No Cooperation from the Cat (22 page)

“That does it!” Evangeline started forward again, fists upraised, ready to hurl herself against the door alone.

“Hold it!” Jem caught her again, thank heavens. All we needed was a broken door and Jasper really would be furious enough to evict us immediately.

“Let’s try it the civilised way first.” Jem tapped the doorbell. Nothing happened.

“You see? You can’t be civilised with people like that. They don’t know the meaning of the word!” Evangeline wasn’t going to give up easily.

“Wait…” Jem stepped between her and the door and tried the knob. The door swung open easily. “It’s unlocked.”

“Typical.” Evangeline sniffed. “Too careless to lock the door properly after the deliveryman. Too anxious to get at the champagne!”

There were distinct sounds of revelry ahead of us. Grimly, Evangeline marched towards them, moving so fast we almost had to run to keep up with her.

They had made themselves at home—even more at home—in the living room. One bottle of champagne had been emptied already and Isolde was pouring from another one.

“Put that down!” Evangeline thundered. “How dare you steal our champagne?”

“Don’t be silly,” Isolde said coldly. “It’s
our
champagne. But you may have a glass, if you like,” she added graciously.

Uh oh. Red rag to a bull. Evangeline even snorted like one as she tried to snatch the bottle away.

“There ought to be a gift card.” Jem was trying to be peacemaker again. “That should settle the question.”

“Here it is—” Nigel saw it on the coffee table and swooped on it before any of them could get there first and tear it up. Then he hesitated.

“Go on, read it!” Evangeline snapped. “Prove it!”

“Ah…” Nigel said unhappily and read out: “‘For the beautiful ladies in the penthouse.’”

“You see,” Edytha said triumphantly. “We told you it was ours!”

Chapter Twenty-three

The harpies stood there, ranged in front of us, smug and smirking. Defying anyone to suggest that they were not beautiful.

“The signature!” Evangeline snapped. “Who signed that card?”

“There was no signature,” Isolode said.

“It’s from an unknown admirer,” Edytha said complacently.

“We have many, too shy to sign their names, but wishing to honour us.”

Nigel turned the card over. “Bertie, of course.”

For an instant, there was a blank look of incomprehension on their faces before it was quickly masked.

“He may be unknown to you,” Evangeline said triumphantly, “but not to us. Bertie is a dear friend.”

“I’m sure we know him,” Valeria said. “Although perhaps not by that name.”

“All your friends have aliases?” Evangeline’s tone insinuated that she was not a bit surprised.

“The acolytes of the goddess often choose another name,” Edytha intoned solemnly. “One more in harmony with their inner spirit.”

“Goddess?” Bewildered, Nigel looked around as though expecting to find that a deity had joined us. The only newcomer he saw was Cho-Cho, who, hearing our voices, had come to investigate and was sniffing at the case of champagne with great interest.

“Oh!” Isolde had noticed. “Stop that! Get away!” She stamped her foot, then raised it threateningly, aimed at Cho-Cho.

“Don’t you dare!” I moved forward protectively.

“Then make her get away from our champagne! Get that horrid, unsanitary beast out of here!”

“Cho-Cho
lives
here,” I said pointedly. “
She’s
one of the beautiful ladies.” Well, she would be, once Bertie had met her.

“Nasty, useless thing!” Isolde shuddered in revulsion. “Get her out of here!”

“As I said—
she
lives here.” My control slipped. “
You’re
the ones who should get out!”

“Cool it! Cool it!” The order came from Mick, who seemed to have belatedly decided that his troubleshooting expertise was called for.

It had not escaped my notice that he had been lurking in the background—nor that he had snared one of the bottles all for himself and been quietly depleting it. I must admit I’d blinked. I hadn’t thought of the troubleshooter as someone with an alcohol problem. Or was it just the result of being cooped up with Banquo’s relatives for so long? At that point, he had suddenly realised he was being watched and had raised his glass to me in an ironic salute before draining the contents and swiftly refilling it.

“The cat isn’t doing any harm.” Now he had decided that it was time he intervened. “It’s only a cat, not a dog. It isn’t going to lift its leg against the bottles.”

“Oh!” Isolde reeled back, clutching dramatically at her heart. “How coarse!”

“Vulgar!” Valeria agreed.

