The Cat Who Robbed a Bank (5 page)

“I hope the lights are on a rheostat.”

“Oh sure. We'll turn them way down when we serve. Have you seen the coffee shop? It's kind of far-out for Pickax.”

Fran Brodie was now standing at the entrance to Rennie's, the converted coffee shop, answering questions. “This was inspired by a Charles Rennie Mackintosh tearoom in Glasgow, designed in the early twentieth century. . . . Yes, it will be on network TV, but I don't know exactly when. . . . Two magazines have already photographed it. . . . Well, I see Rennie's as a stimulating place for an overnight guest to have breakfast, an exciting place for out-of-towners to have lunch or dinner, and a friendly place to have a snack after a tap-dance class. . . . Yes, you can go in and take a table. They're serving refreshments.”

A framed photograph of the Scottish architect with flowing moustache and an artist's flowing silk tie was hanging in the entrance.

Fran said to Qwilleran, “Ancestor of yours? You have his moustache and his eyes.”

The distinguishing feature of Rennie's was the high-backed Mackintosh chair, about four feet tall and tapered upward. Lacquered black, these chairs surrounded tables lacquered in bright blue or bright green. The white walls were decorated with black line drawings of oversize flowers. Napkins were a bold black-and-white stripe.

Carol and Larry Lanspeak, seated at a blue table, waved an invitation to Qwilleran and Polly to join them. Everyone liked the Lanspeaks, the affluent but down-to-earth owners of the department store. Both had given up acting careers in New York to carry on the family retailing tradition. Their talents were still put to good use in the theatre club, and all other community projects received their generous support.

Tonight they were in a festive mood and Larry raised his champagne glass in a toast to the Mackintosh Inn.

“Here's to the K Fund!” said Carol.

“Here's to Aunt Fanny Klingenschoen!” Qwilleran said.

“Here's to Lady Anne,” Polly murmured.

Carol asked her about her vacation.

“My sister and I went to Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City and met the most charming French-Canadian professor. He wants to come here to study Canadian influence in our pioneer days.”

Qwilleran said, “I spent my vacation in Mooseville and Fishport.”

“Ah! Fishport!” Larry declaimed in his stage voice. “The home of the covered dish! Where the Hawleys speak only to Scottens, and the Scottens speak only to fish!”

“I didn't see any covered dishes in Fishport. Should I know what a covered dish is?” Qwilleran asked innocently.

“Why, it's a dish to pass at a potluck supper!” Carol informed him. “Don't you go to potluck suppers?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Once a city boy, always a city boy,” Polly explained.

“How does Delacamp feel about potluck suppers?”

Larry said, “He's a consummate snob.”

“Let me describe his program,” Carol offered. “He and his assistant arrive on Labor Day by chartered plane. Larry and I greet him at the airport and turn over the Mercedes rental car that he has requested. That evening he's guest of honor at a dinner at the country club. Tuesday afternoon he gives a tea for prospective customers. Guests view his private collection of jewelry and make appointments to go to his suite and buy. Those who have heirloom jewelry to sell make appointments for him to visit their homes.”

Polly said, “I hear Don Exbridge is furious because his second wife isn't even invited to the tea, while his first wife is invited to pour.”

Qwilleran said, “I'd like to see what goes on at this affair. Would my press card get me in? I wouldn't write about it—just look.”

“No no no!” Carol said. “It's for women only. Even Larry isn't admitted, and he sponsors the whole thing.”

Her husband said, “Old Campo thinks women are more impressionable when their husbands aren't around. They're more likely to spend money.”

Qwilleran listened in amazement. He was not about to give up. “Perhaps you could sneak me in as part of the wait staff.”

“The servers are all young women dressed as French maids, Qwill.”

“If it weren't for my moustache, I could go in drag.”

Laughter erupted around the blue table.

“Why are you so determined to crash the party?” Carol asked.

“I'm congenitally nosy, and I have a professional curiosity.”

Polly said, “Hell hath no fury like a journalist denied access.”

“You say the jewels are on display at the tea. What do they do about security?”

“Nothing. No one has any fears about a robbery, if that's what you're thinking.”

“And no one had any fears about bombing last year. Times are changing. . . . No doubt Delacamp has the stuff insured, but in the case of a theft, would the inn be liable? Would Delacamp's insurance company sue the inn's insurance company? I think I should go as a security guard, so that the inn is covered.”

