THE CAT WHO SAW RED

'''The Cat Who Saw Red''' is the fourth book in the Cat Who series of mystery novels by Lilian Jackson Braun, published in 1986.

Contents

Plot Introduction

Plot Summary

Plot Introduction

From the back of the Jove printing (ISBN in table):
"Something is amiss at Maus Haus. Not just the mystery of an unsolved "suicide" which hangs over the old mansion, but something ominous in the present day residence. When Qwilleran moves in to work on his gastronomical assignment, strange things begin to happen. First it's a scream in the night, then a vanishing houseboy. But when his old girlfriend disappears, something has to be done. Qwilleran, Koko, Yum Yum set out to solve the mystery -- and find a murderer!"

Plot Summary

Jim Qwilleran, news reporter for ''The Daily Fluxion'' and a former crime reporter, is given the assignment of restaurant reviewer (his column is called ''Prandial Musings''), after being put on a strict diet. Still, he knows he must do his job, so he goes to Maus Haus to write his first story. Maus Haus is a historic building of unusual design with oddly shaped sections, misplaced gables, and many other strange architectural features. It was built by one of the Pennimans, a powerful rich family who owns ''The Morning Rampage'', a rival newspaper, as a center for the arts. However, it is owned by Robert Maus, an attorney who is an excellent chef, who runs it like a kind of boarding house, where everyone (except the potters who run the pottery) works with food in some way.
When Qwilleran arrives, he immediately recognizes Joy Wheatley, his old girlfriend from Chicago who ran off to “find herself” when Qwill was only nineteen years old. She found out she had a knack for pottery, and married a potter named Dan Graham (so her real name is now Joy Graham). When Qwill discovers there is an apartment that is open for subletting, Qwilleran promptly moves in with his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum.
It soon becomes obvious that the relationship between Joy and Dan is strained, especially when they discuss Joy’s cat. The cat, who never went out, went missing one day and was never seen again. While this deeply troubled Joy, Dan jokes about it, to Joy’s disapproval. But then, one evening, while Joy and Qwill are catching up in his room, Joy mentions divorce. She is tired of Dan because he is hardly making any money. Because of a missing thumb, he can only make roll pots, which are not as appealing as those spun on a wheel. Dan is jealous of her work, she always gets good reviews and sales without trying, while Dan is hardly successful at all. She would divorce him, but she does not have enough money to pay for the court case. So, grudgingly, Qwilleran decides to lend her $750, the last of the prize money he won for a series of news articles.
Later that same night though, Qwilleran hears a scream. But he thought it might only have been the garage door squeaking or tires squealing on the road. But after that a car pulled out of the garage and raced off. He knew the scream was not in a dream he was having because his cats heard it as well, and so he wondered what caused it. Dan says that Joy just left him, that she was there that evening and gone in the morning. He said she had done it before, and it would not be long before she came back. She did not take the Graham’s car, and Qwilleran remembers the car that pulled out of the driveway after the scream, and wonders if lending Joy $750 was a mistake. As for the scream, Dan says Joy was working on an electric wheel and got her hair caught in a pot. She was saved by Dan when he threw the switch, shutting the wheel off and preventing her from being scalped. Though it seemed that Joy was alive, Koko typed “30” on the typewriter, which was the symbol used for the end of a story, leading Qwilleran to be unsure of her fate.
A few days later, Joy is still missing, and Koko typed the word “dog” on the typewriter. Despite Qwilleran’s suspicions, Dan Graham did not have a middle name, so he continues to wonder if the man is innocent. Then Qwilleran, while having a discussion with Charlotte Roop, a secretary for the Heavenly Hash House chain of restaurants and a resident of Maus Hous, mentions how well Joy threw pots on her manual, not electric, wheel. Qwilleran begins to suspect Joy is dead, but he does not want to believe it. Along with Joy’s “disappearance,” another mystery is brought to Qwilleran’s attention. Max Sorrel, a resident of Maus House, owns a restaurant called the Golden Lamb Chop, but the restaurant is suffering because of dirty rumors about how the meat is dead cat, the chef has a terrible disease and other equally damaging tales. Though they are untrue, they scared away many customers, leaving the restaurant near bankruptcy. No one knew who started the rumors, and so nothing can be done. So Qwilleran goes to the Golden Lamb Chop to write a review. But before he can finish it, he gets a threatening phone call advising him not to write anything about the Golden Lamb Chop, but he does so anyway.
On a hunch, Qwilleran asks about bodies dragged up in the river behind Maus House, yet not one matches Joy’s description, so Qwilleran continues to wonder. Qwilleran also learns that the car that drove off after the scream in the night was Max Sorrel’s, he was going to his restaurant because a fire had been put out there (a fire that was believed to be arson). He learns that Dan got a passport, but he says it is to go to a Europe to display some pots, and that the houseboy says Joy always used the kick wheel. He also learns it was the houseboy who typed “dog” on the typewriter, not Koko.
For a story, he decides to go with Maus and the houseboy to the market to buy fresh foods. But when the morning comes the houseboy is nowhere to be found, even though his car is in the garage and he never missed market day. Also, Dan says he got a postcard from Joy, who is in Florida, taking a break. She asked Dan to send down her summer clothes. Concerned over the houseboy’s continued absence, he contacts his girlfriend, who says she hasn’t seen him. Also, no money had been taken from their joint bank account, and Qwilleran instructs her to inform him if any money goes missing. The houseboy, who wanted to be a detective, was suspicious of Graham, so Qwill also asks her if he mentioned anything about him. All he said was that “Mr. Graham was going to blow a whole load of pots.” This was because he was heating the kiln too quickly. The houseboy spied on Graham by using a peephole cut in the wall of Qwill’s room, and when Qwill looks through the peephole, he sees Dan copying things out of a ledger.
Then Qwilleran learns his check of $750 had been changed to $1750, though Qwilleran is able to convince the bank that he wrote it out as $750. To peak in the pottery, Qwilleran tells Dan he is doing a photo shoot for publication in the ''Fluxion'', and brings Koko along to pose in some pictures, though he really wants him to sniff around for clues. Koko does show great interest in the trap door to the basement, but Dan says that they shouldn’t go down there because there are rats. But Qwill later learns that Maus is very particular about sanitation, and has an exterminator in constantly, so there would be no rats. Also, Qwilleran finds the ledger Dan was copying out of, and discovers it was a recipe of glazes used by Joy.
Koko once more types at the typewriter, this time it is “pb,” the chemical symbol for lead. Qwilleran then learns that Hixie Rice, a resident of Maus House, was going to break a secret engagement with Dan Graham. She said it wasn’t working out, and she did not want to be with a man cheating on his wife. Then Qwilleran looked through the peephole, and saw Dan burning Joy’s clothing. At the pottery opening, Dan surprised everyone with his “living glaze,” which was vibrant and beautiful, and made up for the poor quality of his pots. Many people said that if his glaze was put on Joy’s pots, than they would be very popular. Earlier, Qwilleran asked a diver friend to look below the boardwalk behind Maus House. He based his guess on an account of Mrs. Marron, the housekeeper, who said one evening she saw someone going down the fire escape with a big bag, which he or she dumped in the river. The diver reported that it was Joy’s pots with the living glaze.
Qwilleran confronted Dan with some of the strange occurrences, and accused him of adding a thousand dollars to the check, but he insisted Joy did so. Dan always had a reason for these things, and so Qwilleran got nowhere, though Dan did give him a red and blue living glaze pot. Stymied, Qwilleran started reading a book on pottery that was in his room. He came up with the following conclusions after reading:

