Qwilleran asked, “Where will Mr. Delacamp camp while he’s here?”
“In the presidential suite. No president ever stayed here, but there’s still an adjoining room for the Secret Service, and it’ll be used for his assistant.”
“I hope he likes cats.” Qwilleran pointed to a building across the street. An upstairs apartment had five windows with a cat in each, sitting on the sill and watching the flow of traffic below.
“Aren’t they adorable?” Fran said. “They’re watching pigeons on the roof of the inn.”
“Or making a traffic survey. Who lives there?”
“Mrs. Sprenkle. The Sprenkle family owns the whole block. When her husband died, she sold their country house and moved downtown. She likes the action. He liked peace and quiet. Why does a man who can’t stand noise marry a woman who can’t stand silence?”
“It’s the Jack Sprat law. She has unusual curtains. Is she a client of yours?”
“No. Amanda has done her work for forty years. It’s all Victorian. You’d hate it, Qwill!… And now, would you like to meet the manager before you leave? He’s from Chicago”
The door to the manager’s office on the second floor was standing open, and a clean-cut young man in suit and tie was working at the desk.
Fran said, “Barry, would you like to meet Mr. Q?”
Before she could make the introductions, he jumped up with hand extended. “I’m Barry Morghan, spelled with a GH.”
“I’m Jim Qwilleran, spelled with a QW Welcome to –”
“Excuse me, you guys. I have to run along,” Fran said. “See you both at the reception”
“Have a chair, Mr. Qwilleran,” said the manager.
“Call me Qwill. It’s shorter, more forceful, and saves energy. I hear you’re from Chicago. So am I, a Cubs fan from birth. What brings you to the backwoods?”
“Well, you see, I’d been assistant manager in a big hotel and decided this was a good career move. I’d always liked the hospitality field. My dad was a traveling man and sometimes took me along. I liked staying in different hotels, and my first ambition was to be a bellhop and wear one of those neat uniforms. I was pretty young then. Now I like the idea of being an innkeeper. I trained at Cornell.”
“Would you say the inn is getting off to a good start?”
“Absolutely!” Barry consulted a calendar. “Champagne reception tomorrow night. Big family reunion on Labor Day. Formal afternoon tea Tuesday Boosters Club luncheon Wednesday. All rooms booked for the Labor Day weekend and the Scottish weekend! And dinner reservations are going fast for the Mackintosh Room. We have this great chef from Chicago, you know. 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 parttime. 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.”
“Great! I’Il 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.”
“You’d better look at it first,” Qwilleran said. “I’ll show it to you any time.”
“How 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.
“Great!” he exclaimed as he jumped out of his van.
“I 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”
“Great!”
“After you unpack, you can drive through the woods to my place, and I’ll offer you a drink.”
“Great!”
“By the way,” Qwilleran said, “how do you feel about cats?”
“Anything that walks on four legs and doesn’t bite is a friend of mine!”
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.
“What do you like to drink? I have a well-stocked bar,” Qwilleran said.
“I’m not much of a drinker. What are you going to have?”
“Ginger ale.”
