QwilIeran made a mental note to call the managing editor the first thing in the morning, and then he slept, the pillow turning up one end of his moustache in a half-smile.

19

Waking on Wednesday morning, Qwilleran was vaguely aware of a lump in his armpit. It was Yum Yum, hiding under the blankets in the safest spot she could find. But while she had run for cover, Koko was investigating the shattering noise that alarmed her. With his hind feet on a chair and his forepaws on the window sill, he was watching the pellets of ice that bounced off the panes of glass.

"Hailstorm!" Qwilleran groaned. "That's all we need to ruin the Block Party!" Koko left the window and routed Yum Yum out of bed. The hail sheathed the city in ice, but by eleven o'clock that morning, the weather developed a conscience and the sun broke through. Junktown sparkled like a jewel. Buildings became crystal palaces. Utility wires, street signs, and traffic lights wore a glistening fringe of icicles, and even the trash cans were beautiful. It was the only decent gesture the weather had made all winter. By noon the junkers were flocking into Zwinger Street. Angels flew from the lampposts, carolers were caroling, and Ben Nicholas in white beard and Santa Claus pantaloons held audience on the stoop in front of his shop. Tiny Spooner was there, taking pictures, and even the Morning Rampage had sent a photographer.

Qwilleran mixed with the crowd and eavesdropped in the shops, until it was time to return to the Junkery and take his turn at tending the shop. He found Cluthra on duty.

"This chair is very old," she was telling a customer. "It has the original milk paint. You'd better grab it. At twenty- seven fifty Mrs. Cobb isn't making a penny on it, I can guarantee. Why, on Cape Cod you'd have to pay sixty-five dollars!" The customer capitulated, wrote a check, and left the shop in high glee, carrying a potty chair with sawed-off legs.

Cluthra turned the cashbox over to QwilIeran and explained the price tags. "Do you understand the code, hon?" she asked. "You read the numbers backwards to get the asking price, and then you can go up or down a few dollars, depending on the customer. Be careful of that banister-back chair; it has a loose leg. And don't forget, you're entitled to strangle every third customer who tells you about her grandmother." The traffic in and out of the shop was heavy, but the buyers were less plentiful than the lookers and askers.

QwilIeran decided to keep a log for Mrs. Cobb's benefit: — Sold two blue glass things out of window, $18.50.

— Woman asked for Sheffield candlesticks.

— Man asked for horse brasses.

— Sold spool chest, $30.

— Kissed female customer and sold tin knife box, $35.

The customer in question had rushed at QwilIeran with a gay little shriek. "QwilI! What are you doing here?" "Rosie Riker! How are you? You're looking great!" Actually she was looking matronly and somewhat ludicrous in her antiquing clothes.

"How've you been, Qwill? I keep telling Arch to bring you home to dinner. Mind if I sit down? I've been walking around for three hours." "Not in the banister-back, Rosie. The leg's loose." "I wish they'd turn those carol singers off for five minutes. How've you been, Qwill? What are you doing here?" "Keeping shop while Mrs. Cobb's at her husband's funeral." "You're looking fine. I'm glad you've still got that romantic moustache! Do you ever hear from Miriam?" "Not directly, but my ex-mother-in-law puts the bite on me once in a while. Miriam's in that Connecticut sanitarium again." "Don't let those vultures take advantage of you, Qwill. They're plenty well off." "Well, how've you been, Rosie? Are you buying anything?" "I'm looking for a Christmas present for Arch. How are your cats?" "They're great! Koko's getting smarter all the time. He opens doors, turns lights on and off, and he's learning to type." "You're kidding." "He rubs his jaw against the levers and flips the carriage or resets margins — not always at the most opportune time." "He's cleaning his teeth," Rosie explained. "Our vet says that's how cats try to clean their teeth. You should take Koko to the dentist. Our gray tabby just had a dental prophylaxis…. Say, have you got any tin? I want to buy something for Arch." She found a tin knife box, and Qwilleran — torn between two loyalties — guiltily knocked two dollars off Mrs. Cobb's asking price.

Rosie said, "I thought your story on the auction was great!" "The story behind the story is better." "What's that? Arch didn't tell me. He never tells me anything." Qwilleran reconstructed the night of Andy's accident. "I can't believe," he said, "that Andy simply missed his footing and fell. He'd have to have been an acrobat to land on the finial the way he did. There were customers coming to look at a chandelier that night. If he was in the process of getting it down off the ceiling, it would mean they had already okayed it; in other words, they were there when he fell!… It doesn't click. I don't think they ever got in the store. I think the whole accident was staged, and Andy was dead when the customers arrived." As he talked, Rosie's eyes had been growing wider and wider. "Qwill, I think Arch and I… I think we might have been the customers! When did it happen?" "Middle of October. The sixteenth, to be exact." "We wanted to get this chandelier installed before our Halloween party, but I didn't want to buy it without Arch seeing it. He came home to dinner, and then we drove back to Junktown. Andy was going to open up especially for us.

But when we got there, the store was locked up, and no one was in sight. In the meantime I noticed a chandelier in the Cobbs' window that looked good, so we bought that one instead." "Were the Cobbs open at that late hour?" "No, but we saw someone going up the steps and asked him if the Cobbs would mind coming down to show us the fixture. He went upstairs and got Mrs. Cobb, and we bought it. It was a couple of weeks later that one of my junking friends told me about Andy's accident, and I never connected — " "Who was the man who was going up the Cobbs' front steps?" "He's a dealer himself. He has the Bit o' Junk shop. It really worked out better for us, because the fixture we bought from Mrs. Cobb was painted tin, and I realized afterwards that Andy's brass chandelier would have been too formal for our dining room." "Did you say brass?" "Yes. Sort of Williamsburg." "Not glass? Not a chandelier with five crystal arms?" "Oh, no! Crystal would be much too dressy for our house." That was when Qwilleran kissed Rosie Riker.

Later in the afternoon he made a few additional entries in the log: — Sold turkey platter, $75.

— Customer broke goblet. Collected $4.50. Showed no mercy.

— Sold apple peeler to make into a lamp, $12.

— Sold bronze grille from Garrick Theatre, $45.

— Photographer sat in banister-back chair. Fluxion will pay for damage.

— SOLD ROLL-TOP DESK, $750!

The woman who came bursting into the shop, asking for a roll-top desk, was not an experienced junker. Qwilleran could tell that by her enthusiasm and her smart clothes.

"The man next door told me you have a roll-top desk," she announced breathlessly, "and I must have one before Christmas." "The one we have is in use," said Qwilleran, "and the user would be extremely reluctant to part with it." "I don't care what it costs," she said. "I've got to have it for my husband's Christmas gift. I'll write you a check, and my driver will pick it up in the morning." Qwilleran felt pleased with himself that evening. He had personally taken in almost $1,000 for Mrs. Cobb. He had gleaned information from Rosie Riker that reinforced his theory about the finial incident. And he had broached an idea to the managing editor of the Daily Fluxion that had made a big impression; if it proved to be workable — and the boss felt that it might — it would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people.