The Cat That Got Your Tongue

by Fiona Snyckers

  “Careful,” he warned. “It’s very uneven.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Fay was about halfway down the short flight of stairs when a flash of white caught her eye. She bent to pick it up. Then she examined it by the light of her phone.

  “What do you make of this?” She passed it to David.

  “Someone has been here recently. This is a coupon for a special that the village store was running last week. Two free-range chickens for the price of one. My father made me go and queue for it, so we didn’t miss out.”

  “Interesting.”

  Fay found that she had run out of steps. She was standing in a small, squared-off storage area. Somebody had laid flagstones here, possibly as much as a hundred years ago. They were very overgrown with weeds. The cellar seemed empty at first, but then her light landed on a pile of sacks in the corner.

  “That looks like it’s home to about a million spiders. Do I really have to poke around in there?”

  “Is the big, bad homicide detective scared of a few spiders?”

  “To be perfectly honest, yes.”

  “Then I guess I need to step up and be the knight in shining armor. I’m kidding,” he added as she glared at him.

  He knelt next to the sacks and picked them up one by one to shake them out. Fay kept the flashlight directed at him, so he could see what he was doing. She shuddered every time something scuttled away as he lifted one of the sacks.

  “I don’t think there’s anything here,” he said as he came to the last of the sacks.

  “Wait a moment. What’s that?” She shone the flashlight onto one of the flagstones that was clearly lying crooked. “That looks as though it’s been moved recently.”

  David dug his fingers under the flagstone and pulled. It slid to one side, revealing something wrapped up in heavy plastic. It looked like a leather-bound volume – rather like the ones belonging to David’s father.

  Suppressing her excitement, Fay searched the cellar carefully to make sure they weren’t overlooking anything else. When she was confident that the cellar had given up its only secret, they climbed the stairs again and lowered the trapdoor carefully back into place.

  “There.” Fay locked the padlock. “It’s not immediately obvious that we’ve been here, is it?”

  “I guess not. Who do you think knows about this cellar?”

  “Henry and Marigold Bessinger, for one thing. Or possibly just Marigold if they are really getting divorced. They might not be cooperating anymore. The rest of the RARE Society might know about it too.”

  “Someone is going to get the shock of their life when they open up the trapdoor and find this volume gone. They’ll probably start blaming and suspecting each other.”

  “Good,” said Fay. “They’re more liable to make mistakes then.”

  David took his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll just let my father know that we’re on our way back with another volume.”

  As he switched on his phone it began to beep – an angry tattoo of missed calls and messages.

  “Oh, dear.”

  Fay looked up at his tone. “What’s wrong?”

  “I was supposed to meet Laetitia for dinner at seven o’clock this evening. I completely forgot.”

  Fay slapped a hand to her head. “That’s the thing I was trying to remember when we walked past the Royal. Except it wasn’t something I had forgotten, it was something you had. Poor Laetitia. She was looking forward to it. She was going to tell you …”

  Fay broke off as she realized she was venturing into territory that was none of her business.

  “What was she going to tell me?”

  “Oh, nothing. I’m sure she’ll tell you the next time she sees you.”

  They turned off the high street and onto the road that climbed steeply upwards towards the surgery.

  “She was going to tell me about another marvelous medical post she has found for me in New York or Boston or Washington DC or somewhere like that, wasn’t she?”

  “I believe it was Boston, and it did sound rather good.”

  David rubbed a hand over his face. “They’re always good. She just can’t accept that that’s not what I want to be doing with my life right now. I didn’t come back to Bluebell Island on a whim. I have a five-year plan – a ten-year plan. There are things I want to accomplish here.”

  “Laetitia doesn’t seem to like the island much,” said Fay. She hoped she wasn’t overstepping.

  David gave a short laugh. “That’s an understatement. She hates it.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “It’s a problem, all right. I’m prepared to do the long-distance thing for now, and she said she was too. But her actions say otherwise. She seems determined to get me out of here.”

  “And your father?”

  “Dad? He doesn’t have much to do with it. I mean, he enjoys having me here, but it’s not like his happiness depends on it. He has a good life on the island. He has a successful practice and plenty of friends. He’s on just about every committee ever created. If I wanted to move back to the States he’d be perfectly happy for me.”

  “Well, you’d better be prepared to grovel because Laetitia is going to be mad at you. Not only did you forget your dinner date, but you had your phone switched off the whole evening, so she couldn’t get hold of you. I’d be mad if it was me.”

  “I’m sure she’ll understand when I explain that I was with you working on this medieval mystery.”

  Fay had an idea that this would make it worse, not better, but she kept that observation to herself.

  As they reached the surgery, Doc Dyer came out to meet them.

  “You really found something? I was sure it was just a wild goose chase.”

  “We weren’t very optimistic either,” admitted Fay. “But it looks as though the RARE Society might use that root cellar as a hiding place.”

  “But if they’re all cooperating, how did Desmond Pinkerton end up dead?”

  “Maybe they cooperate on the surface, but when someone gets really close to solving the mystery their cooperation goes out the window.”

  “Excuse me a moment.” Holding his phone to his ear David went upstairs.

