The Black Cats

by Monica Shaughnessy

  The women blathered on about teetotaling, a subject unfamiliar, leaving me to my work. I padded up the walkway and into the house, thinking to flush out my quarry. One sniff of Mr. Arnold or his possessions, and I would have the truth. I paused in the front hall to catch what scents I could.

  Tiny footsteps to my left.

  I crouched and peered beneath the entryway bench. A pair of mice scurried near the baseboard. Dash it all, I could not resist. I raked under the wooden seat, missing them by a whisker. The mice slipped into the adjoining parlor with a squee, squee, squee! I gave chase, bounding over an armchair and darting across the room to meet them at the kitchen threshold. But the vermin had the advantage of familiarity. They headed for a hole they’d gnawed in the wall and escaped to the other side. I sprinted into the kitchen after them, ziggety-zagging around a pie cupboard, a wash pail and mop, a dining chair. During my pursuit, I focused on the sights, sounds, and smells of my prey, ignoring all else. I could not have guessed the trouble this single-minded attention would soon cause.

  The mice slipped through the cracked cellar door and disappeared into the dark. I charged through the portal and dashed down the cellar steps—a mistake of gigantic proportion, but one easily predicted by Sir Isaac Kitten. The door banged back on its hinges and slammed shut, causing an equal and opposite reaction to my action. A student of physics, I should have known better. I tried yowling for Sissy, but her human hearing proved too meager.

  I was trapped.

  Seeking an open window or warped door, I traveled deep into the earthen chamber. My history with cellars is a storied one, full of grisly exploits. This made it all the more difficult to proceed. Yet I had no choice. When I reached the bottom step, I paused and smelled for new, fresh air, thinking to follow it to freedom. My stomach tightened at the sinister trace of lavender and citrus.

  Judgment Day

  THE COLOGNE DISSIPATED SOON after its discovery. This meant I had stumbled upon the killer’s smell and not the killer himself. This did little to assuage my fear, for the realization had occurred in his blasted cellar. I lost track of time without the sun, so I marked its passage with hunger pangs, abandoning this strategy when they struck with maddening frequency. Somewhere between starvation and death—why, oh, why hadn’t Muddy served something heartier for dinner?—footsteps marched overhead.

  From the top stair, I peeked through a wide gap under the door that revealed the lowest portion of the kitchen. Light filled the room, indicating Mrs. Arnold had fired a lamp. I thought about meowing for help until a second pair of feet entered the room. The culprit, I presumed. Until he left for either the bed or the tavern, I was stuck.

  “I saw Mrs. Poe in the street,” Mr. Arnold said. I recognized his voice at once. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she passed away this Christmas.” He hiccupped and laughed. “She looks positively used up.”

  “Abner!” Mrs. Arnold said. “She may be married to a strange little man, but so am I. Now I’ve taken a liking to Virginia Poe, and I’ll not have you speak about her like that.”

  He dashed a cup to the floor and strode toward her. “I’ll not have you speak about me like that! Do you hear?”

  “Please, Abner, I can’t take that again. Please.”

  Silence. With only their shoes visible, the scene terrified me less than had I been with them. Even still, I feared for the woman.

  “Don’t know what comes over me,” he muttered.

  “Why don’t I make you some tea?” Mrs. Arnold said. Her voice flowed like tap water. “It’s just what you need after a trip to the tavern. Sit, dear. Sit. Are you hungry? Or did you eat at Mr. Jolley’s?”

  Mr. Arnold heeded her advice and settled into the dining chair. “I ate already. A bowl of pepperpot.” He hadn’t bothered switching his shabby boots for slippers, and I found their condition distasteful, considering his occupation. He shuffled them, knocking dried mud to the floor. “How was business today?” he asked. “Slow?”

  “Is it any wonder?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

  “The cat, Abner. The damned cat hanging from the damned tree.”

  “Forget Pluto. One less mouth to feed.” Mr. Arnold’s boots shifted sideways, as if he leaned a bit in his chair. I flinched when a small pocketknife clattered to the floorboards. Fingers reached to retrieve it, and the blade disappeared from view. In the presence of this weapon, I should have focused solely on the predicament at hand. Yet Eddy’s story occupied my thoughts. My companion had come close to understanding the killer and writing with true vision.

