"I've spent the whole evening over a hot stove," she announced. "All the dealers are upstairs making plans for the Christmas Block Party. C.C. has the third floor fixed up kind of cute for meetings. He calls it Hernia Heaven. You know, antique dealers are always — Oh, my! You're limping! What happened?" "Bumped my knee." "You must be careful! Knees are pesky things," she warned him. "You sit in the Morris chair and put your leg up on the ottoman, and I'll put the goodies on the tea table between us." She plopped her plumpness into the rocking chair made of bent twigs, unaware that Koko was watching critically from the mantelshelf.
For someone who had spent several hours slaving in the kitchen, Iris Cobb was rather festively attired. Her hair was carefully coifed. She wore a bright pink dress, embroidered with a few sad glass beads, and her two dangling pairs of eyeglasses, one of which was studded with rhinestones.
Qwilleran bit into a rich, dark chocolate square — soft and still warm from the oven and filled with walnut meats while Mrs. Cobb rocked industriously in the twiggy rocking chair.
"I wanted to talk to you about something," she said.
"What I said about Andy's horoscope — I really wasn't serious. I mean I never actually thought there was anything in it. I wouldn't want to stir up any trouble." "What kind of trouble?" "Well, I just heard that you're a crime reporter, and I thought you might be here to — " "That's ancient history," Qwilleran assured her. "Who told you?" "The Dragon. I went over to borrow some beeswax, and she told me you were a famous crime reporter in New York or somewhere, and I thought you might be here to snoop around. I honestly never thought Andy's fall was anything but a misstep on that ladder, and I was afraid you might get the wrong idea." "I see," said Qwilleran. "Well, don't worry about it. I haven't had an assignment on the crime beat in a dog's age." "That's a load off my mind," she said, and she relaxed and began to survey the apartment with a propriety air.
"Do you care for that papered wall?" she asked with a critical squint. "It would drive me crazy to lie in bed and look at all those printed pages from books. They're applied with peelable paste, so you can pull them off if you object — " "To tell the truth, I rather like that wall," Qwilleran said as he helped himself to a second chocolate brownie. "It's Don Quixote mixed with Samuel Pepys." "Well, everyone to his own taste. Are you going away for Christmas? I'll be glad to look after the cats." "No. No plans." "Do you have a Christmas party at the office?" "Just a Christmas Eve affair at the Press Club." "You must have a very interesting job!" She stopped rocking and looked at him with frank admiration.
"Koko!" Qwilleran shouted. "Stop tormenting Yum Yum." Then he added to Mrs. Cobb, "They're both neutered, but Koko sometimes behaves in a suspicious way." The landlady giggled and poured another cup of coffee for him. "If you're going to be alone for Christmas," she said, "you must celebrate with us. C.C. trims a big tree, and my son comes here from St. Louis. He's sort of an architect.
His father — my first husband — was a school-teacher. I'm an English major myself, although you'd never guess it. I never read any more. In this business you don't have time for anything. We've had this house four years, and there's always something — " She prattled on, and Qwilleran wondered about this fatuous little woman. As a newsman, he was used to being cajoled and plied with food-the latter being one of the fringe benefits of the profession — but he would have preferred a landlady who was a degree less chummy, and he hoped she would leave before the dealers came down from Hernia Heaven.
Her overtures were innocent enough, he was sure. Her exuberance was simply a lack of taste. She was not amply endowed with gray matter, and her attempt to reverse herself about Andy's accident was pathetically transparent.
Had she guessed that her husband might be implicated, if it proved to be murder?
"He died of food poisoning — a rare botulism," Mrs. Cobb was saying.
"Who?" asked Qwilleran.
"My first husband. I knew something tragic was going to happen. I'd seen it in his hand. I used to read palms — just as a hobby, you know. Would you like me to read your palm?" "I don't have much faith in palmistry," Qwilleran said, beginning to edge out of the deep-cushioned Morris chair.
"Oh, be a sport! Let me read your future. I won't tell you if it's anything really bad. You don't have to move an inch.
You sit right where you are, and I'll perch on the ottoman." She plumped her round hips down beside his propped foot and gave his leg a cordial pat, then reached for his hand. "Your right hand, please." She held it in a warm moist grasp and stroked the palm a few times to straighten the curled and uncooperative fingers.
Trapped in the big chair, he wriggled uncomfortably and tried to devise a tactful escape.
"A very interesting palm," she said, putting on one pair of glasses.
She was stroking his hand and bending her head close to study the lines when the room exploded in a frenzy of snarling and soprano screams. Koko had pounced on Yum Yum with a savage growl. Yum Yum shrieked and fought back. They rolled over and over, locked in a double stranglehold.
Mrs. Cobb jumped up. "Heavens! They'll kill each other!" Qwilleran yelled, smacked his hands at them, struggled to his feet and whacked the nearest cat's rump. Koko gave a nasty growl, and Yum Yum broke away. Immediately Koko gave chase. The little female went up over the desk, round the Morris chair, under the tea table — with Koko in pursuit. Round and round the room they went, with Qwilleran shouting and Mrs. Cobb squealing. On the fourth lap of the flying circus, Yum Yum ducked under the tea table and Koko sailed over it. Qwilleran made a lucky grab for the coffee pot, but Koko skidded on the tray and sent the cream and sugar flying.
"The rug!" the landlady cried. "Get a towel, quick! I'll get a sponge." She ran from the apartment just as the dealers came hurrying down from Hernia Heaven.
"What's the uproar?" they said. "Who's getting murdered?" "Only a family quarrel," Qwilleran explained, jerking his head toward the cats.
Koko and Yum Yum were sitting quietly in the Morris chair together. She was looking sweet and contented, and Koko was licking her face with affection.
11
Cobb snored again that night. Qwilleran, waked at three o'clock by the pain in his knee, took some aspirin and then listened to the muffled snorts coming through the wall. He wished he had an ice pack. He wished he had never moved to Junktown. The whole community was accident prone, and it seemed to be contagious. Why had he paid a month's rent in advance? No matter; he could stay long enough to complete the Junktown series and then move out, chalking it up to experience: Beware of prospective landladies who give you homemade apple pie. Yes, that was the smart thing to do- concentrate on writing a good series and quit snooping into the activities of a deceased junk dealer.
Then Qwilleran felt a familiar tingling sensation in the roots of his moustache, and he began to argue with himself.
— But you've got to admit there's something dubious about the setup in Andy's workroom.
— So he was murdered. So it was a prowler. Attempted robbery.
— A prowler would whack him on the head and then run. No, the whole incident looked staged. Staged, I said. Did you hear that?
— If you're thinking about the retired actor, forget it. He's a harmless old codger who likes animals. Koko took to him right away.
— Don't forget how that avalanche slid off the roof at the appropriate moment. One of those icicles could have brained you. As for Koko, he can be remarkably subjective. He rejected Mrs. Cobb simply because she squeaked at him.
— Still, it would be interesting to know how she wrenched her back two months ago.