“Of course she does. Languida Fatiguée.” Prudence snorted with laughter.
Gerry explained. “Every little girl reaches an age when she gets depressed. It could be because something happens like a family move, or it could be when she gets her period.”
Prudence interrupted. “You’re not going to write about that, are you?”
“No, no. It’s not that kind of book. I just mean she doesn’t speak, sits alone a lot of the time; in a word, mopes. She’ll cheer up though, when the cats get jumping.”
“Works for me,” Prudence said drily. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to have a long hot soak before bed.”
“Of course, Prudence.” Gerry jumped up. “Here, I’ll do the dishes. And don’t forget, over the weekend, you are not working. Do what you’d do at home. Relax.”
“I’d be cleaning my house on the weekend,” Prudence responded. Then she smiled. “I’ll find a book or something. Maybe I’ll make a Battenberg cake.”
Gerry worked on The Cake-Jumping Cats of Dibble for hours that evening, remembered the dishes at ten o’clock. She cleaned out the cat boxes, planned the next day’s work and went to bed where she conked out immediately.
Both women were groggy next morning. “It’s the pasta,” Prudence yawned. “It’s heavy.”
Gerry made Prudence sit down while she boiled the kettle. “A British breakfast this morning, Prudence. Kippers, eggs, toast and tea. Yes?”
“All right. I like kippers.”
“So do I. But they remind me I met Ralph Parsley yesterday, an experience I do not care to repeat. Ugh.”
“Mm. Funny how one twin is quite charming and the other — not. Was he driving that dreadful old truck of his?”
“Yup. Screeched out of the parking lot like he meant trouble for someone. Can you tell him apart from Steve?”
“Sometimes I think I can but then find out I was wrong, so I’d have to say no. I expect their close relations can, though.”
“So it might have been either of them talking to, or rather, being talked at by Betty Parsley last week.”
“Where?”
“I saw them at church, after church. Betty seemed angry. The tall redheaded man was just listening. Then I met Steve the next day and assumed it had been him.”
Prudence finished her thought. “But it could have been Ralph. Anyway, they both work at the Parsley Inn. Steve is Phil’s manager for the pub side. Betty managed the restaurant. And Ralph does part-time manual labour. Unloads beer barrels and boxes, takes empties out to the truck after the weekend.”
Gerry placed a plate of food in front of Prudence and began to pick at her own. “So, I saw Betty at church that Sunday morning. Presumably, her family saw her that afternoon. But I didn’t see her at the party that evening. I wonder if she was already down in Cathy’s basement when Doug and I found the broken wine bottles.”
“Well, I don’t think Bob knocked that big rack over himself. He might jump on it but he doesn’t weigh enough to tip it.” Prudence took in Gerry’s downcast face. “Eat your nice breakfast, Gerry,” she said sharply. “You didn’t kill Betty Parsley and you’re not responsible for her death.”
“But if I’d checked the basement better! She might have still been alive!”
“It’s no good,” Prudence said gently. “We’ll never know.”
Gerry finished her cold breakfast and Prudence cleared the plates. “Don’t do the dishes,” Gerry called out.
“I wasn’t going to. I need some new clothes. A friend is picking me up around eleven and we’ll have lunch out.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Gerry was already fingering her cake and cat drawings and spoke absently. “If you want to bring her in for tea after, feel free.”
“Thank you, Gerry. And what makes you think she’s a she?”
But Gerry was already too engrossed in the dialogue of her Dibble tea party to give much thought to a possible Lovering one and hardly noticed when Prudence left.
The Cake-Jumping Cats of Dibble
Chapter One
The Idea
Many cakes ago, in the village of Dibble, in the province of Fasswassenbasset, the queen and her friends were enjoying a game of cards as they drank their tea.
“Pass the Battenberg, would you, Max,” purred Queen Atholfass.
The haughty monarch, resplendent in her white ruff and magnificent calico coat (long-hair, don’t you know), delicately pried apart the little cubes of alternating chocolate and white cake with one elegant nail.