“Common.” On a higher plane, Edytha dismissed it with a
what else can one expect
shrug, but there was a faint frown line between her eyebrows.

“Are you going to stand there—?” Isolde turned to Banquo, who was oblivious and quietly guzzling his champagne. “Just stand there and allow language like that in front of ladies?”

“It’s all right,” Evangeline said. “We don’t mind.”

“I wasn’t referring to
you
!” Isolde snarled.

Definitely, Mick must be drinking because of them. Who could blame him? I reached for a glass myself. Tom stepped forward and filled it for me.

“Let’s keep the party polite.” He spoke without any real hope as he then did the same for the others.

I agreed silently, although I picked up Cho-Cho just to be on the safe side. She relaxed, purring in my arms. All was well with her world. I wished I could say the same.

“Ah…” Nigel spoke into the uneasy silence. “Don’t you want to hear the message from Bertie? It’s rather important.”

“Of course we do.” Evangeline was barely controlling her impatience. “Spit it out, man!”

“Vulgar…” The source of the murmur was indeterminate, but the harpies were all nodding agreement to each other. Perhaps if we could just summon up enough vulgarity, we might drive them away to more refined regions.

I searched my memory for some of the more colourful phrases I had encountered in a long lifetime in the theatre, but the trouble was that most of them were not so much colourful as monotonous. The same word, used as verb, noun, gerund, adjective, adverb, and all points north, south, east, and west soon loses all meaning and just becomes a tiresome noise in the background.

“Collect you … limousine … tomorrow…” I became aware that Nigel was reading out the message on the card and began to pay attention. “The Jewel Box!” he finished, with a triumphant flourish. He and Jem looked at each other and seemed to just restrain from giving themselves the high-five.

“Jewel box…” Evangeline breathed rapturously, stretching out her hands as though deciding whether she would rather have another ring or would prefer a bracelet.

“Now that should settle the question,” Jem said smoothly. “We’ll just wait and see for whom the limousine calls tomorrow.”

“We shall see, indeed,” Isolde said frostily, but I could tell they were all shaken. Perhaps none of their followers had a limousine. “Right now, we should get back to work.” She glared pointedly at Jocasta. “You’ve wasted most of the day.”

“Quite right,” Edytha said. “We’re coming up to one of the most poignant moments in the book, when poor Banquo, cold, hungry, lonely, and desolate, sits beside a flickering candle, gazing at a photo of dear Melisande, and dreams of the happy moment when he will be reunited with his lovely bride, never suspecting that she is already—”

“I’m sorry,” Jocasta said tightly. “I’m not feeling well. I can’t do anything more today.”

“More?” Valeria exploded. “You haven’t done anything yet!”

Apart from cooking lunch for six people, but I decided it wouldn’t be wise to mention that.

“You must try,” Edytha said softly. “Banquo needs a sympathetic helper to bare his soul to, to give voice to his deepest emotions. Banquo needs you. Tell her so in your own words, Banquo.”

“Hic!” he said. Nice try, but Banquo was blotto.

Mick wasn’t very far behind him. Having been thwarted in his brief spurt of trying to deal with the situation, he had retreated. Swaying now, as he tipped the last of his bottle into his glass, he raised that glass to us again in the same ironic salute.

Tom was watching him warily. Of them all, he seemed to be the one who had imbibed the least of their pilfered champagne. Because he didn’t trust himself? Or because he didn’t trust them?

“Listen everyone—” He seemed to have come to a decision. “I think we’ve all done enough for the day.” He glanced hopefully towards Mick, whose job this ought to be, but Mick was ignoring him, ignoring everyone.

“The light is going and the weather is closing in again. I suggest we leave before the worst of the storm hits. We wouldn’t want to be marooned here.”

He was right. The swift-falling darkness and rising wind threatened more than mere rain. I saw the others scan the sky and come to the same conclusion. Apart from which, he was offering them the most graceful way out they were likely to get.

“Come, Banquo.” Edytha put an arm around his shoulders and turned him gently towards the door, quite as though he was going to contest their departure.

“Very well.” Isolde looked at her male teammates and ordered, “Tom and Mick, help me with our champagne.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Evangeline started forward and I was right behind her. But Martha was ahead of us all.

