The Catnap Caper

by Sarah Todd Taylor

  “Pierre seemed most anxious to get Madame Belfourte away from Peppi,” Maximilian said. “I thought that was very peculiar.”

  “But he was sat at the judges’ table the whole time,” objected Oscar. “He can’t possibly be involved.”

  Maximilian frowned. Oscar was right, of course. However much he disliked Pierre he had to admit that the hand that had offered drugged meat to Peppi did not belong to him. Secretly he was a little disappointed. Anyone who disliked cats as much as Pierre did was not to be trusted and it would have been good to expose him as a dastardly villain.

  “One thing is for certain,” Oscar said. “Tomorrow morning the papers will be full of this.”

  Oscar was correct. The other catnappings had been small affairs, covered in the middle pages of the newspapers, but the events at the concert hall made all the front pages. The attempted theft of a cat belonging to one of society’s most influential patrons of music in the middle of Paris’s most glamorous music hall and in front of thousands of people was tremendously exciting news. Soirées at the city’s most fashionable houses were pushed to page two. A wedding between a count and the daughter of a sugar magnate slipped to page four. Instead, the papers were full of pictures of Peppi and the great revelation of the day – Madame Belfourte would no longer be the chief judge of “The Voice of Paris”.

  “And all because of that cat of hers!” Madame Emerald exclaimed, throwing down her copy of the newspaper in exasperation. They were sat at a table in Minette’s café, but nobody seemed in the mood for breakfast. Sylvia had turned over the same pain au chocolat several times without taking a bite and even Agnes was showing no interest in the pile of croissants that had been placed in front of her. Madame Emerald sighed. “She is refusing to leave her house until the catnapper of Paris is caught.” She glanced at Maximilian and her face softened. “We can’t blame her really, I suppose. We would all be distraught if anything happened to Max. But really, it is infuriating! We have two days to go and we are now down to just two judges! Pierre says that he is looking for a replacement for Madame Belfourte but I hate to think who he will come up with. And if he can’t find anyone, the competition will have to be cancelled.”

  There was a faint clatter of teacups as she said this, and Maximilian saw that Minette, who was serving a customer at a nearby table, had overheard them. If the competition was cancelled then she would lose her chance to shine and perhaps become a professional singer. Excusing himself, Monsieur Lavroche stood up from the table and went over to talk with her.

  “I tried everything to persuade Madame Belfourte to stay,” Madame Emerald sighed. “I wish someone could catch this wretched catnapper.” She smiled sadly at Maximilian. “If only the gendarmes had Max on the case. He would solve it in two shakes of a cat’s tail, I’m sure of it.”

  Maximilian gave his front paws a groom and tried to look modest, but it was lovely when Madame Emerald spoke admiringly of him with her beautiful, melodious voice. He wished he could assure her that the two cleverest cats in Europe were already following up several clues.

  “Will the competition really have to be cancelled?” asked Mrs Garland. “It would be a shame after all the organisation, and half of the city seems to be after tickets.”

  Madame sighed.

  “I suppose we could limp along with only two judges. But what if we disagree?”

  “You could judge by the volume of the applause,” suggested Sylvia. She winked at Agnes, and Maximilian knew that she had only suggested this because Minette and Albert were the favourites with the crowd.

  “Well, I will talk to Pierre,” Madame laughed. “But I am sure he will not be in favour of that solution. If only we could find another judge instead of leaving it up to him. Perhaps…”

  “Monsieur Lavroche!” cried Agnes. “Oh, he would be perfect!”

  “And most impartial,” Sylvia assured her.

  Madame sighed. “That might work. Oh, I will miss Madame Belfourte. Her judgement is always so good and Pierre is going to be insufferable as premier judge. He wants all the posters for tomorrow’s concert reprinted with his name at the top, and he is demanding fresh flowers in his dressing room every day. He has been desperate to be premier judge. It’s such an honour. I think he would have done anything for it to go to him. He was livid when it went to Madame Belfourte, although she really was the better choice. He is such a snob. Always on about how the competition should only be open to the best musical families, wanting to go back to charging an entrance fee only the richest competitors could afford.”

