Canapés for the Kitties (31 page)

There was silence inside. They looked at each other uneasily.

“If we were the police,” Macho pointed out, “we'd be quite justified in investigating. It isn't as though we're breaking in. The windows are open and the circumstances are suspicious. The law is on our side.”

“I'm not worried about the law,” Freddie said. “I just don't want to confront Dorian in his dressing gown asking us what the hell we think we're doing trooping through his house.”

“He said he was going up to London today,” Lorinda remembered belatedly. “He may have caught an early train.”

“That's right.” Freddie's sigh of relief was audible. “So, the house is empty, the French window is open – and your cats have been helping themselves in the fish tank. Every reason in the world to check up on things. What are we waiting for? Let's go in and see what the damage is.”

“Perhaps we can replace the missing fish before Dorian returns.” Macho saw a ray of hope. “Unless they ate a few others before they brought any home. I couldn't tell which ones are gone, though, could you?”

“Dorian –?” Not dignifying that with an answer, Freddie advanced into the drawing room, still calling out – just in case. “Yoo-hoo ... Dorian ... anyone home?”

The drawing room was silent and empty, looking like a stage set waiting for the actors to appear. On the far side of the room, the door to Dorian's study was ajar – again, just enough to allow an enterprising cat to go in and out.

“Dorian –?” Freddie crossed the room and rapped on the door. “Are you in there ...?” Silence. Lorinda and Macho came up behind her and waited.

“Oh, well,” Freddie said. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” She pushed the door open and they started in.

Lorinda had the sudden unnerving sensation of stepping into a quagmire. The carpet gave way strangely under her foot and it had an odd spongy texture. She looked down to see tiny bubbles of water well up around her shoe.

“This carpet is soaking wet!” Macho discovered indignantly.

“I can't see a thing.” Freddie reached for the light switch on the wall, but Macho caught her hand.

“Don't touch an electric switch when you're standing in water!”

“Thanks, I wasn't thinking. I'll open the curtains instead.” Freddie started across the room. “Uuggh! I've stepped on something!”

That was enough to discourage Lorinda from venturing further without light. She and Macho hovered just inside the doorway.

“There!” Freddie swept back the curtains and daylight flooded the room. They could now see the extent of the devastation. “Oh, my God!”

The carpet was littered with tiny dead fish, sprayed out across it from the gaping jagged hole in the side of the glass tank. A few remaining fish – tiny Neons – darted about hysterically in the few inches of water at the bottom of the aquarium, dodging in and out around the glittering shards of glass that loomed like icebergs in their midst.

“Well...” Macho broke the stunned silence. “He can't blame the cats for
that!
”

“It must have happened hours ago.” Lorinda began to recover. “Perhaps during the night. The carpet couldn't have got so saturated in any shorter space of time.” She became aware that a steady trickle of water was still dribbling from the tank, emanating from the little device Dorian had installed to keep fresh water circulating for the fish. There was another faint background sound ... she looked around for the source.

“Oh, God!” Freddie found it first. She stared at the other side of the room where Dorian's big desk skewed across a comer, where he could sit, back to the wall, commanding the room. He was slumped in his desk chair now, watching them through half-closed eyes.

“Dorian! We didn't realize you were here.” No, that didn't sound right. Lorinda corrected hastily, “I mean, we thought you'd caught the early train to London –” No, that was worse. “I mean –”

“Frightfully sorry, old boy,” Macho apologized. “We wouldn't have dreamed of intruding had we known you were still ...”

“Gug...” Dorian said faintly. He seemed to be trying to rise. “G ... g ... gug ...” He pitched forward, face down on the desk. It was then that they could see the dark red smear congealing on the back of his head.

It was hours before they were able to return to their homes. First they had to wait for the ambulance and the police, carefully restraining themselves from touching anything – except for Freddie, who wiped the squashed fish off the sole of her shoe and threw it into the wastebasket. (Something which required explanation when a policeman looked into the wastebasket and thought he had discovered a clue.)

