David Dean: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

Jimbo was aghast. “With a hairpin?” He didn’t know the Mem possessed any hairpins, and he had certainly never suspected that she had burglarial leanings. Well, there you are, he thought, you think you know someone.

“I challenged her, of course, as any man would in the circs, but she simply swep’ out of the room. I caught up with her in the kitchen. She turned very nasty, very nasty indeed. Grabbed a fish-slice and came at me. Lucky I happened to have your shovel with me. Good shovel you’ve got there, Jimbo. Sturdy and reliable. Spear & Jackson. A fine brand, none better.”

Jimbo stared at him. Mental pictures of what had evidently been a pitched battle in the kitchen swirled muddily in his imagination.

“Good Lord, Loopy. Good Lord. I mean to say — well, good Lord.”

“A homicidal maniac, if you want my honest opinion. She was handling that fish-slice thing like a trained killer. Could have had my tripes out in no time flat but for a trick or two I picked up from the wily Masai. Good job you’ve got a good-sized kitchen, too, space for a really good swing. In a smaller room, I’d have been a goner.”

“I admit, Loopy, she had her little ways, but — good Lord.”

Jimbo saw that he had emptied his second glass of brandy. He got up and went to the drinks table.

“Thing is,” he said, half to himself, pouring yet another brandy, “how to explain it? I mean, it’s got to be explained, hasn’t it? Explanations have to be given.”

“My view, your best bet is a domestic accident,” said Loopy. “Happens all the time. Fifty percent of all accidents happen in the home.”

“Domestic accident?” said Jimbo.

Loopy got up and came across to pour a drink for himself.

“Need a bit of dressing up, of course.”

“But Loopy, what sort of domestic accident?”

“Well,” Loopy went and sat down again, “speaking off the top of my head, you understand, I think the best thing is, we lug the guts outside and prop a ladder against the side of the house.”

“Yes?” Good old Loopy. A ray of hope glimmered through the darkness.

“Tragic story, all too common. Picture the scene. The cat climbs up onto the roof, gets stuck, wedged in the chimney, something like that, cats do it all the time. The Mem, wanting to rescue the little bugger, gets the ladder, clambers up to the roof. The cat panics, comes over vicious, I’ve known some like that, and turns on her. The Mem tries to prevent her unprotected gullet from being ripped out by the slashing claws and the ravening fangs, leans backwards, and there you are. Wallop, Mrs. Cox. Bob’s yer uncle.”

Jimbo shook his head slowly. The light at the end of the tunnel was receding again.

“Loopy, it just won’t hold water. We don’t have a cat. We’ve never had a cat.”

Loopy spoke slowly and clearly as if to a backward child.

“Well, go and buy one.” He looked at his watch with one of his eyes. “You’ve got time, if you step on it. Or perhaps you might hire one, seeing as it’s only pro tem. Failing that, you could pinch one. There’s thousands of the little sods about in the village. I ran one over just the other day.”

Jimbo felt as though he were trying to fold a newspaper in a high wind.

“But the Mem can’t — couldn’t stand cats, Loopy. Couldn’t abide them. Wouldn’t have them in the house.”

“Forgive me for saying so, but just for the moment, she doesn’t have much of a vote, far as I can see.”

“No, Loopy.” Jimbo sat down again. “It’s not on. Nobody would ever believe that the Mem was shinning up the side of the house trying to rescue a moggy.”

Loopy sighed and picked up his Sporting Times.

“Well, then, ol’ man, I really don’t know what to suggest.” He spoke with the air of someone who had done all that mortal man could do to help a difficult and obtuse friend out of a nasty hole but was now, regretfully, washing his hands of the whole affair.

“Oh Lord,” said Jimbo.

He was not a tremendously bright man, the simple soldier, but one thing he did know was, in circumstances like these, you had to tell someone.

“I’ll have to tell someone,” he said. “The police. Or someone.”

“Wouldn’t do that, ol’ man,” said Loopy sharply from behind the Sporting Times. “Leads to all sorts of things. You’ll have snoopers and sniffers round here in a brace of shakes, digging and prying. It can lead to all sorts of things. You never know where it’s all going to end. Take it from one what knows. Don’t do it.”

“But Loopy, it’s what people do in cases like this.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit selfish, ol’ man? Thinking about yourself a bit there, aren’t you? What about me? I think you might give a thought to an old chum before you go rushing off in all directions and dropping him into seven kinds of ca-ca.”

Jimbo was in a torment of indecision. His duty was to tell someone, he knew that perfectly well. But Loopy was right. How could he do that if it meant doing the dirty on a pal?

“But what else is there, Loopy?” he said in distress. “We can’t just leave the poor old Mem lying there on the kitchen floor.”

Loopy put down his paper. “Tell you what, though,” he said, “there’s always the orchard. It’s nice there. She’d like it there.”

Jimbo thought about it. Trust dear old Loopy to come up with the goods. That was the thing to do, all right. As a purely temporary wheeze, until something better suggested itself, it was A-one.

Even with the peerless Spear & Jackson shovel and Jimbo’s faithful old trenching tool, it took them a good three hours to dig an appropriate hole and lay the Mem in it, wrapped in an Afghan rug she had always prized. They had almost finished filling in the hole when Jimbo had a belated and ghastly thought. He looked at his watch.

“Gosh,” he said, “I’d better get a move on and clean up the kitchen. Mrs. Whipple will be coming along any moment.”

Loopy stopped filling and leaned on his shovel. “Damn, blast, and a thousand buckets of excrement,” he said mildly, “I knew there was something I’d forgotten.”

“What’s that?” Jimbo said.

“Oh, nothing, really. Simply that your Old Mother Whipple just had to wander in this afternoon, damn her eyes, the nosey old bat, exactly at the wrong moment, talk about your rotten luck. Completely slipped my mind, curse it.”

Jimbo had a feeling of weary dread.

“I suppose—?”

Loopy nodded. “She’s in the laundry cupboard.”

Jimbo sighed. Oh, Lord. Better not put off until tomorrow.

There was quite an animated discussion apropos Mrs. Whipple. Loopy was all for simply scraping a couple of feet of earth off the top of the Mem and putting her there. Jimbo was adamant that this would not be seemly or dignified for either of them. His view prevailed, and they gave Mrs. Whipple her very own hole. Night had fallen long before the end, and they finished off by the light of a Tilley lamp, patting down the newly replaced turf.

Jimbo looked at the two patches of grass. Closer together now in death than they had ever been in life, he thought, and was pleased with the notion.

Loopy scraped the earth off the spade with a scrap of grass.

“Mess call,” he said. “I could eat a horse.”

Jimbo realised that he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. He was ravenous.

In the kitchen, Loopy foraged in fridge and cupboard and, using a variety of ingredients, cooked up something he called Stromboli, a violent and unforgiving dish, which made Jimbo’s eyeballs mist up on the inside. They sat at the kitchen table and ate. Jimbo had a thought.

“I say,” he said, “people’ll be asking questions, though.”

Loopy paused with his mouth full. “Questions about what, ol’ man?”