There was a ripple of laughter around the table.

“I'm serious!”

Then Larry said with a grin, “Why not?” He himself had played practical jokes, masquerading as a stony-faced butler to enliven a stuffy dinner party . . . playing the role of a drunken citizen to stir up a dreary city council meeting.

“Yes. Why not?” Carol echoed.

They looked at each other with conspiratorial merriment.

“We could find him a uniform in the costume department.”

“The cap should be a couple of sizes too large.”

“Dark glasses.”

“His moustache and hair should be darkened.”

“He'd need a sidearm in a holster.”

“There's a wooden gun in the prop room.”

“How about a German shepherd?”

Suddenly the image of the county's richest citizen in a guard's uniform with dark glasses and a wooden gun struck them all as hilariously comic.

Then Polly, with her usual common sense, asked, “How will you explain this caper to Mr. Delacamp?”

Qwilleran was skilled at fabricating fiction on the spur of the moment. “Well . . . it's a new inn, with new owners, a new insurance policy. The terms require the inn to have a security guard on the premises when valuables are on exhibit.”

“Sounds good to me,” Larry said.

“I'll explain it to Barter,” Qwilleran said. “He'll go along. He has a sense of humor.”

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6—
Without a shepherd, sheep are not a flock
.

 

It was the second day of the craft fair. In the afternoon Qwilleran and Polly walked down the lane to the art center. She had a long list and expected to do most of her Christmas shopping. It was Qwilleran's custom to give edibles and potables for the holidays, but he hoped to find a good-looking pencil-holder for the library table. They saw hand-thrown pots, hand-woven place mats, hand-painted tiles, hand-wrought iron rivets, hand-screened scarves, hand-carved wood salad servers, hand-printed notecards, and hand-stitched wall hangings.

Then Qwilleran saw Thornton's woodturnings: bowls, plates, candlesticks, vases, and such—lathed to a satin smoothness and decorated with nature's own markings. There were captivating streaks, swirls, wisps, splotches, and squiggles in tints of brown on the pale waxed wood.

“I use spalted wood,” Thornton explained. “Irregularities caused by fungus, worms, faulty growth, or woodpeckers produce these abstract patterns when turned on a lathe.”

Qwilleran pointed to a foot-tall container of classical shape with a marbleized veining. “I like that! Do you call it a vase, urn, jar, or what?”

“A vessel. The shape was used in ancient Egyptian times for transporting water or olive oil. It's turned from a chunk of spalted elm. The small round bowl with a lid is spalted maple.”

“I'll take both of them.”

“The small one's sold.” There was a red sticker on the bottom of it with the initials M.R.

Qwilleran huffed into his moustache in frustration, then said, “How do you produce one of these . . . vessels?”

“First find a good burl.”

“Should I know what that is?”

“It's an unnatural growth on a tree. You rough out your design, wax it, dry it for a few months, chuck it into place on your lathe, turn it, shape it with gouging tools, sand it, finish it with wax or oil.”

“It obviously takes skill.”

“And patience. And some intelligence, if you'll pardon my lack of modesty. You learn a lot about trees.”

“Where did you learn how to do this craft?” Qwilleran asked.

“I took lessons from a master woodturner in Lockmaster, one-on-one. Believe me, I regret I'm getting such a late start. Woodturning could be a lifetime study.”

To transport Polly's numerous purchases—and his own spalted elm vessel—back to the barn, Qwilleran ran back up the lane and fetched his van.

“Where are you going to put the . . . vessel?” she asked.

“In the center of the coffee table.” It was a low contemporary table, large and square, surrounded by upholstered seating.

“I think it's an absolutely stunning piece,” she said when she saw it.

“You should have seen the one that got away,” Qwilleran said. “It was smaller but spectacular—about the size of a grapefruit—a bowl with a domed cover and a small knob on top, turned-in-one with the cover. Amazing! But it was already sold.”

He had forgotten to look for a pencil-holder. His fat yellow pencils were stuck in a brown coffee mug inscribed As he brews, so shall he drink. He offered anyone a dollar who could identify the author. So far, only Polly had collected.

LABOR DAY, SEPTEMBER 7—
When the cat's away, the mice will play
.

