"Linenfold paneling!" Mrs. Cobb gasped. "Austrian chandeliers! The furniture is German, of course." "That's the original furniture," Qwilleran said, "before the Klingenschoens became serious collectors and switched to French and English." When they crossed the foyer to the drawing room, she stared in awed silence. Chandeliers festooned with crystal were ablaze in the afternoon sun. Mellowed with age, the red walls made a handsome background for oil paintings in extravagant frames: French landscapes, Italian saints, English noblemen, and one full-length, life-size portrait of an 1880 beauty with bustle and parasol. On the far wall a collection of Chinese porcelains filled the shelves in two lofty arched niches.
"I think I'm going to faint," Mrs. Cobb said.
"You should rest for a while," Qwilleran suggested. "There are four suites upstairs, each done in a different period.
I'll bring your overnight bag up to the French suite in a few minutes." While she climbed the stairs in a daze, he dashed off a note to his friend Down Below.
Dear Arch, Mrs. Cobb just broke the bad news. I don't need to tell you how terrible I feel about it. Why don't you take a week off and fly up here? It'll be a change of scene, and we can talk.
Qwill
He was addressing the envelope when he heard cries of alarm upstairs. "What are they doing? What are they doing?" Mrs. Cobb carne rushing down the stairs, babbling incoherently, and he ran to meet her.
"That truck in the back drive!" she cried. "I looked out the window. They're stealing things from the garage. Stop them!
Stop them!" "Don't get excited, Mrs. Cobb," Qwilleran said. "This isn't Zwinger Street. Those are porters from the design studio, cleaning out the junk before we redecorate." "It's not junk! Stop them!" They both hurried to the garage, where a truck was being loaded with rolled rugs, an old mattress, and odds and ends of furniture.
"That's a Hunzinger!" Mrs. Cobb shouted, pointing to an odd-looking folding chair. "And that's a real Shaker rocker!" She rushed about — from an early trestle table to a Connecticut dower chest to a Pennsylvania German schrank.
Qwilleran stopped the porters. "Take it all back except the mattress. Put everything in one of the garage stalls until we can sort it out." Mrs. Cobb was weak with shock and excitement. "What a narrow escape," she said, over a cup of tea. "You know, there was a period when Americana wasn't appreciated. These people must have moved their heirlooms to the garage when they bought their French and English antiques. It's strange that your decorator didn't recognize their current value." Maybe she did, Qwilleran thought. Later in the afternoon he conducted the prospective housekeeper on a walking tour of downtown Pickax. "How do you like the French suite?" he asked.
"I've never seen anything so grand! There's a Norman bonnet-top armoire that must be early eighteenth century!" Hesitantly she added, "If I come to work here, would you mind if I did a few appraisals for other people on the side?" "Not at all. You can even open a tearoom in the basement and tell fortunes." "Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you're such a joker." Downtown Pickax was a panorama of imitation Scottish castles, Spanish fortresses, and Cotswold cottages. "All real stone," he pointed out, "but somehow it looks fake, like a bad movie set." They passed Amanda's studio (pure Dickens) and the offices of the Pickax Picayune (early monastery). Then he steered her into the office (Heidelberg influence) of Goodwinter and Goodwinter.
The junior partner was conferring with a client but consented to step out of her private office for a moment.
Qwilleran said, "I want to introduce Iris Cobb. I've convinced her to move up here from Down Below and manage our household. Mrs. Cobb, this is Penelope Goodwinter, attorney for the estate." "Pleased to meet you," said the housekeeper, extending her hand. Penelope, glancing at the rhinestone-studded I glasses, was a fraction of a second slow in shaking hands: and saying, "How nice." Qwilleran went on. "Mrs. Cobb is not only experienced in household management, but she's a licensed appraiser and will catalogue the collection for us." His former landlady beamed, and Penelope said, "Oh, really? We must discuss salary, of course. When do you wish to start your employment, Mrs. Cobb?" "Well, I'm flying home tomorrow, and I'll drive up here in my van as soon as I pack my reference books." "I suggest," the attorney said, "that you defer your arrival until your apartment is redecorated. At present it's in deplorable condition." "No problem," Qwilleran interjected. "Mrs. Cobb will have the French suite in the house. I plan to fix up the garage apartment for myself." The attorney's reaction started with shock, faded into disapproval, and recovered enough to muster a half smile. "I hope you will both be comfortable. Let us talk about terms and contracts tomorrow." "I'm taking Mrs. Cobb to dinner at the Old Stone Mill tonight," Qwilleran said. "Would you care to join us?" "Thank you. Thank you so much, but I have a previous engagement. And now… if you will excuse me…" "Oh my!" Mrs. Cobb said afterward. "She's a very smart dresser, isn't she? I didn't know they had clothes like that in Pickax." Qwilleran reported the incident to Melinda Goodwinter after putting the housekeeper on the plane the next day. The young doctor with green eyes and long eyelashes telephoned to invite him to dinner.
