The Calico Cat (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 8)

by Frank Howell Evans

  “So she struck up a conversation with the young woman and found out her name. She also found out where she worked and did everything she could and between you and me, money was a large part of it, to get something going between her and her son.” Saundra suddenly stopped. She frowned and looked at her cup. She picked it up and emptied it in her mouth. “You haven’t touched your tea,” she said to Poiret. He took a cup and put four spoons of sugar and three spoons of milk in it. His hostess slapped the pillow beside her with her hand and said, “I forgot to put sugar and milk in my cup.” Poiret took a sip. The tea was not half as bad as he had anticipated. It was not bad at all. He took another sip. “Please to continue, Madame,” he said. Saundra told him that she was against the idea from the beginning as the girl was a floozy of the first order and was only interested in money. Lady Gloria however was obsessed with the idea that her son had grown out of his inhibitions after all and was going to get married and have children, like every other man.

  The housekeeper entered the room again, now in the company of Constable Dennis Ritchie and a colleague. They wished to talk to the sister alone. Poiret took a last sip of the tea and said his goodbyes to all. He put his hat on his head, took his walking stick and followed the housekeeper out of the room. He told her how much he had enjoyed her tea. She seemed unmoved. Poiret asked her how long she had been working for the family. “Forty years”, she said. Poiret asked her what she was going to do now that her mistress was no longer there. She told Poiret that she didn’t know, but that the Good Lord had always provided her with everything she required. “I hope I can stay,” she said shrugging. Poiret noticed a slight hesitation in her speech. She seemed worried. “Do you have somewhere to go, if they let you go?” asked Poiret as innocently as possible. She was silent, but Poiret could see that all blood had left her face. She wavered. Poiret quickly took her arm to steady her. “Madame, please to sit down.” “I’m alright,” she replied weakly. She walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Poiret found a teapot and poured her a cup of tea. She accepted it gratefully and drank it. Then she wiped her eyes clean with her apron and said, “I’m sorry, sir, that you had to see this.” She stood up and began washing the dishes in the sink.

  Poiret asked her who had found Lady Haslemere. She told him that Reginald woke her up early in the morning and told her his mother was lying on the floor of her bedroom. She seemed to be dead. They both went to her room and Lady Gloria was indeed lying on the floor. She was lying on her stomach and had blood on the back of her head. Tommy, the calico cat was sitting next to her, licking her face, trying to wake her up. The housekeeper touched Lady Haslemere. She was cold to the touch. The room was cold too, although the window was closed and the ceiling fan was off. The housekeeper telephoned an ambulance. They arrived twenty minutes later, but it was too late. They couldn’t revive her. Poiret asked her where Reginald was that night. She told him Reginald normally left the house after supper to go stargazing, take photos of the sky and make notes. He’d do that till early in the morning then return home and go to sleep. Because of the party, he left the house after midnight that night. They normally never heard him leave or come home as he lived in a quiet part of the house, which had its own door to the garden.

  Poiret asked her what had happened on the evening of the death of Lady Haslemere. She told him that they had a small dinner party for friends and family and after dinner Lady Haslemere went to bed to rest. She said, “The mistress was quite tired lately, because of her ailments, but she wished to introduce her son’s fiancée to her friends and family. It was important to her, sir. She even lent the fiancée some of her jewels for the evening, which she normally never did. And after dinner, when Lady Haslemere was in bed, applying the ointments the doctor had given her, the fiancée brought the jewels back to her. Lady Haslemere gave her the key to the cabinet so she could put the jewels away.” The housekeeper was busy at the time helping Lady Haslemere prepare for the night and therefore was unable to take much notice of anything. Soon after that the fiancée telephoned a cab. She left the house just before midnight. After taking care of the mistress, the housekeeper retired to her bedroom. She was woken up early that morning by Reginald knocking on her door and shouting, “Housekeeper!” Poiret had heard everything he had wished to hear. He decided to leave the housekeeper alone to come to grips with the loss of her mistress and her distress concerning her future.

