"I'm having a hard time accepting it, too," said Wally. "After I heard about the murder, I couldn't work for days; I was so nervous. I'm glad it's all over."
"I'm not convinced of that. New evidence may come to light."
"That's what my mother says. She used to work for the family when Mr. and Mrs. Fitch lived in Grandpa Fitch's house."
"She did?" Qwilleran patted his bristling moustache.
"She cooked for them after my dad died. That's why the murder hit me so hard, and then Mrs. Fitch's stroke and Mr. Fitch's suicide! It was terrible!"
Following this revelation. Qwilleran had to struggle to keep his mind on the interview. Wally conducted him into a barnlike area that was a bewildering combination of zoo, furrier's workroom, animal hospital, butcher shop, catacomb, and theater backstage. There were freezers, oil drums, a sewing machine, a wall of bleached animal skulls, a skeletonic, long-legged bird. A shaggy, white wolf, not yet fitted with eyes and nose, lay stiffly on its side, its forelegs wrapped in bandages. A brown bear hide was being stretched on a board to make a rug. Fox, skunk, owl, and peacock, were in various stages of dress and undress.
Some of the animals were alive: dogs with wagging tails, a cage of small fluttering birds, a menacing macaw chained to a perch. An orange cat was curled up on a cushion, asleep.
Wally was eager to show and telclass="underline" A box of glass eyes included eleven kinds for owls and twenty-three for ducks. "We have to be authentic," he said... Plastic teeth, tongues, and palates were for animals being mounted with open mouths. Real teeth, Wally explained, would crack and chip... There were ear-liners for deer. He showed how he turned the ears inside out and glued the liners in to stiffen them... Also in evidence were animal forms in yellow plastic foam. "They're manikins." Wally said. "They're good because I can sculpture the foam to fit the skin, then coat the manikin with skin paste, pull the skin over it, fit it and adjust it."
Qwilleran said, "You seem to do a lot with adhesives."
"Yes, it takes all kinds- glue, skin paste, and epoxy for things like putting rods in leg bones. I repaired a damaged eyelid by gluing on a piece of string and painting it. You could never tell anything was wrong."
The young man was an artist at reconstructing animals, making them lifelike, bringing out their natural beauty, but Qwilleran was impatient to see his mother again. The buzzer brought her running from the house with coffee and freshly made doughnuts. He edged into the subject of the Fitch family diplomatically.
"I was their cook for seven years," Mrs. Toddwhistle said with pride. "Practically a member of the family."
"I hear the house is a virtual museum."
She rolled her eyes in disapproval. "Grandpa Fitch was a collector. They have tons of stuff allover the house and it all had to be dusted and vacuumed. They even have a man come in to dust the books."
"Why did you leave their employ?"
"Well!" she said with an emphasis that promised a significant story, "The mister and missus moved to a condominium, and they wanted me to stay and cook for Harley and his bride, but I said no way! Belle was the girl who did the dusting, and I certainly wasn't going to take orders from her! All she liked was pizza! She had eyes set close together. Some men think that's sexy, but I say you can't trust anybody with eyes set close together, Harley only married her to spite his parents. He knew it would embarrass them."
Wally said, "Mother, do you think you should talk about that?"
"Why not? They're all dead. Everybody knows it anyway."
Quickly Qwilleran put in, "Why was Harley antagonistic to his family? He seemed like such an agreeable guy."
"Well, you see, Harley was away for a while, and when he came back he found that David had married his girl! Way back in high school it was always Harley and Jill, David and Fran - football games, proms, sailing and everything, It was quite a shock to everybody when Jill married David."
"How did Mr. and Mrs. Fitch feel about it?"
"It was okay with them! They paid for a big wedding. Jill's folks couldn't have afforded such a blast, although they used to have money. Jill comes from good stock."
"I wonder how Fran reacted to the switch."
"I don't know. She didn't come around any more after that, She's a nice girl, with a lot on the ball, but I guess the missus thought she wasn't good enough for David."
Qwilleran combed his moustache with his fingertips. "I didn't know parents dictated their kids' lives any more. It sounds archaic."
"Money, honey," said Mrs. Toddwhistle, making a "gimme" gesture with her fingers. "Mister and missus got the boys hooked on high living - boats and cars and all - then doled out just enough money so they'd heel and sit up," (One of the dogs trotted over and sat up, expecting a crumb,) "Yes, they gave Harley a big sailboat, but it wasn't in his name. The fancy house that Dayid and Jill live in - it's not theirs, not a stick of it."
"Wally says you don't subscribe to the Chipmunk theory about the murder."
"I sure don't! The police ought to talk to that old boyfriend of Belle's. He was plenty mad when he got jilted."
"The paperhanger?"
She nodded. "He's a quiet kind of fellow, but still watersrun deep... Another doughnut, honey?"
After his third doughnut, Qwilleran thanked them for the refreshments and the interview and left, saying, "That's a beautiful cat you have. I have a couple of Siamese at home."
"Oh, the orange one?" Mrs. Toddwhistle said. "It was killed on the highway, and Wally found it and brought it home. He didn't want to see such a beautiful animal wasted... did you, Wally?"
Later in the afternoon Qwilleran sat at his desk in the studio and tried to organize what he had learned about the art of taxidermy. There was something about salting fresh hides to draw out moisture and tie in the hairs, removing skunk scent with tomato juice or coffee grounds, freezing skins until they could be scraped and tanned. Yet, his mind kept returning to Mrs. Toddwhistle's gossip. It threw some light on the Fitch family and explained Francesca's ruined romance, but it did nothing to further Qwilleran's unofficial investigation. He was hearing conflicting tales from all sides, and he never knew whether his informants were lying or guessing or talking through their hats. Koko, his silent partner in so many previous adventures, seemed to be of no help in pinpointing the truth.
Yum Yum sensed his frustrated mood and sat on the desk with hunched posture and worried eyes. Koko was elsewhere, probably in the living room on the book. shelves.
Qwilleran said to her, "All that cat does is sniff book bindings and hang around waiting for an envelope to lick. I think your friend Koko is hooked! And it's affecting his senses."
"YOW!" came a loud comment from the living room, and Qwilleran went to track it down, Koko was perched on the back of the sofa, tilting the gunboat picture again.
Qwilleran patted his moustache with sudden comprehension, He would visit the decrepit antique shop in Mooseville, where a bogus sea captain had sold him an "original print" that was only a copy!
-Scene Five-
Place: The Captain's Mess, an antique shop in Mooseville
Time: Saturday afternoon
Introducing: CAPTAIN PHLOGG
ON SATURDAY MORNING Qwilleran took the gunboat print off the wall and drove to the resort town of Mooseville to follow up Koko's obvious clue.
The evening before, he had phoned Mrs. Cobb at the museum. "What do you know about The Captain's Mess?" he asked. "What do you know about Captain Phlogg?"
"Oh, dear, I hope you didn't buy anything from that old quack," she said.