Agatha & the Scarlet Scarab

by Karl Fish

  ‘The Black Cat – Café,’ Aggie proudly announced.

  ‘Excellent!’ Gideon replied. ‘Take a look through the window. Go on.’

  Aggie could hear music from inside. It sounded similar to old records Florrie would play. Ragtime Jazz she used to call it; all banjo and brass. As the gradient of the Steep was at its sharpest on this stretch of the pavement, Aggie had to go on tiptoes to look through the window. She used the cuff of her jacket to wipe away the dirt and peered inside.

  Like any café or restaurant, there were rows of tables and chairs. In Le Chat Noir, the tables were covered in bright, checked tablecloths and on each of them, a candle burned within an old, empty, glass jam jar. With its dimmed lights and vibrant music, Aggie couldn’t wait to go inside. As she turned to her uncle to ask permission a black shadow landed at the window and startled her backwards. A guttural growl came from behind the glass. Aggie peered back into two large yellow eyes that had set upon her, as the large cat peered back at her without blinking. She put her hand to her chest that had momentarily increased its heart rate and giggled embarrassedly.

  ‘Please, can I go in?’ Aggie begged Gideon.

  Her uncle looked up and down the Steep and through the barricades of wood and barbed wire that zigzagged downwards. In the distance, he focused on two automobiles that were parked beyond. One of them was a large ambulance truck, a familiar visitor on Sundays, and which dwarfed the much smaller roofless jeep parked opposite it.

  ‘Uncle?’ Aggie persisted, breaking Gideon’s stare

  ‘Yes, of course…’ he replied ‘…but, just be aware, there are some men in here, that are, how do I put this? Wounded veterans.’

  ‘OK.’ Aggie smiled, thinking nothing of it. ‘I’m only interested in the cat, to be honest,’ she said as she pushed the entrance door open.

  ‘Catssss,’ her uncle replied, accentuating the plural with a hiss.

  A small copper bell that was suspended between threshold and mid-air, rang to announce their arrival into the café. Aggie was greeted by a large black moggy that slowly stalked her until it wove in and out of her legs purring loudly. The music was much louder inside, with even louder conversation heard in the background. No one responded to the chime of the bell that had rattled upon their entrance. Aggie bent down and began to fuss the large feline that had now completely succumbed to her and was rolling around on its back encouraging its tummy to be rubbed. Aggie duly obliged.

  All of a sudden, another cat made its presence felt and jumped on top of Aggie’s arched shoulders. It purred even louder into her ears before nuzzling into her neck. Aggie pampered this one too as it draped its tabby coat across her and flicked its tail into her bobbed hair. Then from behind the drapes of the front window, a small ginger tomcat dashed out to her. At this point, the large black cat threw itself up onto its paws and issued a defensive growl to its fellow creatures. The ginger cat dashed off immediately between chairs and tables. The tabby issued a slight warning back to her counterpart but then slowly slid off of Aggie and sauntered deeper into the restaurant. The black cat, fully regaining one hundred per cent of Aggie’s affection, flopped childlike into her cradled arms.

  ‘Giddy, Giddy,’ came a sweet female voice as a slight lady wearing a slender black dress and white pinny danced her way over to Aggie’s uncle.

  Embracing Gideon with a tiptoed kiss to each cheek she then took his right arm and twirled herself around.

  ‘You see? I am now very giddy.’ She laughed through mild intoxication.

  ‘Cecile, this is my n–’ Gideon began, almost introducing Agatha as his niece. He paused very briefly and then continued, ‘My new evacuee, Agatha.’

  ‘Bonjour, Agatha.’ Cecile said welcoming her in an almost French accent.

  ‘I see you have already made friends with Malkin. You are very honoured,’ Cecile said happily, pointing at the now sleeping fur-ball in Aggie’s arms.

  Aggie’s attention had been so clearly focused on the cats that had greeted her and was now pampering Malkin so she really had not observed the full surroundings of Cecile’s beloved café. As she looked up she was greeted by what must have been a dozen, possibly more, cats, parading around the café as if it was rightfully theirs. Certainly, they outnumbered the guests that were in there. To the right-hand corner were three guests deep in conversation, and cloaked in hooded Cossacks that covered their faces. Nearer to the bar were several servicemen. One had his back to her and was in full British uniform. The two others were loud and smoked large cigars as they laughed and drank with their British ally.