“Delicious.” Through lazy slits, she eyed the courtier, Max, Count Scarfnhatznmitz, an energetic border collie, who’d slid it to her with his nose. “How clever of you.”
“Not at all, Your Majesty. My pleasure.” Max bowed deeply and suddenly, which brought his nose down with a smack onto the table, knocking over his teacup and soaking the cards. “Sorry, sorry.” He mopped the tablecloth with a napkin.
With a sigh, a little girl got up from her place at the table and slowly fetched a damp rag. She handed it to Max before wisping out of the room.
“What’s wrong with Languida?” queried Max, as his tongue, pink and thick as a thickish slice of ham, drooled dangerously close to the Queen’s plate.
“Nothing at all,” snapped the Queen, jerking her plate away.
Gerry stretched and stood up. She was pretty pleased with the first illustration. Latooth, Languida, Max, Tess and the Queen sat at a round table with a partially demolished Battenberg cake and cups, cards and a huge ornate teapot. Humans and dogs sat on regular chairs while Atholfass adorned a kind of high chair with a big round cushion on top. She wore her crown and her wonderful calico coat. The dogs had cloth capes. The humans wore long old-fashioned dresses. Sneathe, the butler, sneered from a doorway, bearing the next cake.
“No lesson. No moral. A wonderful world of endless cake and play,” said Gerry to any of the cats who were in the room. “Like you guys have.” She tossed a catnip mouse into the kitten box and was delighted to see them react to it. She teased Mother. “Are they too young for catnip, Mother? What is the legal age to give catnip to kittens?” Mother blinked and looked inscrutable.
Gerry built up the fire and turned back to her book. The trick was to put as much information into the big illustrations as possible and then insert mini-sketches where subsequent actions demanded. She’d drawn one little picture of the moment when Max’s nose knocked over his teacup, so the next should zero in on him mopping, his tongue dripping on the Queen’s plate and her jerking it away. She set to work.
She was stretching her fingers when she heard a car door slam, then another. Three-thirty! And she’d missed lunch. She hurriedly shuffled the sketches and notes into a pile and put them on the bench at the other end of the room. She was wiping the table as Prudence and her friend entered through the kitchen.
“Hello, ladies! Good shopping? Let me put the kettle on.” For Prudence’s friend was a she — Lucy Hanlan. They’d known each other for years, apparently.
“I bought a tin of Danish butter cookies,” Lucy said. “And Prudence thought you still had fruitcake.”
“Still,” Gerry agreed, flashing a dangerous smile at Prudence.
“I told you you’d be glad we made so many,” Prudence replied evenly.
Gerry made a pot of Earl Grey tea and sliced some cake while the ladies unpacked Prudence’s purchases and snipped off all the tags and little plastic pieces. “Honestly,” said Lucy, “you’d think these socks were made of gold the way they staple them together.” Gerry decided she liked the woman and relaxed.
“Get a lot done?” Prudence asked. Gerry nodded. “Gerry’s writing a book. For children, she says. But I think it’s for herself.”
“Isn’t that why every author writes or creator creates?” Gerry asked.
“Lucy sews.”
“What do you sew?
”
“Anything. Dresses, skirts, shirts, pants. I help with the amateur plays and musicals in the town, with the costumes.”
“And you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t enjoy it, would you? Cake?”
“Absolutely not. Yes, please.”
“What did you buy, Prudence?”
Prudence exhibited a pair of grey pants, two white shirts, five pairs of undies and five pairs of socks. And a black cardigan. Lucy and Gerry looked at each other and grinned.
“Prudence’s uniform,” Lucy said.
“I just don’t care about clothes,” Prudence sputtered. “I don’t see what all the fuss is.”
“You wore a perfectly nice green dress to my art show last fall.”
“Yes, well,” Prudence grudged, “that was to please you and to fit in with the others. But I don’t want to stand out.”
“Why is that, Prudence?” Lucy asked quietly.
As quietly, her friend replied, “Learned my lesson.”
There was an awkward pause. Gerry rose. “Fresh tea. Do you live in Lovering, Lucy?”
“In the heart of.”
“Lucy comes from one of the oldest families in Lovering.”