Darkness had fallen on Brimful Coffers by the time they returned. They had followed the ambulance in Freddie's car, waited at the hospital while Dorian underwent emergency surgery, notified his sister when he was safely settled in intensive care, snatched a meal they had neither tasted nor noticed, and now looked without favour at the dark empty shells of their respective homes.

“All I want is to collapse.” Freddie halted the car and rested her head on the steering wheel for a moment. “I want to fall into bed and sleep for a week.”

“You do remember that you promised –” Macho began.

“I promised to meet Dorian's sister at the train station in the morning and drive her to the hospital,” Freddie said. “I know. Me and my big mouth.”

“You'll feel stronger in the morning,” Lorinda encouraged, opening the car door. Collapse suddenly sounded like the best idea she had ever heard. She felt so exhausted she wondered if she'd have the energy to change into her nightgown.

“Don't bet on it.” Freddie pulled her keys from the ignition and opened her own door, shuddering as she looked at the encroaching mist. “At least we got home before the worst of the fog sets in. It's going to be a filthy night.”

“I hope Dorian lasts through it.” Lorinda stepped out of the car and a movement beyond the mist drew her attention.

“He's pretty tough,” Macho said. “And the doctor was what I'd call cautiously optimistic. But it was lucky for him we found him when we did.”

“Thieving cats have their uses,” Freddie said dryly. “If they hadn't filched those fish ... and speaking of devils –”

Three little forms bounded toward them, scolding.

“Oh, darlings, have we gone away and left you all day?” Guiltily, Lorinda stooped and gathered up her two. There was always dry cat food left out for them to nibble, but they expected more than that in the course of a long day.

“Here, Roscoe. Come here, boy. What's the matter with you?” Each time Macho bent to pick up his cat, Roscoe evaded him, backing just out of reach, then returning when Macho straightened up. He was uttering plaintive little cries.

“That's odd,” Macho said. “He usually only behaves this way when I'm going to take him to the vet.”

“Why aren't you in the nice warm house?” Lorinda asked Had-I and But-Known. She ruffled their fur and frowned. “They're wet and cold. They didn't just run out to meet us – they must have been outside for some time.”

“Roscoe's wet, too.” Macho finally captured his skittish friend. “He hates being wet or cold. Why isn't he inside?”

“You know” – Freddie closed her car door silently – “I think I'm going to revise my scenario. Suddenly, collapse doesn't seem like a very good plan. Not until we know what's going on around here. When comfort-loving, spoiled-rotten little creatures like yours take to the great outdoors on a night like this, there's got to be something nasty in the woodshed ... or in the house.”

They looked at the dark silent houses awaiting them. “Roscoe?” Macho sniffed sharply, lowered his nose to Roscoe's head and sniffed again. “Roscoe reeks of liquor.” He looked thoughtfully at his own house. “Probably tequila.”

“I'm not going to sleep tonight,” Freddie said, “until all our houses have been searched top to bottom.”

“We'll have to search them ourselves,” Lorinda said. “I'm not keen on the thought of what the police might say if we call them in for something as vague as this. I'm afraid they have a fairly low opinion of us already.”

“In the best old tradition,” Macho said.

“And I wouldn't like to tell them that story about us being haunted by our own characters, either,” Freddie said. “Here, let me take one of the cats, you can't manage them both.” She took But-Known into her own arms. “No, a story like that would be a one-way ticket to Colney Hatch.”

“Which is undoubtedly what was intended – and why we tried to hide what was happening to us.” Macho stared at the unresponsive facade of his cottage. “At best, people would think we're harmless lunatics; at worst, they'd suspect we're so disturbed that we're behind all the death and destruction in Brimful Coffers.”

“Someone is.” Lorinda knew there could be no doubt about that now.

“Yes – and our best suspects are dead. Or dying.” Macho was grim. “I think we can consider Dorian exonerated ... the hard way. And Plantagenet has been dead for weeks.”

“Again in the best tradition.” Freddie shivered. “Look, I'd rather be doing something other than standing here catching pneumonia. Suppose we start with Macho's house and see if there's anything ... or anyone ... to find.”

