James, Fabulous Feline

by Harriet Hahn

  I now became a member of the team because it was getting late and the light was fading. At last we found what Tor wanted. An open area in the midst of warehouses near the river. Shep and I carried the battery-driven lights, and James trotted along beside me looking uneasily about him. Tor took a flounder out of the package he had bought at the fishmonger and placed it in the middle of an open space. Then we all moved back against a wall and waited as quietly as possible. No lights, no sound except, eventually, the meowing of cats as they carefully approached the flounder.

  “Now,” said Tor.

  I turned on my light, Shep turned on his. In the center of the open space were three cats all tearing at the fish and snarling at one another. James looked around in terror and jumped onto Jane’s lap on top of her clipboard. He does not know Jane well and usually ignores her, but she was the only safe spot. Shep, Tor, Moises and I were all standing with our hands full.

  After a moment, the cats ignored the lights and put on a fine show of fighting over a fish. Tor and Moises got the whole splendid cat fight. James closed his eyes for that.

  At last we had had enough and returned to the van.

  “That’s all we need of wild cats.” said Jane as we drove home.

  James and I were both too tired to go out so we shared a bowl of canned clam chowder and a little milk, and he tottered up to bed, stunned and exhausted by the night’s work.

  The next day Jane called, and I made an appointment to meet her at a studio that evening to see the film we had shot. I picked up James and we took a cab because I was currently rich, and before long we were sitting in a studio looking at a big television screen while Tor ran film for us. Shep and Moises sat beside us. We were all critics now. I thought Tor had done an outstanding job, but the subjects James had gotten for us were also excellent and all of us were euphoric at the end of the presentation.

  Everyone started talking at the same time, offering suggestions and exclaiming over particularly good shots. James was bored. He started tossing a cassette he found on a table back and forth.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Tor looked at it, slipped it into the VCR and started it.

  It turned out to be a video Tor had shot during the dress rehearsal of Cats International. First we saw Ursula warming up, then James demonstrating some movements, then Ursula imitating. Ursula smiled at James. He did a somersault. Then we switched to Poppy Balsom making up Anne. The segment concluded with a shot of the finale.

  “That’s it. That’s our lead-in,” said Jane. “Thanks, James.”

  He gave her his think-nothing-of-it look.

  There remained only the still pictures to be taken, so Jane and Tor appeared the next afternoon without Shep. We would take the pictures in flat twelve. James had slept well but he was still somewhat tired and certainly bored with performing for the camera. And while Tor shot some film, he was not really satisfied. Then the bell rang and Helena and Poppy were there. I welcomed them with open arms.

  James was now changed with charm. His favorite artist in the whole world had arrived. James liked Poppy, too, so he began to behave like a proper host, and Tor took some pictures of him as he greeted his friends and was patted in return. Then, while I fixed iced tea for the ladies, James showed off. He sat, crouched, pounced, stalked, stretched, played with a ball of paper, waved a paw, smirked, winked and glowered. At last he launched himself from the high windowsill to the floor with a wild yowl. Tor was lying on the floor by this time shooting picture after picture. Helena and Poppy laughed and applauded. At last James collapsed, exhausted. Jane put away her pencil. Tor packed up his cameras, and the publicist and photographer departed with good wishes all around, and Helena, Poppy, James and I were left in peace.

  Helena stretched out on the sofa, iced tea at hand. Poppy was curled up comfortably in the big chair and James lay negligently on the arm, just under Poppy’s hand. She stroked him gently; he purred. The psychiatrist was at work.

  “I keep thinking about Roger,” mused Poppy, almost to herself. “I like him too much”—deep sigh—“in fact, I think I love him.” More vigorous stroking. “In fact I’m sure I love him”—deep sigh—“but I’m afraid to marry him. He has all that beastly money. If I marry him, I’ll lose all my professional identity, and besides, I’ll have to do all those rich things like have servants to run my big house and live a kind of life I disapprove of.” James purred softly.

