The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers

“Hand me the phone,” Qwilleran said. “We’ll get George Barter here to look at it. Fingerprints might be the answer.”

He declined coffee and said he wanted to think for a few minutes. Daisy left him alone, and he remembered what he’d heard.

Libby suspected that Nathan’s treasures, being sold for child welfare, were not reaching their intended charity. She wanted to accuse Alma to her face but had been advised not to be hasty. Libby had apparently made the mistake of impetuous youth. She was defending her Uncle Nathan’s wishes, and his memory.

The law office was only a block away, and Barter arrived as Qwilleran was leaving. They saluted and shook their heads in disbelief. Arch Riker had been right: “When there’s too much money floating around, somebody’s going to get greedy.”

Qwilleran went to his parked car to think. Koko was always right—no matter what! The cat had sensed something wrong at the moment of Libby’s death. His gut-wrenching death howl was never mistaken. It meant that someone, somewhere, was the victim of murder. In fact, there were times when Koko sensed it was going to happen before the fact! When Alma visited the barn, Koko tried to frighten her. He tore up her black-and-gold catalog. He staged a scene over the used books that came in a box that originally held a punch bowl sold by Alma. He made a fuss over the pocket-size copy ofThe Portrait of a Lady. Was it because the author was HenryJames ? Not likely, Qwilleran thought, but who knows? And then there was Koko’s reaction to Polly’s accident in Paris—at the Pont d’Alma tunnel.

Qwilleran hoped he would never be asked to state all of this on the witness stand. “They’d put me away,” he said aloud. And yet…

He drove to Lois’s Luncheonette with his New York paper to listen to gossip. Everywhere, there were pedestrians in twos and threes, talking about the scandal; one could tell by their grave expressions.

At Lois’s, the tables were filled. He sat at the counter, ordered coffee and a roll, and buried his head in his paper. From the tables came snatches of comments like:

“Nothing like this ever happened here!”

“They bring people in from Lockmaster, that’s what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s been proved, but everyone knows.”

“Imagine! It happened in a city museum!”

“Nathan will be turnin’ over in his grave!”

“My daughter-in-law says she has a friend…”

Everyone was talking about the Purple Point Scandal, preferring to associate it with the affluent suburb rather than nature’s useful honeybee. Qwilleran returned home to the Willows and avoided answering the inevitable phone calls. They could be screened by the answering device.

One was from Wetherby Goode: “Qwill, looking forward to theCats show Saturday night. I’ll provide the transportation. The gals will provide the supper. Barbara wants to know if cat food will be appropriate.”

Qwilleran liked Barbara’s sense of humor. When invited in to meet Molasses, he liked her taste in design, too. Replacing Polly’s elderly heirlooms was a roomful of blond modern furniture, accents of chrome, and abstract art. Yet an old paisley shawl with long fringe was draped on a wall above the spinet piano.

Barbara said, “My mother brought that home from India when she was a college student and had it draped over her grand piano all her life. I’d drape it over the spinet, but Molasses is a fringe freak.”

On Saturday night, before driving to the theater for the musical, the Willows foursome gathered at Barbara’s for a light repast.

At the performance, it was the usual happy audience found atCats. The stage was full of furry costumes with tails, and there was a five-piece orchestra in the pit.

Barbara said, “I should have named Molasses Rum Tum Tugger. He will do as he do do, and there’s no doing anything about it.”

Connie cried when Grizabella sang “Memory.”

At intermission Wetherby said he identified with Bustopher Jones, and Qwilleran said Old Deuteronomy would probably write a newspaper column.

And so it went; Qwilleran was pleased with his new neighbors.

They were all exhilarated as they drove home, until they heard the disturbing sound of sirens from speeding fire trucks.

Wetherby phoned the radio station, and the voice that came over the speaker shocked them all: “It’s the barn! Your friend’s barn, Joe! Arson!”

There was a stunned silence in the vehicle.

Qwilleran was the first one who spoke. “I’m only thankful that the cats are safe at the condo.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the women. Joe said, “Do you think there’ll be something on TV when we get home? I think we all need a stiff drink.”

Barbara voiced everyone’s opinion when she said that the fire was the work of lawless gangs in Bixby. “They torched the Old Hulk and got away with it because it was of little value, but the barn is known around the world for its architecture and beauty.”

Dr. Connie said, “My friends in Scotland had heard about the barn and asked for snapshots of it.”