, Junior, and I had to threaten to drop out before Fran would listen to reason. That girl is a good client of hers and also made a sizable donation to the club's operating budget. Politics! Politics!"
Arriving home with his English pencil box, Qwilleran filled the top compartment with felt-tip pens. One of the black ones was missing again, and he found it in the foyer. The drawer he filled with jumbo paper clips. The Siamese watched, their inquisitive tails curved like scimitars. "Foiled, you villains!" he said as he locked the lid. He left the key in the lock, since neither cat had learned how to turn keys. It would be only a matter of time, he surmised.
He and Polly dined early at the Old Stone Mill, as she was attending a dessert-and-coffee wedding shower for one of the library clerks. "Would you care to join us?" she asked teasingly. "Men often attend showers now, you know."
"This man doesn't," he said, putting a brusque end to the subject. "The electrician and plumber were working on your house this morning. It's beginning to look less like a lumberyard and more like a habitation."
"What am I going to do with all those mounds of soil they excavated for the foundation?" she asked with a worried frown.
"I suppose they'll use some of it for fill and then grade the lot. They'll move the dirt anywhere you say, with two swipes of the bulldozer. "
"I'd love to have a berm between the house and the highway. With plantings it would give a sense of privacy, but I don't want it to look landscaped. I want it to look completely natural. How does one do that?"
Rather too sharply Qwilleran said, "One calls Kevin Doone. He attended horticultural college for four years to learn how to do that."
"Do I bore you with my concerns about the house, dear?" Polly asked with a frank gaze.
"You never bore me! You know that. But for your own sake - I wish you'd delegate your problems to the professionals instead of trying to make all the decisions yourself."
"It'll be the only house I'll ever build, and I want it to express me," she said meekly. "I've always lived in places where I've had to compromise and make do."
"I understand, and I apologize for being flip. What else is preying on your mind? I want to hear."
"Well... the interior. I'd love to have white plastered walls and Williamsburg blue woodwork. I saw it in a magazine - with country antiques - but one needs good furniture with such a stark background. My things aren't good, but they're family heirlooms, and I couldn't part with them. I know wallpaper backgrounds are more flattering to a hodgepodge of furniture, but... I'm absolutely smitten with the idea of white walls and blue woodwork. Last night I couldn't sleep for thinking about it."
The solution would be so easy, he thought, if she would let him bankroll a houseful of pedigreed country antiques. She could have the twistletwig rocker for starters. But Polly would never approve of such largess. He said, "Suppose one of your clerks came to you with such a problem. How would you advise her?"
After a pause, she said with an abashed half-smile, "I'd tell her to keep the things she loves and use wallpaper."
"And I believe you'd be right."
Polly breathed a large sigh. "I've been doing all the talking. How thoughtless of me! What have you been doing?"
"Well, I had a chat with your builder, and he's not a bad fellow, in spite of his raggle-taggle appearance and double negatives. I've come to the conclusion that Moose County is bilingual. Half of us speak standard English, and the other half speak Moose."
"What did you talk about?"
"Soccer, and the fact that one of his ancestors built the barn. Neither of us mentioned his father, of course, but I inquired about his mother's health. He seems to think that a Swiss doctor has a cure for her rare disease. One wonders how true it is, and how effective, and how safe."
"It's not to be dismissed out-of- hand," Polly asserted. "Alternative medicine has always been practiced in other countries, and now by maverick physicians here."
Then it was time for her to leave for the wedding shower. Qwilleran drove her back to the library, where her car was parked, and then went home to phone Celia.
She was waiting eagerly for his call. "I had a ball!" she cried. "Virginia is a lot of fun. She's contralto soloist at the little Stone Church. She told me I could sing in the choir. And do you want to hear something funny? There's a cat that attends services every Sunday! They leave the front door ajar, and she walks in, picks out a lap, and sleeps all through the sermon.... Besides working at the library, Virginia has three teenagers, a dog, two cats, a hutch of rabbits, and some chickens."