  Doc Dyer pulled a face. “He forgot his dinner date with Laetitia, didn’t he? She phoned the house about an hour ago and I had to tell her that he was out. She didn’t sound like she was in a particularly forgiving mood.”

  “You can hardly blame her. I’d be furious too. It’s kind of inexcusable.”

  “When David doesn’t want to remember something, he’ll forget it. Not something connected with work, of course. But if it’s a social occasion that he’s not in the mood for, it will genuinely skip his mind. People get so annoyed with him that they stop inviting him over. I always wonder if that was his goal all along.” Doc Dyer reached out a hand. “Let’s have a look at your great discovery.”

  Together they sliced open the thick plastic that held the contents together. Fay soon saw that what she had thought of as one volume was actually several thin volumes. She wondered if these were the ‘books’ that Laurie Tennith said she had seen Marigold carrying.

  Each volume was sparse, containing only a few sheets of manuscript.

  “Look at this,” said Doc Dyer. “It looks like your theory is correct. They are all cooperating with each other.”

  He opened one of the volumes and showed her Post-It notes in different colors stuck all over it. Each one had notes in different handwriting on it.

  “This looks like at least three different people,” said Fay. “They were definitely cooperating.”

  “Let’s see what they were so excited about.” Doc Dyer smoothed open the first volume. As he reached the first Post-It note, he sat at the table and picked up a magnifying glass.

  Fay wondered if David would rejoin them, but it seemed not. She could hear the rise and fall of his voice as he tried to placate Laetitia. His words were inaudible, but his tone was soothing.

  As Doc
Dyer turned the page and trained his magnifying glass on the top left-hand side of the manuscript, Fay spotted something in the bottom right corner.

  “Wait! Isn’t that …?”

  He looked to where she was pointing. And then they spoke at the same time.

  “The cat that got your tongue.”

  The illustration had faded badly. Whatever pigments and dyes had been used in the Middle Ages, some had survived better than others. This one had been almost wiped away by time. But still, you could see it faintly – a man with his mouth open and his tongue sticking out, and a cat standing on its hind legs seizing the tongue with its paw.

  “I thought it was a myth. I didn’t believe it existed.”

  “Could it be a forgery?” asked Fay.

  “I don’t think so. I’m pretty good at detecting them. This looks like a genuine illustration that has faded with time.”

  “But what does it mean? How does it help to solve the mystery of where Eleanor hid her dowry?”

  “It must be related to the text that appears next to it. I’m finding it difficult to translate. It’s a dialect that I’m not familiar with. Hang on. I’ll be back in a minute.” He left to find a dictionary.

  Fay stared at the page, willing it to reveal its secrets. She used her phone to take photographs of the Post-It notes and the cat illustration. The Post-It notes shed no light on the translation of the text. They said things like, ‘Which three beasts?’, ‘Try the Church’, ‘Possible reference to Eleanor Crosses?’ and ‘Check British Museum catalogue.’

  “This should help.” Doc Dyer came back with a book. “It has translations of some unusual Old English words and phrases.”

  He pored over the documents, making notes on a piece of paper and crossing most of them out. Eventually he looked up.

  “This is the best I can do for now. It says something like When three beasts come together they will lead the way to what you seek.”

  “What does it mean?” said Fay.

  “That’s what everyone’s trying to find out.

  Chapter 23

  “I can’t believe he did that.”

  “Nor can I,” said Fay. “Can you blame her for being annoyed?”

  Morwen reached into the pantry for the almond flour. “Poor woman. No, I really can’t blame her. He made a specific arrangement to meet her for dinner and instead went riddle-hunting with you?”

  “And kept his phone switched off too, which must have driven her crazy. When he finally called her back, I could hear her yelling at him from the next room.”

  “Yikes. I wonder if she dumped him.”

  “I doubt it. They were talking calmly by the time I left. It looks like Dr. Tactless managed to smooth things over.”

  Morwen contemplated the ingredients she had lined up on the counter. “So, we have one guest that’s gluten intolerant and one with a nut allergy. We’d better keep the two of them far away from each other at breakfast this morning. If the nut allergy person eats the almond flour cookies, we’ll have an anaphylactic crisis on our hands. And if the gluten intolerant person eats the ordinary flour cookies, I don’t know … what will happen to him?”

  “He’ll get gas?”

  Morwen laughed. “A crisis to be avoided at all costs.”

  “I’ll make labels for the plates and we’ll put the cookies on opposite sides of the room.”

  The Cat’s Paw tried to accommodate all eating preferences, within reason. They had outside suppliers that could bring in Halaal and Kosher meals that had been prepared off-site. They made provision for vegetarians, vegans, and even – once – a fruitarian. They accommodated every kind of allergy and intolerance. There was only one allergy they couldn’t deal with and that was a cat allergy.

  That was why the website made it clear that cats were the VIPs at Penrose House. Anyone who was allergic to or didn’t like felines should make alternative accommodation arrangements elsewhere in the village.

  “Speaking of riddles,” said Morwen, reading the notes Fay had been making while she cooked. “What does this mean – When three beasts come together, they will lead the way to what you seek? What three beasts?”

