"What did you do?" Qwilleran asked sternly.
"I asked if my grandson could come for a whole week during the holidays, even though he's only thirteen. They said okay, but no singing dogs."
"I suppose you realize, Celia, that we're flirting with a security hazard. Clayton will want to know why the management is buttering you up and why the Sun setters are raving about the big Christmas party you gave. You'll have to tell him the truth."
"He can be trusted, Mr. Qwilleran. He won't give me away. He'll be glad to see me putting one over on Betty and Claude."
"Hmmm... Let me think about this," Qwilleran said, cupping his moustache with his hand. "You say he plays chess with Mr. Crocus. Perhaps he could get the old gentleman to unburden himself about things that are troubling him. Is Clayton smart enough, mature enough, to handle this? Mr. Crocus knew about Mrs. Gage's bequest to the park; he might know other things that would shed light on the matter we're investigating."
"I'm sure Clayton could do it, Mr. Qwilleran. He's a very bright boy and much more on the ball than I am. He reads a lot, you know. Yes, I'm positive he could handle it. He's thirteen now."
"All right. It's worth a try," Qwilleran said. "Also, have Clayton bring a cat with him - full-grown, because this is supposed to be your sister's cherished is pet. You'll receive a check from the Chicago bank to cover the purchase of the cat, air transportation, catfood, and a few holiday treats for you and Clayton."
"That's very nice of you," Celia said. "Now Clayton can have one of those five-dollar sundaes. Is there anything else I can do?"
"You should decide on a name for the cat and arrange to feed him or her in the manner to which a $10,000-a-year animal is accustomed."
"I've been thinking about a name. We don't know whether it will be a boy or a girl, but either way I think Windy would be a good name, since it's supposed to be from Chicago."
"Do you have a second choice?" Qwilleran asked. "Windy has other connotations when applied to an animal."
After discussing this weighty subject at length, they decided to call the cat Wrigley. Celia enjoyed a few laughs, and Qwilleran was in a good mood when he hung up.
The occasion seemed to call for a dish of ice cream, and while in the kitchen he picked up Koko's current collection: a petrified stick of chewing gum, a mildewed toothbrush, a card of tiny safety pins, and other items of more than usual interest to Qwilleran. One was a purple satin pincushion embroidered ERG and obviously homemade, possibly by a child. There was a business card from Breze Services on Sandpit Road, the nine-digit zip code indicating that it was of fairly recent date. A canceled check for $100 - dated December 24, 1972 - had been paid to Lena Inchpot; was that the housekeeper's Christmas bonus from Mrs. Gage, or a salary check? An unpaid traffic ticket issued by the sheriff department had been issued by D. Fincher.
Of greatest interest was a yellowed envelope inscribed "Lethe" in what Qwilleran now knew to be Euphonia's handwriting, which had an exaggerated up-stroke at the end of each word. It was another poem, he assumed, Lethe being the mythical river in Hades, said to induce forgetfulness. Forgetting and not forgetting had been much on Euphonia's mind, he thought. The envelope was sealed, and he used a kitchen knife to slit it. What he found was no poem, but an official paper, a birth certificate issued in Lockmaster County:
Date of birth: Nov. 27, 1928
Name of child: Lethe Gage
Sex: female
Color: white
Name of mother: Euphonia Roff Gage
Name of father:
Qwilleran rushed to the telephone. "Brace yourself for some news, Junior!" he said when his young friend answered. "You've got an aunt you didn't know about!"
Junior listened to the reading of the certificate. "Can you beat that! That's when Grandpa was in prison! The father must have been the horse farmer."
"Here's the question," said Qwilleran. "Is Lethe still alive? Or is she the 'dead princess' in Euphonia's memorial program? If she's still around, wouldn't she have come forward for a slice of the inheritance?"
"She might be living somewhere else. She might not know Grandma's dead."
"Could be." Qwilleran thought of the foreign postcards and envelopes with foreign stamps that Koko had dragged out of the closet. "In any case, you should notify the attorney."
-17-
AS CHRISTMAS APPROACHED, Qwilleran accepted invitations to holiday parties, but his mind was on Operation Greenback, and he made it a point to be home between five and six o'clock, the hour when Celia might call with another report. Increasing tremors in the roots of his moustache told him he was on the right track.
One evening at five-fifteen the telephone rang, and a hollow voice said, "This is Celia, Mr. Qwilleran."
"You sound different," he said.
"I'm calling from a different mall on the other side of town, and the phones are more private. I had a scare the last time I talked to you."
"What kind of scare?"
"Well, after I hung up, I saw Betty and Claude watching me. They were waiting in line outside a restaurant. I didn't know what to do. Should I make up some kind of explanation? Then I thought, What would Clayton do? He'd play it cool. So I walked over to them and said hello, and they invited me to have dinner with them, but I'd eaten already. Whew! I was worried for a while."
"You handled it very well," Qwilleran said. "Do you have anything to report on your last assignment?"
"Only that the furniture dealer down here will give me $100,000 for the things on the list you sent me, plus $50,000 for everything else in the house. Boy! What I could do with that much money! I'm beginning to wish I'd had a rich sister."
Qwilleran made no comment. The same list of antique furnishings had been appraised by Susan Exbridge at $900,000. He said, "Good job, Celia! That's the kind of information we need."
"Thank you, chief. Do you have another assignment for me?"
"Phase Four of Operation Greenback will be mailed tomorrow."
In mailing the briefing he included a Christmas bonus with instructions to buy something exciting for herself.
MISSION: Operation Greenback, Phase Four
ASSIGNMENT: Buy an expensive Christmas plant for
the manager's office... Tell them you'll have a surplus
of cash when you sell your sister's possessions; ask if
they can recommend a safe investment... Inquire if it's
possible to place bets on the dog races without going to
the track, since you don't like crowds.
Although Qwilleran made generous Christmas gifts and ate more than his share of Christmas cookies, there was not a shred of holiday decoration in his cavernous, sparsely furnished living quarters.
"How can you stand this gloomy place?" Polly asked him.
One evening, on her way home from the library, she delivered a green wreath studded with holly berries and tiny white lights. "For your library," she said. "Just hang it up and plug it in."
The pinpoints of light only emphasized the somber effect of dark paneling, old books, and worn furniture, as they sat on the sofa sipping hot cider. The Siamese, sniffing Bootsie in absentia, applied wet noses to Polly's person, here and there.
"Out!" Qwilleran scolded, pointing to the door.
"They don't bother me," Polly protested.
"I expect them to have some manners to match their aristocratic facade... Out!"
They left the room but not immediately. First they thought about it, then scratched an ear and licked a paw, then thought about it some more, then sauntered out.