  There was a small, comfortable silence.

  Poppy turned to Helena. “You were a struggling artist when you married Henry. Now you’re a rich Lady Haverstock with a huge house and Wilson and all those people to run it. What has happened to your work? You could get any gallery in town to hang your work just because you’re Lady Haverstock. It wouldn’t have to be any good.”

  Helena was silent for a moment, thinking.

  “Of course, you could go on painting; in fact, I know you do. But suppose you had a career that took you out of the house. You would have to go where the job took you. I have been offered a job in Oslo later this summer. In fact a lot of my work takes me away. How would Roger like that if we were married?”—deep sigh—“He’d just say ‘Why do you rush off all the time when you don’t need to? We have plenty of money.’”

  James slid out from under Poppy’s hand and hopped into her lap. He shook his head and gave her a very disappointed look.

  “A lot you know.” she said, and dumped him unceremoniously on the floor.

  Helena sat up. “It’s true,” she said, “that some galleries that would never accept my work now take it because I am Lady Haverstock, but it is also true that I can do better work because I do not have to spend my time cleaning other people’s houses in order to support my painting. It’s a trade-off.”

  “Well,” said Poppy self-consciously, “I really didn’t mean to bend your ear.” She sounded a bit petulant, but I guessed she was really struggling with herself.

  “You are my best friend,” said Helena. “I care about everything that concerns you. You could never bend my ear.” Then she looked at her watch and determined it was time to go. Poppy picked up her purse and patted James affectionately. “Let’s take a cab together,” she said.

  “Good-bye, Dr. James, sir,” said Helena with great affection. James smiled and gave her his paw which she shook ceremoniously.

  When I returned from seeing them out, I found James pacing the floor.

  “Something bothering you?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “You let Poppy know you didn’t like what she said about Roger,” I guessed.

  James nodded again.

  “The doctor is not supposed to make any value judgments, is that it?”

  James nodded again—short, sharp nods.

  “James,” I said, “you do a wonderful job. You really can’t expect to be perfect.”

  James gave me a scathing look and we went to dinner, where I was permitted to order anything but flounder.

  For a brief time the days of summer lazed along. James had gone back to stamps at Thwaites as Elsie was now going to Dr. George instead of Dr. James. The photography was finished to the satisfaction of everyone. Poppy was off on an assignment and a lonely Roger stopped in from time to time, as did Lord Henry and Helena when they were in town for their natural childbirth sessions. James and I enjoyed the peace. We walked in St. James’s Park in the evening and fed the waterfowl. Sometimes we listened to the band concert. Sometimes we would have lunch in Crown Passage and then watch the tourists taking pictures of the guards at St. James’s Palace. James looked at St. James’s Palace with longing. He really thinks of it as home.

  Then, one late afternoon, Mrs. March called to announce that a lawyer, a Mr. Graves, was in her office. He wished to talk to me.

  “Send him right down,” I said. “I wonder what’s up?” I asked James, who was rearranging the ashtray and three pens that were sitting on the table. He nodded absently and brushed a pen off the table. I bent down, picked it up and
put it back. He swept another off with his tail and looked at me appealingly. I picked that up. The ashtray, fortunately empty, bumped onto the carpet. James, all surprise, looked over the edge of the table and then up at me, his eyes wide with wonder.

  “Bored, aren’t you,” I said with some asperity; I retrieved the ashtray and put it on the coffee table. I scooped up the pens and put them in the top drawer of the dresser. James hopped over to the windowsill and looked gloomily out into the street. There was a knock at the door. I opened it to admit a plumpish man in a well-cut, dark grey suit. He had carefully combed grey hair, pale blue eyes and a slight double chin. He carried a polished leather briefcase in one hand and a bowler hat in the other.

  “How do you do?” he said. “My name is Hudderstone Graves, and I am a solicitor involved in the prosecution of Samuel Wentworth. May I see you for a few minutes?”