“Hanlan,” mused Gerry. “That’s Irish, isn’t it? My mother was Irish.”
“Holt?” queried Prudence.
“Her mother was a Fitzpatrick.”
“Sounds like an upper-class name,” said Lucy. “Oh, no offence, I’m just interested in names. Now, I’m descended from the indentured servants who were brought in the 1850s to work and help the settlers.”
“That’s a kind of slavery, isn’t it?”
“Oh, no. Though there were bad masters who starved their workers or refused to free them when the period of indenture was up.”
Gerry spoke slowly. “So there would have been servants brought over from Great Britain by the early settlers hereabouts?”
Lucy nodded. “Absolutely. As many were Catholics, there are quite good records at the Catholic Church. Of their marriages, their children’s births, deaths.”
“Huh. A whole other part of the history of Lovering I never knew existed. Thank you for telling me, Lucy.”
Lucy smiled. “My pleasure. The past is always with us. Prudence told me about the bones in the shed. You’re thinking they might have belonged to a servant, as the family wouldn’t have been able to hide one of their own members missing. And why would they?” She rose from the table. “Well, it’s been lovely to meet you finally, Gerry, and to have tea in this marvellous old house.” She kissed Prudence, and, impulsively, Gerry as well.
“What a nice person,” Gerry said, scrubbing the breakfast and tea dishes while Prudence stood by with a tea towel.
“One of my oldest friends. I bought a quiche and some salad for supper.”
Gerry groaned. “How did you know? I missed lunch and then ate too much fruitcake. And cookies. Quiche and salad will be perfect.”
“Well, it’s the holidays. It’s expected we make the wrong dietary choices.” Prudence looked guilty. “We went for fast food burgers for lunch.”
“I’m a bad influence,” laughed Gerry.
Prudence went into the living room to wipe the table, then called Gerry. “Come see this. What were you saying about the catnip mice being duds?” Gerry stuck her head around the corner of the room.
Almost all the cats — all twenty-three of them — were in the living room. About half of them were playing with catnip mice: flipping them in the air and biting them; on their backs wrestling with the mice on their bellies. Even the kittens were solemnly sitting up, batting a mouse from one to the other.
“Ten catnip mice,” sang Gerry, and couldn’t stop laughing. Slowly, the cats became aware of her and stopped their various games. They recovered their dignity, sat up and groomed, then most of them stalked from the room.
“Now you’ve given offence,” said Prudence. “I’m going to put my new clothes away. Oh, yes. Is it all right if I do a laundry?”
“Prudence, you are a guest. Of course it’s all right.” Gerry retrieved her pile of papers and spread them out on the table. “I’m just going to do the next little bit.”
“Huh!” said Prudence, and went about her tasks, as Gerry returned to her imaginary tea party.
Her dearest friend, Latooth Élonga, an older lady, an authoress, and vaguely related to Languida, joined in the conversation. “Well, dear, it won’t be long before she’s gone.” Latooth’s many necklaces and bracelets swung and glittered as she reached for the teapot.
“What?” said Queen Atholfass, momentarily distracted by the shiny glass and metal. She emerged from her trance and again became her aloof self. “Leave me? Why would she do that?”
“It’s what they do, dear,” replied Latooth, her glasses glinting. “The young things. They leave.”
Tess, Lady Ponscomb, a black long-haired retriever, chief lady-in-waiting at court and cousin of Max, had been sitting quietly nibbling cake. “Your Majesty, I think —”
“When I want you to speak, Ponscomb, I’ll ask you. Always barking about something or other.” The Queen lashed her tail angrily.
Max leaned in. “Your Maj, if I may?”
“You may, Max,” purred the Queen, fluttering her tiny eyelashes.
“Well, Your Maj, the young like action. They like to move.” To illustrate this point, Max jumped up and ran about the room, knocking a flower arrangement from its stand and sending a hat rack flying.
“Em, sorry about that.”
“No problem, Max,” cooed the Queen. “Ponscomb, tidy that up.”
Max helped Tess with the mess. “Sorry, Tess. I couldn’t help it.”