  ‘Hey, Cecile,’ one of them called out. ‘Trois vin rouge, sil vous plait.’

  Their enthusiasm was infectious and far from being rude their request was jovial. Cecile laughed on her way back to the bar and poured three large red wines for them.

  ‘Will you be joining us, Gideon?’ came the broad New York accent towards her uncle.

  ‘Not today, gents. thank you,’ Gideon politely declined

  The British serviceman who had kept his back to them turned around and raised his glass to Aggie’s uncle. Aggie unceremoniously dropped Malkin as she looked upon his face. It was scarred beyond anything she had seen before. It was horrifying. Where his ears once were there were now only holes and his eyelids and lips had melted into his face. His ghostly stare emphasised by the milky frosting of his eyeballs. She stared away but didn’t say a word.

  ‘Usually, people scream,’ the serviceman said to Aggie. He then bent down and picked up Malkin before walking over and handing him back to Aggie.

  Aggie wasn’t sure what to say and just looked back. His opaque eyes stared towards her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, suspecting the dry gulp she had just swallowed was quite obvious to everyone.

  ‘No, thank you, for not screaming,’ the serviceman replied and then continued drinking with his friends.

  ‘Cecile, as always, it’s been a pleasure,’ Gideon interrupted cordially and turned to leave.

  ‘I’d like to stay for a little bit,’ Aggie asked her uncle, unperturbed by the man’s grotesque appearance.

  The serviceman and his two American friends turned and raised a welcoming glass to her. Gideon cast a look towards Cecile who, in turn, returned a reassuring nod.

  ‘You can help me feed the cats,’ Cecile suggested to Aggie.

  Gideon nodded in agreement and turned to his niece.

  ‘Aggie, I will be two minutes down the road seeing my friend Tink. His shop is the one with the large wooden shoe outside. If you need me, run straight there.’

  ‘We’ll look after her,’ Cecile interrupted, taking Aggie’s hand and leading her behind the bar to a small set of steps that descended beneath the restaurant.

  With a chime of the bell, Gideon left Le Chat Noir and headed south, down the Steep, weaving in and out the barbed-wire barricades.

  Beneath the restaurant, flint and sandstone arches provided the cellar where Cecile maintained a small but impressive selection of fine wines. Very hard to come by in such frugal times. Cecile held up one of the jam jars with the candle burning brightly as they passed into the dimly lit subterranean passageway.

  ‘Take this,’ the restaurant owner said to Aggie, passing her a large ceramic bowl with a steel ladle. Cecile then poured a mixture of damp sloppy food from a sealed bucket in the corner. From within the darkness, the increased level of purring from several cats could be heard. It grew louder as the excitement gained momentum. From behind them, Malkin made his presence known with a small cat meow and following him down the stone stairs came the tabby, the ginger tom, and several others. Cecile raised the lamp and lit several candles along the wall. As each one lit, it illuminated rows of cat cubicles. Each cubicle had its own blanket or makeshift bedding and names were decorated on individual cat bowls that were uniformly laid out on the floor in front of the them.

  ‘One spoonful per bowl, no more,’ Cecile ordered and Aggie began to slop the food into them one by one. On hearing the c
hink of the ladle against the ceramic bowl, all the cats descended from either the restaurant or their darkened quarters in anticipation of the fare.

  ‘It’s not easy herding cats,’ Cecile advised Aggie, smiling. ‘It takes time, a lot of patience, but most of all ... food.’

  Aggie filled each bowl, and a small legion of well-drilled moggies were now eagerly eating their food. Aggie counted that there were twenty cats in all. However, there were twenty-one bowls. Aggie grabbed the empty bowl and held it up to read the cat’s name. Decorated in fine calligraphy and adorned with tiny fake jewels the pewter cat bowl read ‘Purrsia’.

  ‘Purrsia, here, kitty. Purrsia!’ Aggie called out.

  ‘Up here!’ the scarred serviceman shouted.

  Aggie skipped up the stairs with the bowl and ladle.

  ‘He’s over there with my friends,’ the serviceman continued, guiding Aggie towards the three cloaked men in the corner. ‘They won’t bite,’ he assured her.

