The guest rooms, furnished in Stickley, were Fran’s chief pride. She said, “I’ve traveled extensively and stayed in luxury hotels with lavish furnishings but no place to put anything down! That’s my pet peeve, and I designed these rooms to be functional as well as attractive.”
Qwilleran asked, “Where will Mr. Delacamp camp while he’s here?”
“In the presidential suite. No president ever stayed here, but there’s still an adjoining room for the Secret Service, and it’ll be used for his assistant.”
“I hope he likes cats.” Qwilleran pointed to a building across the street. An upstairs apartment had five windows with a cat in each, sitting on the sill and watching the flow of traffic below.
“Aren’t they adorable?” Fran said. “They’re watching pigeons on the roof of the inn.”
“Or making a traffic survey. Who lives there?”
“Mrs. Sprenkle. The Sprenkle family owns the whole block. When her husband died, she sold their country house and moved downtown. She likes the action. He liked peace and quiet. Why does a man who can’t stand noise marry a woman who can’t stand silence?”
“It’s the Jack Sprat law. She has unusual curtains. Is she a client of yours?”
“No. Amanda has done her work for forty years. It’s all Victorian. You’d hate it, Qwill!… And now, would you like to meet the manager before you leave? He’s from Chicago”
The door to the manager’s office on the second floor was standing open, and a clean-cut young man in suit and tie was working at the desk.
Fran said, “Barry, would you like to meet Mr. Q?”
Before she could make the introductions, he jumped up with hand extended. “I’m Barry Morghan, spelled with a GH.”
“I’m Jim Qwilleran, spelled with a QW Welcome to ”
“Excuse me, you guys. I have to run along,” Fran said. “See you both at the reception”
“Have a chair, Mr. Qwilleran,” said the manager.
“Call me Qwill. It’s shorter, more forceful, and saves energy. I hear you’re from Chicago. So am I, a Cubs fan from birth. What brings you to the backwoods?”
“Well, you see, I’d been assistant manager in a big hotel and decided this was a good career move. I’d always liked the hospitality field. My dad was a traveling man and sometimes took me along. I liked staying in different hotels, and my first ambition was to be a bellhop and wear one of those neat uniforms. I was pretty young then. Now I like the idea of being an innkeeper. I trained at Cornell.”
“Would you say the inn is getting off to a good start?”
“Absolutely!” Barry consulted a calendar. “Champagne reception tomorrow night. Big family reunion on Labor Day. Formal afternoon tea Tuesday Boosters Club luncheon Wednesday. All rooms booked for the Labor Day weekend and the Scottish weekend! And dinner reservations are going fast for the Mackintosh Room. We have this great chef from Chicago, you know. Your paper has interviewed him for Thursday’s food page. The whole staff is excited. All the hiring was done before I got here by Mr. Barter’s office. It was his idea to hire MCCC students parttime. He’s a great guy!”
G. Allen Barter was junior partner in the Pickax law firm of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter, and he was Qwilleran’s representative in all matters pertaining to the Klingenschoen Foundation. Since the K Fund owned the inn, he was CEO.
Qwilleran said, “I know Bart very well. He says you need a place to live, and there’s a carriage house apartment on my property that’s available four rooms, furnished. It’s only a few blocks from downtown.”
“Great! I’Il take it!” the manager said. “I’ve been sleeping here, but I’ve got a van full of personal belongings that I’d like to offload.”
“You’d better look at it first,” Qwilleran said. “I’ll show it to you any time.”
“How about right now?”
Within minutes he was following Qwilleran’s vehicle south on Main Street, around the Park Circle and into the parking lot of the K Theatre. They stopped at a fieldstone carriage house with carriage lanterns on all four corners.
“Great!” he exclaimed as he jumped out of his van.
“I warn you, the stairs are narrow and steep. It was built in the nineteenth century when people had small feet and narrow shoulders. You’ll be interested to know it’s said to be haunted by a young woman whose name was Daisy”
“Great!”
“After you unpack, you can drive through the woods to my place, and I’ll offer you a drink.”
“Great!”
“By the way,” Qwilleran said, “how do you feel about cats?”
“Anything that walks on four legs and doesn’t bite is a friend of mine!”
By the time Barry Morghan arrived at the barn, the Siamese had been fed and were curled up like shrimp on their respective bar stools, sound asleep. Qwilleran went to the barnyard to greet him. He enjoyed newcomers’ expressions of disbelief and awe when the hundred-year-old barn loomed before their eyes and he was not disappointed by his tenant’s reaction. “Great!” he said with fervor.
The interior with its ramps and balconies and giant white cube sent him into further exclamations of astonishment.
“What do you like to drink? I have a well-stocked bar,” Qwilleran said.
“I’m not much of a drinker. What are you going to have?”
“Ginger ale.”
“Great! I’ll have the same.” Barry had changed into casualwear and walked around with his hands in his pants pockets, making comments. “Are those your cats, or are they fur cushions on the bar stools?… Have you read all those books?… I see you have one of those ‘bent’ bikes. Do you ride it?”
There was a recumbent bicycle leaning against a stone wall near the foyer. “It was a gift,” Qwilleran explained. “Now that I’m used to pedaling with my feet elevated, I like it.”
They lounged in the library area with their ginger ale, and his guest said, “Mind if I chew gum? I’m trying to stop smoking.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Is this a wastebasket?” He dropped the wrapper in a polished wooden receptacle with a carved top-handle.
“It’s a wastebasket moonlighting as an antique Chinese water bucket, or vice versa…. Do you know I haven’t chewed gum since I gave up baseball? It was part of the game for me: chomp gum, jerk cap, punch glove, hitch belt.”
“Why did you give up baseball?”
“I came out of the military with a bum knee. It plagued me till I moved to Moose County and then disappeared. The natives credited the drinking water. I think the biking cured it.”
Then the talk turned to the inn: how it had been dreary but clean, how everyone hated the food, how Fran Brodie had worked wonders with the interior. “She’s one of our civic treasures,” Qwilleran said.
“Yeah, she’s a dynamo! Is she married?”
“No, but they’re standing in line. Take a number.”
“What’s a good way to meet girls around here?” Barry asked. “Interesting ones, I mean.”
“It depends on your definition of interesting. There are numerous clubs you can join: theatre, bridge, golf, bird-watching, biking, hiking, and so forth. You can take a class at the art center, go to church, attend Boosters Club luncheons and meet spirited young businesswomen. How about volunteering to teach adults how to read and write? It would look good on your resume,” Qwilleran concluded. “Or in your obituary.”
“Yow!” came an aggressive comment from a bar stool, where Koko was stretching and yawning.
“That’s Kao K’o Kung, the brains of the family,” Qwilleran said. “He reads minds, knows when the phone is going to ring, and tells time without looking at a clock all skills denied to you and me…. Yum Yum is our glamorcat. She walks like a model on a runway, strikes photogenic poses, and melts hearts with her innocent gaze. But don’t be fooled. She’Il steal anything small and shiny.”