  “I paid the landlord and the county tax collector this month. It took the last of our savings,” Mrs. Arnold said. “Won’t be long until we’re in the poor house, with or without our cat.” A cook stove burner grated against its metal fitting. The pop and crackle of a stoked fire filled the kitchen. A thin line of smoke drifted beneath the door, irritating my nose. I didn’t dare sneeze, not if I wanted to avoid the hangman’s loop. While I was at it, I fancied keeping both eyes.

  “Our luck will turn around, Tabby,” he said. “It’s got to.”

  “Yes, Abner, I’m sure it will.” A kettle lid rattled. The spicy sweet smell of loose tea permeated the room. “Why don’t you wait for me in the family room? I’ll bring your cup on a tray.”

  Mr. Arnold staggered to his feet. “Tabby, I’m…I’m a different person sometimes. Especially when I’m not feeling well.”

  “Go rest, dear. All is forgiven.”

  He plodded from the room with uncertain steps, a gait I knew all too well. Soon the teakettle whistled, masking the sound of Mrs. Arnold’s weeping. It reminded me of Sissy’s, any given evening at Poe House.

  ***

  That night, my appetite grew so severe that it deserted me, leaving a cramp in its place. During Mr. and Mrs. Arnold’s tea party, I crept downstairs to relieve myself. The lamplight beneath the door illuminated the cellar, giving me a sense of the space. Crates of onions and potatoes, a washboard, an old rocking horse—nothing edible. Someone had placed a basket of dirty linens near the bottom of the stairs, so I hopped in, left my offering, and pawed a dressing gown over the evidence. To no one’s surprise, least of all my own, the cologne on the clothing matched the scent on Snip’s noose. I had caught my man. Or rather, he’d caught me.

  I returned to my post with a heavy heart. Eddy, Sissy, and Muddy wouldn’t miss me until morning. Even if they searched for me tonight, they wouldn’t know where to begin. Sissy might think to return here, but Mr. and Mrs. Arnold would tell her they hadn’t seen me. And in truth, they hadn’t.

  Before retiring that evening, the woman of the house entered the kitchen and turned off the lamp, cloaking the kitchen and cellar in black. I would not spend the night in this place. Using the dark to my advantage, I jumped and rattled the doorknob.

  “Hello?” she said. “Who’s there?”

  I jumped and rattled it again.

  Her steps grew louder.

  I balanced on the edge of the step and waited for the woman to open the door. She leaned into the portal and queried the dark. “Who’s there?” she asked. With the speed of a grass snake, I slithered into the still-dark kitchen, brushing her leg by accident. She shrieked and sprang back from the cellar. “Pluto? Is that you?” she said. “It c-can’t be you. You’re dead. Unless you’ve come back to haunt me. Please tell me you haven’t.” I hid behind the wash pail, staying quiet. She finally cackled. “You’re losing your mind, Tabby, old girl. It was your dressing gown against your skin.”

  The stairs creaked following Mrs. Arnold’s departure as she climbed to what I guessed was her bedchamber. After an interval, when the couple surely slumbered, I searched the bottom floor for an escape route. It was no use. The cobblers had laced their house tighter than a lady’s boot.

  Loud snoring lured me to the second floor and to their sleeping quarter—a solitary room at the top of the stair. A low, slanted ceiling and plastered timber walls confined the area, giving
it the feel of an attic. Because of its cramped size, the chamber held only a small cabinet, which Mrs. Arnold used as a side table, and a spindle post bed. The couple lay fast asleep, a patchwork quilt pulled to their chins. I paused at the threshold and studied the lit candle on the cabinet. Mrs. Arnold must have forgotten to snuff it out before falling asleep. The flame danced atop the white pillar, mesmerizing me. It dipped and swayed, drawn by a draft. A draft!

  Above Mr. Arnold lay a partially open window, hidden behind a pair of tapestry curtains. With so little floor space, the couple had pushed the bedframe against the wall directly beneath it. The man could’ve used the draperies for a blanket had he so chosen. To escape, I needed to bypass the pair without waking them. I planned my trajectory, adjusting for dim lighting, unsure footing, and other variables. My course contained enough degrees and angles to make René Descattes proud: a hop to the side table, a leap to the headboard, a sliiiide to the tapestry curtains, and an elegant landing on the sill. There I would use my substantial frame to open the sash. Except my scheme did not include revenge.

