"She's not deaf, I'm sure. She simply chooses not to listen. Maybe you'll be able to get through to her, Rosemary. She seems to favor women… Excuse me a moment. I want to catch those people before they leave." He crossed the room to the wreck-divers and addressed the more formidable of the two.
"Pardon me, sir. Aren't you a correspondent for one of the wire services?" The man shook his head. "Sorry, you're on the wrong track," he said in a deep and less-than-cordial voice.
"But you're a journalist, aren't you? Didn't you do graduate work at Columbia? You covered the last presidential election." "Sorry, none of the above." Qwilleran made a good show of bewilderment and turned to the second man. "I was sure you were a press photographer, and you two worked together on big assignments." More genially the other man said: "Nothin' like that, suh. We're jest a coupla bums up heah awn vacation." Qwilleran apologized, wished them a pleasant holiday, and returned to the booth.
"What was that all about?" Rosemary asked.
"Tell you later." On the way home he explained: "I think there's a syndicate operating around here.
They've been using Fanny's cabin for an underground headquarters. It's secluded; the doors have always been unlocked; and there are three avenues of access or escape: from the beach, from the highway, and from the woods. The boss has been giving tape-recorded orders to his henchmen, hiding the cassette behind the moose head." Rosemary laughed. "Qwill, dear, I know you're kidding me." "I'm serious." "Do you think it's drug-related?" "I think it's shipwreck-looting. The lake is full of valuable wrecks, and there's a book at the cabin that pinpoints their location and describes their cargoes. Some of the boats went down more than a hundred years ago." "But wouldn't the cargo be ruined by this time?" "Rosemary, they weren't shipping automobiles and TV sets in 1850. They were shipping copper ingots and gold bullion. The shipping manifests tell exactly what was aboard each vessel when it sank — how many barrels of whiskey, how many dollars in banknotes and gold. At one time this part of the country was booming." "Why did you talk to the men at the hotel?" "I thought one of them might be the ringleader, but there's no similarity between their voices and the one on the cassette. None at all. But the ringleader is around here somewhere." "Oh, Qwill! You have a fantastic imagination." When they arrived at the cabin Qwilleran unlocked the door and Rosemary entered. He heard her yelp: "Oh! Oh! There are tulips all over the floor!" "Those cats!" Qwilleran bellowed-loud enough to send both of them flying to the guest room.
"They pulled out all the black tulips, Qwill." "I don't blame them. Tulips were never intended to be black." "But you told me once that cats can't distinguish colors." He picked up the flowers, and Rosemary rearranged the bouquets in the impromptu vases on mantel, bar, and dining table. Then they went to the lake porch to await the sunset, stretching out in varnished steamer chairs old enough to have sailed on the Titanic.
Seagulls soared and swooped and squabbled over the dead fish on the beach. Rosemary identified them as herring gulls. The flycatchers, she said, who were performing a nonstop aerial ballet were purple martins. Something brown and yellow that kept whizzing past the porch was a cedar waxwing.
"I hear an owl," Qwilleran said, to prove he was not totally ignorant about wildlife.
"That's a mourning dove," she corrected him. "And I hear a cardinal… and a phoebe.
.. and I think a pine siskin. Close your eyes and listen, Qwill. It's like a symphony." He touched his moustache guiltily. Perhaps he had been listening to the wrong voices.
Here he was in the country, on vacation, surrounded by the delights of nature, and he was trying to identify miscreants instead of cedar waxwings. He should be reading the bird book instead of cross-written letters.
Rosemary interrupted his thought. "Tell me some more about Aunt Fanny." "Ah — well — yes," he said, shifting his attention back to the moment. "For starters.
.. she wears flashy clothes and bright lipstick, and she has a voice like a drill sergeant. She's spunky and bossy and full of energy and ideas." "She must have a wonderful diet." "She has a houseman who drives her around, runs errands, takes care of the garden, cleans the house, and knows how to repair everything under the sun." Rosemary giggled. "He'd make a wonderful husband. How old is he?" "But I have a suspicion he's also a petty thief." "I knew there was a catch," Rosemary said. "How does Koko react to him?"
.. "Very favorably. Tom has the kind of gentle voice that appeals to cats." Koko heard his name and wandered nonchalantly onto the porch.
"Have you been walking Koko on his leash?" "No, but I've contemplated a reconnaissance maneuver. He spends a lot of time staring out the guest room window, and I'd like to know what he finds so interesting." "Rabbits and chipmunks," Rosemary suggested. "There's something more." Qwilleran stroked his moustache. "I have a hunch…" "Let's take him out." "Now?" "Yes. Let's!" On several occasions Koko had been strapped into his blue harness and taken for a walk. A twelve-foot nylon cord donated by a Fluxion photographer served as a leash and gave him a wide range. Frequently Koko's inquisitive nose and catly perception led to discoveries that escaped human observation.
The appearance of the harness produced a noisy demonstration, and when the buckles were tightened Koko uttered a gamut of Siamese sounds denoting excitement. Yum Yum thought he was being tortured and protested loudly.
For the first time since his arrival Koko left the cabin. Outside the porch he found the rope hanging from the brass bell, stretched until he could catch it with a claw, and gave the bell a peal or two. Without hesitation he then turned eastward — past the porch, beyond the cabin itself, around the sandy rectangle that covered the septic tank, and toward the woods. When he reached the carpet of pine needles, acorns, and dried oak leaves, every step was a rustling, crackling experience unknown to a city cat. Squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks retired to safety. A frantic robin tried to distract him from her nest. Koko merely walked resolutely toward the woods on top of the dune. Behind a clump of wild cherry trees was the toolshed.
"How do you like that?" Qwilleran whispered to Rosemary. "He made a beeline for the toolshed." He opened the door, and Koko hopped across the threshold. He gave a single sniff to a canoe paddle and two sniffs to the trash can. "Quick, Rosemary, run and get the flashlight. It's hanging inside the back door." In the inner gloom of the shed Koko glanced at the collection of paint cans and went directly to Tom's cot. Jumping on the threadbare blanket he started pawing industriously, all the while making gutteral noises and flicking his tail in wide arcs. He pawed the sorry excuse for a pillow, pawed the wall with the faded Las Vegas pictures, and returned to pawing the blanket.