Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 12 Who Knew A Cardinal

There were other documents and scraps of paper in the hollow book, but for the moment the catalogue was all that mattered. Entries were grouped from A to F, evidently referring to the six rooms in which boxes were stored. It was while leafing through its pages that he spotted a small red dot alongside certain items: "Latin A-92," for instance.

Koko was sitting quietly on A-106 in his sphinx pose, guarding the salmon carton. "We've got to find A-92," Qwilleran said impatiently as he began slinging boxes around. They were stacked in no particular order, and the noise of heavy boxes being shifted soon brought a tap on the door.

"Come in," he yelled without stopping his frenzied search.

"Are you onto something?" Susan asked.

"I think so... I found the catalogue... Boxes, not titles," he said between heavy breathing. "Some have a special mark... A red dot... I'm looking for A-92."

He found it at the bottom of a stack, behind two other stacks - a vodka carton filled with textbooks, grammars, ponies, a Latin-English dictionary, and the works of Cicero and Virgil.

"They're Latin books, all right," he announced with disappointment. "Nothing but books."

"Well, let's work another half hour and then go to lunch," Susan suggested.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I'll take a raincheck, since I have Koko with me and I'm not dressed for lunch at the Mill. But if you want to pick us up again, I'll be glad to help any day you say."

He repacked A-92, shoving Koko away as the cat tried to climb into the vodka carton. Then, working fast during the next half hour, he opened other boxes that warranted a red dot. He found only books in an eclectic assortment of subjects: Nordic Mythology, Indian Authors, Chaucer, Japanese Architecture. One box contained Famous Frauds - accounts of imposters, swindlers, and other white-collar crooks. In the stacking of boxes a slight pattern emerged; the red dots were all found to the left of the door as one entered the room, concealed behind other book-boxes. Qwilleran counted the red dots in the catalogue, and there were fifty-two, distributed equally among rooms A to F.

When they pulled away from the house in Susan's wagon, Qwilleran had three books tucked under his arm. He said, "I hope no one objects if I borrow something to read. I found a couple of good titles."

"Keep them," she said. "No one will ever know or care." Sandwiched between novels of Sir Walter Scott, which came from a red-dot carton, was Memoirs of a Merry Milkmaid.

When Susan dropped her passengers off at the apple barn, Koko was greeted by his mate as if he had returned from an alien planet, contaminated by radioactive gasses. Belly to the Boor, Yum Yum crept toward him cautiously, caught a whiff of something evil, and skulked away with lowered head and bushy tail. Unconcerned, he walked to the kitchen area and stared pointedly at an empty plate on the floor until a piece of turkey appeared on it miraculously.

Qwilleran had dropped his three books on a table in the foyer area. After his exertions at the VanBrook house he was tremendously hungry. He thawed a carton of chili, a small pizza, and two corn muffins, while sitting down to this lunch in the snack area he heard a loud plop! It was followed by another loud plop! He recognized the sound, that of a book falling on an uncarpeted floor leaving his lunch, he investigated the main floor and found two volumes of Sir Walter Scott on the earthen tiles of the foyer. Koko was pushing Ivanhoe around with his nose, but it was not the spine he was sniffing; he was nosing the fore-edges.

Qwilleran retrieved it - a book in flexible leather binding with gold tooling and gilt edges - published in 1909 with end papers and frontispiece in Art Nouveau style. It was a better edition than the set of Dickens but damaged by dryness. He riffled the pages - and gasped! They were interleaved with money! With ten-dollar bills! The other book, he soon discovered, was the same. The "bookmarks" in The Bride of Lammermoor were twenties! Both books had come from a red-dot carton. He tried a little computation: fifty-two red-dot boxes... approximately twenty books per carton... twenty or thirty bills in each box... And yet, considering the rate of inflation and opportunities for investment, who would hide this amount of money in the house? Unless...

Hurrying to the telephone he called Exbridge & Cobb Antiques. "Susan," he said, "I've discovered something remarkable about the red dots, and I think you should get the attorney up here in a hurry before we open any more cartons... No, I can't tell you on the phone... Yes, I'm willing to meet with him - any time."