by James Howe
“What did you find out?” I asked.
“That charm without an appointment only gets you as far as the door. And Polly wants a cracker.”
I nodded. Chester looked at the hole. It wasn’t very impressive, but then again we hadn’t been digging very long. Howie was still on a break that had begun a few minutes after we’d started; he was at Bob and Linda’s having smoked Gouda-flavored doggie bones. The Weasel and Hamlet were trying to see if they could get Rosebud talking again. And as for the cat burglars . . .
“What did you find out?” Chester asked.
“Talk about forthcoming,” I said. “I kept track of their answers. There were four ‘What’s it to ya’s,’ three ‘What d’ya wanna know for’s,’ seven ‘Mind yer own business’s,’ and one, ‘What’re you, a police dog?’”
“Gosh,” said Chester, “what kind of questions did you ask?”
“Nine out of fifteen were about the weather.”
Chester shook his head. “Where are they now?”
I shrugged. “Looking for trouble or making it,” I said. “They didn’t let me in on their plans.”
“Hmm,” said Chester, looking decidedly unhappy, “this is going to be a lot tougher than I thought. Let’s see how Hamlet and The Weasel are doing.”
I was pleased to stop digging. Not even halfway through the job and I was already wondering if I’d ever get the dirt out from under my nails. Lucky Hamlet, I thought, not to have to dig at all. But when I saw his woebe-gone face and remembered his limp, I decided maybe he wasn’t so lucky after all.
The Weasel looked up from where he and Hamlet were hunched over what I presumed were Rosebud’s remains and headed toward us like an express train. He was out of breath when he announced, “She spoke to us. Oh, dear, oh, dear.”
“Calm down,” said Chester. “Come on, take a breath.”
The Weasel sucked in air with such force I felt my whiskers tingle. “Oh, my, oh, dear, oh, my,” he exclaimed as he exhaled. “This is terrible, just awful.”
“What?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.
“You tell them, Hamlet,” The Weasel said as we approached the woeful Dane. “I can’t, I just can’t say the words.”
“It was a warning,” Hamlet told us. “We asked her about the secret. She wouldn’t talk at first. Then, when she did, it was more a riddle than an answer. ‘My fate is a mirror in which to see.’”
“Th-there was more,” The Weasel panted. ‘One will look in and end like me.’”
Chester nodded slowly as he repeated the words. “My fate is a mirror in which to see. One will look in and end like me.” He looked off toward the office. Through the window, it appeared that Ditto was alone.
“This is my chance,” Chester said. “Maybe I can get her to talk.”
“But, Chester,” I said, “the warning.”
He was halfway across the compound before I could get out the rest. “What if Rosebud means you?”
CHESTER was gone for most of the afternoon. I spent the time digging. It went very slowly. Bob and Linda were more talk than action. Howie and The Weasel had small paws. I was getting more worn-out by the minute.
And the metal fence seemed to have no bottom.
It was late in the day before Chester returned, a jubilant expression on his face. I looked up as he jerked his head toward our bungalows. Howie and I ran to join him.
“Nice of you to show up,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve spent this whole time talking crackers with a parrot?”
“Oh, we had a much more interesting conversation than that,” Chester exclaimed. He looked around and lowered his voice. “I’ve learned the secret of Chateau Bow-Wow!”
“Really?”
“Wow,” said Howie.
“It’s a code, so I still have my work cut out for me.”
“Is it a common code?” Howie asked. “Or more of a flu?”
“It’s a number code,” said Chester, gritting his teeth. “All I have to do is make sense of it. For a while there, I thought I wasn’t going to get anything out of her, then all of a sudden she started repeating these numbers. Over and over. It has to mean something, don’t you see?”
He looked around to be sure no one was listening, leaned his head in toward ours, and said very softly, “Six-one-one-one-five.”
“Six-one-one-one-five?” Howie yelled excitedly.
“Howie!” said Chester, annoyed.
“That’s it!” someone shouted.
“Ee-yes!”
