“Alas, if only I had two of those noble organs which pulsate in our breasts,” he murmured apologetically.
The serving girl narrowed her eyes. “I seen you talking with Alice, sir. A sly old fox, she is. Her brother keeps a sharp eye out for Cupid and shows him the door the moment he turns up. But young hearts and old ones will find a way. Alice is spoken for.” She turned on her heel and departed.
“What did she mean by saying Alice is spoken for?” Mr Tupman expostulated. “I had the impression the dear lady had never known romance in her life. But women, Mr Pickwick, can be very jealous creatures.”
Mr Pickwick beamed benignly. “My dear sir, do you suppose I haven’t been searching for the dear lady ever since you brought your problem to me? My mind covers the ground faster than my feet could accomplish. Now I intend to continue my urgent work by inviting our host to sit with us for a pipe of tobacco and an hour of conversation.”
And having gained Mr Rooksbee’s attention that is exactly what he proceeded to do. Ever tactful and mindful of the terrible strain the innkeeper was bearing with the stoicism of his class, Mr Pickwick first steered the conversation to everyday topics such as the unusual warmth of the summer, the virtues of Kentish cider, the watercolours on the walls.
Mr Rooksbee puffed out a cloud of smoke. “The former owner were powerful fond of drawing and painting, he were, and I have left them up due to sentimentality and cracks in the plaster. Sentimentality, sirs, is a curse, and without naming names, there are those whose love is not returned by the object of their affections who might best turn their attention elsewhere.”
Having ascertained that Mr Rooksbee had entered a reflective state of mind, Mr Pickwick took out his notebook and invited their host to enlarge their stock of information about the strange cat.
“Well, you may laugh, gentlemen, but that there cat is responsible for half the matches in Kent, for ‘tis widely known if a couple walk round it, ‘tis as binding as a tenancy paper, and they will marry within the year.”
Mr Tupman paled and his chins sank into his cravat. “Is that so?” he quavered.
“Why, certainly, sir. Spinsters visit from miles around to trap a man, and the vicar, he do have queues of couples waiting to be wed most weekends. Every man in the county knows the dangers of that cat.”
After some encouragement, Mr Rooksbee went on relating local cat lore. Suddenly he stopped and tipped his head one side. He had risen to his feet in as near an approximation of a leap as his creaking bones would allow before Mr Pickwick was aware of a sound like distant thunder. By the time he identified the sound as that of a coach, Mr Rooksbee had hobbled to the parlour door.
“’Tis the late coach,” he exclaimed. The prospect of new customers had kindled a warm glow of friendly greeting in his watery eyes. On this evening, however, the innkeeper was destined for disappointment. Upon throwing open the door of the Trout and Basket he was confronted only by the boy Herbie, who stuck a note into his hand.
“’Ere, Mr Rooksbee. Coach driver left this. Said it’s from Miss Alice’s old aunt.” Having discharged his mission, Herbie screwed up his face at Mr Pickwick, directed a malignant glare at Mr Tupman, and raced off into the night.
The moment the innkeeper read the paper the glow in his eyes went out. He swayed from side to side and began to moan.
The kindly Mr Pickwick rushed to the stricken man’s side. “Whatever is the matter, my friend?”
“It’s Alice. She’s disappeared.”
“Yes, yes, we know,” said Mr Pickwick, recognizing at once a case of incipient hysteria. “Is there further word then? Nothing terrible has happened?”
Mr Rooksbee shook his head. “No. Her aunt . . . she is just . . . reminding me . . . that she’s still . . . missing . . . Ah, my good Mr Pickwick, if you are the wise man your friend makes you out to be you will surely find my sister. You and Mr Tupman must go to Dover at once and look into the matter.”
Mr Pickwick assured him firmly that he had nothing to fear and that the missing Alice would soon return to hearth and home.
Mark well, readers, that while a lesser intellect might have attempted to unravel the problem of the woman’s disappearance by asking directly after her, Mr Pickwick’s more subtle powers of reasoning had revealed to him a better way.
