by Harriet Hahn
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James the Conniosseur Cat
A Novel
Harriet Hahn
H. H. dedicates this book to C. H.
CHAPTER 1
I spend a lot of my time in England. My apartment in Baron’s Chambers, on Ryder Street, is my headquarters.
This November morning I struggled with my suitcases, and standing on the pavement, I pushed the button marked Inquiries, gave my name, and was admitted. Inside was the familiar tiny space in front of the ancient elevator, whose filigreed brass outer cage gleamed; its car, of mahogany, pierced by four beveled-glass window inserts, was still polished to a high shine.
I felt wonderfully at home, and then I noticed something new. Sitting on the small table where one usually finds messages and brochures describing current exhibits and events sat what appeared at first glance to be a big, gray, short-haired cat. It was motionless and its eyes were closed, but even so, I felt the power of a rare personality.
I stopped with my hand on the elevator door and did not exactly stare, but acknowledged that I was in the presence of something unusual.
“How do you do?” I heard myself ask.
The cat, which looked as though it were made of silver with a florentine finish, barely opened its eyes, gave me a long look, nodded, and slithered off the table.
I opened the elevator door. The cat strode into the car, stood on one side as I hauled in my suitcases, jumped on top of the largest one, and, after I had closed the doors safely, patted a gray paw on the button marked 6. Cat, luggage, and I rose slowly and with great dignity to the top floor. Mrs. March, who manages Baron’s Chambers, was waiting for us. She is short, lively, of indeterminate age and great energy. She is enormously efficient, knows how to solve any domestic problem, and is meticulous in collecting her bills. We like and respect each other, having done business for some years. The sixth floor of Baron’s Chambers is hers. Here she has her office and apartment. The cat preceded me out of the elevator. Mrs. March propped open its door so that no one could summon it with my luggage in it, and we retired to her office.
“Let me introduce you to James,” she said as she handed me my keys.
The gray cat sat on the desk and looked me over. His eyes were golden and they glinted.
“He hasn’t been here long,” she went on as she entered information in her ledger. “He appeared at my sister’s house a month or so ago, and since Sylvia—that’s my sister—was going to Cyprus on holiday, she dumped him on me.”
An expression that could only be called hopeless resignation seemed to cross James’s face.
“In any case, I hope he will not be a nuisance. If he is, chuck him out and let me know.”
“I am delighted to meet you,” I found myself saying to James, before I thought about how silly it was to talk to a cat.
James gave me the ghost of a nod.
I thanked Mrs. March, signed what she needed signed, and started for the elevator. James followed, slipped in as I closed the doors, and sat on my suitcases as we rode down to the fourth floor. We disembarked, James and I.
My flat faces a narrow street. It has a generous sitting room with sofa, easy chairs, a table, and proper chairs for seating four people for a meal, as well as a bedroom, a small kitchen, and a bath. It is old-fashioned, with high ceilings, charming chintz curtains at the tall bay windows that look out on the street, and in the corner of the sitting room is a big television set.
I opened the door, and James strode in. While I started to unpack, he inspected the apartment. Once he was satisfied that everything was in order, he sat on the bed and watched. Soon he was bored and began to disappear. At one moment he was sitting on one of the beds. I looked away to put underwear in a drawer, and when I turned around he was gone. I looked all over the room, and then all over the flat. No James. A little at a loss, I returned to the unpacking, and when I looked again, there was James, sitting on the bed, grinning.
“You’re a wizard!” I said indulgently.
James nodded.
I finished unpacking by carrying a bottle of Laphroaig single-malt whiskey into the kitchen. I put the bottle on the counter, and was amazed to see James on the counter, wrapping himself around the bottle. His golden eyes were gleaming.
“You like Laphroaig?” I asked.
James bobbed himself up and down to indicate his enthusiastic acquiescence.
“Ice?”
James sneered.
“Water?”
James shook his head.
I poured a dollop of Laphroaig in a saucer for James, and a dollop in a tumbler with some water for me, and carried both into the sitting room. I put the saucer on the coffee table in front of the sofa. James sat on the table and took a sip. Then he sighed contentedly and gave me a grateful smile.
We drank in companionable silence. James hopped off the table and curled up beside me. I tentatively extended my hand and stroked the silver head. James began to purr. This was not an ordinary purr, but a great deep roar of contentment.
I got up, turned on the television for the news, and returned to the sofa. We watched the news alertly for a few minutes, and then both of us closed our eyes. It is easier to concentrate on the news if you are not distracted by the picture.
There was a knock at the door.
James was instantly awake. He streaked for the door and sat waiting for me to open it.
There stood Mrs. March.
“Sorry to disturb you,” she said apologetically. “Have you seen James?”
I was about to answer when I looked past her to the stairway that embraces the elevator. There, on the stairs, sat a proud, imperious cat. He was looking at Mrs. March as though she were slightly defective.
“He’s right there!”