We looked up. Felony and Miss Demeanor smiled down at us from atop Chester’s bungalow, then scampered off.
“Nice going,” Chester told Howie.
Howie lowered his head and looked up at Chester sheepishly.
“I’m sorry, Pop,” he said. “I get carried away.”
“Don’t tempt me,” said Chester. “Now where are those two off to? And why did they want to know the code? I’m telling you, Harold, those two are our culprits. I’m going to follow them and you can—”
Chester was cut off by Ditto’s sudden squawking.
“New one coming tonight! New one coming tonight! Hamlet got to go! Hamlet got to go!”
I looked around. Bob and Linda were sitting on their haunches in front of their bungalow, staring wide-eyed at the jabbering bird. Felony and Miss Demeanor had stopped in their tracks halfway between our bungalows and theirs. They too were staring. The Weasel’s head poked out from behind the bush. He turned sharply. I followed the direction of his gaze.
He was looking at Hamlet, who was quivering with fear.
“Too late!” cried Rosebud. “Too late!”
The door to the office opened. Daisy came out and walked slowly the full length of the compound. Reaching Hamlet, she burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “I’m so sorry.” She put her arms around his neck and hugged him for a long time. Then she took hold of his collar and led him away.
As he reached the office door, Hamlet turned back and looked at us. He raised his head and let out a piteous whimper, one that filled the very air with sadness and left it empty as the sound died away.
“The rest is silence,” he said.
Daisy tugged gently on his collar. They walked into the office. The door closed.
And the rest was silence.
[ SEVEN ]
A New Arrival
SILENCE remained like an unwanted guest. The only thing that broke it was Chester’s muttering from the next bungalow after dinner. Numbers, letters—I knew what he was up to. He was trying to decipher the code.
After Hamlet’s departure, although no one had said as much, it was clear we were all thinking the same thing: Something terrible was going to happen to him. Chester was convinced that the answer lay in the code, which was going to reveal the secret of Chateau Bow-Wow and somehow help us understand Hamlet’s fate.
As it turned out, it wasn’t the code that helped us so much as a ditsy little poodle who arrived later that night.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
It was just beginning to get dark when Chester cried, “Harold!”
“What is it?!” I was so startled I bumped my nose on the wall as I swung around to face Chester’s bungalow.
“I’ve got it,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m coming over.”
A moment later, he was inside my bungalow.
“I’ve been substituting letters for numbers. It took me a while to get the right combination, but now I have it, I’m sure of it. Six, one, one, one, five. Six equals F. That’s easy.”
“If you say so,” I said.
“One is A, the next two ones are eleven, that equals K, and the five means E. Put them all together, they spell—”
“Muh-uh-uhther!” I sang out. I’m a sucker for that song.
“Knock it off, Harold,” Chester snapped. “It spells fake. Get it?”
“No,” I said. “Fake what?”
“I don’t know that yet. Maybe Greenbriar’s a fake. Maybe he forge
s documents, makes counterfeit money in the cellar. Whatever it is, my guess is that Chateau Bow-Wow is nothing but a cover for some sleazy, shady operation. Rosebud must have found out. And then Hamlet.”
I gulped. “And now you.”
“Correction,” he said, “now us.”
I gulped again. This time it stuck in my throat.
Dashing to the door, Chester said, “Excuse me, Harold, but I’ve got some bones to talk to.”
And he was gone.
How like a cat. They stop by long enough to tell you you’re a dead dog, then rush off to talk to an even deader one.
Well, I wasn’t about to spend my evening sitting around worrying what terrible fate lay in store. No, I would figure some things out myself.
I sat down and began to think.
Fake.
What did it mean?
After several seconds, my head started to hurt from thinking and I was getting nowhere. I decided to drop in on Howie. Maybe if he did half the thinking my head would hurt only half as much.
I told him what Chester had told me.
“Do you think Dr. Greenbriar is a quack?” I asked him.
“You mean a vet who specializes in ducks?” Howie said. “That’s what I call a fowl practice. Get it, Uncle Harold, get it? A fowl practice.”