“Don’t you see, Mr Rooksbee?” he went on. “The answer lies not with your Alice but with the three-legged cat of Great Clatterden. Once we learn what it has to tell us, we will discover what has become of your sister.”
This statement of good intentions elicited from the old innkeeper a howl of despair which only confirmed Mr Pickwick’s diagnosis of hysteria.
“Quickly, Mr Tupman,” he said, “administer a good dose of cider. Then we are off to bed. There’s no point confronting a crisis without a proper night’s rest.”
“I venture to suggest that the custom we have been hearing about is a clear survival of pagan sacrifice, which is to say offering coins to the cat rather than . . . anything else,” Mr Pickwick remarked in an undertone to Mr Tupman as they took a candle set in a precarious wax bed on a saucer and retired to the attic room they had been assigned.
Mr Rooksbee, having been sufficiently sedated by liquid comfort, had been placed in the care of the red kerchiefed serving girl, who sighed and fluttered her eyelids in such a way as to clearly indicate that although the innkeeper might have reason to mourn the absence of his sister, if he chose, Mr Tupman would not.
“It’s all very well to say the cat holds the answer to Alice’s disappearance,” observed Mr Tupman, “but I should think her brother, who claims to have put her on the coach, might know something more as well. Do you suppose Alice came down the hill once she went up? And did you see the way that odious boy looked at us and then ran off? Might he be avoiding us? Does he know more than he told me?”
“Try to remember, Mr Tupman,” Mr Pickwick assured him, “that the cat at least can be depended upon to tell us the truth, unlike the people here. I regret to say each and every one of them may be a suspect, for what that chalky feline reveals to us comes from our own close examinations of it and not by way of its own lips.”
Mr Tupman let out a mournful sigh, the mention of cat’s lips having reminded him of Alice’s lips and the sweet words which had emerged from them.
Their room faced the hill behind the Trout and Basket and the two travellers had an excellent view of the famous wonder of Great Clatterden. It was a fine, clear night, a huge moon flooding the landscape with bone-coloured light, outlining every blade of grass and bush and throwing into sharp relief the monstrous shape of a cat carved in the side of the hill.
Mr Pickwick looked out, entranced, for several minutes and then produced his ever present notebook. “Now, Mr Tupman, would you take that figure to be a domestic cat or a leopard or similar wild beast?”
“I would take it to be a crow with an extra leg. Or a cow, or possibly a rather emaciated hedgehog,” replied Mr Tupman in a distracted tone. “But as we are informed it is a cat – and I can quite definitely make out an ear or two – I should call it a domestic grimalkin.”
“A fine example of observational prowess, sir,” Mr Pickwick remarked. “Let me note that down immediately. Do you see also how its tail is curled, posing a perfect likeness to a question mark, and one might say almost serving as a message to seekers after knowledge?”
“Which end is the tail?”
Mr Tupman’s gloomy voice drew his friend’s attention away from the hillside feline. “You’re looking unwell, Mr Tupman,” he observed. “Dinner disagree with you?”
The other denied it. “It’s just . . . well . . . I have promised to marry the innkeeper’s sister.”
“My dear sir! Congratulations are in order! But now of course with this tragic—”
“I fear you misunderstand,” his friend groaned. “The engagement came about in an unintended fashion. I knew nothing of Cupid’s connection with the cat until the innkeeper mentioned it tonight. Before I left,
Alice and I strolled right around the monstrous feline!”
Mr Pickwick offered such comfort to his distraught companion as he could, and then retired with his head a whirl of the romantic legends related by their host, including how the figure represented a monstrous cat, companion to a local giant, both of whom preyed on travellers until a passing knight vanquished them by force of arms, and the local belief that if a rustic and his wife reclined upon the cat and bathed in the light of the full moon they would be blessed with a large family. Indeed, he blushed to wonder if the unpleasant little Herbie had been the result of such an unnatural, not to mention uncomfortable, conception.
