The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun Page A

elegantly slender. Mountclemens wore a dark red velvet jacket, and his face impressed the newsman as poetic; perhaps it was the way the thin hair was combed down on the high forehead. A fragrance of lime peel surrounded him.
     
     
"Apologies for the moat-and-drawbridge arrangement downstairs," said the critic. "In this neighborhood one takes no chances."
     
     
He gave Qwilleran a left-handed handshake and ushered him into a living room unlike anything the newsman had ever seen. It was crowded and shadowy. The only illumination came from a flagging blaze in the fireplace and from hidden spotlights beamed on works of art.
     
     
Qwilleran's eye itemized marble busts, Chinese vases, many gilded picture frames, a bronze warrior, and some crumbling wood carvings of angels. One wall of the high-ceilinged room was covered with a tapestry having life, size figures of medieval damsels. Over the fireplace was a painting that any moviegoer would recognize as a Van Gogh.
     
     
"You seem impressed by my little collection, Mr. Qwilleran," said the critic, "or appalled by my eclectic taste.... Here, let me take your coat."
     
     
"It's a pocket-size museum," said Qwilleran in awe.
     
     
"It is my life, Mr. Qwilleran. And I admit - quite without modesty - that it succeeds in having a certain ambiance."
     
     
Hardly an inch of dark red wall remained uncovered. The fireplace was flanked by well-stocked bookshelves. Other walls were stacked to the ceiling with paintings.
     
     
Even the red carpet, which had a luminosity of its own, was crowded - with oversize chairs, tables, pedestals, a desk, and a lighted cabinet filled with small carvings.
     
     
"Let me pour you an aperitif," said Mountclemens, "and then you can collapse into an easy chair and prop your feet up. I avoid serving anything stronger than sherry or Dubonnet before dinner, because I am rather proud of my culinary skill, and I prefer not to paralyze your taste buds."
     
     
"I can't have alcohol," said Qwilleran, "so my taste buds are always in first-class condition."
     
     
"Then how about a lemon and bitters?"
     
     
While Mountclemens was out of the room, Qwilleran became aware of other details: a dictating machine on the desk; music drifting from behind an Oriental screen; two deep-cushioned lounge chairs facing each other in front of the fire, sharing a plump ottoman between them. He tried one of the chairs and was swallowed up in the cushions. Resting his head back and putting his feet on the ottoman, he experienced an unholy kind of comfort. He almost hoped Mountclemens would never return with the lemon and bitters.
     
     
"Is the music satisfactory?" asked the critic as he placed a tray at Qwilleran's elbow. "I find Debussy soothing at this time of day. Here is something salty to nibble with your drink. I see you have gravitated to the right chair."
     
     
"This chair is the next best thing to being unconscious," said Qwilleran. "What's it covered with? It reminds me of something they used to make boy's kneepants out of."
     
     
"Heather corduroy," said Mountclemens. "A miracle fabric not yet discovered by scientists. Their preoccupation with man- made materials amounts to blasphemy."
     
     
"I'm living in a hotel where everything is plastic. It makes an old flesh-and-blood character like me feel obsolete."
     
     
"As you can see by looking around you, I ignore modern technology."
     
     
"I'm surprised," said Qwilleran. "In your reviews you favor modem art, and yet everything here is - " He couldn't think of a word that sounded complimentary.
     
     
"I beg to correct you," said Mountclemens. He gestured grandly toward a pair of louvered doors. "In that closet is a small fortune in twentieth-century art - under ideal conditions of temperature and humidity. Those are my investments, but these paintings you see on the walls are my friends. I believe in the art of today as an expression of its time, but I choose to live with the mellowness of the past.