Braun, Lilian Jackson - The Cat Who 009

Qwilleran himself noticed something different in the atmosphere-an invigorating buoyancy. It was the Mooseville magic! Every summer it attracted droves of tourists from polluted, crime-ridden urban centers in the southern part of the state, which the locals called Down Below.

“It won’t be long now,” he told his passengers.

The lake burst into view, a body of water so vast that its blue met the blue of the sky at some invisible point. At the ” side of the road a chamber of commerce sign welcomed visitors to “Mooseville, 400 miles north of everywhere!” Here the highway ran along the shoreline, ascending gradually to, the top of Mooseville’s famous sand dunes. Qwilleran frowned when he encountered unusual conditions: mud on the pavement, dump trucks coming out of the woods, the whine of chain saws, the grinding din of a backhoe. He regretted the symptoms of lakefront development, while realizing it was inevitable. Next came the rustic arch marking the entrance to the Top o” the Dunes Club, a private community of summer people, Mildred Hanstable included.

Half a mile farther along he turned into a dirt road marked with the letter K on a cedar post. The wicker hamper started to bounce with anticipation. The Siamese knew! It had been two years ago, yet they remembered the scent; they sensed the environment. The private drive meandered through the woods, past wild cherry trees in blossom, through a stand of white birches, up and down over gentle dunes created by lake action eons ago and now heavily wooded with giant oaks and towering, top-heavy pines.

The drive ended in a clearing, and there was the picturesque old cabin, its logs and chinking dark with age, virtually dwarfed by the massive fieldstone chimney.

“Here we are!” Qwilleran announced, opening the top of the hamper. “You stay here while I take a look around.”

While the Siamese hopped about inside the car and stood on hind legs to peer out the windows, he walked to the edge of the dune and surveyed the placid lake.

Gentle waves lapped the sandy beach at the bottom of the dune with seductive splashes. The breeze was a mere caress. Flocks of tiny yellow birds were flitting in the cherry trees. And here, in this quiet paradise, he was to spend the entire summer!

As Hasselrich had promised, the key was under the mat on the screened porch, and Qwilleran unlocked the door eagerly. The moment he opened it, a blast of frigid air slapped him in the face the musty breath of a cabin that had been closed for the winter. He shivered involuntarily and retreated to the porch and the warmth of a summer day. Something had gone wrong! Hasselrich had failed him!

Tentatively he reached a hand around the door jamb and found a wall switch; the hall light responded, so he knew the cabin had power. And someone had been there to remove the sheets shrouding the living room furniture. Qwilleran retreated hastily to the warm porch to think about this unexpected setback.

From his previous visit he vaguely remembered a heating device installed unobtrusively on one wall of the living room. Grabbing a jacket from the car and wishing he had not worn shorts and sandals, he once more braved the dank chill.

Hurriedly he switched on lights and opened the interior shutters that darkened the place. The wall-heater lurked in a dim corner-a flat metal box with louvers and knobs, and a metal label that had the effrontery to read Komfort-Heet.

Qwilleran huffed angrily into his moustache. The thermostat was set for seventy degrees, but the thermometer registered fifty, and to him it felt like a damp thirty. He dialed the thermostat to its highest limit, but there was no rush of heat, not even a reassuring click. He gave the heater a kick, a primitive technique that worked with old steam radiators, but had no effect on the Komfort-Heet.

Qwilleran had spent his life in apartments and hotels, where one had only to notify the manager and a dripping faucet would be fixed or a loose doorknob tightened. About space heaters he was totally ignorant. Of one thing he was certain, however: He could not expose the Siamese to this bone-chilling cold.

They were indoor cats, accustomed to central heat in winter and sunny windowsills in summer.

There was a fireplace, of course, and there were logs in the wood basket, but he could find no matches. Automatically he felt in his jacket pocket, although he had given up pipe-smoking a year before. He checked the other utilities and found that the plumbing functioned and the telephone produced a dial tone. He gave the space heater another kick and reviled its obstinacy.

At that moment he heard an impatient yowl from the car.

Spitting out a suitable expletive, he looked up a number in the slim phone book that listed Mooseville subscribers.

“Good morning!” chirruped a woman’s pleasant voice.

“Mildred, this is Qwill,” he said abruptly. “I’m at the cabin. I just drove up with the cats to spend the summer.”

“That’s ducky!” she said. “You can come to the beach party tomorrow night.”