The Cat Who Wasn't a Dog

by Marian Babson

  ‘Leaving Matilda in the lurch.’ We’d all been there – especially Evangeline. Brooding into my glass, I found that the brandy had started up several disquieting thoughts and was chasing them around my head. Or had they been there all along?

  ‘Evangeline, do you think maybe Eddie could be right and those stairs were deliberately booby-trapped? Suppose the trap had been set for the last housekeeper and not the poor soul who got caught in it?’

  ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to get around to that.’ Her tone was maddeningly superior.

  ‘Oh? And you were there ahead of me?’

  ‘Way ahead. Who’d bother to kill a housekeeper? And why? It’s far more likely that any trap was set for Matilda herself.’

  ‘On the cellar stairs? She barely knew where they were.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been hard to find an excuse to send her to them.’

  ‘Who’d want to kill Matilda? Now, if someone wanted to kill Soroya, I could understand it. Yes,’ I found myself warming to the idea, ‘anyone might have wanted to kill Soroya.’

  ‘Including Matilda.’ Evangeline stopped me cold with that one.

  ‘No! I can’t believe Matilda as a murderess!’

  ‘It would solve a lot of her problems if she got rid of Soroya … permanently.’

  ‘Look at it the other way: it would solve Soroya’s problem if she got rid of Matilda.’

  ‘Soroya doesn’t have a problem, she knows when she’s well off. She may carp, but it suits her to have Matilda in residence, taking care of the property – and paying the taxes.’

  ‘It’s Matilda’s house.’ I wasn’t going to carry on with that argument, a better suspect had occurred to me. ‘Anyway, how about Teddy? I’ll bet he’d love to get rid of Soroya. If only to have a peaceful life and not have to keep snatching back his own cat.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ A distant look came into Evangeline’s eyes. ‘Then, again, we mustn’t overlook Cecile. She’s very temperamental and has been through an emotional time lately. When passions run high, there’s no telling what might happen.’

  ‘Cecile?’ I gasped with horror, unable to believe that Evangeline was so cold-bloodedly considering one of her oldest and dearest friends as a possible murderess. ‘That’s ridiculous! There’s nothing in the world that could turn Dame Cecile into a killer.’

  ‘Isn’t there?’ Evangeline raised an eyebrow at me. ‘What if Matilda – even by accident – had done something to harm Fleur? Perhaps even hasten her demise? Do you think Cecile would let her get away with that? Oh, no, she’d want revenge, blood for blood – ’

  ‘You’ve had enough!’ It wasn’t easy, but I wrested the glass from her hand and hauled her to her feet. The remaining liquid sloshed on to the carpet. ‘Go and sleep it off!’

  ‘Just think it over.’ Evangeline headed for the door with exaggerated dignity.

  Just then a floorboard creaked outside the door. Someone was out in the hallway. Had they been listening at the door? Whoever they were, they would have heard no good of themselves. Serve them right.

  ‘Through the bathroom …’ Just the same, I didn’t want Evangeline to run into them. ‘And don’t make any noise.’

  No one missed Soroya in the morning. She still wasn’t around, but no one missed her. They were too caught up in their own worries.

  ‘I can’t remember a word!’ Dame Cecile kept repeating what seemed to be her mantra. ‘Not one word!’

  ‘You’ll be all right once the curtain goes up.’ Matilda attempted to comfort her. ‘And Frella will be in the prompt corner. She’ll see you through.’

  ‘Frella hates me!’ Dame Cecile declared. ‘She hates you, too, because you’re harbouring Soroya. She’d be delighted to see us both fall flat on our faces – if only it wouldn’t reflect badly on her direction.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ Matilda said, not very convincingly. ‘Frella is hard-working and ambitious. She wouldn’t want anything to happen to jeopardize the show – it’s her big chance.’

  ‘That’s what I just said! But she’d have a better chance if she got rid of Teddy.’ Dame Cecile was severe in judgement. ‘He’s undermining the whole production.’

  ‘She’d rather get rid of all of us first,’ Matilda sighed.

  ‘She’s besotted with that man.’

  ‘I suppose he is charming – in his way,’ Cecile conceded. ‘I just wish he were more competent.’