  Maximilian’s tail twitched. He met Oscar’s eye and raised an eyebrow. If Pierre was so determined to be premier judge, and so unhappy with Madame Belfourte’s decisions in the role, then he had the perfect motive for scaring off Madame Belfourte so he could replace her. Finally, Maximilian thought, we have a suspect.

  The next morning Madame Emerald collected them for a special treat. It was the last day of the competition and there were to be two concerts, one of them in the largest park in Paris. On the way, as Madame chatted with Agnes and Sylvia, Maximilian shared his suspicions with Oscar. He had spent all night thinking things over, staring out of their hotel window at the city’s beautiful lights, and he had ideas to share.

  “Pierre has to be behind Peppi’s kidnapping,” he declared. “Madame said that he was desperate to get rid of Madame Belfourte and I think he doesn’t want Minette to win. If he is planning to replace Madame Belfourte with a judge as snooty as him then he has to do it before tonight.”

  Oscar frowned. “But you said that he was beside you at the judges table when it happened. So, it can’t have been him behind the curtain.”

  “He must have an accomplice,” Maximilian suggested. Something prickled at the back of his head. He was sure that there were clues that he was missing, if only he could make the connections. Whoever was kidnapping the cats was small and light enough to scale a wisteria and knew enough about the cats’ houses to know how to get inside. His tail tingled as he remembered the photos of the missing cats. What was it about them that had caught his eye? He closed his eyes and pictured them in his mind. Each had a cat sitting on a comfortable cushion or sofa, a beautiful frame and in the corner…

  “I know who the kidnapper is!” he gasped, making Oscar jump. “At least, I think I do. The pictures of the cats that were taken, in the papers, did you get a good look at them?”

  Oscar nodded. “They looked like regular portraits of pampered cats to me,” he said. “Why?”

  “The signature in the corner,” Maximilian said. “It was the same shape, a tall spiky start and a long, thin letter in the middle and…” He tailed off, but Oscar nodded enthusiastically.

  “You’re right, my friend, you’re right. They were all taken by Zelie!”

  “And if she has taken all the photographs of the catnapped cats…” said Maximilian.

  “She would have been in the houses before they were taken, and would have had the perfect opportunity to quiz their owners on when the houses were likely to be empty!”

  “And work out which windows would be the best ones to break into.”

  “And she is small enough to climb the wisteria!”

  Maximilian felt his tail tingling. They were so close to solving the mystery. It must have been Zelie’s hand behind the curtain at the theatre.

  “So where does Pierre come into it?” asked Oscar.

  Maximilian thought about this. Could Pierre be innocent after all, or were he and Zelie in league with one another? Maximilian did not like to dismiss Pierre so easily. He had a motive for kidnapping Peppi and he clearly hated cats, and that alone was sufficient to make him very suspicious indeed.

  “There is only one way to find out,” he said. “We must see if we can follow him at this afternoon’s concert, and keep our eyes peeled for more clues.”

  The car turned into the park and came to a halt beside a stage by a lavish rose garden. Rows of white wooden chairs stretched out in a semi-circle,
each topped with a satin bow and a small bunch of lily of the valley. The orchestra had arrived, but there were too many of them to fit in the space that had been provided for them. Concert preparations were plunged into chaos as seating was arranged and re-arranged. The trombonists argued with the cellists about who should get more legroom. The first violins argued with the second violins about how close to the conductor they should be seated and the timpanist sneaked off to find an ice cream.

  It had been Madame Belfourte’s idea to hold one of the concerts outside, as a treat for those who could not get tickets for the main events and as a test of the singers’ power, but with her gone there was so much to organise in so little time that no one noticed Maximilian and Oscar disappear behind a line of shrubs and set off across the park for a walk and to swap theories about the case.