★ Dan, already envious of his wife’s successes, became very jealous when he learned of her living glazes

★ He (and Qwilleran) read that in ancient China, potters burned human bodies to create a powerful red glaze

★ Dan uses Joy’s cat, whom he dislikes, as a test, and finds that it works

★ Dan prevents any of Joy’s pots from being displayed before the show, so no one will know she invented the living glaze

★ Dan murders Joy, and uses her ashes to create more red glazes. He then makes up the post card saying that she was in Florida, and burns her clothing

★ So no one will know the living glaze was her idea, he throws her pots with the glaze into the river

★ When he learns that the houseboy was becoming suspicious, he invited him over for a drink, the houseboy wanted to confront Dan with discoveries. He put lead oxide, used in glazes, into the houseboy’s drink, poisoning him. But because pots in the kiln were cooling, he had to put the body in the basement. The entrance was located in the clay room, so the smell of ripening clay would disguise any other odors

★ Dan got a passport and tickets to France so he could leave the country
Qwilleran discussed this with Robert Maus, but Maus was unwilling to take any immediate action. That evening, Dan came back to Qwill’s apartment to kill him because he knew too much. But Koko and Yum Yum had spun a spider web of yarn from a yarn ball throughout the apartment, causing Dan to trip and fall. Qwilleran was alerted, and Dan was arrested. As for the Golden Lamb Chop slander, Charlotte Roop overheard two Heavenly Hash House managers discussing how their attempts to put the restaurant out of business had failed. They had wanted to buy the property where the Golden Lamb Chop was located.