Fredric Brown - The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders

"I don't know. It's just a feeling. Maybe it's just because the things that have happened don't make sense that I have an idea it isn't over yet. And I want you out of it."

I washed my hands in the kitchen, and then we went outside. It was quite dark out there, and I was sure we couldn't be seen from the front as we cut across the lawn between the houses.

We'd left the light burning in her kitchen. I said, "I noticed before where your phone is. I'll use it without turning on the light. I just want to see if I can get any information that will clear this up."

I phoned the News and asked for Monty Billings who is on the city desk, evenings. I said, "This is Murray. Got time to look up something for me?"

"Sure. What?"

"Guy named Lasky. Committed suicide at 4923 Deverton Street, three or four weeks ago. Everything you can find out. Call me back at--" I used my flashlight to take the number off the base of the phone-- "at Saunders 4848."

He promised to call back within half an hour and I went out into the kitchen again. Ruth was making coffee for us.

"I'm going back home after that phone call comes," I told her. "And you'd better stay here. Your uncle has a key, of course?"

She nodded.

"Then lock all the doors and windows when I leave. If you hear anyone prowling around or anything, phone for the police, or yell loud enough so I can hear you."

"But why would anyone--?"

"I haven't the faintest idea, except that Haskins knows you were at my place. He might think the cat is here, or something. I haven't anything to work on except a hunch that something's coming. I don't want you in on it."

"But if you really think it's dangerous, you shouldn't..."

We'd argued our way through two cups of coffee apiece by the time the phone rang.

It was Monty. He said, "It was three weeks ago last Thursday, on the fourteenth at around midnight. Police got a frantic call from a man who said he'd taken morphine and changed his mind and would they rush an ambulance or a doctor or something. Gave his name as Colin Lasky, and the address you mentioned. They got there within eight minutes, but it was too late."

"Left a suicide note, I understand. What was in it?" "Just said he was tired of living and he'd lost his last friend the week before. The police figured out he meant his cat. It had been killed about that time, and nobody knew of him having any friend but that. He'd lived there over ten years and hadn't made any friends. Hermit type, maybe a little wacky. Oh, yeah--and the note said he pre-ferred cremation and that there was enough money in a box in his bureau to cover it."

"Was there?"

"Yes. There was more than enough; five hundred and ten dollars, to be exact. There wasn't any will, and there wasn't any estate, except the money left over after the cremation, and some furniture. The landlord, the guy who owned the house and had rented it to Lasky, made the court an offer for the furniture and they accepted it. Said he was going to leave it in the house, and rent the place furnished."

I asked, "What happens to the money?"

"I dunno. Guess if no heir appears and no claims are made against the estate, the state keeps it. It wouldn't amount to very much."

"Did he have any source of income?"

"None that could be found. The police guess was that he'd been living on cash capital, and the fact that it had dwindled down to a few hundred bucks was part of why he gave himself that shot of morphine. Or maybe he was just crazy."

"Shot?" I asked. "Did he take it intravenously?"

"Yes. Say, the gang's been asking about you. Where are you hiding out?"

I almost told him, and then I remembered how close I had come this evening to getting a composition started. And I remembered that I wasn't lonesome any more, either.

I said, "Thanks, Monty. I'll be looking you up again some of these days. If anyone asks, tell 'em I'm rooming with an Eskimo in Labrador. So long."

I went back to Ruth and told her. "Everything's on the up and up. Lasky's dead, and the cat is dead. Only the cat is over in my living room."

I went across the back way, as I had come, and let my-self in at the kitchen door. The cat was still there, asleep again in the Morris chair. He looked up as I came in, and damn if he didn't say "Miaourr?" again, with an interroga-tive accent.

I grinned at him. "I don't know," I admitted. "I only wish you could talk, so you could tell me."

Then I turned out the lights, so I could see out better than anyone outside could see in. I pulled a chair up to the window and watched Ruth's house.

Soon the downstairs light went out, and an upstairs one flashed on. Shortly after that I saw a man and woman who were undoubtedly Ruth's uncle and aunt let themselves in the front door with a key. Then, knowing she was no longer alone over there, I made the rounds of my own place.

Both front and back doors were locked, with the key on the inside of the front door, and a strong bolt in ad-dition to the lock was on the back door. I locked all the windows that would lock; two of them wouldn't.

On the top ledge of the lower pane of each of those two windows, I set a milk bottle, balanced so it would fall off if anyone tried to raise the sash from the outside. Then I turned out the lights.

Yellow eyes shone at me from the seat of the Morris chair. I answered their plain, if unspoken, question. "Cat, I don't know why I'm doing this. Maybe I'm crazy. But I think you're bait, for someone, or something. I aim to find out."

I groped my way across the room and sat down on the arm of his chair. I rubbed my hand along his sleek fur until he purred, and then, while he was feeling communi-cative, I asked him, "Cat, how did you ring that doorbell?" Somehow there in the quiet dark I would not have been too surprised if he had answered me.

I sat there until my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and I could see the furniture, the dark plateau of the grand piano, the outlines of the doorways. Then I walked over to one of the windows and looked out. The moon was on the other side of the house; I could see into the yard, but no one outside would be able to see me standing there.

Over there, diagonally toward the alley, in the shadow of the group of three small linden trees-Was that a darker shadow? A shadow that moved slightly as though a man were standing there watching the house?

I couldn't be sure; maybe my eyes and my imagination were playing tricks on me. But it was just where a man would stand, if he wanted to keep an eye on both the front and back approaches of the cottage.

I stood there for what seemed to be a long time, but at last I decided that I'd been mistaken. I went back to the Morris chair. This time I put Satan One-and-a-Half down on the floor and used the chair myself. But I'd scarcely settled myself before he had jumped up in my lap. In the stillness of the room, his purring sounded like an outboard motor. Then it stopped and he slept.

For a while there were thoughts running through my mind. Then there were only sounds--notes. My fingers itched for the piano keys, and I wished that I hadn't started this damnfool vigil. I had something, and I wanted to turn on the lights and write it down. But I couldn't do that, so I tried memorizing it.

Then I let my thoughts drift free again, because I knew I had what I'd been trying to get. But my thoughts weren't free, exactly. They seemed to belong to the girl, Ruth Carson...

I must have been asleep, because she was sitting there in the room with me, but she wasn't paying any attention to me. We were both listening respectfully to the enormous black cat which was sitting on the piano while it told us how to ring doorbells by telekinesis.

Then the cat suggested that Ruth come over and sit on my lap. She did. A very intelligent cat. It stepped down from the top of the piano onto the keyboard and began to play, by jumping back and forth among the keys. The cat led off with "La Donna e Mobile" and then--of all tunes to hear when the most beautiful girl in the world is sitting on your lap--he started to play "The Star-Spangled Banner."