Qwilleran said, "Now that I'm dropping out of the Theatre Club, Polly, I'm going to review plays for the paper."
"You'll make a wonderful drama critic."
"It means two passes to every opening night, fifth row, center. I hope you'll be my steady theatre date."
"I'll be happy to accept. You know, Qwill, your columns have been very good. I'm sorry I scolded you about your journalism. I especially liked your profile on Eddington Smith."
"Incidentally, when Edd and I were discussing the Fitch case, I mentioned the possibility of rare-book thieves, and he hemmed and hawed - never would say what was on his mind."
"Well, it's a possibility," she said. "I've heard that Cyrus Fitch owned some pornographic books that certain collectors would commit any crime to possess. They're said to be locked up in a small climate-controlled room along with George Washington's Farewell Address and Gould's Birds of Great Britain."
"If Edd lets me go to the mansion to. help him dust books, I'll check out the hot stuff," Qwilleran said.
And then she told him something that caused him to wince. "I'm leaving for Chicago Wednesday. A library conference. I'm catching the morning shuttle."
She added a questioning glance. It was customary for him to drive her to the airport, but... he and Fran were also leaving on the Wednesday morning shuttle! He thought fast.
"Wait! I think I heard something!" He jumped out of the car and walked a few paces, stalling for time. Here was a ticklish situation! He and Polly were rediscovering their old camaraderie; they had shared the blanket during the chilly hours before dawn; he had hoped for reconciliation. How would she react to a jaunt to Chicago with her rival? As far as he was concerned, it was a business trip to select furniture. Would Polly accept that explanation graciously? Did Fran - with her "cozy hotel" - contemplate it as a business trip? She had made the hotel and travel reservations and would add the charges to his bill - plus an hourly fee for her professional advice, he surmised.
It was awkward at best. One half of his brain ventured to suggest canceling the trip. The other half of his brain sternly maintained his right to schedule a business trip anywhere, at any time, with anyone.
The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, and he walked back to the car.. "You stay here. I'm going to lookaround," he said. "If they holed up for the night, they'll start getting hungry when the sun rises, and they might come crawling out. Watch for them while I go searching."
"Will the glasses help?" Reaching under the seat, Polly handed him the binoculars she used for birding.
The woods that had been a black, incomprehensible mass in the dark of night were becoming defined: evergreens, giant oaks, undergrowth. He walked along the highway to a spot where five, tall elm trees grew in a straight line perpendicular to the road. They were obviously trees that had been planted many years before, possibly to border a path or sideroad to some old farmhouse long since abandoned. He was right. An unused dirt road, almost overrun with weeds, followed the line of trees. If the Siamese had discovered it the night before, they might have sheltered in the remains of the old farmhouse.
A light breeze rustled the lofty branches of the elms and blew strands of spiderweb across his face. Everything was wet with dew. A faint, rosy glow appeared in the east. He found the site of the house, but it was now only a stone foundation tracing a rectangle among the grasses.
He stopped and called their names, but there was no response. He walked on slowly. Now he was reaching the end of the road. Ahead were the withered trees of a long-neglected orchard, rising in grotesque shapes from a field of weeds. He scanned the orchard with the binoculars, and his heart leaped as he saw a bundle of something on the branch of an old apple tree. He walked closer. The sky was brightening. Yes! The indistinct bundle was a pair of Siamese cats, looking like bookends. They were peering down at the ground, wriggling their haunches as if preparing to leap.
He lowered the field of vision to the base of the tree and his eyes picked up something else, half concealed in the grasses. A ghastly thought flashed through his mind. Could it be a trap? A trap like those that Chad Lanspeak used for foxes? In horror he edged closer. No! It was not a trap. It moved. It was some kind of animal! It was looking up in the tree! The cats were wriggling, ready to jump down!
"Koko!" he yelled. "No! Stay there!"
Both cats jumped, and Qwilleran fled back to the car, shouting to Polly, "I need your car! Radio the sheriff to pick you up! I've found the cats. I'm taking them to the vet!"
"Are they hurt?" she asked in alarm.
"They've had a run-in with a skunk! Don't worry... I'll buy you a new car."
-Scene Eight-
Place: Qwilleran's apartment
Time: The day after the accident on lttibittiwassee Road
QWILLERAN'S car had been towed to the automobile graveyard; Polly's cranberry-red car was at Gippel's garage, being deodorized; the Siamese were spending a few hours at the animal clinic for the same purpose. In his apartment Qwilleran paced the floor, chilled by the realization that they might have been lost forever in the wilderness. They might have suffered a horrible death, and he would never have known their fate. The sheriff's helicopter and the mounted posse and the Boy Scout troop would hardly go searching for those two small bodies. He shuddered with remorse.
It was all my fault, he kept telling himself. He was convinced that it was no drunk driver who ran him off the road; it was someone who was out to get him because he had been asking questions about the murderer of Harley and Belle. Why did he have this compulsion to solve criminal cases? He was a journalist, not an investigator. Yet, he was aware, few journalists accepted their limitations. The profession was teeming with political advisors, economic savants, critics and connoisseurs.
No more amateur sleuthing he promised himself. From now on he would leave criminal investigation to the police. No matter how strong his hunches, no matter how provocative the tingling sensation in the roots of his moustache, he would play it safe. He would interview hobbyists and sheep farmers and old folks in nursing homes, write a chatty column for The Moose County Something, read Moby-Dick aloud to the Siamese, take long walks, eat right, live the safe life.
And then the telephone rang. It was Eddington Smith calling. "I talked to the lawyer, and he said I should check the books against the inventory. You said you'd like to help with the dusting. Do you want to come with me tomorrow?"
Qwilleran hesitated for only the fraction of a moment. What harm would there be in visiting the Fitch library? Everyone said it was an interesting house-virtually a museum.
"You'll have to pick me up," he told the bookseller. "I've wrecked my car." When he turned away from the phone he was finger-combing his moustache in anticipation.
After lunch Mr. O'Dell drove to the clinic in his pickup and brought home two bathed, deodorized, perfumed and sullenly silent Siamese in a cardboard carton punched with airholes. When toe box was opened they climbed out without a glance one way or the other and stole away to their apartment, where they went to sleep.
"A pity it is," said Mr. O'Dell. "The good souls at the clinic were after doin' their best; but sure an' the smell will come back again if the weather turns muggy. It'll just have to wear off, I'm thinkin'... And is there anythin' I can do for you or the little ones, since you're lackin' a car?"
"I'd appreciate it," Qwilleran said, "if you'd go to the hardware store and buy a picnic hamper like the old one that was smashed."