  ‘He’s not really incompetent,’ Matilda said, ‘just a lazy actor. Frella lets him get away with too much.’

  ‘She seemed to be tightening the reins yesterday,’ I commented.

  ‘Too little, too late.’ Matilda shook her head sadly. ‘She’ll never get him into shape for tonight.’

  ‘Well!’ Dame Cecile exclaimed triumphantly.

  We all turned to her expectantly. She beamed at us.

  ‘Well what?’ Evangeline prodded.

  ‘Well! That’s my first word. I’ve got it! Well!’

  ‘Congratulations.’ Evangeline turned away, losing interest. ‘Now all you need are the other few-thousand-odd.’

  ‘It’s a start,’ Matilda defended, staunchly looking on the bright side.

  A sudden burst of hammering shattered the momentary peace and shook the inner wall.

  ‘How can I be expected to remember my lines with all that racket?’ Dame Cecile shrieked. ‘Make him stop!’

  ‘He’s so enthusiastic,’ Matilda murmured. ‘I don’t like to discourage him.’

  Having repaired the cellar stairs to the admiration of all, Eddie now had the bit in his teeth and was swooping through the house looking for other jobs to do.

  ‘He’s going to fix that wobbly shelf in the closet in my room,’ I said. ‘It desperately needs doing. The clothing rail is suspended from it and every time I hang something up, I’m afraid it will come down on my head.’

  ‘He’s promised to build a set of bookshelves in my bedroom,’ Matilda said. ‘I think that’s what he’s working on now. I really need them. I was so pleased when he offered to do it.’

  ‘So-o-o …’ Dame Cecile’s eyes narrowed and she looked to Evangeline for reinforcements. ‘I’m surprised your poor head hasn’t started to ache with all this noise. You were always so sensitive to such things.’

  ‘We’ll be leaving for the theatre soon.’ It was a good try, but Evangeline wasn’t going to lead the cavalry to the rescue. Too bad Teddy wasn’t here to oblige.

  ‘Besides,’ Evangeline added, ‘there are a couple of loose floorboards in my room that are driving me mad. They not only creak like a door in a Hammer film, but I’m afraid my foot will go through them if I don’t tread carefully.’

  ‘These old houses,’ Matilda sighed. ‘They’re lovely to look at, but there’s always something that needs repairing every time you turn around.’

  As though on cue, there came more enthusiastic hammering. Not only that, but Eddie began to whistle loudly. At least he was happy.

  ‘I’m leaving now!’ Outnumbered, Dame Cecile abandoned the battle and prepared to flee the field. ‘Perhaps I can find some peace and quiet in my dressing room!’ She stalked away and the slam of the front door was louder than the hammer blows.

  ‘Bad dress rehearsal, good opening.’ The cast were consoling themselves with the old theatrical cliché.

  For myself, I wouldn’t like to bet on it. However much Frella had worked on him, Teddy was still flattening everything. And, with a foolproof, actorproof script like Arsenic and Old Lace, that was saying something.

  Perhaps Frella had leaned on him too much. ‘Cowed’ was now the word when it came to Teddy. Which was not what the hero of San Juan Hill and subsequent President of the United States had ever been.

  This Teddy would not have led an army charging up San Juan Hill, he would have crept up quietly by himself (who would have followed him?), occasionally calling out tentatively, ‘I say, you chaps, can’t we talk this over?’

  ‘Desperate times,�
�� Evangeline said grimly, ‘call for desperate measures.’

  ‘You mean, like cancelling the show?’ It was the only measure I could think of that would save Dame Cecile and Matilda from being damned by association with a major flop.

  ‘Never!’ Evangeline turned away abruptly. ‘I must confer with Cecile!

  ‘Good luck!’ I’d had enough. ‘I’m going out for a breath of air.’

  Outside it was cold and dank and starting to rain. I changed my mind, but not to the extent of joining Evangeline in her conference with Cecile. I decided to find a quiet corner backstage and lose myself there until the opening.

  It was unnerving to walk along the narrow corridor and hear the sounds emanating from the cast dressing rooms on both sides. The sobs were the worst. A disjointed phrase or sentence was nearly as bad. ‘ … pay the mortgage’ … ‘school fees’ … ‘decent holiday, for once’ … ‘overdraft’ …

  The usual epidemic of First Night Nerves was rampaging backstage, fuelled by Teddy’s ineptness. Or should it be Frella who was blamed? Nepotism was all very well – and sometimes it even worked. But this was one of the times when it didn’t.