  “The three beasts refer to clues that Queen Eleanor’s scribes planted in manuscripts to lead her children to the dowry. They were mostly mythical creatures, like gryphons and so forth.”

  “And you need three of them? How many do you already have? Please don’t say none.”

  “At first, I thought we didn’t have any. But now I realize that we have two – a roc and a cat. I have no idea what the third creature might be.”

  “Maybe that’s what Desmond Pinkerton was murdered for. Maybe he found the third beast.”

  Fay was shaping cookie dough into rounds and putting them on a baking tray, but her hands stilled at this. “That’s an idea. You could be right about that.”

  “My tray of cookies is ready to go in the oven. How’s yours?”

  “Just give me a minute.” Fay shaped the last two cookies and placed them on the tray. “There. Good to go.”

  “Should we put them in the same oven?”

  “Better not. Some of your almond molecules might make their way onto my cookies.”

  The wood-burning kitchen range was large enough to accommodate any number of items being baked and cooked separately.

  “Is that the only clue you have? The three beasts.”

  “There’s also the old medieval church out by Bluff Lighthouse. There might be something hidden there.”

  “I didn’t realize Bluebell Island was part of this mystery. I thought it was just a coincidence that Desmond Pinkerton was killed here. Because of the antiques fair, you know?”

  “I didn’t realize it either until recently. Apparently, Bluebell Island was quite a popular spot with royalty in the old days.”

  “Now that I have heard.” Morwen put bacon on to fry. “King Henry VIII kept a herd of deer on the island, so he could hunt them on horseback whenever he felt like coming over here. All the deer that still live on the island are supposed to be directly descended from the king’s herd.”

  Fay shook her head. “I’m trying to imagine how they managed to transport a herd of deer across the Atlantic Ocean four hundred years ago. It seems excessive.”

  “Wasn’t he the king who used to eat five roast chickens for lunch? Excessive was his middle name.”

  “I was thinking of taking a look at the church this morning.” Fay cut up oranges for the freshly squeezed orange juice. “I can’t imagine there’s much there after all this time, but I want to have a look anyway.”

  “Can I come?” asked Morwen.

  “Do you really want to?”

  “Yes, why not? It’ll be fun. I always have a gap in the morning when breakfast is finished, and Maggie comes in to clean the rooms. I’ll have to be back in time to prepare lunch, but I can come with you if you were planning to leave straight after breakfast. I can be your sidekick.”

  “As long as you chase away any spiders that might be living in that old church you can be anything you like.”

  The Volvo lurched into life as Fay turned the key in the ignition. It backfired loudly, and they reversed out of the garage in a cloud of smoke.

  Fay remembered guiltily that David had told her to take it in for a service. She had promised to do so at the time and then promptly forgotten.

  The trouble was that she didn’t drive it very often. Walking into the village and back once a day was about all the travelling she did. The fact that it had spent the intervening month sitting idle in the garage didn’t help. David had explained that engines liked to be driven. That was what they were built for. If you neglected them, they would pay you back by letting you down at crucial moments.

  Fay glanced in her rearview mirror and saw cats scattering in every direction as she reversed. They weren’t in her way but the violent explosions from the car were making them run for their lives. Pen shook his head sadly as they passed. Then he went back to cutting away the dead
wood of a creeper.

  Fay reversed down the driveway, swung the car around, and pulled into the road with a squeal of rubber.

  “Road trip!” Morwen high-fived herself in the air.

  “We’re just going to the other side of the island,” said Fay. “Where I come from that’s hardly any distance at all.”

  “It’s still a break from fussy guests and their endless demands. Did you hear what happened this morning? It turned out that the nut allergy kid is not actually allergic to nuts. His parents just think that he might be and are keeping him off nuts until he’s ten as a precaution. Meanwhile, he told me that he often has peanut butter sandwiches at his friends’ houses and doesn’t tell his parents.”

  “That’s bizarre.”

  “I know. And when I think of how careful we were to bake the cookies in separate ovens.” She exhaled loudly. “Well, let’s just say I’m happy to get out for a while.”

  “Are you sure Maggie can handle anything that comes up?”

  “Definitely. I trained her myself. She can answer the phone and take bookings and deal with any guest queries. Let’s go and crack this mystery wide open.”

  They drove along the cliff road that took them along the western edge of the island heading in a northerly direction. As they drove they passed a field that led into a forested area. On the edge of the forest Fay spotted deer venturing shyly onto the field. It was strange to think that their ancestors had been brought there by King Henry VIII.

  The road climbed steeply now. The sea fell away beneath them as the cliffs lengthened and became more dramatic. The endless pounding of the Atlantic against the crags below could be heard inside the car.

  They approached the northern-most point of the island. The white spear of Bluff Lighthouse could be seen marking the tip of the island. Near it on a rocky rise was the medieval church.

  “It’s easy to see why they built a church here far away from any town or village,” said Morwen.

  Fay agreed. “It looks as though you could climb a ladder to heaven right here. It’s like the land is pointing upwards.”

  She turned the car around and parked it facing down the hill. If it decided not to start, she wanted the option of being able to give it a roll.