For some reason, my head began hurting more instead of less.
“A quack is a doctor who doesn’t have a license, a phony. If Dr. Greenbriar is found out to be a quack, he could go to jail.”
“That would be terrible,” Howie said. “There aren’t any ducks in jail. Who would he take care of?”
I had the feeling I’d lost Howie.
Just then, Chester appeared at the door of Howie’s bungalow. “Harold, Howie,” he said, “hard as it is for me to admit this, I need you.”
Howie scampered over to Chester. “Aw, Pop,” he said, “we need you too, don’t we, Uncle Harold?”
The Weasel suddenly popped up next to Chester. “I couldn’t help overhearing and if you don’t mind my saying so it’s about time you three lovable guys told each other how much you cared. What a beautiful moment. There’s a little song I could sing—”
“Rosebud’s not talking,” said Chester, not giving The Weasel a chance to finish his sentence, let alone break into song. “I thought maybe she’d talk to a dog. Harold?”
“I’ll try,” I said.
“Me too,” cried Howie.
“I’ll sing backup,” said The Weasel.
And off we went.
It was no good. A half hour of calling Rosebud’s name, of asking her the meaning of the word fake, of telling her what happened to Hamlet—all to no avail. She was as silent as, well, as silent as a bunch of bones and an old collar.
“Here, Georgette, here, girl! Here, Georgette, that’s a girl!”
We all turned toward the office window. The light had come on and Ditto was squawking in her cage.
“Here, Georgette, out we go!”
“Georgette,” Chester said under his breath. “Surely not—”
“We’d better get back,” said The Weasel. “Someone’s coming.”
Just before we hurried off to our bungalows, I heard a female voice behind me say, “Someone’s coming. Maybe this will be our chance.” I glanced over my shoulder. In the darkness, I couldn’t tell if it was one of the cat burglars who had uttered those words or Linda talking to Bob.
Once inside our bungalows, I whispered through the wall to Chester, “Did you hear that?”
“Very interesting,” he said.
In the distance, the office door clicked open.
“Very interesting,” Chester repeated softly.
There in silhouette stood Jill with a leash in her hand, at the end of which was a small, curly-haired dog. A poodle. The aroma of lilac and honeysuckle wafted through the air.
Her name was Georgette.
“Harold!” she cried as she spotted me on her way to Hamlet’s former bungalow. “What’re y’all doin’ here?”
“The usual,” I said. “Solving mysteries. Talking to bones. Fearing for my life.”
Georgette giggled. “You’re such a tease,” she said. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Who was that?” I heard Howie ask Chester.
“Her name’s Georgette,” Chester answered. “She was boarded here the last time we were.”
As Jill helped Georgette settle into her bungalow, I heard a soft rustling sound and caught a blur of movement across the way. Bob’s door was slightly ajar; his bungalow was dark.
“He’s gone,” I murmured.
He was gone, but he didn’t get far.
Jill turned and spotted him just as Bob was almost inside the office. “Now where do you think you’re going?” she called out light-heartedly. “And how did you get out? My goodness, Dr. Greenbriar’s right. We are going to have to do something about these locks.”
Making sure Georgette’s door was shut tight, she trotted across the compound and caught Bob by the collar.
“Just what are you snooping around for, huh?” She sat down on a step and began patting him. Bob panted appreciatively.
“Guess it gets kind of lonely out here, doesn’t it? It’s not like you can talk and keep each other company. Do you miss Tom and Tracy?”
Bob yipped excitedly at the mention of their names.
“I know you do. But they’ll be back soon. I don’t know why they stopped sending postcards, but I wouldn’t worry. I’ll bet they miss you just as much as you miss them.”
A clock somewhere struck the hour.
“Gosh,” Jill said. “I’ve got to get home. I only stayed late because Georgette’s owners had to drop her off tonight and I convinced Dr. Greenbriar he should let me take care of it. He’s been working too hard. I worry about him sometimes.” She yawned and stretched. “Listen to me ramble on. I’m really tired, aren’t you, Bob?”