  Aggie took a few tentative steps forward them and there she could see Purrsia curled up into the Cossack on one of the men’s laps with just his nose peeping out during his cosy slumber. As she approached them, the three men turned to look at her from under their hoods. All of them displayed burns scarring, much like the serviceman who had already made her acquaintance. The gentleman, whose lap was currently Purrsia’s bed, sat in a wheelchair. Aggie had not realised this until she was up much closer. His legs were missing from the knees downwards.

  ‘I wouldn’t wake him,’ he said to Aggie. ‘He has a filthy temper.’

  Just then the restaurant door opened with its customary bell chime and in walked two large thuggish men. Each was dressed in white overalls, one of them with a large gold tooth. Aggie noticed official-looking name badges that read ‘Silvera’. Without so much as a grunt, they made their way to the wheelchair-bound man and began to wheel him out of the restaurant.

  ‘Well I guess that means we’re leaving then,’ the serviceman shouted across the restaurant to ensure the two brutes heard him.

  As the cloaked men upped and left, the serviceman Aggie had engaged with followed just behind. He too carried a long hooded gown but refused to wear it. He preferred his pristine uniform.

  As the orderlies began to lift the wheelchair down Le Chat Noirs’ steps, Purrsia awoke. People had forgotten for a moment he was still snuggled in. With an aggressive hiss, he raised his paw and shot a sharp-clawed blow across the large man’s cheek. The man struggled to carry the wheelchair and maintain balance. He lost grip of the wheelchair and sent his colleague onto his backside, bumping down the steps as he tried to control the chair from falling.

  Purrsia the cat now stood rooted in the road, spitting and hissing at the man at least fifty times his own size.

  ‘What the hell is that thing?’ the brute snarled, taking a sweeping boot at Purrsia.

  Aggie looked out of the window in horror. The man’s foot was just short of connecting with the cat’s head. But he was right. The cat was odd. It was all wrinkly with folds of flesh exposed. It didn’t have a single hair on its body. Perhaps that’s why it preferred the company of the burned men in hoods. Nevertheless, Purrsia was smart enough not to wait for the next assault and scarpered up the Steep.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll catch him,’ Aggie volunteered and shot out of the restaurant and quickly up the hill.

  ‘No, Aggie, no! Come back!’ Cecile shouted. Chasing after her.

  The tip of Purrsia’s tail could just be seen as it entered the passageway adjacent to the Poacher. Aggie rushed up the sharp incline and rounded the corner. The pathway led into a dark, damp corridor of adjoining pathways as she called out to the cat.

  ‘Purrsia! Come on, Purrsia. Here kitty, kitty,’ she called, in-between pursing her lips and making kissing noises.

  Winding along the alleyways and labyrinth of passages, Aggie continued calling out patiently for several minutes. She ignored the calls from Cecile in the background who was tracking her like she was tracking the cat. Finally, she was rewarded by a ‘meow’ from just around the next bend.

  On turning into the bend, she was greeted by Purrsia the hairless cat who was being held aloft by the rump of flesh between its shoulder blades, desperately swinging its paws at the man holding him. Purrsia’s captor was the small wretched man from the Poacher; the one who had tried, unsuccessfully, to challenge Pop Braggan earlier.

  ‘Here kissy-kissy.’ He laughed with his screwed up little face puckering towards Aggie.

  ‘Give me the cat,’ the young girl demanded.

  ‘Of course,’ he replied, holding Purrsia forward. ‘If you give me whatever it is you are hiding in your pocket.’

  Aggie had forgotten the blue velvet case and magnifying glass as she had transfixed her attention on the cats. Now reminded, she immediately placed her hand within her pocket and grasped it tightly.

  ‘OK,’ she said, removing the case and placing it on the floor in front of her.

  ‘No funny business or the ugly moggy here gets it,’ he snarled back. Holding Purrsia at arm’s length he edged towards Aggie.

  ‘That looks pretty. Such a beautiful-looking case, what treasures does it ’old inside. Pearls maybe? Is it pearls, girl?’ he asked with a broad grin across his face.

  ‘How did you know?’ Aggie replied in a surprised tone.

  Lyle, as the wretched man was known, awkwardly bent down, while keeping the cat aloft, and grabbed the blue velvet case. He was unable to unclasp it with one hand. So he handed Purrsia over. Aggie cradled the cat in her arms as he opened the case.