  “The man at the Huntingdown who tried to steal our statues,” I said to James as I waved our guest into the big chair. James left the window and lay flat on the table, looking at Mr. Graves, who now opened his briefcase and removed a yellow legal pad and a gold pen. I offered refreshment. Mr. Graves refused.

  “In this case I represent the Crown. Samuel Wentworth is being prosecuted for criminal fraud in connection with a number of objects stolen from the Huntingdown Museum over a considerable period of time. I understand you were involved with one of these thefts.”

  I told Mr. Graves how I had taken the statues to the Huntingdown for photography and only recovered the originals by a lucky chance and the alert perceptions of my friend, James.

  “And where is this friend to be found?” asked Mr. Graves, continuing to write.

  “Right here,” I answered.

  He looked up in surprise.

  “James, meet Mr. Graves.” I waved my hand. James sat up and extended a paw.

  Mr. Graves looked from James to me and back again. He was more than astonished. He was closer to appalled.

  “This is not a frivolous business,” he said sternly.

  “I am not being frivolous. James was indeed there and did find my statues for me.”

  “You mean you took your cat to the Huntingdown Museum?”

  “Indeed I did. Ask Costain Cummings, he will tell you. James has a very good eye; he can often detect forgeries that it takes other experts weeks to uncover.” I gave James a serious, professional nod. I was going to mention that James regularly acted in a professional capacity at Thwaites, but I stopped. William Young, Thwaites’s managing director would be deeply mortified to have anyone think his auction house employed a cat.

  Mr. Graves looked at me with deep suspicion.

  “Call Costain and ask him,” I said.

  Mr. Graves gulped and nodded. I dialed and, finding Costain at home, handed the phone to Mr. Graves.

  During the conversation James and I smirked at each other.

  Mr. Graves nodded a lot. Costain talks a lot. At last he hung up the phone.

  “I can’t believe it, but Costain Cummings is too concerned about this business to play a silly practical joke, so I must accept that this cat played a part in the affair,” he said, and picked up his gold pen again.

  “Let us get the details,” he said.

  Getting the details was not easy since James could not tell us directly. It went something like this.

  “We went to the Huntingdown together,” I said.

  James nodded.

  “You left me and went directly to the reproduction workroom because the door was open and you could see in.”

  James nodded.

  “Could you see the statue on the desk?”

  And so on. Finally, Mr. Graves was satisfied with James’s story. In fact he was jubilant.

  “This is most welcome testimony,” he said. “It appears that Mr. Wentworth has been stealing original pieces sent to his workshop for reproduction on a regular basis for some time, but there is no direct evidence to counter his defense that he made a mistake, or someone in his shop made a mistake, and returned reproductions rather than originals to their places in the museum. Here, at last, is direct evidence that Wentworth himself was involved in the theft. The problem will be how to get him to admit it. However, that will be the barrister’s problem. I should like to call tomorrow morning to make an appointment for you and, ah, James with Sir A. Grant Paine, our barrister.”

  “That suit you?” I asked James. He nodded, walked daintily across the table and extended a paw to Mr. Graves, who took it uneasily, then placed his pad and pen in the briefcase and closed it. I handed him his hat and he departed.

  “James strikes again,” I said.

  James rolled off the table. He loves to do that because I am always sure he is going to hurt himself, and so I reach to catch him, he nimbly eludes me and lands safe and sound on his feet. I should learn. He was purring happily.

  The night after an early dinner of osso buco at Frank’s, James and I played question and answer until I had a complete account of what Samuel Wentworth had said and done before Costain and I arrived in the room. It took a long time but neither of us wanted to stop, and by the time Mrs. March came by, I knew exactly what had happened.

  “James here?” she asked.

  He nodded to her and walked upstairs with all the dignity befitting a very important witness.