  It was a beautiful spring afternoon and the park was full of people enjoying the weather, strolling over ornamental bridges or lazing by the pools and rose gardens. Maximilian and Oscar headed away from the concert area, hoping to find a quiet spot, but half of Paris seemed to be out enjoying themselves. As they rounded the corner of a belt of trees that curved away from an aviary full of goldfinches, they found themselves in a wide open lawn. There were no fountains or pagodas and no ornamental lakes with swans and cygnets. Instead there were balloons – line upon line of brightly coloured balloons, each as tall as one of London’s omnibuses, towering above them. Under each of them was a wicker basket hung with canvas bags and ropes and a team of men shouting to one another as they clambered in and out of the basket. The air roared with the sound of flames shooting up into the canvas of the balloons as they bobbed about, straining against the thick ropes that anchored them to the ground.

  “Hot air balloons!” Oscar cried. “I wonder if they are going to race one another. Did I ever tell you about the time that I leapt from one hot air balloon to another mid-flight to retrieve the precious moonstone of the Countess of…”

  But Maximilian was not listening to his friend’s story. His attention had been caught by something else. Standing underneath one of the trees on the far side of the park was a woman with dark, slicked-back hair and a monocle. She was pacing from side to side and looking at her wristwatch.

  “It’s Zelie!” said Maximilian.

  “And that’s Pierre!” Oscar said, nodding his head towards a thin-faced man who was dashing between shrubs to join Zelie by the tree.

  Maximilian felt his whiskers buzz. Perhaps his suspicions that Zelie and Pierre were working together had been right after all.

  “We need to get closer!” he cried and, without waiting for Oscar, he hurtled off across the grass to where Zelie and Pierre stood, deep in conversation. Zelie was glaring at Pierre, who was looking down on her, his face twisted into a nasty smile. How Maximilian wished he was close enough to overhear them. He had thought that the quickest route would be to cut straight across the lawns – what the humans liked to call “as the crow flies”, though he preferred to call it “as the clever cat walks”. But with every step they were tripping over the guy ropes anchoring the balloons to the ground, or stumbling on the great stakes driven into the ground to tie the ropes round, or snagging their fur as they squeezed past the wicker baskets.

  They were just within earshot when Zelie flung her hands out to Pierre.

  “I kept my half of the bargain,” she said. “All I am asking for is a little co-operation.”

  Pierre laughed. It was not a nice laugh. “My dear, I’m not saying that I won’t keep your little secret, and I’m very grateful to you.”

  “You’re premier judge now!” she snapped. “Trying to kidnap that ridiculous cat of Madame Belfourte’s worked. She’ll never go near that concert hall again. You can save your precious competition and make sure the right person wins. So what else do you want?”

  Pierre reached into his pocket and drew out a bundle of papers that he waved at Zelie. “I may think of something,” he said and, folding the papers back into his pocket, he turned and walked away.

  Maximilian’s tail tingled. So he had been right! Zelie and Pierre were both involved, and it was clear that Pierre was planning to fix the competition so that Minette could not win. How dastardly! But knowing who was behind the crime was only solving half of the case. Where on earth were the cats? How could he save them? And what were the papers that Pierre had been waving at Zelie? With all these mysteries, Maximilian could feel that familiar tingling in the tip of his tail. Though, come to think of it, the tingling was a little different this time. It felt a little more like a pinching. Maximilian threw a look back at his tail and saw to his horror that it had become entangled in the weave of one of the baskets, and no matter how hard he tugged he could not free himself. He clawed at the basket to pull his fur away, but the ropes coiled round him, trapping him against the sharp wicker.

  “Oscar! Help!” he cried.

  In an instant his friend was at his side, but try as he might Oscar could not free Maximilian either. The basket began to sway from side to side and there was a jolt as it was lifted off the ground. Oscar flinched his head to one side as a rope whooshed past his ears and fell to the ground with a thud. The men in the basket cheered and there was a roar of flames. The basket swung violently to one side and began to rise into the air.

  “My friend, hold on,” Oscar said. “I think we are about to fly.”