Qwilleran and Polly celebrated by driving out of town for a backyard barbecue. G. Allen Barter and his wife were hosting the party. They had invited the new innkeeper from Chicago and some young men and women of his own age, mostly paralegals from the office of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter.

The route from Pickax passed several abandoned mines from Moose County's distant past: the Big B mine, the Buckshot (scene of a recent cave-in), and the Old Glory. The sites were fenced with chain link and posted as dangerous, and each had a weathered wood shafthouse towering above the barren scene. These ghostly monuments had a haunting fascination for locals and visitors alike.

The Barter house was surrounded by working farms, and cocktails were served on a terrace with a view of a neighbor's grazing sheep, while chickens turned on a spit and corn roasted in the coals.

Someone asked the new innkeeper the inevitable question: “How do you like it up here?”

“Will someone please explain something?” he inquired. “What are those old wooden towers out in the middle of nowhere?”

The other young people looked at their boss, and Barter replied, “They're the shafthouses of mines that were highly productive in the nineteenth century but failed in the early twentieth. There are ten of them in the county.”

“They should tear them down and fill in the mineshafts,” said the brash newcomer from Down Below. “Then they could graze more sheep.”

“Smile when you say that, chum,” Qwilleran advised. “Those shafthouses are near and dear to the hearts of local folks. And tourists, too. In the souvenir shops the best-selling postcards have views of shafthouses. And there's a fine artist here who paints watercolors of shafthouses and can't turn them out fast enough to fill the demand.”

“Somebody should write a book about all this!” said Barry.

“Somebody has!” several of the guests said in unison.

“It's in the library, if you're interested,” Polly told him. Then she amused everyone by describing the Computer War, in which library subscribers picketed the building and burned their library cards on the front steps—all in protest against automation.

Qwilleran said, “The people here, you have to understand, Barry, are descended from pioneers, who were rugged individualists.”

Everyone seemed to have a good time—not a boisterous good time but a civilized good time. When it was over, Qwilleran told Barter about the security guard stunt. The attorney laughed and called it a harmless joke. Then they confided in Barry, who said, “Great!”

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8—
Better a living dog than a dead lion

In the early afternoon Qwilleran left the barn for guard duty, saying goodbye to the sleeping cats on the bar stools and adding, “Wish me well, and I'll bring you a cucumber sandwich.” Two pairs of ears twitched.

Carol Lanspeak and the wardrobe mistress were waiting for him at the K Theatre. The building was a giant cube of fieldstone, once upon a time the most magnificent residence in town. There the Klingenschoen family had lived in private splendor, spurned by the mining and lumbering magnates. Ironically, it was the K fortune that had recently doubled and trebled the quality of life in Moose County. As for the venerable building itself, it had barely survived disaster and now served as a theatre seating two hundred.

When Qwilleran arrived, Carol ushered him into the backstage area, saying, “Isn't this a lark? With a little dye, dark glasses, and a visored cap, you'll never be recognized.”

The Lanspeaks amazed Qwilleran. Nothing in their appearance or manners suggested that they had been on the stage, yet Carol could play a queen or a harlot convincingly, and Larry could play the role of scoundrel, old man, or dashing hero. Both had the inner energy that distinguished an outstanding performer.

Now Carol was saying, “It's the kind of dye that will wash right out when you get home, so you don't have to worry about that. The cats won't recognize you, though.”

“Koko will, but Yum Yum will hiss at me.”

“You trimmed your moustache a little. That's good.”

“I always trim it for weddings and undercover assignments,” he said.

“First choose your uniform. Then Alice can make alterations if necessary while I work on makeup.” Alice Toddwhistle was standing by with a tape measure around her neck and a thimble on her finger.

Qwilleran chose a dark-blue outfit with an emblem on the sleeve and a cap that looked official if not examined too closely. When he tried it on and appeared in the fitting room, the two women screamed at the sight: the trousers too short, the sleeves too long, the cap three sizes too large.

“Do you have a Neanderthal in the club?” he asked.

Alice said, “I can fix the pant legs and sleeves in a jiffy. The cap will be okay if we stuff the crown with tissue paper.”

In the makeup room Carol went to work with professional assurance, darkening the pepper-and-salt moustache, eyebrows, and patches of gray at his temples.