  Mr. Graves called early the next morning and asked if we could meet at the office of Sir Grant. He called the office Sir Grant’s chambers, but it turned out to be a suite of offices in the Middle Temple. I took James in the carry-bag, and as I entered from Fleet Street I felt an overwhelming sense of history. That very ground had been occupied for nearly a thousand years. It had been devoted to the law for the last five hundred at least. I let James out of the bag and we walked slowly along amid the old brick buildings, looking at the names posted outside the doors of the various chambers, where the solicitors, barristers and clerks who occupied each set of chambers were listed. We found Sir Grant’s name. We entered and spoke to the receptionist, a young man who ushered us down a hall to a good-size room with a big desk and bookshelves on every wall. The desk was piled with papers and behind it, leaning back in his chair, was a seventy-year-old man with sparse white hair, glasses sliding down his nose, sparkling blue eyes and a mussy appearance. His tie was slightly out of line, and when he stood up to shake my hand I noticed that his coat pockets were stuffed with things. Mr. Graves was sitting primly in one corner of the room.

  “Hello,” said Sir Grant in a booming voice. He patted his desk. “Hop right up here, James,” he went on. “I am delighted to meet you.”

  James sat on the end of the desk and offered a paw. Sir Grant shook it.

  “Do I understand, James, that you are a witness in this case?” he asked once we were all seated.

  James nodded.

  Sir Grant took out a pencil whose eraser end had been chewed and prepared to make notes on a yellow pad in front of him. He kept looking at James out of the corner of his eye as Mr. Graves outlined the situation for us all.

  Meanwhile, James, who had heard all this many times before, began to play with a brass figure of a bathing girl wrapped in a voluminous cloak. The brass girl was wearing a large brass hat and she was reclining on some brass sand. James patted this Edwardian beauty and she made a slight clicking sound. He patted her from the other side and the sound was repeated.

  “Just a moment,” Sir Grant interrupted Mr. Graves. “Look, James,” he said, and flipped the cage open. It parted in two wings that revealed a brass bathing beauty without a bathing suit but still wearing her large hat. Then he flipped the wings back in place and the lady was completely covered. Sir Grant flipped the cape a time or two and then sat back to watch what James would do.

  James grinned. In two tries he had the cape open. Then he shut it. He opened it again and slapped it shut and sat on the desk and purred.

  “Like that?” said Sir Grant. James nodded.

  “You can understand me?” asked Sir Grant serio
usly.

  James nodded,

  “You like single-malt whiskey?”

  James nodded.

  “You travel the world?”

  James nodded.

  Sir Grant was laughing now. “You like champagne and crab salad for lunch?”

  James nodded vigorously.

  “Wonderful,” said Sir Grant. “You have a cat who knows how to nod.”

  James snarled. He stalked across the desk, ignoring all the papers, and to Sir Grant’s surprise he slapped him on the mouth with his paw.

  “Do you live in the Inner Temple?” Sir Grant asked, somewhat subdued.

  James shook his head.

  “Are you a marmalade cat?”

  James shook his head.

  “Have you been in the curator’s office at the Victoria and Albert Museum?”

  James shook his head.

  “Have you been in the curator’s office in the Huntingdown Museum?”

  James nodded emphatically.

  “Now I believe you,” Sir Grant said after a pause.

  James returned to playing with the brass lady. Sir Grant pulled his ear, chewed the end of his pencil, squinted at nothing and reset his glasses on his nose. At last he began to write. “Now our job is to get the jury to believe you, not to mention the judge. Let’s get your story first.”

  I told Sir Grant what I had determined from James the night before. A clear picture of a man telephoning somebody named Barry, who would unload the goods. James shook his head. I tried “property” but James still shook his head. I tried “merchandise” and James nodded.

  “Did he talk about money?” Sir Grant asked.

  James nodded.

  “A lot?”

  James looked puzzled.

  “A thousand pounds?” I asked.

  James shook his head and waved his paw up.

  “Ten thousand pounds?” I suggested. The paw waved up.