The Cat Who Tailed a Thief by Lilian Jackson Braun Read Free Book Online Page A

gifts; Koko was doing his best to open the carton containing the set of Melville’s works.
    Was he attracted to the leather bindings? Did he detect codfish on a set of old books from Boston? Could he sense that the box contained a novel about a whale? He was a smart cat, but was he that smart?
    Koko did indeed have a baffling gift of extrasensory perception. He could tell time, read Qwilleran’s mind, and put thoughts in Qwilleran’s head. All cats do this, more or less, at feeding time. But Koko applied his powers to matters of good and evil. He sensed misdeeds, and he could identify misdoers in an oblique sort of way. Melville’s novels were concerned with good and evil to a large degree; was Kao K’o Kung getting the message?
    Was it coincidence that he pushed The Thief off the bookshelf when Pickax was plagued with petit larceny—and some not so petit?
    Trying to find answers to such questions could drive a person mad, Qwilleran had decided. The sane approach was to be receptive, open-minded. There was one clue, however, that he had divined: Normal cats have twenty-four whiskers on each side, eyebrows included. Koko had thirty!

 
     
FOUR
     
    Between Christmas and New Year’s, Qwilleran took Celia Robinson’s grandson out on an assignment. He had been scheduled to interview an innkeeper in Trawnto Beach, but a dowser in Pickax seemed more likely to interest a future scientist. Furthermore, the dowser lived nearby, and Qwilleran could avoid sixty miles of driving in the company of a precocious fourteen-year-old. Admittedly, summer would be more appropriate for a dowsing story, but the interview could be conducted during Clayton’s visit and put on hold. Then, after spring thaw, Qwilleran could return for a demonstration of the mysterious art.
    When he drove into Celia’s parking lot, he saw Clayton on the snowblower, spraying his grandmother with plumes of white flakes, while she pelted him with snowballs in gleeful retaliation. Brushing snow from their outerwear, they approached Qwilleran’s car, and Celia made the introductions: “Mr. Qwilleran, this is my famous grandson . . . Clayton, this is the famous Mr. Q. I call him ‘Chief.’”
    “Hi, Chief,” the young man said, thrusting his hand forward. His grip had the confidence of a young teen who is expecting a scholarship from M.I.T.
    “Hi, Doc,” Qwilleran replied, referring to his role in the Florida investigation. He sized him up as a healthy farm-bred youth with an intelligent face, freshly cut hair, and a voice deeper than the one on last year’s tape recording. “Got your camera? Let’s go!”
    “Where are we off to, Chief?” Clayton asked as they turned into Park Circle.
    “We’re going to Pleasant Street to interview Gil MacMurchie. His ancestors came here from Scotland about the time of Rob Roy. Do you know about Rob Roy? Sir Walter Scott wrote a novel with that title.”
    “I saw the movie,” Clayton said. “He wore skirts.”
    “He wore a kilt, customarily worn by Scottish Highlanders for tramping across the moors in wet heather, and also as a badge of clansmanship. During the Jacobite rebellion, clans were stripped of their names and kicked off their land. Rob Roy had been chief of the MacGregor clan but changed his name to Campbell. ‘Roy’ refers to his red hair.”
    “How do you know all that?”
    “I read. Do you read, Doc?”
    “Yeah, I read a lot. I’m reading Einstein’s Philosophy of Civilization.”
    “I’m glad you’re not waiting for the movie. . . Mr. MacMurchie is retired from the plumbing and hardware business, but he’s still active as a dowser. Know anything about dowsing? Scientists call it divining. It’s also known as water witching.”
    “Sure, I know about that! When our well ran dry, my dad hired a water witch. He walked around our farm with a branch of a tree and found underground water. I don’t know how it works.”
    “No one knows exactly, but there are plenty of guesses. Geologists call