  From the ground, where Sylvia and Agnes were watching, the sight of a hundred hot air balloons taking flight all at once was breathtaking. The air was crammed with colour and flame as red and yellow balloons jostled with pink and green ones for space. Some of the teams threw ribbons from their baskets as they flew over the watching crowds, making them cheer with delight.

  From the viewpoint of two terrified cats, however, the sight was breathtaking in an altogether different way. Maximilian and Oscar watched in horror as the ground sank away far beneath them, the basket they clung to swaying alarmingly and every jolt threatening to throw them to certain death. The other balloons swung dangerously close to them, the baloonists calling out to one another, spurring each other to go faster and higher. Maximilian sank his claws still deeper into the wicker basket and squeezed his eyes tight shut.

  “It’s a cat!” cried a voice from a basket nearby.

  “No!” cried another. “Two cats!”

  There were yet more shouts and Maximilian felt strong hands clasping him and his fur being disentangled from the sharp clutches of the wicker. Then he was being lifted gently into the air, a voice speaking calmly to him. He opened one eye and found himself face to face with a bearded man wearing a look of utter bemusement.

  “A most handsome cat, but what on earth are you doing up here?”

  “This one has been in the wars,” said his companion, who had rescued Oscar and was holding him up for inspection. “Look at that eye. I bet he lost it duelling for a young lady cat’s honour.”

  “Indeed I did,” Oscar miaowed. Maximilian smiled wryly. Oscar had at least a dozen stories for how he had lost his eye, but this was his favourite.

  “Well, cats, whoever you belong to, you will have to wait till the end of the race to return home. We must make up for lost time if we are to have a chance of winning,” said a third man, who was working away at a series of pulleys underneath the balloon canopy. “And speaking of that…” He pulled on one rope and with a roar of flame the basket rose higher and shot forwards, past a basket full of women blowing kisses to the crowds below.

  Maximilian miaowed his “but we were on the trail of a suspect and must get back to the ground at once” miaow, but the man holding him just laughed and lowered him on to a ledge that ran around the inside of the basket and served as a bench for its passengers to sit on.

  Oscar leapt to join him, peered over the side and looked down. “No chance of getting out now, I’m afraid, my friend,” he said. “We may as well just enjoy the view.”

  Maximilian had no intention of looking over the side of the basket. Much as h
e now loved his rooftop walks with Oscar, he was still not keen on heights that swung so alarmingly. He preferred the safety of a solid window sill or chimney pot. He remembered how he had laughed at Peppi for his nerves that first night they had taken him across the heights of Paris and felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. He was just as nervous now as Peppi had been then.

  “Take a look down,” Oscar said. “It really is the most incredible sight.”

  Maximilian opened one eye and gasped. From high up in the balloon, Paris spread like a glorious map beneath them. In the park below, laid out in its neat squares and curved fountain walks, the people looked like small dolls. In a few minutes they had left the park and were soaring over the city, a carpet of cream stone and greenery. The balloon carried them over packed streets where shoppers jostled for fresh cheeses and meats, and above the curves of the beautiful Seine river, glittering in the spring sunshine.

  As they were nearing the wonderful Eiffel Tower, whose top platform was crammed with tourists waving flags in a myriad of colours, eager to catch sight of the balloon race, Maximilian spotted a familiar figure far below, weaving nimbly through the crowds: a woman dressed in black with a yellow handbag. He was sure it was Zelie. She paused at the door of a house and, as she looked up to the balloons, the sun glinted off the monocle over her left eye.

  “Oscar, quick!” Maximilian hissed. “That’s Zelie. We must remember how to get back here.”

  Oscar nodded and together they scanned the streets below. Oscar murmured to himself, “Two streets to the left of the river”, while Maximilian memorised the sight of the stationer on the corner of the road and the wide, sweeping avenue that led down to a children’s playground. He squeezed his eyes shut and found he could see a perfect picture of the streets below in his mind. He squeezed again, as if setting off a camera shutter, and then opened his eyes and looked at Oscar. They made a brilliant team. Zelie would be no match for them.