The Cat Who Robbed a Bank Read Online Free PDF

Your paper has interviewed him for Thursday's food page. The whole staff is excited. All the hiring was done before I got here—by Mr. Barter's office. It was his idea to hire MCCC students part-time. He's a great guy!”
    G. Allen Barter was junior partner in the Pickax law firm of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter, and he was Qwilleran's representative in all matters pertaining to the Klingenschoen Foundation. Since the K Fund owned the inn, he was CEO.
    Qwilleran said, “I know Bart very well. He says you need a place to live, and there's a carriage house apartment on my property that's available—four rooms, furnished. It's only a few blocks from downtown.”
    â€œGreat! I'll take it!” the manager said. “I've been sleeping here, but I've got a van full of personal belongings that I'd like to offload.”
    â€œYou'd better look at it first,” Qwilleran said. “I'll show it to you any time.”
    â€œHow about right now?”
    Within minutes he was following Qwilleran's vehicle south on Main Street, around the Park Circle and into the parking lot of the K Theatre. They stopped at a fieldstone carriage house with carriage lanterns on all four corners.
    â€œGreat!” he exclaimed as he jumped out of his van.
    â€œI warn you, the stairs are narrow and steep. It was built in the nineteenth century when people had small feet and narrow shoulders. You'll be interested to know it's said to be haunted—by a young woman whose name was Daisy.”
    â€œGreat!”
    â€œAfter you unpack, you can drive through the woods to my place, and I'll offer you a drink.”
    â€œGreat!”
    â€œBy the way,” Qwilleran said, “how do you feel about cats?”
    â€œAnything that walks on four legs and doesn't bite is a friend of mine!”
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    By the time Barry Morghan arrived at the barn, the Siamese had been fed and were curled up like shrimp on their respective bar stools, sound asleep. Qwilleran went to the barnyard to greet him. He enjoyed newcomers' expressions of disbelief and awe when the hundred-year-old barn loomed before their eyes and he was not disappointed by his tenant's reaction. “Great!” he said with fervor.
    The interior with its ramps and balconies and giant white cube sent him into further exclamations of astonishment.
    â€œWhat do you like to drink? I have a well-stocked bar,” Qwilleran said.
    â€œI'm not much of a drinker. What are you going to have?”
    â€œGinger ale.”
    â€œGreat! I'll have the same.” Barry had changed into casualwear and walked around with his hands in his pants pockets, making comments. “Are those your cats, or are they fur cushions on the bar stools? . . . Have you read all those books? . . . I see you have one of those 'bent' bikes. Do you ride it?”
    There was a recumbent bicycle leaning against a stone wall near the foyer. “It was a gift,” Qwilleran explained. “Now that I'm used to pedaling with my feet elevated, I like it.”
    They lounged in the library area with their ginger ale, and his guest said, “Mind if I chew gum? I'm trying to stop smoking.”
    â€œGo right ahead.”
    â€œIs this a wastebasket?” He dropped the wrapper in a polished wooden receptacle with a carved top handle.
    â€œIt's a wastebasket moonlighting as an antique Chinese water bucket, or vice versa. . . Do you know I haven't chewed gum since I gave up baseball? It was part of the game for me: chomp gum, jerk cap, punch glove, hitch belt.”
    â€œWhy did you give up baseball?”
    â€œI came out of the military with a bum knee. It plagued me till I moved to Moose County and then disappeared. The natives credited the drinking water. I think the biking cured it.”
    Then the talk turned to the inn: how it had been dreary but clean, how everyone hated the food, how Fran Brodie had worked wonders with the interior. “She's one of our