Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 12 Who Knew A Cardinal

"Various authorities are there, doing their duty. No one is talking, of course. I keep my nose out of it."

"Dad told Mother that they found traces of foam rubber in the car, meaning it had been used as a silencer."

"But the cats heard it. They can hear a leaf fall."

"Want to hear something ironic?" the designer asked. "Hilary ordered custom- made treatments for twenty windows - the whole main floor - and they arrived by motor freight this morning. This morning! I called Amanda, and she had a fit."

"What does his house look like?"

"It's one of those stone houses on Goodwinter Boulevard, you know. The main floor is done in Japanese; he did it himself. The window treatments we ordered for him last month are shoji screens. I've never been upstairs, but he told me the bedrooms are filled with books."

Thinking of City of Brotherly Crime Qwilleran said, "I wouldn't mind seeing that place."

"I have the key, and Amanda wants the screens to be on the premises when we file our claim on the estate. Would you like to help me deliver them?"

"When?" he asked with unusual eagerness.

"I'll have to let you know, but it'll be soon."

As he was leaving the studio he said, "We've got to do something about the fish-bowl effect at the barn. The Peeping Toms are having a field day." What had once been the huge barn door was now a huge wall of glass.

"Mini-blinds would solve the problem," the designer said. "I'll drop in and measure the windows. I still have your key."

Qwilleran's planned destination was the public library, a building that looked like a Greek temple except for the bicycle rack and the book-drop receptacle near the front steps. As he walked through the vestibule he automatically turned his head to the left, where a chalkboard displayed the Shakespeare quotation of the day - one of Polly's pet ideas. He expected to see Murder most foul. Instead, he read: Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs. The wedding in Lockmaster had put her in a romantic mood.

In the main hall the clerks gave him the bright greeting due the richest man in the county who was also their supervisor's companion of choice. To delude them he first browsed through the new-book shelves and punched a few keys on the computer catalogue before sauntering up the stairs to the mezzanine. Here the daily papers were scattered on tables in the reading room, and here Polly presided over the library operation in a glass-enclosed office. She was seated behind her desk, wearing her usual gray suit and white blouse, but she was looking radiant, and her graying hair still showed the special attention it had received in preparation for the wedding.

"You are looking... especially well!" he greeted her. "Evidently you enjoyed your weekend." He took a seat in one of the hard oak armchairs that had come with the building in 1904.

"Thank you, Qwill," she said. "It was an absolutely wonderful weekend, but strenuous. I'm not conditioned to all. that partying. That's why I left the message not to call me. The wedding ceremony was absolutely beautiful! The bride wore her grandmother's lace dress with a six-foot train, and everyone was terribly emotional. The reception was held at the Riding and Hunt Club, and I danced with the bridegroom and the bride's father and - simply everyone!"

Qwilleran and Polly never danced. The opportunity seldom arose, and he was unaware that she liked to dance. "How many guests were there?" he asked.

"Three hundred, Shirley said. Her son made a handsome groom. He's just out of law school and has a job with the best law firm in Lockmaster. You've never met Shirley, have you? She's the one who had the litter of kittens and gave me Bootsie. We've been friends for twenty years. Her husband is in real estate. His name is Alan, spelled A-l-a-n."

She's chattering, Qwilleran thought; why is she chattering? Polly's manner of speech was usually reserved and often pedantic; she made a brief, pithy statement and waited for her listener's reaction. Today her speech bubbled with the exuberance of a younger woman - one who has been out on the town for the first time. He combed his moustache with his fingers. "So you had brunch at the Paddock! Do you consider it as good as its reputation?"

"Absolutely!" she said. "It's a marvelous restaurant, and I stayed longer than I anticipated."

He wondered about that "absolutely." It was not Polly's kind of word, and yet she had used it three times. Ordinarily she would say "definitely" or "without doubt," but never "absolutely."

"But tell me about Hilary VanBrook," she was saying. "Everyone is shocked - and worried about what the police will uncover."

"May I shut the door?" he asked. There were a few loiterers in the reading room, and everyone in Pickax had big ears.

"I heard on the radio," Polly said, "that you gave an all-night party!" She regarded him accusingly.