“I know, Max,” replied the downtrodden Tess.
At this moment, the butler, Sneathe, oiled his way into the room, ignored the two grovelling dogs, and with much bowing and flourishing, placed a chocolate sponge cake with satin icing where the Battenberg cake had been.
Gerry chortled. “I feel another illustration coming on,” she warned the cats still keeping her company. “Just a quarter page. Sneathe stepping over the two dogs. Does that sound good?”
Prudence, passing through the room on an errand, stopped, realized none of this was meant for her, and continued on her way. She heated the quiche and prepared the salad.
Gerry worked on into the night, pausing only to eat the meal brought by a silent Prudence. Later she went to top up the tub of kibble in the kitchen and clean the cat boxes. “Drat the woman,” she muttered. The cat boxes were clean and the kibble container brimming. “Can’t get her to relax.” She went to bed and read for a while but couldn’t turn her brain off. Visions of cakes and cats and bones in the ground disturbed her long after she fell asleep.
14
A bell tolled. The bones lay down, arms folded neatly across ribs. Bob crouched at the skull, Marigold at the feet — or was it the other way around? Gerry opened her eyes, saying, “But, Marigold, you’re dead!” and saw Bob’s quizzical white whiskers. He sneezed, spraying her. “Ew, Bob!” The bell rang again, then stopped.
“Oh, heck!” Gerry threw back the bedclothes, startling Lightning, who was just waking. The cat slunk toward the door. “Sorry, Lightning,” Gerry called after her.
She’d meant to attend church to see if anyone who’d been there last week was there again, and to talk to them about with whom Betty Parsley had spoken. “Well, of course they’re there again,” she muttered as she slipped on dress slacks and a sweater over a turtleneck. “That’s why they’re called the faithful. Unlike me.” A sudden thought struck her. What if Betty had been unfaithful to Phil, and what Gerry had witnessed between her and one of the Parsley twins was a lovers’ quarrel? Sex or money, she thought, then doubted that all murders could be so easily explained.
She brushed her hair and teeth and splashed water on her face, then race
d downstairs to care for the cats. Breakfast would have to wait.
The minister was preaching when she arrived in the porch of little St. Anne’s and crept to a pew at the back. Overnight, the temperature had dropped again and the church was cold.
No red-haired men in the congregation. Gerry relaxed. One less thing to worry about.
The minister was speaking about Christmas, how it was still going on, this being the eleventh day, and how its message should be with them all year, not just when they were flushed from wine, good food and fellowship. Gerry agreed, then let her thoughts slip away to Dibble, where it was always summer, at least in her mind. Hearing Betty Parsley’s name at the end of the sermon brought her back to the present.
Though sobered by the minister’s prayer for Betty and her family, Gerry enjoyed singing the offertory and concluding hymns, then loitered with the others, exchanging greetings as they arranged their winter garments.
One elderly man, bent over and fat, looked roguishly at Gerry. “Well, young lady, I hope you’ve got your long johns on today. I’m wearing mine.”
Gerry, who ordinarily would have cringed at being called “young lady,” just laughed and handed him the cane he’d hooked over the end of the pew. “I’ll have to buy some soon.”
He looked at the cane. “That’s not mine,” he cackled. “Wife!” he called to a tiny thin lady, very frail, who was still sitting. “Your cane.”
She slid along the length of the pew and hauled herself upright. She had no coat or hat or gloves to put on, as she’d never divested herself of them. A gash of lipstick and two dots of rouge decorated her little face. A fox wrapped itself around her shoulders, biting its tail in chagrin. She grasped the cane with one hand and her husband with the other and majestically left the church.
“The Clarkes,” a woman whispered when they’d left. “Used to be big farmers. Past the ferry. Sold their land now. No sons.” Her voice rose to a normal level and she pointed her chin at Gerry. “I know who you are.” Gerry wasn’t sure if the woman considered this a good thing or not. The woman lowered her tone again. “Isn’t it terrible about Betty Parsley?” Gerry nodded. “Do you know how — I mean, how she —”
The Cat Vanishes Page 13