  On his way home Poiret asked the cab driver to stop at the restaurant in Netley Abbey and ordered ostrich again. Soon he saw the same car as he had seen two days earlier. The woman stepped out of the car holding hands with the two boys. She walks over to him. She asked him for money to eat and told him that she and her children had slept in her car for the past two days as they couldn’t afford a room at a boarding house. Poiret, ever the man of practical solutions, asked her why she didn’t try and find a job. He was thinking of the housekeeper he had just left in tears, worrying over a position she had held for forty years. She began to cry. She told him nobody wished to hire her. Poiret told her not to worry, “Papa Poiret, he will help you to find the position.” She began bawling. Seeing their mother so sad, her children began crying too. She said, “Please, sir, do you think this is what I want for my children? I want a position. There is nothing else I want more than a position, which would allow me to feed my children. Do you think I like my children seeing me beg for food every day? We’ve been on the streets for seven months. Sometimes I just want to end it all, sir. For good!” Poiret gave her his handkerchief. “Nah, nah, Madame, it will be alright,” he tried to console her.

  Poiret understood life. It was not a wonderful thing. You, yourself had to make it wonderful. What made it wonderful was your first amant, your first car, your wife, your children, your friends, your house, for which you worked hard. Life was a work in progress. It could be a bit more or a bit less delightful. When Poiret was a celebrated detective, he never forgot that he was on a mission to bring order out of chaos. Murder destabilized the universe. It was up to him to expose the culprit and thereby bring tranquility to nature. That was his mission in life. He perceived himself as an instrument of Providence.

  Poiret asked her if he could help her find a position and a house to stay in. She sobbed, “Nobody will hire me, sir. I’m with child. I’m due in four months.” Seven months without a roof over her head and five months pregnant. Poiret felt light in the head. He knew the storm, which was quickly approaching. He closed his mouth as he didn’t wish to gasp for air, while she could see him. He opened his wallet and gave her the majority of the banknotes he had with him. She thanked him and left. Poiret gasped for air as all his strength left him. He called out to the waiter and asked for more food. The waiter looked at him for a moment. Poiret took his checkbook and wrote out a check. He tipped generously. The waiter looked at the check. He read the name and the amount on the check. He told Poiret the food would be ready in half an hour. Poiret told him to have the first couple of dishes ready in ten minutes. The waiter nodded slowly. He went inside the restaurant. After one minute he came out, mounted a bicycle and sped away.

  Poiret closed his eyes and breathed deliberately in and out. He did not understand her. Why would she do a thing like that? She had children. Why would she do that to them? Why, why, those poor little children?

  The waiter returned a few minutes later from the butcher’s shop with a paper bag in his hand. He went inside and returned ten minutes later with several dishes. Poiret finished one dish. He finished the second dish and soon had also emptied the third dish. He kept eating, because he knew he had to keep eating until his brains stop working. It took him fourteen dished of food to bring his world class brain to a grinding halt. He felt so much better. He paid for the food he had not already paid for. He asked the waiter for a bottle of wine and to get a cab for him. The waiter shook his head invisibly at the heavy-set man, who by himself had eaten what he would normally serve to twelve customers. He was generous though and that was all t
hat mattered. With the money his wife was making off the visitors to the resort, he was not doing badly. Soon he would be able to open his own restaurant. Five more years.

  Poiret’s cab soon arrived to drive him home. He felt good. I felt elated even. Poiret ate when he was upset. He knew this about himself, but he had won. The wheels in his brains had come to a halt and that was all that mattered to him at that moment. Poiret sat back in his seat and put his hands on his face. “Oh, why can you not leave Poiret in peace!” he thought, “If you wish to be miserable, be miserable. Destroy your own lives and your children’s lives, but do not bother Poiret with it. Do not make your misery his misery. Do not make your life part of his life.” Poiret took his hands from his face and noticed that the cabdriver was looking at him in the rearview mirror. He seemed quite concerned that he had made a mistake by picking up the foreign gentleman, although he had seen him around town before.

  When Poiret was a consulting detective he could handle the dead, the injured, the bereaved, the crimes, the investigations, the this, the that. He was playing a role. He was able to do that. He knew how to play the role. “They should not make it personal,” he lamented to himself as if he saw rows upon rows of people pointing an accusing finger at him. “Do they not understand that they are making it personal? They are the ones making the mistake. Not Poiret. They destroyed their lives themselves. Poiret did not do that to them.” As a consulting detective every murder case could be neatly put in a specific category. It could be described, weighed, solved and filed away for future reference. Why could other people not understand that?