“So he is!” Mrs. March turned and started upstairs. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“See you tomorrow, James,” I called softly. James swished his tail and stalked off.
I closed the door and went back to the sitting room, feeling a curious sense of loss. Outside, the drizzle continued. Inside, it was warm and cozy, but I felt bereft without my new friend. Even though I was in my favorite London neighborhood, with Christopher Wren’s St. James Church just up there, St. James’s Palace comfortably over there, Fortnum & Mason’s department store close at hand, fine art shops and antique dealers all around, and, up the street, Thwaite’s auction house, known since 1740, where painting, sculpture, furniture, wines, stamps, coins, and in fact anything large or small that is rare, valuable, and in demand, can be—and constantly is—auctioned, somehow all the sparkle had gone out of the day. Lingering, however, was the awareness that a most unusual personality had entered my life. This year’s trip to London would not be routine, I was sure of that.
The next morning I was slow in getting started. (I do general research and am an agent in the fine-art business. I inspect objects offered for auction and bid on them for clients, for which I earn a commission. I also do research for three or four academics who are writing learned books on various historical subjects. I am then listed in the preface of the book under “My profound thanks to …” For this I also get paid.) When I finally stood in the hall, locking my door, I heard voices downstairs, and peered down the elevator shaft. I could not make out the words at first, but at last I could hear a man’s voice.
“Take the suite for a week, dump your suitcase, and bring me down the key,” it said.
Then I heard a little shriek. “Look at that cat,” squeaked a different voice. “Go ’way!”
; I heard the elevator door open. Then it closed and the cat was wrapping himself around her legs. Suddenly the cat switched his attention from the girl to her suitcase and began to claw at the canvas bag.
The young woman began trying to hit the cat with her purse. She was frantic. “Get away!” she cried over and over again.
When the elevator reached the sixth floor, it immediately began to descend. No one had gotten out.
Slowing, pretending I was reading a catalog, I walked down the stairs that encircled the elevator shaft. Inside the cage, visible through the beveled-glass windows, was a girl on one side and a cat on the other.
I arrived near the bottom at the same time the elevator reached the ground floor.
Grabbing her bag, the girl opened the doors and leaped out.
James sat in the middle of the cage.
“What’s the matter?” asked a man who was standing in the tiny lobby.
“We’re not staying here!” said the girl. “I can’t bear that cat. We will have to find some other place to hide the stuff.”
The man made an attempt to persuade the young woman to return and rent an apartment.
James sat in the middle of the elevator and glowered.
Shortly the pair left.
“We didn’t want them here, did we?” I said to James as I shut the door to the elevator so that someone else could use it.
James was back on his table. He shook his head.
“Come by about five-thirty?” I asked as I left.
James beamed and nodded.
I had a lot to think about as I headed for the Green Park tube station. There was some evidence that the man and woman were up to no good, but how had James known? Clearly he was no ordinary cat.
That afternoon, promptly at five-thirty, there came a scratch at my door, and there was James.
I welcomed him enthusiastically, and we settled down to have a drink and watch the news.
A great sense of contentment filled me as I sat with the big silver cat on my lap. I stroked his head, he purred with delight, and time slipped by.
Then, as usual, Mrs. March came for him, and James played his game on the stairs.
This became our routine. At the end of a week and a half I felt confident enough to move our relationship a step further.
As James, pleasantly full of whiskey, sat on my lap, I said, “You understand everything I say, don’t you?”
James nodded somewhat sleepily.
“Have you ever been out of this building?”
James shook his head.
“Ever seen any other cats?”
James shook his head.
“Ever killed a mouse?”
James shuddered.
The television said, “We interrupt this program to bring you a special report from the Prime Minister.”
James shifted on my lap and, with an imperious gesture, placed a gray paw on my mouth as I began to ask another question.
He then sat up, alert and interested, to listen to Margaret Thatcher. He is a staunch conservative.
So I summed up to myself. James knew no other buildings in London, hated mice, and had never seen another cat. Perhaps he needed some education.
The very next evening we had just settled down when my telephone rang.
A friend was calling to tell me of a reception at Thwaite’s.
“James,” I said, putting my hand over the receiver, “do you want to go to a party?”
He was immediately awake. His eyes gleamed, and he nodded enthusiastically.
I called Mrs. March and asked her if I could borrow James for the evening. She was agreeable as long as he was not a nuisance, and so, when I had changed my clothes and my umbrella, James and I set out down the street for Thwaite’s. James walked close beside me and looked up and down and around the lighted street.
“James,” I said as we walked along, “there may be a problem about getting you in. I have a friend who has an invitation for me, but no one would think of inviting a cat.”
I should not have worried.
We arrived at the entrance to Thwaite’s together, and suddenly James had disappeared. I met my friend and we entered. Our invitations passed the security check, and we went up the wide staircase, past huge urns filled on this occasion with arrangements of Scotch pine branches and soft gold chrysanthemums, into the great room where important auctions were held, as well as receptions like this one.