“Did Delacamp arrive on schedule?” he asked.

“Yes. He brought his niece this time—a quiet girl. She defers to him all the time. He's put on some weight, but he's quite handsome for a man of his age. I think he's had cosmetic surgery. And his toupee is new. A very expensive one . . . Oops! Did I bump you in the eyeball? I'm sorry.”

“That's all right. I have another one.”

“At the country club dinner he showed his slides of fabulous jewels in museums. There was a necklace that Napoleon gave Josephine, and it must have weighed a pound: all rubies, emeralds, enamel work, and precious metals. . . . Do you realize that rubies and emeralds were replaced by diamonds in nineteenth-century fashion for the simple reason that the lighting in public places was improving? Dazzle became more important than color. . . . There!” Carol whipped off the cape covering his shoulders. “Now for the logistics: I'll drive you to the inn. Barry Morghan will meet you at the entrance and whisk you upstairs on the elevator. At three o'clock he'll escort you to the ballroom. As soon as it's over, return to his office. He'll phone the store, and Larry will drive you back here.”

Qwilleran said, “Carol, you're so well organized, it's unnerving.”

“Well, it helps if you've run a department store for twenty-five years . . . and directed two dozen stage productions . . . and raised three kids.”

As Qwilleran knew, their elder son was a clergyman in New York State; their daughter was an M.D. in Pickax; the younger son had been a tragic failure. No one ever mentioned him. “How does Dr. Diane feel about pouring tea this afternoon?” Qwilleran asked.

“She says she hasn't been so nervous since she lanced her first boil! She and Polly will pour for forty-five minutes and then be relieved by Susan Exbridge and Maggie Sprenkle. It's Maggie's Belgian lace banquet cloth that we're using, and Susan is lending two silver tea services and a six-branch silver candelabrum.”

Then the uniform was ready. Qwilleran assembled his disguise and looked in the mirror.

“Well?” Carol asked.

“Well?” Alice repeated.

He hesitated. “I don't know who this guy is, but he's not me!”

The women applauded.

•      •      •

As Carol drove him to the inn, Qwilleran asked, “Do you know a perfume called L'Heure Bleue?”

“Of course! It's a classic. A delicate flowery fragrance with a hint of vanilla. Jacque Guerlain created it for Yvonne Printemps in 1912. As a matter of fact, Larry gave me a bottle of L'Heure Bleue when we were honeymooning in Paris umpteen years ago.”

“Could you special-order it? I'd like to surprise Polly.”

“Be glad to. I think she'd like the eau de toilette in the spray bottle. . . . And by the way, are you and she free on Thursday evening? We're giving a small at-home dinner for Mr. Delacamp and his niece. For you, Qwill, it would be your only opportunity to meet him. . . . But I warn you, he's a nonstop talker.”

“That's okay, as long as I learn something.”

“You will, believe me! He's an encyclopedia of facts about several subjects.”

They could see Barry Morghan standing at the carriage entrance of the inn.

“Okay,” said Qwilleran. “I've taken my adjustment. I'm Joe Buzzard, ex-cop. I hire out for security gigs. Everyone's a potential jewel thief.”

He stomped out of the Lanspeak van and swaggered up to the entrance in a surly manner, pretending not to see Barry.

With a straight face the innkeeper asked, “Are you from City Security Services?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Follow me.”

As soon as they were in the office with the door closed, Barry said, “You look great, Qwill! No one will recognize you. How about some coffee while we're waiting for three o'clock? Can you drink without the dye running down your chin?”

“I'd feel safer with a straw. . . . How did you enjoy the barbecue?”

“I had a great time! Lots of nice people. They're not uptight like city dudes.”

“They're friendly, no doubt about it, but they're also nosy and prone to spread rumors, so be on your guard.”

“Speaking of city types,” Barry said, “guess who barged into my office this morning—wearing a Moroccan caftan and five pounds of silver jewelry! He said coolly, 'I'm Delacamp.' I jumped up to welcome him and got the tips of his fingers for a handshake. He had a complaint to make. He had gone to the kitchen to tell them how he wanted the tea made, and the chef—he said—was uncooperative and rude. I apologized for him but pointed out that Board of Health regulations put the kitchen off limits to anyone not involved officially in food service.”