  “Oh, who is Poiret to tell to anybody anything about making the mistakes? Is Poiret without mistakes? Is he not preaching to people how to live, while he has made many mistakes himself? What about his mistake? He made one mistake and forever he has lost the right to tell anybody anything.” Poiret nodded violently as if to agree with his inner dialogue. “Poiret knows, he knows, he knows. He has made the mistakes. One big mistake, which changed the lives of him and Mrs. Diss. Mrs. Diss knows what Poiret promised he would do and he did not. Now it is too late for him and too late for her. He should have married her and given her what she misses most in life, motherhood. Poiret wishes he could go back. He would have married her. Had he not promised her that or at least intimated that with his attention and kept her waiting until it was too late. The years, they have gone by so quickly.” Poiret pressed his hands against his face trying to stifle any thought or noise from escaping. The driver had been driving faster and faster to reach his destination the sooner. All he wished was for this strange gentleman to get out of his cab. At last they arrived at the bungalow. Poiret fished some money out of his pocket, paid the driver and left the cab. He stood there on the driveway. The cabdriver drove away quickly.

  His life as a detective had not been easy. It had taken its toll on him. Criminals were bloodhounds. If you let them smell blood, they will hunt you. They will tear you to pieces. They will not stop until they have another scalp hanging over their fireplace. They had tried to do to him what they had done to many an illustrious detective before, but they had lost and he Poiret had won. “You did not get Poiret,” he said almost inaudibly. “You did not break the spirit of Poiret. You cannot break Poiret. Nobody can.” He raised his head up high and breathed in loudly. Slowly he walked to the bungalow and went inside.

  The following morning he did not leave his bed at the usual time. The housekeeper knocked on his door to tell him that breakfast had been served, but he had told her to go away. He felt terrible. He had eaten too much the previous day. He had overexerted himself. His nose was partly blocked. There was a fog in his head. His sinuses hurt, when he breathed. Inside his mouth, the top hurt, when he breathed. He felt warm and cold at the same time in different parts of his body. He knew he was coming down with a fever. He clasped his hands together. “Mon Dieu,” he prayed, “pourquoi toujours moi? Poiret, he is the human too. He too, sometimes needs two arms around him to comfort him. But, helas, Poiret, he is alone. Comme d’habitude. Must he always be alone? Always?”

  Suddenly he had a feeling of falling, like he was falling from the sky without a parachute. He did not feel scared. He was just freefalling. He saw the murderers he had sent to prison. One of them, her face became clear to him. Her voice said, “You will suffer for what you did to me. You will spend the rest of your life in prison with me.”

  Poiret looked at the bottle of pills on the dresser. They were sleeping pills. He tried to step out of bed. He fainted and for a second everything was black. His head hit the nightstand hard. The knock cleared the mist from his brain. As he lay on the floor he felt so much better. Slowly he raised his arm and touched his head. He felt a small bump. He looked at his hand. There was no blood. He had been fortunate. He raised his head to look in the mirror hanging on the wall. He didn’t see any wounds. He felt better. So much better. He took a few breaths then tried to sit up. He succeeded. His head was no longer clouded. He felt good. He was tired, but he felt good. When he was younger, when he was a policeman, there were many times that he was so frustrated with himself, it seemed as though he would go insane. The only thing that brought him back to sanity was to bang his head against the wall until his brain stopped working. That was the only thing that helped, when he was that far gone down the tunnel.

  Poiret called out for Sarah. It wasn’t long before he heard her knock on the door. He asked her to come in. She was at first surprised to see him on the floor, but when Poiret told her he had fallen, she was greatly concerned. She helped him get back into bed again. She telephoned the doctor.

