Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

“Case dismissed. Award to plaintiff of twenty-five hundred dollars.”

The courtroom buzzed.

Or maybe the buzzing was just the sound of purring cats.

Temple thought perhaps she was purring. She had won. Made Savannah Ashleigh look stupid on dead (as opposed to live) TV. Got some shoe money! Well, some of it should go to Louie’s Free-to-Be-Feline fund.

Justice was sweet.

“I’m not done with you, Miss Barr,” the judge snarled.

Temple blinked.

“Whatever the outcome of this case,” she went on, “the fact remains that you are a derelict cat owner. Why didn’t you take care of your animal’s irresponsible condition? Why has only Miss Ashleigh’s wrongheaded intervention kept him from breeding irresponsibly? Only luck made him innocent of fathering a litter of unwanted kittens.”

“It’s—” Temple began. “He just ended up as my cat because no one else wanted him. I’ve never owned a cat before. I thought Louie was too old—”

“They are never too old, Miss Barr. You should remember that for your own personal protection as well. And what was Midnight Louie doing out where Miss Ashleigh or her minions could kidnap him?”

“Well, he’s too big to keep in—”

“They are never too big to keep in, for their own good. Remember that. If pet owners like yourself would simply neuter your animals and. keep them inside, millions of unwanted lives would not be sacrificed yearly. You owe, in fact, Miss Ashleigh thanks for unwittingly—and I do believe it was genuinely unwitting—putting your own house in order on this matter. From now on, if any suspicions of parentage come up, Midnight Louie will not be a likely suspect.”

Temple nodded soberly. “He doesn’t need a paternity suit. Not with his celebrity status.”

Chapter 18

Day of the Jekyll

I am nursing my injured pride back at the Circle Ritz while Miss Temple is off gallivanting on matters that involve what she calls a job.

Actually, I am daydreaming. I was not able to get close enough to the Divine Yvette to discover which dive Miss Savannah Ashleigh was honoring with her presence this trip. My chances of finding the proper hostelry in this town of 60 zillion bedrooms are not good.

All in all, other than enriching my roommate by a fistful of dollars, this outing in search of justice was not a huge success. I get humiliated on national TV, as does my associate, and far too little money was paid for the privilege, if you ask me.

At least I glimpsed the Divine One, who appears to have fully recovered from the stresses of enforced motherhood. If anything, her limpid eyes are more blue-green than ever, and her coat is richer, longer, fuller. She could be doing shampoo commercials soon. And I have not heard a murmur of my services being requested for future film duties.

So I am in a pretty discouraged mood, when I hear someone tapping, gently rapping on one of my patio doors. ’Tis the wind, I tell myself, but eventually I force myself off the sofa and to the French doors.

Nope, not the wind. I spy a blobby black silhouette through the sheer curtains Miss Temple uses to keep unwanted eyes from peeking in at her at night when the interior lights are on.

Well, the blob is either Mr. Poe’s raven or someone of an even more dire aspect.

I stick a mitt under the door to pull it slightly off-kilter, leap high up to swat the lever mechanism on the way down, and shoulder open the door against the now-sprung latch.

After all this athletic effort, I am more than somewhat disappointed when Miss Midnight Louise ankles in, rubbing her shoulder possessively against the doorjamb. I had been hoping for something svelte and lonesome in shaded silver fur.

“So this is where you hang your flamingo fedora,” Miss Louise comments, moving right on in to deposit her proprietary scent all along the sofa side. Eeeeugh! Give a dame an inch and she will take eighteen square yards of upholstery every time.

“The peach chapeau was just a prop,” I point out, tailing her. “Hmmm. You have picked up some exotic scents of late.”

“That is what I get for following your roommate and her exroommate yesterday. Jungle rot.”

“Did that assignment lead to the Mystifying Max?” I ask eagerly, for I am hungry to know what he has been up to while Miss Temple has been dallying with courtroom drama.

“Indeed it did, and also to a long drive into the desert, from which I returned only by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.”

I examine said article of anatomy. Miss Louise seems possessed of every possible hair that could grow there, and then some. Her coat is longer and fluffier than mine, as suits the female of the species, and is another argument in favor of the fact that I cannot possibly be her pater, as the Brits say.

“Your chinny-chin does not seem the worse for wear,” I note.

She leaps atop my favorite lounging spot, sniffs, and moves to the loveseat’s opposite end, where she turns around thrice and then settles into a classic meditation position.

“And what dangers have you been pursuing, Daddy Darnedest, since I was checking out the wild brown yonder?”

“Uh, I accompanied my Miss Temple while she had an unpleasant brush with the law. We barely got out of there with our skins intact.”

Miss Louise merely grooms one airy eyebrow with the back of her mitt, a clear signal of disbelief. “I am sorry to say that Miss Temple and Mr. Max had a parting of the ways—”

“No!” I jump up to resume my accustomed spot, my heart beating with hope. “So they had a spat and are splitting up? I had wondered why I heard no aftermath from their expedition yesterday.”

“Don’t get excited, Pop. You are not sole king of the comforter yet. I mean that when I followed them yesterday he hopped out of the vehicle at the edge of nowhere and I had to decide who to stick with.”

“And?”

“Where he got out was one big litter box. I decided against masquerading as a deposit for the next few hours and stayed with the car.”

“Hmmm. A dedicated operative would have followed my instructions and stayed with Mr. Max. That was the one you were assigned to tail. You were not asked to take a cushy joy ride with Miss Temple.”

“Yeah? Well, did you want me to find the missing leopard or not?”

Miss Louie spits on her fist and boxes away at her face as if wishing she were wiping me off the floor instead of knocking the desert dust off her cheekbones.

I am speechless, not to mention spitless. I send her out on one tailing operation and she nails the missing leopard. And all I have to show for today is having my undercarriage prodded by Dr. Mendel and my reproductive history filmed for posterity. Of which Miss Midnight Louise is not one. Any posterity. Of mine.

While I mull over the bitter fruits of fame and fortune, Miss Midnight Louise leans back and honors me with a report. Only it feels more like a lecture.

“My choice was clear. Did I follow the unreliable and unpredictable male, ruled more by hormones than by head, even though you had instructed me to? Or did I stick with the plucky and intuitive female? Did I have a choice?

“Your Miss Temple drove, fairly sedately for her, until the road ended at a mountain. I suppose most roads around here do.

“I smelled the spoor of many beasts, including those of the fortunate feline species, and also enough leavings to knock a sensitive nose to its knees, so it is a good thing I had not invited Nose E. along. This was far too crude a job for one of his connoisseur-level sniffing abilities. I mean, a blind human could have followed the ordure to its origins.”

“Miss Temple noticed the obvious scent?”

“I fear not. Superior as she may be, in this case she was totally bedazzled by the structure built at the mountain’s base, and getting into it. It was a modern, yet formidable sort of place, and I made my second momentous decision. I decided that I would sniff around on my own outside while she investigated inside. My greatest risk was that she and the vehicle would depart without me.”