  I tried to tell myself that someone who cared so much for Cho-Cho-San couldn’t be all bad – and he wasn’t. Not bad – only … useless … inadequate … out of his depth. ‘What ho! Anyone for tennis?’ was just about his level. Unfortunately, the part required rather more than that.

  A bend in the corridor and a flight of stairs carried me above the miasma of misery that pervaded the dressing-room floor and on to an upper storey where the atmosphere seemed lighter. Perhaps because I couldn’t hear all the sounds of pre-opening hysteria.

  Somewhere in the distance the faint strains of a violin called invitingly. I followed the melody up a short staircase, around a bend in the narrow hallway, to the open door of a softly lit book-lined room. It was a blissfully domestic scene, in stark contrast to the chaos on the lower floors.

  Jem sat in a large armchair beside a glowing fire. Garrick was sprawled lazily across his lap, unconcerned by the notepad propped against his back as Jem scribbled busily. A low side table held a decanter and half-filled glass and two plates, the larger of which contained an assortment of crackers and a chunk of pate. The smaller just had some rather mauled pate and a well-licked dollop of what looked like clotted cream. As I watched, Garrick stretched his neck and took another dainty nibble from his share of the pâté.

  ‘Dear lady!’ Jem looked up and caught me. ‘Do come in. Forgive me for not rising, but …’ He indicated the large furry reason for his discourtesy. Garrick blinked at me complacently, his trodden tail obviously forgiven and forgotten.

  ‘That’s all right, don’t disturb him. I was just exploring and stumbled over you. I didn’t mean to intrude.’

  ‘No intrusion, all are welcome to my little eyrie. Many an orphan of the storm has sought refuge here. Allow me to offer you a glass of sherry. Or perhaps some claret, or – ’ his voice deepened into a parody of seduction – ‘“Have some Madeira, m’dear?” If – ’ he reverted to his normal tone – ‘you wouldn’t mind fetching your own glass?’ He waved towards a glass-fronted cabinet in the corner.

  I found a wine glass amongst the display of snuff boxes and netsuke. As I turned back, I saw Jem furtively slide the notepad down between the arm of the chair and the seat. I don’t know why he was being secretive about it, I had no interest at all in his correspondence.

  ‘This is so pleasant,’ I sighed, sinking into the other armchair opposite him.

  ‘Almost civilized,’ he agreed. ‘Once the opening is over, life will settle down and it should be more peaceful around here.’

  ‘It’s certainly hectic right now.’ The sherry was superb. I looked at Jem with new respect – and a certain amount of curiosity. He hadn’t picked this up in his local supermarket. Quite a connoisseur, our Jem.

  ‘Jem …’ The thought followed naturally. ‘Jem, my daughter has been landed with editing a theatrical cookbook. A collection of recipes for one person, quick and easy for actors on the move to cook up for themselves in their digs after the show. I don’t suppose you have a tasty recipe or two you might like to contribute, do you?’

  ‘Hmm, yes, let me think about that for a bit and see what I can come up with. I haven’t toured for years – no, let’s be honest, decades. Things are different these days. The old theatrical digs aren’t what they used to be. The old landladies have gone, too – which is probably all to the good. They were famous for a lot of things – but cooking wasn’t high on the list.’

  ‘Pretty bad, huh?’

  ‘Excruciating!’ He winced at the memory. ‘Imagine coming back after a performance to find three limp lettuce leaves, two mushy quarters of tomato and a dried-out curling slice of salami with, if you were especially unlucky, a few cubes of beetroot. And bottled salad cream ready to be poured over all. That was quaintly known as “a cold collation”. They always had the most grandiose names for the most abysmal offerings.’

  ‘That sounds like a recipe we can do without!’

  ‘And then there were the winter nights when you got a “hot meal” before taking off for the theatre. Meat pie, with a two-inch crust and a thin layer of gristle and gravy; cabbage, simmered down into a green sludge; potatoes, boiled into transparency and disintegrating; and whatever else had been going cheaply at the market stalls that day that you neither could, nor wanted to, identify.’

