Cat Who Went Up the Creek

There was a moment of awkward silence until Qwilleran signaled for the plates to be removed and said, “Shall we look at the dessert menu. I recommend the black walnut pie.”

Doyle was cool, but Wendy’s face was flushed.

“Speaking of pie,” Hannah said hastily, “I’ve been reading nursery rhymes to Danny, and he wanted to know how the blackbirds could sing if they’d been baked in a pie.”

That reminded Qwilleran that Danny had come to see if the cats had found their mittens.

There was more uncomfortable small talk while they waited for three orders of pie; Wendy had decided against having dessert. And the festive spirit of the occasion never revived.

They walked back down the hill—Hannah chattering to Doyle, Qwilleran trying to cheer up Wendy—and they forgot to exchange books.

chapter eleven

Early on Monday morning Qwilleran went to the inn for a quick breakfast, taking his review of Pirates to be faxed. He also told the Bambas about the plans for the black walnut heirlooms at the Antique Village.

Nick said, “I’ll send two guys to Sandpit Road to get them out of hock—right away!”

“Not so fast!” Qwilleran said. “Arrangements have to be made. And when you pick up the stuff, you should be one of the guys. We don’t want the cracked mirrors to be shattered. The way they’re cracked, they’re mysterious; if shattered, they would be just a mess.”

“Will we get a credit line for the exhibit?”

“A tasteful card,” Qwilleran told him, “will say that the pieces were found in a turret at the Nutcracker Inn, where they had been locked up for a hundred years. It will also be mentioned in the leaflet handed out to visitors.”

Lori said, “Qwill, you’d make a wonderful publicity man!”

“Watch your language! To a journalist, them’s fighting words.”

Janelle was waiting in the office of the Antique Village when Qwilleran arrived with his tape recorder. She poured two cups of coffee. The painting itself had been brought from the display case and was propped on the desk. Briefly he tried to analyze its fascination. Although it had been painted long ago and far away, the people on the beach seemed so real that one was teleported into the scene. Sunning, digging in the sand, and reading all without a beer cooler or topless swimmer.

“Okay, how did you happen to acquire this painting?” he asked Janelle.

“Well,” she began, “when I was attending MCCC, a classmate and I went to Chicago on spring break. First time! We gawked at the tall buildings, squealed when we rode the elevated, giggled on escalators, and ate food we’d never heard of before. One day we ventured into a big gallery selling furniture from European castles and paintings as big as billboards. But I saw this little painting among the giants and couldn’t stop staring at it. A man was walking around with his hands behind his back, and I asked about it. He said it came in a large shipment and was smaller than they usually handled, but if I liked it I could have it for ten dollars! I felt weak in the knees!”

“Were you able to learn anything about it?”

“A sticker on the back gives 1921 as the date and the name of a gallery in Amsterdam. It’s signed, but no one can make out the signature.”

It was a beach scene with the ocean in the background and the sand dotted with bathers and some beach chairs made of wicker and hooded for protection against the sun.

Qwilleran said, “I don’t see any sun worshippers, any bikinis, any frisbees or any Jet Skis.”

A small boy with a tin pail and shovel was sitting on the sand, digging, while a woman bent over him with motherly concern. She was wearing a blue dress with short full skirt and puffed sleeves—the focal point of the artwork—also a cloche hat and knee-high stockings.

Janelle said, “I showed it to some elderly women, and they said that was a bathing dress; the cloche was a rubber bathing hat; she was wearing bathing shoes and bathing stockings. That was how she took a dip in the waves. . . . But you haven’t heard the best part! I was living at home, and my mother let me hang my treasure in the living room. One day my grandfather visited us. He was born in the Netherlands, and he said, ‘I know that beach! I was there when the picture was painted! . . . That’s me digging in the sand! The woman in blue was my mother!’ Qwill, it gave me shivers! The woman in blue was my great-grandmother! Is that why the painting had such a powerful attraction for me in the gallery?”

“Hmmm,” he mused, tamping his moustache. “Amazing coincidence!” He lived with Koko; he knew all about amazing coincidence.

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” came a poorly timed comment from the main hall.

“Same to you!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Janelle, thanks for a thought-provoking story. It’ll run in my Friday space, and readers can come in to see the painting on Saturday.”

Another voice came from the main hall, “Ms. Van! Ms. Van! They spelled my name wrong on my booth!”

Janelle shrugged. Qwilleran saluted and left.