  I turned in a circle, hoping to change my mind. It did not work. I could not leave without giving Mr. Arnold a well-deserved lashing for Snip’s murder. So I analyzed anew, took a deep breath, and jumped to the side table…

  …knocking over the candle.

  I’d failed to account for the greatest variable: my lumbering physique. I watched helplessly as the flame ignited a bundle of mail. The blaze grew bigger, leaping onto Mrs. Arnold’s nightcap with enviable grace and setting her head aflame.

  “Aaaaiiiyyyeee!” the woman screeched.

  She swatted her nightcap and knocked it to the bed, catching the quilt on fire. The stench of singed hair filled the room. “Wake up! Wake up and help me, or we’ll lose the house and the store!” she shouted to Mr. Arnold. She shoved her husband, but he continued to snore. “Drunk old fool,” she said. “If you won’t fetch help, I will.” Then she leapt from the bed and fled the room, shutting the door behind her. She did not notice me.

  Frantic to escape, I bounced off the headboard and landed on the sill, avoiding the flames. I’d no sooner alighted than the drunk old fool woke. Mr. Arnold sat forward and wiped the sweat from his brow, unaware of the campfire in his lap. “Tabby? Is it hot in here? Let’s open the window.” He reached for the sash and froze. “A cat! A cursed cat!” The blaze lit his face, giving it cruel angles. “What’s this? Have you sentenced me to hell, you minion of the devil?”

  The fire ravaged the left curtain panel and climbed to the ceiling, consuming the timber with appetite. Since I had no desire to join Snip, I tried to squeeze through the window before roasting in this self-made oven. Mr. Arnold, however, had other plans. He threw back the quilt and smothered the bed flames before dragging me back to wring my neck. How I scratched and spit, fought and bit! Pickled by spirits, the old man shrugged off the prick of my teeth and the terrible heat suffocating us both. When smoke clouded my vision, I lashed out wildly, catching Mr. Arnold’s nightshirt or what I mistook for Mr. Arnold’s nightshirt. I’d hooked the unlit portion of curtain instead. I tried flexing my claws to remove them, but they’d become tangled in the tieback cord. That was when the rogue picked me up and threw me against the plaster wall, curtain cord and all.

  “I will not stand for this judgment!” he screamed. “I will not! Do you hear me?”

  I dove for the window, squeezing under the sash and falling—feet first, I should add—to the alley below. Aside from sizzled whiskers and a blackened tail, I had escaped relatively unharmed. Mr. Arnold was not so lucky. He fell from the window, nightshirt ablaze, and landed beside me with a skull-ringing thump.

  A Wicked Impression

  “GOOD MORNING, CATTARINA,” SISSY said. I flicked my ear in response. I’d crawled into bed with her last night after licking the soot from my fur. Too tired to knead the covers, I fell fast asleep until dawn. Luckily, my tail suffered no permanent damage. My back paws were not so fortunate. I discovered the seared pads on my walk home from the Arnold bonfire. “I asked Muddy to leave the kitchen window open for you last night,” she said. “I knew you’d come home late. Catting around with a handsome fellow, are we?” She lifted my chin and studied my face. “Why, Cattarina Poe, where are your whiskers?” She turned me over and examined me. “And your back paws are burnt, poor thing. What happened to you last night?”

  Sissy left the bed. “Mother will make a salve. She is an excellent nursemaid, even if she dotes on her patients a trifle much.” She crossed to the wardrobe. Since destroying her town dress yesterday, only her everyday dress remained, along with an extra pair of stockings and white chemise. I think she looked fine without clothing. I also thought the Delaware should flow with milk and shad should grow on trees.

  Pots clattered in the kitchen below. Muddy had risen before dawn, as she always did, to build a fire and make breakfast. I yawned and stretched, reveling in the warmth of the cotton-stuffed mattress. I was the only cat I knew with two jobs: muse by day, chest heater by night. Since his wife’s illness, Eddy had given up marital cohabitation so Muddy could nurse her daughter through nighttime spells. The old woman stayed in the adjoining bedroom and entered at the first cough. I did what I could to keep Sissy warm while she slept, but it was not enough; it would never be enough, and I carried this truth in my heart. Death is a natural process until it happens in one’s family, then it’s a tragedy.