Yet while Mr Pickwick’s slumber was haunted by a monstrous cat chasing him with lethal intent – not to mention accompanied by several other creatures whose portraits adorned the walls of the inn, their shape and menacing aspect suggesting both river rats and wild boars – these nightmares causing him to wake with a yell and disturb the innocent slumbers of Mr Tupman and others sheltered under the roof of the Trout and Basket Inn, we cannot in all honesty deny, dear readers, that in this singular circumstance the goat’s milk cheese was entirely blameless.
The Pickwickians were awakened at dawn by the joyous songs of Great Clatterden’s countless winged inhabitants who, not being informed of the identity of the gargantuan hillside predator, sworn enemy of their avian race, did not recognize it as anything they should fear.
Mr Tupman gloomily remarked he and Mr Pickwick would at least have an early start on climbing the hill to inspect the figure, adding he hoped to develop a few blisters as such pain in his feet might distract him from the agony in his bosom.
Indeed, to the common mind, it may have appeared the way to inspect a cat is to look at the cat, but Mr Pickwick, that great man, immediately saw a better method. For, as he explained as he and Mr Tupman trudged up the dusty road, in these rustic villages the fount of all knowledge is the vicar.
So it was they presently found themselves in the untidy, book-lined study of the Reverend Clarence Clopton, a gnarled old oak of a man whose hoary head swayed and whose knobby hands waved in the winds of disputation as he challenged every detail of the legends vouchsafed by the innkeeper.
“I fear you were misled, sirs,” Mr Clopton said, taking another sip of port. “Mr Rooksbee is known for his, I will not say falsehoods, but rather over-fertile imagination. It runs in the family, sirs. Why, only last year he accused my curate, Mr Philpot, of paying unwanted attentions to Miss Alice. Naturally, I interviewed the man, and was assured all that transpired between them was he wished her a pleasant good morning whenever he saw her.”
Mr Pickwick remarked this seemed perfectly reasonable and polite, a charming demonstration that courtesy was not lacking in bucolic surroundings.
“Quite so,” replied Mr Clopton. “And I may say I believe him, since Mr Philpot has a good character despite a sad tendency to placing small wagers with my parishioners, though he is endeavoring to overcome that defect.”
The vicar’s tone grew confidential. “In fact, although we must be charitable, it is Mr Rooksbee, one of the more difficult of my flock, about whom I worry. It is true he provides a home to his sister, although he expects her to work long hours among travellers not always of the best upbringing, begging your pardon and present company excepted, in return for nothing but board and bread. It’s my opinion that’s why he’s kept such a close eye on her all these years. Doesn’t want to lose her help, you see, being as close with his pennies as a Kentish oyster.”
Mr Tupman dabbed at his eyes, almost overcome by emotion at the thought of the fair Alice being relegated to a life of lonely drudgery. Mr Pickwick kindly changed the subject. “What then is the truth about the hill figure?” he asked.
“I must look out a paper I wrote some time ago, Mr Pickwick. The Antiquarian Society received it with most flattering interest. I was able to place the figure’s age precisely at between 2,000 and 30 years – the latter being the number of years since I arrived here to take up my position and first saw the cat with my own eyes. I am told the former proprietor of the Trout and Basket made certain that the figure was maintained regularly and may have been the first to undertake that task in some time. In fact, I owe not a little of my scholarly reputation to that cat.”
“Fascinating, sir, fascinating indeed,” Mr Pickwick remarked. “And particularly given you are situated in a less travelled location, where local customs and beliefs too often go unrecorded and are ultimately lost to the scholar.”
Mr Clopton sighed. “You are quite right, sir. Now, I admit we may not be as well known as Dover or Canterbury, but for the antiquarian we have much of interest. For example, we’re not far from that deep valley which I regret to say my parishioners still refer to as the Devil’s Kneading Trough. Young villagers often gather there on summer nights, and I may add it is my firm conviction they don’t go up there seeking to view the sea.”
Mr Pickwick observed that to a man of the cloth such as Mr Clopton such behaviour must be upsetting.