Roscoe twisted uneasily in Macho's arms and mewled distress as they entered the house. Macho snapped on the front hall light. Nothing happened.

“Of course, the bulb was there when I moved in,” Macho said. “I suppose it could have burned out naturally.”

“Mmmm-hmmmm ...” Lorinda said.

Freddie snorted.

There was nothing wrong with the living room lamp ... or the room, either. Roscoe renewed his struggles as they headed for the kitchen. Macho walked more warily.

The kitchen light responded to the click of the switch, flooding the kitchen with a harsh bright glare. Too harsh and too bright. They glanced upwards instinctively.

The frosted globe that diffused the light had been shattered, only a few jagged remnants still curved out from the fixture. The rest of the globe lay in a trail of shards across the floor, ending at the far wall where a broken tequila bottle lay in a reeking puddle.

On the kitchen table, another tequila bottle, two-thirds empty, stood beside a glass with an inch of liquid still remaining in it. The chair lay on the floor, as though it had been pushed back so roughly it had tipped over.

“Ah, yes.” Macho took it in quietly. “A very pretty picture. Macho Magee, drunk as usual, hurls bottle at the light, possibly because pink elephants are lurking behind it, tips over chair and, presumably, staggers upstairs to bed. Through the pitch-black hallway.” Macho crossed to a cupboard and took down a small flashlight.

“Shall we go upstairs and see what was waiting for him?”

They didn't need to go upstairs. As Macho swept the beam of light up the staircase, something glimmered at the top that shouldn't have been there.

“Ah, yes.” Macho swung the light back to illuminate it. “Very neat.” A transparent nylon cord stretched taut at ankle level across the top step.

“So drunken Macho stumbles at the top of the stairs and pitches backwards down them and, if the fall doesn't kill him, doubtless someone will be along to finish the job and remove the cord. Another tequila bottle will be found clutched in his hand, its contents liberally sprayed over and around him, as much as possible poured down his throat if he's in any condition to do any swallowing –”

“Don't!” Freddie choked.

“There's a certain symmetry about it you have to admire,” Macho said dispassionately. “An echo of the Plantagenet Sutton demise, as another drunk falls – literally – prey to the bottle. And note the similarity of the violence of broken glass and spilled liquids in Dorian's study and Macho's kitchen. I wouldn't be surprised if a few clues surfaced to point to Macho, in one of his uncontrollable rages, as the killer.”

“Dorian isn't dead yet,” Lorinda pointed out. “He's got a fighting chance, thanks to our finding him when we did.”

“Ah, yes. Someone's plans are going wildly awry – and all because the cats interfered in their own little way. No one could have foreseen that.” Macho started forward.

“No, please!” Lorinda pulled him back, nearly dropping Had-I as she did so. “Don't go up there. You don't know what else might be booby-trapped. Let's wait until morning.”

“Morning?” Freddie looked at her with a strange expression. “And how do we get through the night? I don't fancy being in my house alone – and you shouldn't, either. I think we ought to stick together for the rest of the night.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Lorinda said. “Since I'm the only one with enough rooms, that makes it my place. I suggest you be my guests.”

“It's a bloody great idea,” Macho said. “You're on!” He started for the door.

“Don't you want to collect your pyjamas or anything?”

“No, you're right – this is no time to go upstairs. Anyway, who's going to sleep?” Macho gave a lopsided grin. “You two can, but I'm doing guard duty.”

“I'll just borrow something from you,” Freddie said. “I'm not going near my place. I saw those next-door curtains twitch. The jackals are ready to pounce the instant I show up.”

They saw the fog had closed in with deadly intent as they crossed the lawns between the houses. Another hour or so and it would be so thick someone could get lost crossing that short distance.

Lorinda held her breath for a moment, but her hall light went on without a blink. Everything looked the way she had left it.

Only the cats gave the game away. Had-I's ears pricked, But-Known twisted uneasily in Freddie's arms. Roscoe gave a menacing growl.

“ ‘Steady, the Light Brigade,' ” Macho said, stepping in front of the women. As one, the cats tensed and leaped from their arms to the floor. Roscoe was not the only one growling now.