Bob woofed. Jill smiled at him.
“You’re a good dog, Bob,” she said. “And I like your hat.”
She led him back to his bungalow then, closed the door, checked the latch, and went back inside. As careful as she was, however, she apparently was too tired to remember to cover Ditto’s cage—which, as it turned out, was a stroke of good fortune for the rest of us.
No sooner had the light gone out than Ditto began to squawk: “Oh, what is it again? What is it again? Six-one-one-one-five. Six-one-one-one-five . . . two! That’s it, two! That’s it, two!”
“That’s it!” another voice echoed.
“My goodness.” Georgette’s voice floated through the air like a dandelion fluff on a summer breeze. “What all is going on here?”
Whoever had yelled, “That’s it!” fell silent.
“Six-one-one-one-five-two?” Chester cried. “That spells fakeb! Greenbriar is a fakeb?”
“Would someone pretty please tell me what’s going on?” Georgette said again. “I’m as mixed-up as an acorn on a dogwood tree.”
At that, everyone began talking at once. I don’t know how she heard anything, but somehow she pulled one name out of all the yammering.
“Hamlet?” she said. “Why, I knew him. I stayed here about a month ago and he was here too. He just left, did you say? Oh, I’m so glad. Archie must’ve come for him at last. That’s all Hamlet was livin’ for, y’know.”
Before anyone disillusioned her about Archie, Chester thought to ask about someone else.
“Did you know a dog named Rosebud?” he asked.
A hush fell over the place.
“Why, sure,” said Georgette. “She and I got to be best friends. And the funny thing is we live right around the block from each other back home. In fact, I just saw her this morning. We had a nice little game of Rip-the-Rag before lunch. Why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” said Chester. “What kind of dog is she?”
“A Yorkie.”
The next sound I heard was someone panting furiously. Whoever it
was sounded terrified. I was less than thrilled to realize it was me.
Chester’s door opened as he stepped out into the compound. “There’s something I’d like to show you, Georgette,” he said.
One by one, all the doors opened. We followed Chester to the familiar mound of dirt in the far corner next to Georgette’s bungalow. Chester pawed at the ground until the bones shone in the moonlight. Georgette gasped at the sight, but when Rosebud’s collar came into view, she laughed.
“So that’s where it went,” she said. “That was Rosebud’s favorite collar. She lost it one day during a game of Food-Dish-Food-Dish-Who’s-Got-the-Food-Dish and we never could find it.”
“But it spoke to us,” The Weasel said.
“We all heard it,” said Bob.
“Those bones, that collar,” Linda said.
“She said her name was Rosebud,” I explained. “She told us she was a Yorkshire terrier and that she’d been, well ...”
“Terminated,” said Howie. “All because she knew the secret of Chateau Bow-Wow.”
“Well,” said Georgette with a shrug, “I don’t know beans about any secret of Chateau Bow-Wow, but I can tell you this. Rosebud went home weeks ago in the arms of a little girl named Trixie Tucker and she’s alive and well. I think y’all are the victims of a hoax.”
Chester nodded his head slowly. “I think perhaps we are,” he said. He looked around at all of those gathered. Linda averted his gaze, while Bob defiantly stuck out his chin. Felony and Miss Demeanor stared at him with eyes as blank as windows in a house where nobody’s home—except you had the feeling somebody was lurking behind the curtains. As for The Weasel, well, he looked so innocent you couldn’t help wondering if it was real or just a very good act.
Back in the privacy of our bungalows, I asked Chester, “Who would do such a thing? And why?”
Chester didn’t have an answer for me. He just sat, looking out into the dark night, perhaps wondering whether the secret—or the hoax—would reveal itself before the break of day.
[ EIGHT ]
Voices in the Night
VOICES again. I had been dreaming about steak tartare, which is really strange because I have no idea what steak tartare is. But it sounded good and I decided I was going to have to have some just as soon as I got home.