Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 10 Who Talked to Ghosts

The deputy produced a photograph of a man, full-face and profile. "Have you seen this person in the vicinity in the last two or three days?"

"Can't say that I've ever seen this face." It was the face of a once - handsome but now debauched thirty-year-old. "Is he the man you're looking for?" Qwilleran asked with feigned innocence.

"This is the victim. We're interested in his movements in the last few days."

"I'll let you know if anything comes to mind." "Appreciate it."

Qwilleran closed the door after the deputy, straightened the crumpled rug, and went to look for Koko. This time he was on the dining table, guarding the bible and twitching his whiskers.

"Aha! Leather!" Qwilleran said aloud. The binding was elaborately embossed cowhide with gold-tooling, and the fore-edges of the pages were gilded. Probably a hundred years old, he guessed. Opening the bible to check the date of publication, he went no farther than the flyleaf. The page was covered with hand-written family records, and some of the names and dates demanded Qwilleran's immediate attention.

-16-

WHILE THE COWHIDE binding of the historic bible may have attracted Koko, it was the flyleaf that occupied Qwilleran's attention for the next few hours. He forgot to have lunch, and the Siamese respected his concentration and refrained from interrupting, although Koko stood by for moral support. This grand book had once rated a place of importance and reverence on someone's parlor table. More recently it had been relegated to the Fugtree jumble of relics, acquiring some of the mansion's moldy aroma. It was this fustiness that had caused Koko's whiskers to twitch, Qwilleran assumed.

Inside the cover was a salescheck from the Bid-a-Bit Auction House dated August of 1959, stating that Mrs. Fugtree had paid five dollars for the "Bosworth Bible." Making a quick check of the Moose County telephone book, Qwilleran found no Bosworths listed, the family had either died out or moved away. Also inside the cover was an envelope of yellowed newspaper clippings, obviously from the old Pickax Picayune. In typical nineteenth-century style the news items, obituaries, and social notes all resembled classified ads, and the typefaces were microscopic, suggesting that readers had better eyesight in those days.

He scanned the clippings and laid them aside, then turned his attention to the flyleaf. Having heard members of the Genealogical Society talk at great length about their adventures in tracing their lineage, he knew it was customary to keep family records in the bible. He knew nothing of his own ancestry except that his mother's maiden name was Mackintosh, yet he found the Bosworth family tree fascinating.

Unfortunately the generations were not charted in the scientific way. Births, deaths, marriages, and calamities were recorded as they occurred, with the year noted. A house burned down in 1908; a leg was amputated in 1911; someone drowned in 1945. It was a chatty journal as much as a family tree. In the early years entries were written with a wide-nibbed pen dipped in ink that had faded somewhat - later, with a fountain pen that occasionally leaked - and finally, it appeared, with a good-quality ballpoint. The handwriting suggested that the same person had kept the records for more than fifty years, and the dainty script led Qwilleran to believe it was a woman. The last entry was dated 1958, a year before the bible was sold at auction, no doubt in the liquidation of her estate. No member of the family had claimed the nostalgic document. He soon guessed her identity and decided that he liked her. She included squibs of news: A bride had a large dowry or tiny feet; a newborn had red hair or big ears; a death notice was followed by a terse comment, "drank." There was no room on the flyleaf for wasted words, but the newspaper clippings enlarged on the vital statistics.

Qwilleran tackled the investigation with the same gusto he applied to a good meal, and Koko knew something exciting was taking place. He sat on the table and watched intently as the clippings were sorted in neat piles: weddings, births, christenings, business announcements, obituaries, accidents, etc., occasionally putting forth a bashful paw to touch, then withdrawing it when Qwilleran said, "No!"

What first flagged his attention was a date. The first name on the page was Luther Bosworth, born 1874. The similarity to Vince's surname was noted and dismissed; the important factor was the date of death - 1904. If Luther died on May 13 in that year, he was obviously one of the explosion victims, only thirty years old. But would a miner own such a pretentious bible? The cottages provided for miners were little more than shacks, and the mine owners operated company stores that kept the workers constantly in debt.