THE CAT WHO SAW STARS_

The chamber of commerce must have offered Bowen a good deal, Qwilleran thought. Otherwise, why would a man with contempt for country folk choose to spend the summer 400 miles north of everywhere? Evidently the lake was the attraction, since he had a boat. A recreation vehicle with a boat hitch could be seen around the rear of the restaurant, as well as a white convertible, both with Florida tags.

Walking back toward Main Street, Qwilleran passed Arnold’s Antique Shop - and stopped short. There in the window was the kind of spindly, high-backed antique chair that had been on the float with the sheep. It was a chair design with character, and it aroused his curiosity. He went into the shop.

There were several customers, either buying or browsing: According to their dress and mannerisms, Qwilleran could classify them as campers, or wives of sport fishermen, or boaters from the Grand Island Club who had just lunched at Owen’s Place.

The lunch crowd was raving about the chef, the quiche, the skewered potatoes, and the “perfectly darling” maitre d’. Arnold himself was everywhere at once. He was an ageless man with tireless energy, but he had a weathered face that looked like the old woodcarvings he sold. Peering over rimless glasses, he sorted the idle browsers from the potential customers and kept an eye on the former.

A longhaired white-and-black dog wagged a plumed tail at the latter. “Good dog! Good dog!” Qwilleran said to him.

“Hi, Mr. Q! Do you like our pooch?” Arnold asked. “He just wandered in one day. A friendly soul! Brings in more business than an ad in your newspaper!”

“What’s his name?”

“Well, you see, we bought a job lot of china that included a dog dish with the name Phreddie on it, so we named the dog to match the dish… Excuse me.”

Arnold went off to take a customer’s money. A man was buying a rusty iron wheel, four feet in diameter but delicate in its proportions, with sixteen slender spokes.

“Beautiful rust job, smooth as honey,” the dealer told the purchaser. “It threshed a lot of wheat in its day.”

Meanwhile, Qwilleran poked through baskets of arrowheads, Civil War bullets, and old English coins. “What’s that guy going to do with the wheel?” he later asked Arnold.

“Hang it over the fireplace in his lodge on Grand Island.”

“Hmmm… I could use one of those myself.” He was thinking of the gable end above his own fireplace, a large blank wall that had originally displayed a mounted moosehead; its dour expression had been a depressing reminder of animal rights. Later, the wall showcased a collection of lumberjack tools: axes, a peavey, and crosscut saws with murderous two-inch teeth - equally discomforting. A wheel, on the other hand…

“There were two of them, from a field combine,” Arnold said. “The other one’s in my main store in Lockmaster. I’ll have it sent up here, but it’ll take a couple, three days.”

“No rush… I’d also like to inquire about the chair in the window. What is it? There were eight of them on a float in yesterday’s parade.”

“That’s a pressed-back dining chair, circa 1900, sometimes thought of as a kitchen chair. In the country, a lot of dining was done in the kitchen. In 1904, or thereabouts, the Sears catalogue offered this chair for ninety-four cents. Did you hear me right? Ninety-four cents! They must’ve sold millions of ‘em… Pretty thing, ain’t it?”

“There’s something debonair about it,” Qwilleran said.

It was golden oak, heavily varnished, with a hand-caned seat and nine turned spindles - almost pencil-thin - and a deep top rail that had a decorative design pressed into it. Two turned finials on top, like ears, gave it a playful fillip but would be practical handgrips.

The dealer said, “This may have been a knock-off of an earlier and more expensive design - with the top rail carved, and a price tag more like two fifty. The ones I’ve seen around here are all in the ninety-four-cent class. The seat on this one has been recaned. I’ll make you a good price if you’re interested.”

“I’ll think about it,” Qwilleran said, meaning that he had no intention of buying. “But I’ll definitely come back for the wheel in a couple of days… What do you know about the restaurant across the way?” he added as Arnold accompanied him to the door.

“I hear the food’s good.”

“Have you had contact with Owen Bowen?”

“Only through Derek. He’s working there part time, you know. Derek said the entry - where customers wait to be seated - needed some spark. So we put our heads together, and I lent them a setup for the summer months - some Waterford crystal in a lighted china cabinet. We brought it up from the Lockmaster store. And that so-and-so from Florida never picked up the phone to say thank-you, let alone send over a piece of pie. Phreddie has better manners than Owen Bowen!”

Qwilleran’s watch told him that the lunch hour had ended at Owen’s Place, and his intuition had told him that Derek would be heading for Elizabeth’s Magic to relax and report on events.