  The doctor inspected the bump and asked Poiret to perform a few cognitive tests. He told Poiret he had no cuts or bruises. He had been fortunate. The doctor asked him if he had taken any sleeping pills. Poiret told him he had taken a sleeping pill the day before. The doctor asked him what he had eaten. Poiret decided to tell him the truth and told him about his visit to the restaurant. After his bout with pneumonia he had learned to be honest with his doctors. The doctor told him that he needed to go on a diet, maybe even stay at a sanatorium for a while to heal. He recommended one in Bournemouth in which he had a twenty-five percent interest. Poiret looked at the doctor. “Strange,” he thought, “Poiret’s life, it is, how do you say, the bread and butter for the doctor.” Poiret thanked the doctor for his offer. He asked Sarah to see him out the door. The doctor promised to come back the following day. When Poiret was alone for a moment he sighed and said, “Dear doctor, Poiret he is not eating because he is hungry. He eats, because he has the heavy mind and the food, it makes the wheels stop turning.”

  Poiret received a telephone call from Mrs. Diss. The doctor had telephoned her to tell her about Poiret’s condition. Poiret told her that it was not necessary for her to come back home, that she had important appointments to keep in Brighton and that Sarah was taking good care of him. She insisted on coming back home. Poiret did not want her to interrupt her work and come home, but he understood her. If Mrs. Diss had not been feeling well, he’d want to be with her in person too.

  Mrs. Diss and Poiret spent a wonderful day together. Mrs. Diss understood that Poiret was not feeling very well and took charge. She first commanded that he leave the bedroom and go sit on the sofa in the salon. Poiret wished to stay in bed. He was able to talk her into allowing him to at least bring three blankets into the salon. She gave the housekeeper a day off and told Sarah to stay out of the house. At least that was what Poiret thought she had done as he didn’t see either of them all day long.

  She lit a fire in the fireplace. She turned on the radio. They listened to some music and some comedy programs. Mrs. Diss made coffee for Poiret and tea for herself. She put a dish with cookies on the table. They sat on the sofa all afternoon.

  After dinner they opened a bottle of wine. One from Poiret’s stock. His friends gave him good wine as they knew he knew wine. Poiret felt content. Mrs. Diss sat in her chair sipping from her glass of wine and reading her boo
k. He was sitting on the sofa under the blankets pretending to read the newspaper, but actually looking at her. Poiret enjoyed observing Mrs. Diss. But these moments also made him melancholic. He had hurt her by never marrying her, something she wanted above all in life at the time as she was then still young enough to have a family. He knew he had hurt her so very badly. There were times that he wished to get on his knees in front of her and tell her how sorry he was for not seeing what she had seen. She was a good woman. A beautiful woman still. The bond between them that evening was so strong Poiret felt he should tell her he missed her, because she was in Brighton all the time. He wished Mrs. Diss would be content sharing her life with him, that his legacy as the greatest detective of his generation would be enough for the both of them. But she had supported him during his years of triumph, so he felt obliged to support her in return. He knew that, but that didn’t mean his heart felt the same way. He looked at her for at least five minutes trying to find the courage to tell her what he had on his mind. At last she looked at him. He didn’t go through with his plan. Poiret smiled. She smiled back. This was not the time to make her feel uncomfortable, to give her the idea she was neglecting him. She was a good woman and the days they spent together made him forget the days they were apart.

  It was Sarah, who brought Poiret his breakfast the following morning. She also put the newspapers on the table. Poiret was not interested in the news, however. He gazed at the raindrops hitting the window panes. Bellevue and Albert twittered happily in their cage. French chansons were paying on the radio. Mrs. Diss had left for Brighton early that morning. Poiret wished she was home. He couldn't stand being by himself. Certainly not that day there in Southampton. He had thought a lot about moving back to London permanently. He had many friends in London. He missed them. He missed going to the theatres in the West End. He missed meeting people, talking, laughing. If he wished to do so now, he had to take the train and stay at a hotel. He disliked both on account of his stomach. Apart from that, if you were invited to attend a party, one day they expected him to invite them. Where would he give his dinner party? In Southampton? Most people in London couldn’t even pronounce the word, let alone have any inclination to visit this small town and his bungalow dressed up in expensive dresses and dangling with two hundred year old jewelry. “Non, c’est impossible!” he said to no one in particular. It just wouldn't work.