Read The Cat Who Turned on and Off for Free Online Page A

installed the kitchen himself. He’s handy with tools. Do you like to cook?”
    “No, I take most of my meals at the Press Club.”
    “The fireplace works, if you want to haul wood upstairs. Do you like the place? I usually get one hundred and ten dollars a month, but if you like it, you can have it for eighty-five dollars.”
    Qwilleran looked at the furniture again and groomed his moustache thoughtfully. Thefurnishings gave him a chill, but the rent suited his economic position admirably. “I’d need a desk and a good reading light and a place to put my books.”
    “We’ve got anything you want. Just ask for it.”
    He bounced on the daybed and found it sufficiently firm. Being built down to the floor, it would offer no temptations to burrowing cats. “I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I have pets. A couple of Siamese cats.”
    “Fine! They’ll get rid of our mice. They can have a feast.”
    “I don’t think they like meat on the hoof. They prefer it well-aged and served medium rare with pan juices.”
    Mrs. Cobb laughed heartily—too heartily—at his humor. “What do you call your cats?”
    “Koko and Yum Yum.”
    “Oh, excuse me a minute!” She rushed from the room and returned to explain that she had a pie in the oven. An aroma of apples and spices was wafting across the hall, and Qwilleran’s moustache twitched.
    While Mrs. Cobb straightened pictures and tested surfaces for dust, Qwilleran examined the facilities. The bathroom had an archaic tub with clawed feet, snarling faucets, and a maze of exposed pipes. The refrigerator was new, however, and the large dressing room had a feature that interested him; one wall was a solid bank of built-in bookshelves filled with volumes in old leather bindings.
    “If you want to use the shelves for something else,we’ll move the books out,” Mrs. Cobb said. “We found them in the attic. They belonged to the man who built this house over a hundred years ago. He was a newspaper editor. Very prominent in the abolitionist movement. This house is quite historic.”
    Qwilleran noticed Dostoyevski, Chesterfield, Emerson. “You don’t need to move the books, Mrs. Cobb. I might like to browse through them.”
    “Then you’ll take the apartment?” Her round eyes were shining. “Have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, and then you can decide.”
    Soon Qwilleran was sitting in a gilded chair at the lopsided table, plunging a fork into bubbling hot pie with sharp cheese melted over the top. Mrs. Cobb watched with pleasure as her prospective tenant devoured every crumb of flaky crust and every dribble of spiced juice.
    “Have some more?”
    “I shouldn’t.” Qwilleran pulled in his waistline. “But it’s very good.”
    “Oh, come on! You don’t have to worry about weight. You have a very nice physique.”
    The newsman tackled his second wedge of pie, and Mrs. Cobb described the joys of living in an old house.
    “We have a ghost,” she announced cheerfully. “A blind woman who used to live here fell down the stairs and was killed. C.C. says her ghost is fascinated by my glasses. When I go to bed, I put them on the night table, and in the morning they’re on the window sill. Or if I put them in the dresser drawer, they’re moved to the night table . . . . More coffee?”
    “Thanks. Do the glasses move around every night?”
    “Only when the moon is full.” The landlady grew thoughtful. “Do you realize how many strange things happened at the auction today? The Sèvres vase, and the chandelier that fell, and the pier mirror that started to topple . . . . It makes me wonder.”
    “Wonder what?”
    “It’s almost as if Andy’s spirit was protesting. ”
    “Do you believe in that kind of thing?”
    “I don’t know. I do and I don’t.”
    “What do you think Andy might have been trying to say?” Qwilleran wore a sincere expression. He had a talent for sincerity that had drawn confidences from the most reticent persons.
    Mrs. Cobb