  I shuddered. ‘It makes our endless hamburgers and french fries sound epicurean.’

  ‘There’s a story,’ he reminisced, ‘about a young actor who cracked. He’d been on tour for months, each set of lodgings worse than the last, the meals increasingly inedible. He got to the final lodgings and the cooking was so bad he couldn’t believe it.

  ‘So he went out and bought himself a thick juicy steak and brought it back to his landlady. “Now listen carefully,” he told her. “I want you to put this under a hot grill for three minutes on each side.” She nodded. “Then I want you to boil it for half an hour, then put it in the oven and bake it for an hour. Finally, I want you to fry it for fifteen minutes on each side. Now, will you do that for me?” “You can depend on me,” she said. “I’ll do everything you told me to, I’ll follow your instructions exactly.” “Yesss,” he hissed, snatching it back, “I thought you would!”’

  Our laughter and Jem’s quaking lap unsettled Garrick, who jumped down and ran off.

  ‘It’s all right, old boy,’ Jem called after him. ‘We weren’t laughing at you.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said. ‘I hope he isn’t upset.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Jem said. ‘He’s had his nibble and tipple.’ Sure enough, the smaller plate was empty. ‘It’s time for him to go back on duty.’ He rose. ‘Time for both of us to do our rounds.’

  ‘Thank you for a pleasant interlude,’ I said, as we started back for the main body of the theatre.

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Remember, you’re welcome up here any time. Anyone is.’

  But I noticed he locked the door behind him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There was a rustle of anticipation as the curtain went up, then a burst of applause for Matilda, presiding at the tea table, and the two actors flanking her. They froze until the applause subsided and the audience settled back with a happy sigh, prepared to be entertained, but not offended. Given the age of the play, they knew there would be no obscenities, nudity or gratuitous violence; just serial murder, gentle madness and threatened menace. All good clean fun.

  Another burst of applause halted the action on Dame Cecile’s appearance. Again the actors froze until the enthusiasm had died down and the action could move forward.

  Teddy was doing slightly better than walking through his part, but not much. Either Frella’s extra coaching hadn’t really ‘taken’ or he’d used so much energy in rehearsal he was now exhausted for the actual performance. I noticed Dame Cecile moving closer to him, as though to point this out in a whisper.r />
  Beside me, Evangeline tensed and leaned forward slightly.

  Teddy laid a lackadaisical hand on the stair-rail and lifted one foot as though it were slightly too heavy for him. Dame Cecile sidled a little closer.

  ‘Cha-AAARGE!’ Teddy bellowed suddenly and galloped up the staircase. Even the other actors jumped. Teddy delivered his final line with vehemence and exited, slamming the door behind him so hard he nearly brought the set down. It got the scheduled laugh and another burst of applause.

  After a moment of stunned silence onstage, the dialogue began again and the laughs kept coming. Evangeline leaned back in her seat and seemed to breathe more easily.

  ‘All right,’ I muttered to a far-too-smug Evangeline, ‘what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing, actually,’ Evangeline murmured. ‘I merely reminded Cecile of the happy days when women wore hatpins. They used to solve so many little difficulties. Cecile can take a hint.’

  The crush in the bar during the interval was abuzz with the excitement that presages a major triumph. This show would run and run; in the West End and then on a prolonged tour. But the Royal Empire had it first and selfcongratulation was the order of the audience’s evening.

  ‘Champagne is called for, I think!’

  We hadn’t called for it, but we looked approvingly at the opened bottle that had been thrust between us. Our enthusiasm faded a bit when we realized that the arm holding it belonged to Superintendent Thursby.

  ‘A veritable triumph!’ he exclaimed. ‘All that would have improved it would have been for you two to be in the leading roles.’ He brandished the three champagne flutes in his hand. ‘Shall I be Mother?’

  I hoped his excessive coyness meant that he was off duty, but I didn’t much care. The chilled champagne was already flowing into our glasses and it was a great improvement on trying to push our way through the crowd at the bar and get someone to take our order.

  ‘We were offered the parts, of course.’ Evangeline didn’t specify that the offer had come from a rival management in a different production. ‘But we’re having an original script written especially for us and we didn’t want to tie ourselves down in case of a long run.’