Лейганн Доббс - A Whisker In The Dark

Sixteen

“Searching rooms is exhausting,” Nero said as he flopped down in a pool of sunshine in the conservatory.

“The actual searching is fun, but it’s tedious timing things so precisely so that we can get in and out,” Marlowe said. “I mean, waiting around until someone opens the door then darting inside without being noticed and then making sure we don’t get trapped inside. Sneaking out when the door is open…”

“It’s risky if we have to resort to the old meowing incessantly to go in and then out and then in again trick,” Nero said.

“Good thing we know some secret passages in this old place.”

“Too bad all our efforts were for nothing, though. We didn’t find a thing.”

“We did get to sample some of that Gouda Paula had in her room,” Marlowe said. “Good thing Gouda doesn’t need to be refrigerated, I would hate to have it mess with my digestion.”

Nero shot Marlowe a recriminating look. “I think you got a little overzealous with that sculpture by the way, I hope she doesn’t notice that the ears are missing from the smaller bunny.”

Paula had made a sculpture of a grassy field with rabbits. It was actually rather nice and the little blades of grass were perfect for nibbling without anyone noticing. Of course, Marlowe had to get greedy and go for one of the ears. Hopefully Paula would just think she’d bitten them in a drunken fog or maybe blame one of her siblings.

Marlowe turned away, appropriately embarrassed. “Perhaps I did get a bit carried away. I was frustrated that our search didn’t turn up any evidence.”

Nero had shown Marlowe some of his most-valued methods of clue detection, yet they had not found anything. “At least Flora cleaned Earl and Arlene’s room. That woman has been quite obnoxious about it.”

“She sure was. I hope they find out that she’s the killer. I don’t like her at all,” Marlowe said.

“I don’t actually like many of the Biddefords. I mean, what kind of family argues all the time? Family should stick by each other, not be at each other’s throats,” Nero reflected. “I guess Doris is okay, but then I do have a fondness for older humans.”

Marlowe trotted over to the potted ficus trees and started sniffing. “Hey, did you dig over here again? There’s dirt all over the floor. Josie is not going to like that. Or did you do that on purpose to keep her in line?” Marlowe glanced over her shoulder at Nero.

Nero’s whiskers twitched. What was the young cat talking about? He sighed and got up from his warm spot to see.

“I didn’t dig here. If I was to spew dirt to keep Josie in line, I would make it much more obvious and spread it all over the room like this.” Nero swatted at a large clump of dirt and it skidded out into the middle of the room breaking up into smaller pieces. “See, now that piece Josie would be able to see from the doorway. You need to be more obvious with these things.”

“Me? I didn’t mess with the dirt.” Marlowe cocked her head and looked at one of the boarded-up windows. “I do think someone has been here though.”

They trotted over to the window and sniffed. “Smells like fresh wood and nails.” Something in the corner caught Nero’s eye and he snaked his paw out and batted it around. A shiny new nail.

“Ed must have been here. But why would he dig in the plant?”

“Beats me, but it looks like someone did. Maybe it was one of the guests.”

“Either that or we’ve got another cat in here, and I think if we had another cat one of us would know.”

Nero laughed. Of course his superior senses would have alerted them to an intruder cat.

“It is curious. Sadly, these humans must be dumber than I thought. Surely they aren’t stupid enough to think the treasure is buried in a potted plant?”

Marlowe trotted over and lay in the sunny spot under the window. Curling her tail around her and closing her eyes she muttered, “Don’t ask me, I wouldn’t put anything past them. Maybe it wasn’t one of them, maybe it was that dead guy’s ghost. I heard people saying downtown they believe he’s here.”

Nero snorted. “Hardly. We’d have been able to sense a ghost too.”

Nero looked at the dirt a few seconds more before joining Marlowe in the sun. Something was definitely odd about this whole business. Maybe a nap would help. He’d seen Josie at the town common earlier in the day and had a funny feeling she might be heading down the wrong path. He needed to reroute her by showing her clues that would lead to the real killer… too bad he had no idea who that was.

After my visit with Jen, I hurried back to the guesthouse. If Flora hadn’t cleaned Millie’s great-grandmother’s doily, I wanted to be sure I got it done right away. I should clean all the doilies really. They’d been here for a couple hundred years and I didn’t want one to be cleaner than the others. How did you clean a doily anyway? Could you put it in the washing machine with bleach? Maybe I should ask Flora. No. She didn’t seem to know a lot about cleaning. Hand washing was probably best.

I stepped into the foyer, surprised to see Nero and Marlowe on the table, sniffing around the doily. They turned as I came in and I could have sworn their looks were a tad judgmental. Were they the cleaning police now, judging me for not getting the doily cleaned right away?

“I know, I know. It’s dirty.” I shooed them away to find that the doily was not dirty at all, apart from a few little pieces of dirt that the cats had apparently decided were quite fascinating. Flora must’ve cleaned the doily, but left loose dirt. No surprise there. I could at least give her credit for the effort, and Millie’s family doily wasn’t ruined.

Meow.

Nero blinked at me with his intelligent golden eyes as if he was trying to tell me something.

“Yes, I already admitted that I see there’s dirt here.” I brushed the dirt into my palm, making a mental note to wash off the table later.

Mewp.

Marlowe jumped down and sniffed my shoes.

“My shoes aren’t dirty. I’m not the one who was out digging for treasure,” I said.

Both cats blinked up at me, their tails swishing. The intensity of their stares gave me the impression that they were either trying to telepath some thoughts my way or were thinking I was the dumbest human around. Maybe both. Then again, maybe they just wanted some food.

“Are you guys hungry?” I’d been making attempts to communicate with them as equals. I’d really been trying to see if they had any understanding of my questions. I still wasn’t convinced that they were as smart as Millie seemed to think, but at times they did seem eerily intelligent.

Meroo!

They both ran to the kitchen. Just as I thought, my attempts at communication were getting better.

Flora walked in the front door just then, wearing a crocheted sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and her giant beige patent-leather purse hanging from her arm.

“Oh, Flora, there you are.”

She scowled at me. “Where else would I be?”

“Where have you been?”

Flora sighed and rolled her eyes, the thick round coke-bottle glasses giving this a comical effect. “I told you earlier. I was going to Irma Blazer’s to work on our cookies for the great-grandmothers of twins’ table.” She spoke slowly as if I was a dunce and couldn’t understand her. “I left shortly after Seth Chamberlain interrogated me.”

Now I remembered. Flora had mentioned that the other day, but with all the excitement going on, I’d forgotten.

“Oh right. How did that go with Seth anyway?” I asked.

Flora pursed her lips as she put her giant purse down on the table, shrugged out of her sweater and hung it on the coatrack. “That young man needs to learn some manners. Accusing his elders. I don’t know what the world is coming to.”