She stepped in front of the case, then sat down firmly on top of it, folding her arms and daring anyone to touch her.

Even though it must have been uncomfortable sitting on those bottles, not to mention chilly, her intention was clear. She would stay there all night, if necessary. They would have to drag her off by force—and she wouldn’t go easily. Furthermore, she had us for reinforcements.

The harpies exchanged glances. They, too, had reinforcements, but theirs weren’t in very good shape. Apart from Tom—and he didn’t have the right fighting spirit.

“That’s it,” he said, proving it. “Game, set, and match. Time to call it a day and cut your losses. Right, men?”

Mick raised his bottle in salute, then seemed to notice it was empty. He blinked muzzily at Martha, but obviously decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He retreated a step, distancing himself from the proceedings. This was one trouble he couldn’t shoot.

“Hic!” Banquo was swaying. “Hic! Hic!”

“Poor Banquo is distraught with grief!” As though that were a signal, they clustered around him. Edytha lowered her arm for a discreet grasp around his waist.

“Recalling his lost happiness has been too much for him.” Isolde laid a consoling hand on his shoulder.

“Poor boy.” Valeria was the tallest of them. She stroked his hair. “You must be brave.”

“Hic!” They’d be getting no sense from him now, if there had ever been any there to begin with. They urged him firmly along. Supporting him, comforting him—imprisoning him?

He leaned on them and they chose to see him as a heartbroken hero. To me, he looked more like a hollow man, his life dictated by the nearest person overbearing enough to take command. Surely, Jocasta could see it?

It appeared not. Her eyes brimmed with wistful tears as she watched him leave. It was only too apparent that she wished to be the one with her arm around his waist, stroking his hair …

Oh, dear. Nigel was watching her and he recognised it, too.

“Ah…” He cleared his throat diffidently. “Perhaps I ought to get back to my flat. There might be a message for me on the back of my card. We, um, left so suddenly, I didn’t get a chance to examine it properly.” How tactful of him to gloss over the fact that Evangeline had snatched it before he’d had a chance to look at it.

“Good idea.” Jem was helping Martha to her feet. “Bertie may have a couple of chores for you to do before tomorrow.”

“Ah…” Nigel turned to Jocasta. “You’ll be all right here?”

“I will … now.” Jocasta rallied enough to give him an absent smile. “They’ve gone.”

“We’ll take good care of her,” I promised him. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. He wanted to be the one to look after her, but she wasn’t even noticing.

With a regretful sigh, he helped Jem carry the champagne into the kitchen, where we could hear Martha loading it into the fridge.

“I hate to admit this, but I’m baffled,” Evangeline complained. “Utterly, completely baffled—why Melisande?”

“We can’t win them all,” I said. “It happened so long before we came on the scene—there was nothing we could do. Even the police thought it was an accident. The coroner ruled misadventure.”

“That’s not the question bothering me.” Evangeline brushed it aside. “What I can’t understand is why anyone would want to kill a harmless innocent like Melisande when those ghastly women keep getting underfoot and just asking for it!”

Chapter Twenty-four

“I’ve been asked to convey their apologies.” Tom was the only one who showed up in the morning. “Banquo is not feeling well today and the ladies are looking after him. In short, everyone is indisposed.”

“Indisposed?” Evangeline snorted. “You mean hungover.”

“There’s that, too,” Tom admitted.

“Especially with Mick.” There was no delicate way to approach this, so I plunged straight in. “Does he have an alcohol problem?”

“Mick?” Tom grimaced and shook his head. “Not really. Mick has a civilisation problem. He can’t stand too much of it—and he’s just about reached his limit.”

“Yes, we’ve noticed he’s becoming … restive.” That was a prize understatement after the way he’d talked about the Graces.

“He hates cities. Sometimes he hates people, too. He can’t wait to get back into the wild again.”

“And you?”

“Me?” Tom shrugged. “This was my second expedition with the Great Banquo and His Travelling Circus. He doesn’t know it yet, but it was also my last. It’s been an interesting career step, but I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life dancing attendance on him. I happen to like civilisation—and I’m not leaving it again.”

The Great Banquo, eh? Mick may have been on the turn, but Tom was doing the complete about-face.

Why, oh, why, couldn’t Jocasta resign from the fan club, too?