Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 18 Who Said Cheese

"It's been a hectic summer in many ways," he explained.

"I know. How's Polly?" The two women were not warm friends, but they observed the civilities, as one is required to do in a small town.

"Improving daily. We have to find her a place to live. Her apartment is being swallowed up by the college campus. Temporarily she's staying with her sister-in- law."

"Why don't you and Polly - " she began.

"Our cats are incompatible," he interrupted, knowing what she was about to suggest.

They discussed the possibilities of Indian Village, a complex of apartments and condominiums on the Ittibittiwassee River. There were nature trails; the river was full of ducks; the woods were full of birds.

"The quacking and chirping sometimes drive me up the wall," Susan said, "but Polly would love it." There was a tinge of snobbery in her comment. In Indian Village, the bridge-players never went birding, and the bird-watchers never played bridge. Some day, Qwilleran thought, he would write a column on cliques in Moose County. He might lose a few friends, but it was a columnist's duty to stir things up occasionally.

Susan opened the front door. "Come in and see my new annex."

The premises always gleamed with polished mahogany and shining brass, but now an archway opened into a new space filled with antiques of a dusty, weathered, folksy sort.

"Do you recognize any of those primitives?" she asked. "They were in Iris Cobb's personal collection, and I never had a place to display them until the store next door was vacated. I rented half of it, and Franklin Pickett took the other half. Honestly, he's such a pill! He always wants to borrow antique objects for his window display, but he never offers a few flowers for my shop."

In the archway a rustic sign on an easel announced: THE IRIS COBB COLLECTION. Qwilleran noted a pine cupboard, several milking stools, benches with seats made from half-logs, wrought-iron utensils for fireplace cooking, an old school desk, some whirligigs, and a faded hand hooked rug with goofy-looking farm animals around the border. He picked up a basket with an openwork weave that left large hexagonal holes. It had straight sides and was about a foot in diameter. He questioned the size of the holes.

"That's a cheese basket," Susan explained. "They'd line it with cheesecloth, fill it with curds, and let it drip. It belonged to a French-Canadian family near Trawnto Beach. They were shipwrecked there in 1870 and decided to stay. They raised dairy cattle and made their own cheese until the farmhouse was destroyed by fire in 1911. The daughter was able to save the cheese basket and that hooked rug. She still had them when she died at the age of ninety-five."

Qwilleran gave her a stony stare. "You should be writing fiction, Susan."

"Every word is true! Iris recorded the provenance on the catalogue card."

Qwilleran shrugged a wordless apology to the memory of the late Iris Cobb. She had been an expert on antiques and a wonderful cook and a warm-hearted friend, but he had always suspected her of inventing a provenance for everything she sold. "And what is that?" he asked, pointing to a weathered wood chest with iron hardware.

"An old sea chest," Susan recited glibly, "found in an attic in Brrr. It had been washed up on the beach following an 1892 shipwreck and was thought to belong to a Scottish sailor."

"Uh huh," Qwilleran said skeptically, "and there was a wooden leg in the chest thought to belong to Long John Silver. How much are you asking for the cheese basket and the chest? And are they cheaper without the provenance?"

"Spoken like an experienced junker," she said. "Because you're an old friend of dear Iris, I'll give you a clergyman's discount, ten percent. She'd want you to have it."

Qwilleran grunted his thanks as he wrote the check, thinking that dear Iris would have given him twenty percent. He said, "I don't suppose her personal cookbook turned up, did it?"

"I wish it had! Some of my customers would mort- gage their homes to buy it! The book was a mess, but the recipes she had developed were priceless. She kept it in that old school desk, but by the time I was appointed to appraise the estate, it was gone."

"It was left to me in her will, you may recall-a joke, I presume, because she knew I was no cook and never would be."

"I hate to say this," Susan said, "but I think it was taken by one of the museum volunteers. There were seventy-five of them - on maintenance, security, hosting, cataloguing, etc. Mitch Ogilvie was the manager then, and he put a notice in the volunteers' newsletter, pleading for its return-no questions asked. No one responded.... I'll have my man put a coat of oil on the sea chest for you, Qwill, and deliver it to the barn."

Qwilleran left with his cheese basket and visited the florist next door, pushing through a maze of greeting cards, stuffed animals, balloons, chocolates, and decorated mugs to reach the fresh-cut flowers.