"Quiet, Koko! You'll wake up the house," Qwilleran said in a hushed voice.

Koko lowered his volume but persisted in the urgency of his message. He stalked back and forth on taut legs, rubbing against the newel-post.

"What's the matter, Koko? What are you trying to say?" The cat's sleek side ground against the newel-post as if to gouge out chunks of fur. Qwilleran reached down and stroked the arched back; the silky fur had become strangely coarse and bristling. At the touch of the hand, Koko bounded up five or six stairs, then lowered his head and twisted his neck until he could rub the back of his ears against the front edge of a tread.

"Are you locked out, Koko? Let's go up and see." Immediately the cat scampered to the top of the flight, with the man following.

"The door's open, Koko," Qwilleran whispered. "Go in. Go to sleep."

The cat squeezed through the narrow opening, and Qwilleran was halfway downstairs again when the wailing resumed. Koko had come out and was rubbing his head violently against the doorjamb.

"You can't keep that up all night! Come on home with me. I'll find you a snack." Qwilleran grabbed the cat under the middle and carried him to his own apartment, where he tossed him lightly on the sofa, but Koko was gone again in a white blur of speed, flying up the stairs and wailing desperately from the top.

At that point Qwilleran's moustache quivered without explanation. What was this all about? Without another word, he followed the cat upstairs. First he knocked on the open door. When there was no answer, he went in. The living room was dark.

As he pressed the switch, all the hidden spotlights flicked their tiny beams on paintings and objects of art. Koko was quiet now, watching Qwilleran's feet as they walked through the living room, into the dining alcove, then out again. The heavily draped and carpeted rooms had a stifling hush. When the feet stopped moving, Koko rushed off down the long hall to the dark kitchen. The feet followed. Bedroom and bathroom doors stood open. Qwilleran turned on the kitchen light.

"What is it, you devil?" The cat was rubbing against the back door that led to the fire escape.

"If you just want to go for a walk, I'll wring your neck. Is that what you want?"

Koko rose on his hind feet and pawed at the doorknob. "Well, I'm not taking you out. Where's your room, mate? Let him take you out…. Besides, it's too cold for cats out there."

Qwilleran switched off the kitchen light and started back down the long hallway, only to have Koko come racing after him with a chesty growl. The cat threw himself at the man's legs.

Qwilleran's moustache sent him another message. He returned to the kitchen, turned on the light, and took the flashlight from the broom closet. He reached for the night latch on the back door and found it unlocked. Strange, he thought.

Opening the door, he met a blast of wintry air, crackling cold. There was a wall switch just inside the door, and he flicked it with a finger, but the exterior light made only a sick puddle of yellow on the upper landing. Qwilleran thumbed the flashlight, and its powerful beam leaped about the scene below. It explored the three brick walls. It studied the closed gate. It crept over the brick paving until it pounced on the sprawled body — the long, dark, spidery body of George Bonifield Mountclemens.

Qwilleran made his way cautiously down the icy treads of the wooden staircase. He flashed the center beam of the flashlight on the side of the face. Mountclemens was lying cheek to the pavement, his body hunched. No doubt about it; he was dead.

The alley was deserted. The night was quiet. There was a fragrance of lime peel. And within the patio the only movement was a pale shadow just beyond the flashlight's range. It moved in circles. It was the cat, behaving oddly, performing some private ritual. With back arched and tail stiff and ears laid back, Kao K'o Kung walked around and around and around.

Qwilleran grabbed the cat in one arm and got up the wooden staircase as fast as the icy treads would permit. At the telephone his finger hesitated over the dial, but he called the police first and after that the night city editor of the Daily Fluxion. Then he sat down to wait, composing his own wry versions of appropriate headlines for tomorrow's paper.

First to arrive at Blenheim Place were two officers in a patrol car.

Qwilleran told them, "You can't reach the patio from the front of the house. You have to go upstairs through his apartment and down the fire escape, or else go around the block and come in the alley gate. It may be locked."

"Who lives in the downstairs rear?" they asked.

"No one. It's used for storage."

The officers tried the door of the rear apartment and found it locked. They went upstairs and down the fire escape.

Qwilleran told them, "At first I thought he'd fallen down the steps. They're treacherous. But he's lying too far from the bottom."

"Looks like a body wound," they said. "Looks like it might have been a knife."

Upstairs the cat arched his back and made long legs and stepped lightly in a pattern of ever-narrowing circles.

13

The day after the murder of Mountclemens, there was only one topic of conversation at the Daily Fluxion. One by one they stopped at Qwilleran's desk: the members of the City Room, the Women's Department, Editorial, the Photo Lab, and the Sports Department. The head librarian, the foreman of the Composing Room, and the elevator starter paid unexpected visits.

Qwilleran's telephone rang incessantly. Women readers cried in his ear. Several anonymous callers said they were glad; Mountclemens had it coming to him. Some urged the newspaper to offer a reward for the killer. Six galleries telephoned to inquire who would review their March exhibitions, now that the critic was out of the picture. A crank called with a phony-sounding tip on the murder and was referred to the Homicide Bureau. A twelve-year-old girl applied for the job of art critic.

One call was from Sandy Halapay's maid, canceling the lunch date scheduled with Qwilleran there was no explanation. So at noon he went to the Press Club with Arch Riker, Odd Bunsen, and Lodge Kendall.

They took a table for four, and Qwilleran went over the incident in detail, starting with Koko's unusual behavior. Mountclemens had been knifed in the stomach. The weapon had not been found. There was no sign of a tussle. The gate to the alley was locked.

"The body's being sent to Milwaukee," Qwilleran told his audience. "Mountclemens mentioned that he had a sister there, and the police found her address. They also impounded the tape reels he had been working on."

Arch said, "They've been looking at back files of his reviews, but I don't know what they hope to find. Just because he insulted half the artists in town, that doesn't make them all suspects, does it? Or maybe it does!"

"Every scrap of information helps," said Lodge. "A lot of people hated Mountclemens. Not only artists but dealers, museum people, teachers, collectors — and at least one bartender that I know," said Qwilleran. "Even Odd wanted to bust a camera over his head."

Arch said, "The switchboard has been jumping. Everybody wants to know who did it. Sometimes I think our readers are all morons."

"Mountclemens wasn't wearing his artificial hand when he was killed," said Odd. "I wonder why."

"That reminds me," said Qwilleran. "I got quite a jolt this morning. Went upstairs to Mountclemens' apartment to get the cat's meat, and there on the top shelf of the refrigerator was that plastic hand! I jumped a foot!"

"What does the cat think about all the uproar?"

"He's edgy. I'm keeping him in my apartment, and he jumps, at the slightest sound. After the police had gone last night and everything quieted down, I put a blanket on the sofa and tried to make him bed down, but he just walked the floor. I think he prowled all night."