  Once Sissy twisted her hair into a coil, she carried me from the topmost floor, past Eddy’s chambers on the middle floor, to the bottom floor. We found Eddy at the kitchen table with tea and newspaper, sitting among the vestiges of breakfast. Muddy fussed with a kettle of water. Now that the black cat’s death had vanished into the past, life at Poe House had returned to normal. She set me in front of a bowl filled with scrambled eggs, and I gobbled the food without a good morning rub to Eddy’s leg. I possessed a hunger so severe that I finished before the dear girl took her chair. She sat next to Eddy and poured a cup of tea from the pot on the table. “Cattarina has lost her whiskers,” she said.

  I disappeared beneath the kitchen table for my post-breakfast routine. Seated upon the straw rug, I started my usual preen. But I abandoned this activity when my whisker stubs pricked my paw. How I missed them. I brushed against Eddy’s pants and Sissy’s skirt instead, marking them with fur for the day.

  Sissy continued, “What’s more, she’s burnt her paws.”

  “How very curious.” Eddy peeked under the table at me, eyes narrowed. “The Arnolds’ house burned down last night.”

  “How do you know? Is it in the paper? What happened?” The words left Sissy’s mouth in a tumble. “Do tell!”

  I emerged from my hiding place to see Eddy tip a non-existent hat. “I sit before you, Mrs. Poe, a proud member of the bucket brigade. The engine company needed help, and the menfolk obliged. We saved the neighborhood.” He looked at Muddy. “What time was it? Around midnight?”

  I stared at him. What did he know about my pal from Rittenhouse?

  “Half-past,” Muddy said. “You didn’t come home until two.”

  “Tabitha Arnold escaped unharmed,” he said. “Abner Arnold was not so fortunate.”

  Abner Arnold? I crept under the table again, dreading a talking-to from Eddy. Yes, I burnt down the neighbor’s house. No, I am not sorry. Now then, what is for lunch? But he didn’t bother. I wondered if I’d paid the neighbors a favor by ousting the cobblers from Green Street. I’d certainly paid the cats a favor. I took the center of the room again and commenced with a stretching regimen.

  Eddy tipped his cup and took the last sip. “They sent him to Almshouse last night, but I do not know how he fared.”

  “What heroics! Why didn’t you wake me?” She dropped a sugar lump in her tea and stirred it. “I would have helped.”

  “That’s exactly why we didn’t wake you.” Muddy wiped her hands on her apron and joined them, pulling up a chair. “It would have been too taxing for you.”

&n
bsp; “And to think I spoke to Mrs. Arnold yesterday,” Sissy said. “Hours before it happened.”

  “Where, Virginia?” her mother asked. “At the market?”

  “No,” Eddy said. “It was later in the day, wasn’t it, my love? Your mysterious seven o’clock errand?”

  “Yes, I-I needed to speak to her about a pair of shoes.” She took the last piece of fried bread from the plate and slathered it with jam. “They were supposed to be a surprise for you, Eddy, but now you’ve gone and spoiled it.”

  “Is that so?” He scooped me up to examine my paws. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, indicating a night of interrupted sleep. “Catters must have been near the fire last night. But why?”

  “Constable Claw,” Sissy said under her breath.

  Muddy cupped her hand around her ear. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing, Mother, nothing.” She turned to her husband. “Cattarina followed me to Tabitha’s house and stayed behind. That’s the simplest explanation.” She smiled at him, but mirth did not crinkle the corners of her eyes. “Did you know Tabitha Arnold attends the Sons of Temperance meetings?”

  Eddy ignored her query and rose to set me on the sideboard, his brow knitted.

  “I didn’t know she attended,” Muddy said. She patted her daughter’s arm with a hand roughed by housework. “The Sons meet at Saint George’s Methodist, don’t they?”

  I settled onto a lace doily while they prattled about teetotaling again. One day, I should like to know its meaning. As the women talked, Eddy kept his back to them, focusing on me. He scratched the top of my head, paying close attention to my ears. I rewarded him with a purr. In this relaxed state, my thoughts wandered to yesterday. I had solved a crime, and the wrongdoer had received punishment, though to what extent I did not know. Death would have been fitting, considering Mr. Arnold’s transgression, but I would settle for disfigurement. Another triumph for Philadelphia’s favorite rationator.