  ‘Magnifying glass! A tiny bleeding magnifying glass!’ he shouted up at her, incensed it was not pearls as he had just been promised.

  ‘It’s very precious to me!’ Aggie shouted back.

  ‘Well, I’ll show you how precious this is to me,’ he snarled, raising his boot above the opened case.

  Aggie moved quickly and, using poor old Purrsia as a shield, she thrust the cat into Lyle’s face. A bad-tempered frenzy of paws and claws tore into Lyle’s emaciated cheekbones and eyelids.

  ‘Aagghhhhhh!’ he screamed raising his hands to defend himself.

  Aggie dropped Purrsia and grabbed the magnifying glass and its case. She turned and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Purrsia the cat hurdled a wall and Lyle pulled out a sharp fisherman’s knife.

  ‘I’m going to gut you and your cat,’ he screamed chasing after her, blood streaming from his cheeks.

  Aggie’s heart was beating so fast she was sure it would jump straight out of her chest. She could hear Cecile’s voice in the background and headed towards it but she was disoriented and, as her uncle had explained, the sheer labyrinth maze of Ambledown’s alleys was easy to get lost within. As she took her third right-hand turn in a row, where she thought Cecile’s voice was coming from, she hit a dead end. Almost instantly her foe caught up with her.

  ‘Oh dearie, dearie me,’ came the aggressive little voice behind her.

  Lyle, who was adept as any smuggler at navigating Ambledown’s mazes, had cornered her. A glint from the knife he wielded caught the last of the autumn sun as he relished a slow walk towards her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she sobbed and closed her eyes and waited.

  ‘Thwack! Thud.’

  Aggie heard the two dull sounds as she waited for her fate. And she waited and she waited. But there was nothing. Perhaps Lyle was taunting her in petrifying silence before he struck. But the strike never came. She opened her eyes and there flat-out on the ground, sprawled in front of her, lay his pathetic little frame. His knife was nowhere to be seen. A bloodied lump of wood abandoned by the wayside. A shuffle of feet disappearing into the maze of twittens.

  ‘Aggie?’ Cecile’s voice called out.

  ‘Agatha?’ then came Uncle Gideon.

  ‘I’m over here!’ she cried out

  Gideon and Cecile arrived soon after, accompanied by the two American gentlemen. Gideon snatched his niece into his arms and embraced her tight
ly. Cecile went looking for her cat. One of the Americans bent down, and with two fingers under the wretch’s throat, felt for Lyle’s pulse.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ he confirmed.

  ‘We’ll take it from here, Gideon,’ the second American said.

  Gideon acknowledged their help, picked up his niece, wound through the passageways, and started the steep climb back up to 1a The Keep.

  ‘Trouble finds you, young lady. Just like your mother,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘I do hope you can stay out of it at school tomorrow.’ He laughed

  ‘Seriously?’ she frowned at him, casting her sapphire-blue stare at his.

  ‘Seriously! About time you mixed with other children,’ he replied seriously.

  Chapter 17

  The Imposter

  During her influential exchange with Major Boyd Collingdale Ms Erket and Professor Malcolm had disappeared without a trace. Along with the Major’s recollection of events. An entire day had passed since the Amazonian figure draped in tiger skin had clip-clopped her way swiftly in and out of his life. She’d preferred the company of Professor Malcolm though, which had been met with somewhat incredulous disbelief by the army veteran.

  On this day, in fact, the annual Sunday Harvest that everyone throughout the country would be enjoying, the Major had insisted his staff work until midday. And so, like every day before it, at 8 am sharp, the stout, balding man with flamboyant facial hair and splintered bamboo cane directed his staff, quick smart, on his daily rounds of the Museum of Natural History. Passing such rare and exotic creatures that had taken centuries to collate, was now commonplace to them all as were the daily altercations between the Professor Meticulous Meredith Malcolm and Major Collingdale.

  At 8:05 am, as the entourage rounded the familiar mahogany-cased exhibits, the moustache on Boyd Collingdale’s face twitched in anticipation of a verbal altercation with the adversarial professor. Much to the Major’s surprise and those who shuffled behind him with their notepads and pencils drawn, the Professor was not there as he consistently had been. Perhaps he had taken the day off for the harvest? The Major considered it but he wasn’t convinced the Professor would ever take a day off and continued his military march towards the cordoned off Eastern Quarter.