The Cat Who Saw Stars

Arnold took it from the window. “I could have sold it twice, but I saved it for you.”

“Sure.”

“What are you planning to do with it?”

“Hang it on the wall of my cabin, over the fireplace.”

“Do you need any help?”

“Thanks, but I think not. It’s just a matter of hanging it from a nail, isn’t it?”

“Two nails, a few inches apart.”

Qwilleran said he would bring his van, which was parked behind the bank.

On the way to the bank he realized there were no nails at the cabin - or even a hammer, to his knowledge. Aunt Fanny had left him a fortune but nothing so practical as a hammer. He detoured to the hardware store. They had a revolving, four-standing bin for bulk nails, with prices posted per pound.

“Help you?” asked Cecil, surprised to see Qwilleran at the nail bin.

“Yes, I’m in the market for a couple of nails, but I’m not sure which kind.”

“Two nails ?”

“Yes, I’ve bought an antique wheel to hang over the fireplace.”

“What kind of wheel? How large? How heavy? I’d better talk to our construction specialist. He used to build houses… Unc! We have a serious technical problem.”

The old uncle ambled over to the bin and went into a huddle with Cecil, discussing the kind of wall, thickness of the wall, number of spokes in the wheel, and width of the wheel rim. Meanwhile Qwilleran studied a nail chart and discovered that there are almost fifteen hundred one-inch finishing nails in a pound. With some research and a little wit, he believed, he could hammer out an entertaining “Qwill Pen” column on the subject: Why is a three-inch nail called a three-penny nail? Who first said, “Thou hath hit the nail on the head?”

“How much do I owe you?” he asked when the experts had made their decision.

“No charge,” said Cecil.

“That’s generous of you… but I also need to buy a hammer.”

“Lend him one,” said the old man.

The two storekeepers walked to the door with their customer, and Cecil said, “Can you believe that we’ve lost Owen? They’ve got to put some speed limits on the lake and start slapping traffic tickets on irresponsible skippers.”

The old man said, “If he hadn’t been soaked to the gills, it wouldn’ta happened.”

Qwilleran asked, “How is his wife? Does anyone know?”

“She’s better off without that horse’s tail,” the old man said.

In a flash, an idea struck Qwilleran. As if hit on the head with a hammer, he virtually saw stars!

Koko knew about Owen’s death before and after the fact! Else, why his sudden interest in A Horse’s Tail? The connection between a book title (that Koko couldn’t read) and an epithet bestowed on Owen Bowen (that Koko hadn’t heard) would seem far-fetched to anyone but Qwilleran, who had witnessed the cat’s semantic associations before. Though Koko’s communications were coincidental in the extreme, they always proved to be accurate! Sometimes prophetic!

Then Qwilleran had second thoughts: Could he be succumbing to Mooseville Madness? Everyone around here was over the top! He had to get out!

-12-

Hanging the four-foot wheel over the fireplace, twelve feet above the floor, was no easy task, and Qwilleran tackled it Wednesday morning when he was fresh. (Koko also was fresh and meddlesome.) First, the eight-foot stepladder had to be maneuvered from the toolshed on a narrow path between a dense growth of wild cherry bushes, then into the small screened kitchen porch and the cabin.

Yum Yum ducked under the sofa and was not seen during the rest of the operation; Koko inspected every inch of the ladder for hidden hazards; Qwilleran sat down and had a cup of coffee. So far, so good.

Next, Koko took his post on the mantel and watched the man struggle up the ladder with the large round object, propping it precariously on the horizontal timber before going down for a pencil, two nails, and the borrowed hammer. At this point, the cat’s sniffing of the rusty wheel became so fervent that he was banished to the porch, and Qwilleran had another cup of coffee.

That done, he climbed up the ladder again, eye-balled the space, penciled two dots, hammered the nails into the wall fairly straight, and hung the wheel. While up there, he noticed a crack in the top surface of the mantel, a square-cut, hand-hewn timber that spanned the width of the room. The old logs and timbers occasionally cracked in the middle of the night, sounding like pistol shots. It was never a serious split—only a fine crevice. A hundred years of such cracks actually added character to the interior. The one on the mantel was just wide enough for wedging postcards upright. More than a dozen had come from Canada, each with Polly’s hurriedly scrawled message on the back. Together they made a pictorial frieze several feet long.

She and her sister had seen four plays: Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, Major Barbara, and The Importance of Being Earnest. The cards pictured a grotesque mask used in Greek drama… the classic sketch of Shakespeare with pointed beard and receding hair-line… a portrait of George Bernard Shaw…and the Toulouse-Lautrec caricature of Oscar Wilde.

Other cards had been mailed as they motored east: Niagra Falls from the Canadian side; a tower almost half a mile high with a restaurant at the top; Parliament buildings; a ship going through the locks; a mountain lodge; two cathedrals; an ox-drawn hay wagon; an aerial view of small islands; and more. Before the weekend there would be views of a quaint fishing village and a rocky island blanketed with resting waterfowl.

As soon as Qwilleran opened the porch door, Koko bounded in to see the exhibit, walking behind the upstanding cards in a space too narrow for any but a sure-footed, long-legged Siamese. Next he stood on his hind legs and stretched to paw the rim of the rusty wheel.

“NO!” Qwilleran thundered. Koko winced and returned to the postcards, sniffing each like a connoisseur of fine wines. The cat seemed to be looking for something. He finally gave his seal of approval, a gentle fang mark, to the two cards that were third and fourth from the left end of the row: portraits of the two Irish playwrights. Qwilleran thought, That cat! Now he’s getting interested in dramaturgy!

At the Northern Lights Hotel, where Qwilleran went for another cup of coffee and some scuttlebutt, he was stopped in the lobby by Wayne Stacy. The hotelkeeper said, “Qwill! Just the guy I want to see! I have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot! But I reserve the right to dodge.”

“I think you’ll like it. Saturday we have the annual dogcart races sponsored by the chamber of commerce for the last thirty years. Wetherby Goode usually announces them, but this year he’s got a conflict — wedding, or something like that. Could you help us out?”

“What does it entail?”

“You just announce each race, name the winners in each class, and hand out the trophies. Somebody will be at your elbow, supplying the information. I guess anybody could do it, but you’ve got the voice for it.”

Qwilleran appreciated compliments on his vocal quality. “What time on Saturday?”

“First gun at eleven A.M. Come early and have breakfast with us.”

“Okay. It’ll look good on my resumé,” Qwilleran said. “And now tell me: How’s Mrs. Bowen?”

“To tell the truth, I haven’t seen her. She has her meals sent up to her. But last night she ordered dinner for two and some champagne!”

“A promising sign.”

“That’s what we thought. The chamber hopes the restaurant will reopen — and soon.”

Qwilleran thought, Who was up there helping her drink the champagne? Derek? If so, did Elizabeth know? She was quite possessive.

Qwilleran changed his mind about having a cup of hotel coffee and hustled to Elizabeth’s Magic.

Derek was there, working on the space for the new lending library. Barb Ogilvie was there, too, arranging a window display of her handknits.