Free The Cat Who Turned on and Off by Lilian Jackson Braun Page A

settled in his own bed, hoping that his mates at the Press Club never found out he was sleeping in a swan boat.
    It was then that he heard the odd sound—like soft moaning. It was the purring of cats, but louder. It was the cooing of pigeons, but more guttural. It hada mechanical regularity, and it seemed to be coming from the partition behind his bed—the wall that was papered with book leaves. He listened—keenly at fist, then drowsily, and the monotony of the sound soon lulled him to sleep.
    He slept well that first night in the Cobb mansion, dreaming pleasantly of the Mackintosh coat of arms with its three snarling cats and its weathered blues and reds. His pleasurable dreams were always in color; others were in sepia, like old-time rotogravure.
    On Saturday morning, as he began to emerge from slumber, he felt a great weight pressing on his chest. In the first stages of waking, before his eyes were open and before his mind was clear, he had a vision of the iron coat of arms, crushing him, pinning him to the bed. He struggled to regain his senses, and as he succeeded in opening his eyelids, he found himself staring into two violet-blue eyes, slightly crossed. Little Yum Yum was sitting on his chest in a compact and featherweight bundle. He took a deep breath of relief, and the heaving of his chest pleased her. She purred. She reached out one velvety paw and touched his moustache tenderly. She used the stubble on his chin to scratch the top of her head.
    Then, from somewhere overhead, came an imperious command. Koko was sitting on the tail of the swan, making pronouncements in a loud voice. Either he was ordering breakfast, or he was deploring Yum Yum’s familiarity with the man of the house. Koko seemed to have strong ideas about priorities.
    The steam was hissing and clanking in theradiators, and when the heat came on in this old house, the whole building smelled of baked potatoes. Qwilleran got up and diced some round steak for the cats and heated it in a spoonful of consommé, while Koko supervised and Yum Yum streaked around the apartment, chased by an imaginary pursuer. For his own breakfast the newsman was contemplating the sugary bun that had become unappetizingly gummy during the night.
    As he arranged the diced meat on one of the antique blue and white plates that came with the apartment, he heard a knock on the door. Iris Cobb was standing there, beaming at him.
    “I’m sorry. Did I get you out of bed?” she asked when she saw the red plaid bathrobe. “I heard you talking to the cats and thought you were up. Here’s a fresh shower curtain for your bathtub. Did you sleep well?”
    “Yes, it’s a good bed.” Qwilleran protruded his lower lip and blew into his moustache, dislodging a cat hair that was waving under his nose.
    “I had a terrible night. C.C. snored like a foghorn, and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Is there anything you need? Is everything all right?”
    “Everything’s fine, except that my toothbrush has disappeared. I put it in a tumbler last night, and this morning it’s gone.”
    Iris rolled her eyes. “It’s Mathilda! She’s hidden it somewhere. Just hunt around and you’ll find it. Would you like a few antique accessories to makeyour apartment more homey? Some colored glass? Some figurines?”
    “No, thanks, but I’d like to get a telephone installed in a hurry.”
    “You can call the phone company from our apartment. And why don’t you let me fix you a bite of breakfast? I made corn muffins for C.C. before he went picketing, and there’s half a panful left.”
    Qwilleran remembered the sticky breakfast roll glued to its limp paper wrapper—and accepted.
    Later, while he was eating bacon and eggs and buttering hot corn muffins, Iris talked to him of the antiques business. “You know the dentist’s chair that was in your apartment?” she said. “C.C. originally found it in the basement of a clinic that was being torn down, and Ben Nicholas bought it from him for fifty