The walls of the great room and the open area surrounding the entrance were filled with pictures, and under them were pieces of furniture waiting to be auctioned.
This reception was to promote the sale of the furniture and porcelain of the Earl of Haverstock, Henry Stepson. There was an unusual amount of interest in this sale, because Haverstock Hall had recently been the scene of a robbery, and the police, as far as anyone knew, were mystified. The house had been ransacked, and a collection of particularly valuable unset rubies and diamonds had been stolen from the safe in the library, in which Lord Henry’s secretary had been tied up and locked in a closet.
There had been a good deal of newspaper space devoted to the robbery, and even some TV time, so many people who would otherwise have ignored Lord Haverstock or Haverstock Hall were flocking to see his things.
I picked up a glass of wine from a tray and wandered around looking at paintings of dogs and horses and French furniture, and chatting with the people at Thwaite’s whom I had met in past visits.
“Look at this collection of porcelain cats,” said William Boots, an old and respected antique dealer.
Boots was looking at an elaborately ornamented sideboard on whose marble top sat a gray porcelain cat with blue eyes; a matching blue bow was tied around its porcelain neck. Right next to this cat was a large gray cat, a real one, facing the porcelain one. This gray cat had no bow, but instead wore an expression of sickening affection. Both cats were motionless. I had found James. James had found a love object.
“Come now,” I said hurriedly to Boots. “That cat’s just junk, not worth the fifty-pound estimate in the catalog. Now, that ormolu clock over there is worth looking at.”
As I moved Boots away, I hissed, “No!” in James’s direction.
When I looked back a few minutes later, James had disappeared.
I went off to dinner with friends to gossip about Lord Henry and to speculate on what prices the auction would bring.
“What about the cat?” I asked during the evening. “There is a fine Staffordshire porcelain cat in next week’s sale, and the rest of the material in this sale is reasonably good, but that cat is a piece of junk!”
“Lawrence Dobbs brought it in at the last moment,” said a Thwaite’s man. “He’s Lord Henry’s secretary, and we are including it as a favor to him, otherwise we would never handle it at all.”
It would appear that James had fallen in love with a piece of junk. Perhaps, I thought, familiarity would breed contempt.
“You wouldn’t have a picture of that cat?” I asked.
“Well, I have a picture of the sideboard, and it has the cat on it. Would that do?”
It would do nicely, and eventually I returned to Baron’s Chambers. James was pacing the hall in an agony of nervousness, waiting for me. His coat was scruffy and his expression painful. I let him into the flat and dropped the picture on the floor. James fell on it, rolled on it, lay on it, and began to purr.
“James,” I said, “I promise to get that cat for you at the auction if it doesn’t go over fifty pounds.”
James leaped onto my lap, sneering.
“All right, I’ll go to a hundred.”
He shook his head vehemently.
“A hundred fifty, but no more,” I said finally. Realizing that I had reached my limit, James agreed.
That night, James slept on the floor, on the photograph.
Someone knocked at about eleven-thirty that night, but I didn’t answer. I suspected it was Mrs. March, and she would not have approved.
Next morning early ther
e was a fateful knock. I opened the door to let James out to play his game, but he did not respond.
“He’s been here all night!” exclaimed Mrs. March. “Come along now,” she said sternly, and James meekly shuffled out of the apartment. His coat was ruffled, his head sunken, his eyes dull. Sick with love, he crept from the room. Mrs. March shooed him along.
On the floor of the living room was what was left of a photograph of a sideboard with a cat sitting on it, patted nearly to shreds.
“Don’t worry,” I called after him. “I’ll get it.”
He gave me a pathetic look and plodded upstairs.
That evening when I came home, James scratched at the door and slunk in. I gave him a glossy color photograph of the cat, which I had taken myself at Thwaite’s. He was disgusting. He lay on the floor and licked it.
“James,” I said seriously. “You must realize that this is a china cat. It is not real. It is cold and unfeeling. It will bring you no affection. It will not even fight with you. It cannot.”
James left his love and leaped onto my lap. He placed a paw firmly over my mouth. He did not want to listen to reason. What cat in love does?
I offered a sip of Laphroaig. He declined. He lay on the photograph on the floor and sighed.
“I’ll get it for you tomorrow morning.”
James curled up on the photograph and fell into the sleep of one exhausted by searing emotions.
I called Mrs. March and told her not to expect James until morning. She finally agreed it was all right.
I was at the auction room promptly at eleven the next morning. I had not seen James after he plodded out of the apartment at six-thirty, but as I sat down in the auction room I felt a furry back brush against my leg, and I knew he was there. The room was fairly full. The publicity over the robbery had done its work, and it seemed there would be a nice profit for all.
The first item to be sold was the porcelain cat. That was why I was on time.
“A fine porcelain cat,” said the auctioneer in a lifeless voice. “Been in the Haverstock family for years, and was a favorite of the late Lady Matilda Haverstock. I shall open the bidding at fifty pounds.”