The vicar paused for a moment. “Yes, of course, though not compared to the fact we’re still fighting the remnants of heathen customs,” he admitted. “My predecessor spent twenty years persuading the villagers to abandon erecting a maypole, and before his time it is said they were still in the habit of casting small animals into the midsummer bonfire. Of course, I have no direct knowledge of that.”
“As a hard-headed man of science such as myself, I understand you must confine your speculations to verifiable facts,” said Mr Pickwick. “However, for reasons I shall not delve into at this time, I am also interested in legends surrounding this wonderful cat figure.”
The vicar’s chuckle sounded like the rustle of autumnal leaves. “Stuff and nonsense, all of them! Consider the naive belief it serves as a sort of feline cupid. Why, as a scientific experiment, I myself have escorted more than one young lady to view it, and remain a bachelor to this day!”
Mr Tupman was heard to mutter comments casting aspersions upon the honour of a certain churchman.
“Yet even these superstitions can bring about good, sirs,” Mr Clopton – fortunately being hard of hearing and therefore unable to take up Mr Tupman’s grievances – continued. “The villagers do quite well catering to visitors who want to walk up there. Take Paynter, the village cobbler and harness maker. Does a roaring trade in stout shoes, if you will believe it, once the curious hear about the titled lady who insisted on climbing the hill in dainty slippers more suited for dancing, slipped, broke her leg, and could not attend a ball for six months. You can be certain that’s one of the first things they hear about at the inn.”
He paused. “Yet I cannot blame my flock, for these humble services they perform, not to mention the little boys earning an honest penny by taking visitors up the hill to tell them the legends in situ, has helped my parishioners buy comforts they might have otherwise lacked. Indeed, one might say that not only does the cat look out over Great Clatterden from its lofty elevation, but that it looks out for the local residents as well.”
“I suspect a considerable number of travellers come to see the cat?” asked Mr Pickwick.
“More pass through here in a month than actually live here,” confirmed the vicar.
“Among these strangers, have you noticed any who might, shall we say, have given the impression they were here for some devious purpose?”
Mr Clopton shook his head. “I can’t say I have personally, Mr Pickwick, although my curate did mention a man who, so he said, appeared to be paying undue attentions to Miss Alice.”
“Not a local man, then?”
“No. A traveller, or so Mr Philpot supposed.”
The vicar’s two visitors took their leave. They had barely stepped back into the street before Mr Tupman burst out. “Ah, poor Alice! I see it all now. It’s that rogue the curate saw with her who’s responsible. That explains everything, or would, if we knew who it might be.”
Mr Pickwick smiled. “I have an idea
about that, but first let us consult the cat.”
An hour later the stout figure of Mr Pickwick could have been spotted from the Trout and Basket Inn – where telescopes were available for rental – toiling up the steep hill toward its heights, the still stouter figure of Mr Tupman toiling even more mightily and at an increasing distance behind.
It had turned into another warm day and the pair were happy to finally arrive at their destination and sit down on a stretch of scrubby grass to view, spread out below them, an expanse of rolling meadows amongst which the handful of structures forming Great Clatterden appeared hardly worthy of the prefix of its name. Further up the steep slope behind them, a thick wood murmured in mysterious fashion which, with the somnolent sound of bees busy in the clover and wild flowers forming splashes of colour on the hill, produced a feeling of languor.
However, Mr Pickwick, while resting his legs, refrained from resting his mind, for he could not help but notice below the winding ribbon of the road which should have borne Alice Rooksbee safely to her aunt’s house but, for some reason mysteriously related to the cat upon which he now, very nearly, was seated, had not done so. He made notes in a furious manner while Mr Tupman scattered scraps of bread around the grass in a desultory fashion, a sure way to locate a lost love, or so he had been told at the inn.
Finally, Mr Pickwick closed his notebook with a snap, resettled his glasses on his nose, and climbed to his feet. He began to pace back and forth across the slope, occasionally stopping to peer down at the chalk filled furrows forming the cat’s crude outline.
The sun beat down as Mr Pickwick examined the figure and cogitated. He walked between the cat’s ears, along its back and down to the tip of its tail, a large perambulating flea in tights, gaiters, and a waistcoat.
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 4