Qwilleran said, 'They'd better have the mounted sheriff's corps on the scene for the public opening Saturday. Hundreds turned out for the groundbreaking; how many thousands will show up for the public opening?'
Qwilleran waited until he knew the antiques shop would be open and then blustered into Susan's front door in excitement.
She was talking to two customers and looked up in surprise.
'Dahling! What brings you here in such a jovial mood?'
`I came to congratulate you, Susan, on your generosity in donating the jelly cupboard to ESP in memory of Eddington Smith!'
`Where did you hear that?' she asked cagily.
`It's all over town! There are no secrets in our fair city.'
Even if she had wanted to deny it, the presence of two customers made it impossible. Actually, the scenario could not have been more cleverly staged.
`Someone will be here to pick it up before Thursday, which is when the out-of-town media will be here. May I look at it - in case I have a chance to describe it in the "Qwill Pen"?'
Susan helplessly waved him towards the annex and followed him there, saying only a weak 'excuse me' to the customers.
Qwilleran said, 'Handsome finish on the pine. How would I describe it?'
With only slight hesitation, she said, The patina of age - and loving care.'
`Does it have a provenance?'
`It belonged to an old family on Purple Point.'
The fabrication amused Qwilleran, who had seen the cupboard in Iris Cobb's apartment - in Junktown, Down Below.
He said, 'A volunteer from ESP will be here to pick it up. He'll call first.'
Qwilleran had yet another mission to perform downtown. Once a week he did Polly's grocery shopping, putting the purchases in the trunk of her car, with the perishables in a cooler. Under ordinary circumstances he would then be invited to a home-cooked dinner of last week's leftovers. There had been no ordinary circumstances, however, since Polly undertook the challenge of running a bookstore. He was keeping score, of course, and she now owed him twenty dinners.
He always took her list to Toodle's Market, and Grandma Toodle always assisted him in selecting the fruits and vegetables. He might buy some Delicious apples for himself as well, and lately he was buying bananas. On this occasion he complained to Grandma Toodle that the bananas always turned brown before they could be eaten.
`How many in your family?' she asked.
`Three, but only one of us eats bananas.'
`Then don't buy so many at once,' she advised, 'and be sure they don't have any brown spots.'
He selected four and was about to push his cart away, when he found it blocked by another piled high with cornflakes, flour, cat litter, sacks of potatoes, and gallons of milk. The shopper was a rosy-cheeked woman with the air of a happy housewife.
`Mr Q,' she said, recognizing his moustache, 'what you need is a banana hook.'
`I didn't know there was such a thing,' he replied.
`All you need is an old-fashioned wire coat hook - the kind you see everywhere. Just screw it into the side of a wooden kitchen cupboard and hang up the bananas. Don't put them in a bowl or on a counter.'
He thanked her graciously and wondered if he could write a thousand words for the `Qwill Pen' on the importance of having a banana hook. He would take a humorous approach. Bananas are funny; apples and oranges are not. There was something humorous about slipping on a banana peel, according to the old comic strips.
At home, Qwilleran found a clothes hook in the broom closet and screwed it into a wood surface in the kitchen. Problem solved! . . . or so he thought.
That evening, Qwilleran set out to con himself into eating a banana. He recalled his boyhood pleasure in clutching a banana like an ice-cream cone and peeling it down a little at a time. He recalled his boyhood dream of a banana split - never realized because his mother said it was too expensive. Thus fortified psychologically, he unhooked a banana and had just finished peeling it at the kitchen counter when the phone rang. He placed the naked fruit on a strip of peel and answered after the third ring. He thought it might be Polly, and he preferred to sit at the desk rather than stand at the kitchen phone.
It was not Polly. It was a woman's husky voice asking for Ralph.
`No one here by that name,' he said. He should have hung up immediately, but . . . perhaps he was postponing the eating of the banana.
`Are you sure?' she asked.
`Quite!'
`Is this Wilson's Bar?'
`No, it is not Wilson's Bar. What number are you calling?' She gave the number of the apple barn.
`You dialled correctly, but you've been given the wrong number. Who gave you this number?' By this time, Qwilleran was enjoying the conversation. It was beginning to sound like a comedy act. Or it might be a practical joke, and he wondered which one of his friends could be guilty. Wetherby Goode was the only one he could summon to mind.
The woman was saying, 'Ralph told me I could reach him at this number.'
`Well, I'm afraid he lied to you, madam.'
She slammed down the receiver, and Qwilleran chuckled. He was headed back to the kitchen when the phone rang again. This time he was sure it was Polly. 'Good evening,' he said in the ultra-friendly voice that amused her.
`Is Ralph there?' came the same husky voice.
This time Qwilleran slammed down the receiver, not in anger but in pleasant anticipation of telling the story to Polly - when she called.
The banana was waiting for him - but not the peel. Where was the peel? He was sure he had left it on the kitchen counter!
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something yellow on the floor. A strip of banana peel - with fang marks.
`You heathens!' he yelled. It was only a quarter of a total peel.
Where was the rest of it? It could be dangerous underfoot! First he inspected all the hard surfaces: floor, tile, and flagstone. The Siamese were of no help at all. Ordinarily they would join the search, sniffing and scratching, but they were hiding, in evident guilt.
He looked in the wastebaskets, where Yum Yum usually deposited her loot. No banana peel. He walked up the ramp (carefully) to the three balconies. If he could find the cats, he thought, he could find the peel.
The search was interrupted by Polly's call. 'Am I calling too late?' she asked. 'I just got home! We all had a wonderful time.'
Preoccupied with his own problem, Qwilleran listened inattentively. The gist of it was this: Dwight Somers of Somers & Beard, local public relations firm, had been retained by the K Fund to handle publicity for The Pirate's Chest.
And prior to the press preview, Dwight had taken the entire staff to dinner at the Mackintosh Inn. That meant Polly, her assistant, three contingency aides in green smocks, and Alden Wade.
`We had a private dining room,' she went on. 'Alden and Dwight kept up a nonsensical banter about Dundee, and the secret statue under cover in the park, rare books in the jelly cupboard, borrowing limousines from the funeral home to pick up the out-of-town press, and so forth.
`And what did you do today, dear?' Polly concluded. `Nothing much,' he said.
`Thank you so much for the groceries, dear.'
`My pleasure. A bientôt!
A bientôt.
The phone rang once more that evening, and a gruff male voice with a Scottish accent said, 'Are you still serving drinks without a licence?'
`Only to police chiefs. Come on over, Andy.'
Qwilleran set out Scotch, ice cubes, Squunk water, glasses, and a platter of cheese and crackers on the snack bar, then went to the barnyard to meet his guest.
Andrew Brodie was a towering Scot with a menacing swagger whether wearing a police uniform or a bagpiper's kilt and bonnet. In mufti he still had an air of authority. The cats were waiting to greet him at the kitchen door. They knew that the big man with the loud voice always slipped them a morsel of Cheddar or Gouda from the cheese platter.