Qwilleran jumped out of the car and shouted over his shoulder: "The cabin door's wide open!" He rushed indoors, followed by a hesitant Rosemary. "Someone's been in here! There's a bar stool knocked over… and blood on the white rug! Koko, what happened? Who was in here?" Koko rolled over on his haunches and licked his paws, spreading his toes and extending his claws.
From the guest room Rosemary called: "This window's open! There's glass on the floor, and the shutter's hanging from one hinge. The screen's been cut!" It was the window overlooking the septic tank and the wooded crest of the dune.
"Someone broke in to get the cassette," Qwilleran said. "See? He set up a bar stool to reach the moose head. He fell off — or jumped off in panic — and gave the stool a back-kick. I'll bet Koko leaped on the guy's head from one of the beams. His eighteen claws can stab like eighteen stilettoes, and Koko isn't fussy about where he grabs. There's a lot of blood; he could have sunk his fangs into an ear." "Oh, dear!" Rosemary said with a shudder.
"Then the guy ran out the door-maybe with the cat riding on his head and screeching. Koko's been licking his claws ever since we got home." "Did the man get the cassette?" "It wasn't up there. I have it hidden. Don't touch anything. I'm going to call the sheriff — again." "If my car had been parked in the lot, this wouldn't have happened, Qwill. He'd think someone was home." "We'll pick up your car tomorrow." "I'll have to drive home on Sunday. I wish you were coming with me, Qwill. There's a dangerous man around here, and he knows you've found his cassette. What are you going to tell the sheriff?" "I'm going to ask him if he likes music, and I'll play Little White Lies." Later that evening Rosemary and Qwilleran sat on the porch to watch the setting sun turn the lake from turquoise to purple. "Did you ever see such a sky?" Rosemary asked. "It shades from apricot to mauve to aquamarine, and the clouds are deep violet." Koko was pacing restlessly from the porch to the kitchen to the guest room and back to the porch.
"He's disturbed," Qwilleran explained, "by his instinctive savagery in attacking the burglar. Koko is a civilized cat, and yet he's haunted by an ancestral memory of days gone by and places far away, where his breed lurked on the walls of palaces and temples and sprang down on intruders to tear them to ribbons." "Oh, Qwill," Rosemary laughed. "He smells the turkey in the oven, that's all."
14
Rosemary picked up her car at the Mooseville garage, and Qwilleran picked up his mail at the post office.
"I heard the bad news on the radio," Lori said. "What a terrible way to go!" "And yet it was in character," Qwilleran said. "You've got to admit it was dramatic — the kind of media event that Fanny would like." "Nick and I want to go to the memorial service tommorrow." He said: "We're on our way to Pickax now, and we're taking the cats. There was a break-in at the cabin yesterday, and we think Koko attacked the burglar and drove him away." "Really?" Lori's blue eyes were wide with astonishment.
"There was blood on the rug, and Koko was licking his claws with unusual relish. If one of your postal patrons turns up with a bloody face, tip me off. Anyway, I'm not leaving Koko and Yum Yum at the cabin alone until this thing is cleared up. They're out in the car right now, disturbing the peace on Main Street." Rosemary drove her car back to the cabin and parked it in the clearing. Then the four of them headed for Pickax at a conservative speed that would not alarm Yum Yum.
Rosemary mentioned that the garage mechanic was going to the memorial service.
"Fanny had a real fan club in Moose County," Qwilleran said. "For a name that used to be despised, Klingenschoen has made a spectacular comeback." He swerved to avoid hitting a dead skunk, and the Siamese raised noses to sniff — alert, with ears back and whiskers forward.
Rosemary said: "I've been thinking about that odor at the turkey farm. It wasn't a barnyard smell; it was a bad case of human B.O. I think the farmer has a drastic diet deficiency. I wish I could suggest it to his wife without offending her." Next the car hit a pothole, and Yum Yum launched a tirade of Siamese profanity that continued all the way to Pickax.
Qwilleran parked in the driveway of the imposing stone house with its three floors of grandeur. "Here we are, back at Manderley," he quipped.
"Oh, is that the name of the place?" Rosemary asked innocently.
The two animals were shut up in the kitchen with their blue cushion, their commode, and a bowl of water, while Qwilleran and Rosemary continued their search for the will.
The library desk was a massive English antique, its drawers containing tax records, birth and death documents, insurance policies, real estate papers, investment information, paid bills, house inventories, and hundred-year-old promissory notes… but no will. The desk in Aunt Fanny's sitting room was a graceful French escritoire devoted to correspondence: love letters from the Twenties; silly chit-chat about «beaux» written by Qwilleran's mother when she and Fanny were in college; brief notes from Fanny's son at boarding school; and recent letters typed on Daily Fluxion letterheads. But still no will.
"Here's something interesting, Qwill," Rosemary said. "From someone in Atlantic City. It's about Tom, asking Fanny to hire him as a man-of-all-work." She scanned the lines hastily. "Why, Qwill! He's an exconvict! It says in this letter he's about to be paroled… but he needs a place to go… and the promise of a job. He's not real sharp, it says… but he's a hard worker… obeys orders and never makes any trouble… Listen to this, Qwill. He took a rap and got ten years… but he's being released for good behavior… Oh, Qwill! What kind of people did Fanny know in New Jersey?" "I can guess," Qwilleran said. "Let's go to lunch." He checked the Siamese; they were perched on their blue cushion on top of the refrigerator and were as contented as could be expected under the circumstances. He found the handyman working in the yard.
"Hello, Tom," he said sadly. "This is an awful thing that has happened." Tom had lost his bland, boyish expression and looked twenty years older. He nodded and stared at the grass. "Are you going to the memorial service tomorrow?" "I never went to one. I don't know what to do." "You just go in and sit down and listen to the music and the speeches. It's a way of saying goodbye to Miss Klingenschoen. She'd like to know that you were there." Tom leaned on his rake and bowed his head. His eyes brimmed.
Qwilleran said: "She was good to you, Tom, but you were also a great help to her. Remember that. You made the last years of her life easier and happier." The handyman smeared his wet face with his sleeve. His grief was so poignant that Qwilleran felt — for the first time since hearing the news — a constriction in his throat. He coughed and started talking about the broken window at the cabin. "I've got a piece of cardboard in the window now, but if it rains hard and the wind blows from the east…" "I'll fix it," Tom said quietly.