"I don't want it," she said with a sickly attempt at a smile. "I don't even want to look at it. Maybe you can use it in your work." The youth who arrived from the Dispatch Office was unkempt, undernourished and red-eyed. Most of the Fluxion messengers fitted such a description, but this one was superlative.
"Yikes!" the boy said when he saw the newsman's apartment. "Do you pay rent for this pad, or does the Flux pay you to live here?" "Don't editorialize," Qwilleran said, reaching for his wallet. "Just do what I say. Here's ten bucks. Go next door — " "Lookit them crazy cats! Do they bite?" "Only Fluxion messengers…. Now listen carefully. Go to the antique shop called Bit o' Junk and ask if the man has any horse brasses." "Horse what?" "The man who runs the place is crazy, so don't be surprised at anything he does or says. And don't let him know that you know me — or that you work for the Flux. Just ask if he has any horse brasses and show him your money. Then bring me whatever he gives you." "Horse brasses! You gotta be kiddin'." "Don't go straight there. Hang around on the comer a few minutes before you approach the Bit o' Junk…. And try not to look too intelligent!" Qwilleran called after the departing messenger, as an unnecessary afterthought.
Then he paced the floor in suspense. When a cat jumped on the desk and presented an arched back at a convenient level for stroking, the man stroked it absently. In fifteen minutes the messenger returned. He said, "Ten bucks for this thing? You gotta be nuts!" "I guess you're right," said Qwilleran meekly, as he examined the brass medallion the boy handed him.
It was a setback, but the fluttering sensation in his mousache told Qwilleran that he was on the right track, and he refused to be discouraged.
At noon he met Arch Riker at the Press Club and presented him with the tobacco tin, gift-wrapped in a page from an 1864 Harper's Weekly. "It's great!" the feature editor said. "But you shouldn't have spent so much, Qwill. Hell, I didn't buy you anything, but I'll pop for lunch." In the afternoon Qwilleran spent a satisfactory hour with the managing editor, and then joined the Women's Department for pink lemonade and Christmas cookies, and later turned up at an impromptu celebration in the Photo Lab, "where he was the only sober guest, and eventually went home. He had three hours before his date with Mary. He went to the ashpit and once more read the chapter in Andy's novel that dealt with the dope pusher.
At five o'clock he dashed out and picked up the better of his two suits from Junktown's dry cleaning establishment that specialized in quick service. There was a red tag on his garment.
"You musta left something in the pocket," the clerk said, and she rummaged through a drawer until she found an envelope with his name on it.
When Qwilleran noted the contents, he said, "Thanks! Thanks very much! Have a Christmas drink on me," and he left a dollar tip. It was the tape measure. Mary's silver tape measure and a piece of folded paper. Fingering the smooth silver case, he returned to his apartment and looked out his back window. The early winter dusk was doing its best to make the junk in the backyard look more bedraggled than ever. The two station wagons were there, backed in from the alley — one gray and one tan.
Access to the backyard was apparently through the Cobb shop, and Qwilleran preferred to avoid Iris, so he went out the front door, around the corner and in through the alley. After a glance at the back windows of nearby houses, he measured the gray wagon. It was exactly as he had guessed; the dimensions tallied with the notations on the scrap of paper.
And as he walked around the decrepit vehicle he noted something else that checked; Ben's wagon had a left front fender missing.
Qwilleran knew exactly what he wanted to do now. After buying a pint of the best brandy at Lombardo's, he ran up the steps to the Bit o' Junk shop. The front door was open, but Ben's store was locked up and dark.
He stopped at The Junkery. "Happen to know where Ben is?" he asked Iris. "I'd like to extend the hospitality of the season." "He must be at Children's Hospital," Iris said. "He goes there every Christmas to play Santa." Upstairs the cats were waiting. Both were sitting tall in the middle of the floor, with the attentive attitude that meant, "We have a message to communicate." They were staring. Yum Yum was staring into middle distance with her crossed eyes, but she was staring hard. Koko stared at a certain point in the center of Qwilleran's forehead, and he was staring so intently that his body swayed with an inner tension.
This was not the dinner message, Qwilleran knew. This was something more important. "What is it?" he asked the cats. "What are you trying to tell me?" Koko turned his head. He looked at a small shiny object on the floor near the bookcase.
"What's that?" Qwilleran gasped, although he needed no answer. He knew what it was.
He picked up the scrap of silvery paper and took it to the desk. He turned on the lamp. At first glance the foil looked like a gum wrapper that had been stepped on, but he knew better. It was a neat rectangle, as wide as a pencil, and as thin as a razorblade.
As he started to open the packet, Koko jumped to the desk to watch. With dainty brown feet the cat stepped over pencils, paper clips, ashtray, tobacco pouch, and tape measure, and then he stepped precisely on the green button of Iris's portable tape recorder.
"Hawnnk… ssss… hawnnk… ssss…" Qwilleran hit the red button of the machine and silenced the unpleasant noise. As he did so, he became aware of heavy footsteps in the hall.
Santa Claus was lumbering up the stairs, pulling on the handrail for assistance.
"Come in and toast the season," Qwilleran invited. "I've got a good bottle of brandy." "Worthy gentleman, I'll do that!" Ben said.
He shuffled into Qwilleran's quarters in his big black boots cuffed with imitation fur. His eyes were glazed, his breath was strong; he had not come directly from Children's Hospital.
"Ho ho ho!" he said in hearty greeting when he spied the two cats.
Yum Yum flew to the top of the book cupboard, but Koko stood his ground and glared at the visitor.
"Merr-r-r-y Christmas!" boomed the Santa Claus voice. Koko's backbone bristled. He arched his back and bushed his tail. With ears laid back and fangs bared, he hissed. Then Koko jumped to the desk and continued to watch the proceedings — with disapproval in the angle of his ears and the tilt of his whiskers. From his perch he could survey the Morris chair, where Qwilleran sat drinking coffee, and the rocker, where Santa Claus was sipping brandy. He also had a good view of the tea table, which held a plate of smoked oysters.
At length Qwilleran said, "Let's drink to our old friend Cobb, wherever he is!" Ben waved his glass. "To the perfidious wretch!" "You mean you weren't an admirer of our late landlord?" "Fair is foul, and foul is fair," said the old actor.
"I'd like to know what happened that night at the Ellsworth house. Did Cobb have a heart attack, or did he slip on the stairs? The snow could have caked on his boots, you know. It was snowing that night, wasn't it?" There was no confirmation from Ben, whose rouged nose was deep in his brandy glass.
"I mean, sometime after midnight," Qwilleran persisted. "Do you remember? Wasn't it snowing? Were you out that night?" "Oh, it snowed and it blowed… it blew and it snew," said Ben with appropriate grimaces and gestures.
"I went to the Ellsworth house the next day, and there was a bare patch under Cobb's car, indicating that it was snowing while he was stripping the house. The funny thing is: another car had been there at the same time. It left its outline on the ice, and from the shape of the impression, I would guess the second car had a fender missing." Qwilleran paused and watched Ben's face.