There they were — sitting on the two gilt chairs like two reigning heads of state on their thrones — with brown paws tucked fastidiously under white breasts and brown ears worn like two little crowns.
"You guys look pretty contented," Qwilleran remarked. "Didn't take you long to feel at home." Koko squeezed his eyes and said, "Yow," and Yum Yum, whose eyes were slightly crossed, peered at Qwilleran with her perpetual I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about look and murmured something. Her normal speaking voice was a soprano shriek, but in her softer moments she uttered a high-pitched «Mmmm» with her mouth closed.
The newsman went to work. He opened the typewriter case, hit a few keys on his newly acquired machine and thought, Andy may have been prudent, ethical, intelligent, and good-looking, but he kept a scruffy typewriter. It was filled with eraser crumbs, and the ribbon had been hammered to shreds. Furthermore, the missing letter was not the expendable Z but the ubiquitous E. Qwilleran began to write: "Th* spirit of th* lat* Andr*w Glanz hov*r*d ov*r Junktown wh*n th* tr*asur*s of this highly r*sp*ct*d d*al*r w*r* sold at auction to th* cr*am of th* city's junk*rs." He described the cream: their purposely raffish clothes, their wacky conversation, the calculated expressions on their faces. He had made no notes during the day; after twenty-five years of newspapering, his mind was a video tape recorder.
It was slow work, however. The tavern table was rickety. The lack of an E was frustrating, and the asterisks — inserted for the benefit of the typesetter — dazzled his eyes. Between paragraphs, moreover, a pair of piercing eyes kept boring into his consciousness. He knew that kind of stare. It indicated one of two things. The elegant Miss Duckworth was either myopic — or frightened.
At one point Qwilleran was alerted by a low rumble coming from Koko's throat, and soon afterward he heard footsteps slowly mounting the stairs and entering the front apartment. Some minutes later he heard a telephone ring in the adjoining rooms. Then the heavy footsteps started down the hall again.
Qwilleran's curiosity sent him hurrying to the door for a close-up of the man who wore a Santa Claus cap. He saw instead a Napoleonic bicorne perched squarely above a round face that lacked eyebrows.
The man threw up his hands in exaggerated surprise. His small bloodshot eyes stretched wide in astonishment.
"Sir! You startled us!" he said in an overly dramatic voice.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to. I just moved in here. My name's Qwilleran." "Welcome to our humble abode," said the man with a sweeping gesture. He suddenly looked down. "And what have we here?" Koko had followed Qwilleran into the hall and was rubbing against the stranger's rubber boots in an affectionate way.
"I've never seen him do that before," Qwilleran said. "Koko usually doesn't warm up to strangers right away." "They know! They know! Ben Nicholas is the friend of bird and beast!" "You have a shop next door, I understand. I'm with the Daily Fluxion, and I'm writing a series on Junktown." "Pray visit us and write a few kind words. We need the publicity." "Tomorrow," Qwilleran promised.
"Till then!" With an airy wave of the hand the dealer' started downstairs, his ridiculously long scarf dragging on the carpeted treads behind him. "A customer awaits us," he explained. "We must be off." Mrs. Cobb was right, Qwilleran thought. Ben Nicholas was an idiot, but Koko evidently approved.
Again all was quiet in the hall beyond Qwilleran's door. Recklessly the newsman wrote about things he did not understand (a M*iss*n armorial sucri*r, *arly Am*rican tr**n, and A Qu*zal compot* in quincunx d*sign), making frequent trips to the dictionary.
After a while, as he sat there pounding out copy with the two long fingers of each hand, he thought he saw — out of the corner of his eye — something moving. He turned his head and looked over his roll-top desk just in time to see the door slowly opening inward. It opened a few inches and stopped.
"Yes? Who is it?" Qwilleran demanded.
There was no answer. He jumped up and went to the door, opening it wide. No one was there, but at the end of the hall, in a jumble of furniture, there was a flicker of movement. Qwilleran pressed his weary eyeballs with his fingers and then stared at the confusion of mahogany, pine, and walnut-legs, lids, drawers, seats, and backs. He saw it again — behind a low blanket chest. It was the tip of a brown tail.
"Koko!" he said sharply.
There was no reply from the cat.
"Koko, come back here!" He knew it was Koko; there was no kink in the tail tip.
The cat ignored him, as he customarily did when concentrating on important business of his own.
Qwilleran strode down the hall and saw Koko disappear behind the parlor organ. The man could guess how the cat had managed to get out. Old houses had loosely fitting doors with weak latches, or else they had swollen doors, thick with paint, that refused to close at all. Koko had pulled the door open with his claws. He was clever about doors; he knew when to pull and when to push.
The man leaned over a marble-topped commode and peered behind the parlor organ. "Get out of there, Koko! It's none of your business." The cat had leaped to a piano stool. He was sniffing intently. With whiskers back, he moved his nose like a delicate instrument up and down the length of a sharp metal object with a brass ball at its base.
Qwilleran's moustache bristled. The cat had walked out of the apartment and had gone directly to the finial. He was sniffing it with mouth open and fangs bared, a sign of repugnance.
Qwilleran reached behind the organ and grabbed Koko around the middle. The cat squawked as if he were being strangled.
"Mrs. Cobb!" the man called through the open door of his landlady's apartment. "I've changed my mind. I want a key." While she rummaged through the keybox, he touched his moustache gingerly. There was an odd feeling in the roots of it-a tingling sensation he had experienced several times before. It always happened when there was murder in the air.
6
Late that evening Qwilleran sampled the abolitionist's library and became fascinated by a volume of bound copies of The Liberator, and it was after midnight when he realized he had nothing in the apartment for breakfast. He had noticed an all-night grocery on the corner. so he put on his overcoat and the latest acquisition in his wardrobe, a porkpie hat in black and white checked tweed with a rakish red feather. It was the reddest red feather he had ever seen, and he liked red.
He locked the door with a four-inch key and went down the squeaking stairs. Snow had begun to fall — in a kindly way this time, without malice — and Qwilleran stood on the front steps to enjoy the scene. Traffic was sparse, and with the dimness of the outdated streetlights and the quaintness of the buildings and the blessing of the snow, Junktown had an old-time charm. The snow sugared the carved lintels of doors and windows, voluted iron railings, tops of parked cars, and lids of trash cans. At the nearby intersection there was a glow on the whitened sidewalks, spilling out from the grocery, the drugstore, and the bar called The Lion's Tail. A man came out of the bar, walking with uncertain dignity and clutching for a handrail that did not exist. A girl in tight trousers and spotted fur jacket sauntered past the Cobb mansion, staring at passing cars. Catching sight of Qwilleran, she slithered in his direction. He shook his head. Ben Nicholas emerged from his shop next door and walked toward the bar, slowly and solemnly, moving his lips and paying no attention to the newsman on the steps.
Turning up his coat collar, Qwilleran went to Lombardo's grocery. It was an old-fashioned market with $4.95.Christmas trees heaped on the sidewalk and, inside, a smell of pickles, sausage, and strong cheese. He bought instant coffee and a sweet roll for his breakfast and some round steak and canned consomm for the cats. He also selected some cheese — Cheddar for himself, cream cheese for Yum Yum, and a small wedge of blue for Koko, wondering if the domestic product would be acceptable; Koko was used to genuine Roquefort.
Just as the newsman was leaving the store, the eyes that had been haunting his thoughts all evening materialized in front of him. The blue-white porcelain complexion was wet with snow, and the lashes were spangled with snowflakes.