"My treat," she said. "I'd like to take you to Otto's Tasty Eats." "Never heard of it. How's the food?" "Ghastly, but there's lots of it. It's a family restaurant — no liquor — and you can sit in the smoking section or the screaming section, depending on whether you want to ruin your lungs or your eardrums." "You make the invitation irresistible, Melinda." "To tell the truth, I have an ulterior motive. I want to see your house. I've never seen the interior. The Klingenschoens and the Goodwinters weren't on the same wavelength socially. Could you meet me at Otto's at six-fifteen? I'll reserve a booth." At the appointed hour Qwilleran was wedging his green economy-model car into the crowded parking lot when Melinda pulled up in a silver convertible.
"When are you going to buy a gold-plated Rolls?" she greeted him.
"Do I look like a sheikh? Don't let the moustache mislead you." "You really made a hit when you proposed giving away your money," she said. "There's a rumor that Pickax will be renamed Qwillville. All the women in Moose County will be chasing you, but remember — I found you first." Otto's Tasty Eats occupied a former warehouse in the industrial area of Pickax. The wrinkled carpet suggested old army blankets. Long institutional tables — at least an acre of them — were covered with sheets of stiff white paper. Lights glared. Noise reverberated. Customers flocked in by the hundreds.
In the center of the room was a veritable shrine to gluttony: twelve-gallon crocks of watery soup, bushels of tom iceberg lettuce, mountains of fried chicken and fried fish, tubs of reconstituted mashed potatoes, and a dessert table that was a sea of white froth masquerading as whipped cream.
"Do you come here often?" Qwilleran asked.
"Only when I entertain supercilious urban types." Overstuffed diners were making three or four trips to the buffet, but Melinda insisted on ordering from the menu and having table service.
"I don't imagine," Qwilleran said, "that your cousins from the law office are frequent diners at Otto's Tasty Eats." He described the meeting between the attorney and Mrs. Cobb. "Penelope was a trifle perturbed when I told her the housekeeper would occupy the French suite and I'd live over the garage." Melinda's green eyes brimmed with merriment. "She probably went into shock. She and Alex are the last of the hard- line Goodwinter snobs. They consider themselves the superior branch of the family. Did you know that Penny is the one with brains? Alex is just a tiresome bore with an inflated ego, and yet she defers to him as if he were the mastermind." "He's a good-looking guy. Is he involved in politics? He seems to go to Washington a lot." "Well, it's like this," Melinda explained. "There's a lot of Old Money in Moose County, and Alex steers campaign donations to friendly pols. He loves the importance it gives him in the Capitol and at Washington parties. Have you met any other Goodwinters?" "Junior at the newspaper, for one. He's a bright kid, and he majored in journalism, but he's wasted at the Picayune. It looks like an antebellum weekly. I told him he's got to get the classified ads off the front page." "I hear that cousin Amanda is going to redecorate your garage apartment. Did she kick you in the shins or just call you a twelve-letter word?" "I don't understand how that woman stays in business. She has the personality of a hedgehog." "She has a captive clientele. There's no other decorator within four hundred miles." They could talk freely. Their booth was an island of privacy in a maelstrom of ear-splitting noise. The animated conversation of happy diners and the excited shrieks of children bounced off the steel girders and concrete walls, and the din was augmented by the Tasty Eats custom of pounding the table with knife handles to express satisfaction with the food.