A Fatal Fondness

by Richard Audry

  Even with the tempest outside, the Vidocq book was engrossing—enough so that she didn’t notice the time passing.

  Nor the stranger who had slipped into the office, unannounced. Until she looked up and saw him, standing before her in the doorway to her inner office.

  “Heavens!” she exclaimed. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  The man was clearly a laborer. He had on well-worn dungarees, a brown canvas jacket dampened with rain, and a soaked brown golf cap pulled down over his ears. A bushy dark mustache decorated his upper lip. He looked strong, sinewy—standing with his hands clasped behind his back, in the European manner.

  “You are Miss MacDougall?” he said in a thick accent.

  “Yes, how can I help you?”

  “Perhaps it is I who can help you,” he said. “What do you know of Prince Nicolae?”

  Mary’s heart began to race. Did he have information for her?

  “I know a little,” she said, rising from her chair. “And what, may I ask, is your name?”

  “My name does not matter,” the man said in a flat, quiet tone. He stood motionless.

  A warning bell went off in Mary’s head. The fellow didn’t act like he was there for a nice chat. And it was distressingly clear that—friend or foe—he had her boxed in.

  “Do you think the prince is still alive?” he asked.

  Mary didn’t reply. Outside, more thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. There was a steady, heavy splatter of rain on the window—the perfect setting for a deadly encounter.

  The man seemed to interpret her silence as a yes. “So you do think he is alive. Who else have you told?”

  Mary hadn’t, in fact, had a chance yet to tell anyone about her encounter with Nicolae. “No one. I’ve told no one.” Wondering if that was the best thing to say, she gave a nervous laugh. “Who would believe it anyway?”

  Where were Jeanette and Detective Sauer, she thought anxiously. They ought to be here by now.

  “I am glad to hear it, Miss MacDougall. And I am sure you can understand that it is in Ostovia’s best interest that no one else believes the prince is alive.”

  Mary suddenly remembered the angry look on Father Petrescu’s face when she revealed her knowledge of the dead boy’s actual identity. Had he sent this man? Had he decided that Mary needed to be silenced—one way or another? Worse yet, was the man here on Mrs. Petrescu’s orders?

  As the awful peril of her situation sank in, Mary felt an odd emotion. Not fear. Not regret. But rage.

  “Ostovia’s best interest?” she snarled. “How dare you come to this country, this city, and act like barbarians. You’ve no right to kill anyone in Duluth—prince or orphan boy. Do you actually think the police will let you get away with threatening John MacDougall’s daughter? They’ll hunt you down like a dog.” She stopped to catch her breath. She was so angry she was shaking. “Now get out of my office! Right now!”

  The man looked surprised—and mildly amused—by her outburst. “Miss MacDougall, if we can elude Vladislav’s assassins for this many months, I think we can elude the police of this backwater town. The unsolved murder of a socially prominent young lady? So sad.”

  With an apologetic shrug, he brought both hands from behind his back. That’s when Mary saw the blade of an automatic knife click open. He held the weapon in his right hand, in an easy, practiced grip. “Do not worry, there will be no pain,” he said, stepping to his left around the desk. “I will make it quick.”

  Mary shuffled in the other direction, mashing down the panic. She had no weapon. Only Fujian White Crane technique. Parry the knife attack, as Mrs. Chin taught her. Then, a disabling blow. Nose. Adam’s apple. Groin.

  She rolled her chair in front of her, as a makeshift barrier between her and the assailant—drawing him around the desk, so she could get into the outer office and flee.

  He actually laughed. “So you mean to stop me with a chair? You are a brave girl, but I am afraid you must die.”

  The man still had a slight smirk on his face when, out of nowhere, Jeanette’s Remington typewriter came flying through the air, slamming into the back of his head. As it hit with a meaty thunk, a loud diiing nonsensically echoed through the office.

  The would-be ripper crumpled to the floor, dazed and groaning, as the typewriter landed with a crash.

  Around the corner of the doorframe, like some improbable guardian angel, Mr. Quentin Pettyjohn peered at the man, then at Mary, his eyes and mouth wide open.

  “Miss MacDougall! Are you all right?”

  Mary scampered around her desk, plucked up the knife, and then stepped over the supine assassin, who was still moaning piteously.

  “Quick, Mr. Pettyjohn,” she panted, grabbing his arm, “we’ve got to get out of here and get help.”

  They rushed into the hallway, heading to the clock repair shop next door. Mary found the door locked, then pounded on it. No one answered, so they headed to the dental office toward the back.

  “Look there! He’s getting away,” Mr. Pettyjohn shouted.

  Mary twirled around and saw her would-be killer stagger toward the stairs at the front of the building, rubbing his head and muttering darkly in Romanian. Mr. Pettyjohn started after him.

  “No, let him go. It’s too dangerous.“

  They went back into Mary’s office and she locked the door, in case the villain returned. As she flicked the knife blade shut, Mr. Pettyjohn went into her inner office and retrieved the mangled typewriter. He placed it gently back on Jeanette’s desk. “I’m afraid it’ll need some repairs.” Then he suddenly went all white and swayed a bit on his feet. “Goodness, I do believe I might faint.”

  Mary rushed over to him and eased him into one of Jeanette’s client chairs. Then she darted into her office and tossed the knife in a drawer. If Jeanette should see the nasty little thing, she’d want to know how Mary came to have such a weapon.

  Coming back out of her office, she saw that her rescuer seemed to be reviving, the color coming back into his cheeks.

  “Oh, Mr. Pettyjohn,” she said, perching in front of him on the corner of Jeanette’s desk, “you’ve been through so much and I must apologize. But I have to ask you for a very, very big favor.”

  “Of course,” he nodded, straightening up in the chair.

  “Please keep secret what you saw here and what you just did. It will be not only to my advantage, but to yours. Do I have your word?”

  “But the police should know. That man was threatening you. With a knife!”

  “Please, Mr. Pettyjohn, promise me you won’t tell a soul.”

  He looked quite baffled. “I don’t understand, but I promise.”

  Mary impulsively leaned over and gave him a quick hug.

  “Thank you, Mr. Pettyjohn. You saved my life.”

  Only a few seconds after she released the startled bookkeeper, she heard a key unlocking the hallway door. She turned to see Jeanette step in, looking quite surprised.

  “Mary,” she exclaimed. “Mr. Pettyjohn. What are you two doing? Why did you have the door locked?” Her eyes shifted to her desk and a look of horror came over her face. “And what in the world happened to my Remington?”

  Chapter XXVI

  Jeanette almost cried when she saw the condition of her fine new typewriter—sitting forlornly askew on her desk, with the platen knob and carriage return lever both bent out of shape, and the metal frame by the keyboard noticeably warped. She went over and petted it, almost as if it were a living thing. She turned back to Mary and Mr. Pettyjohn.

  “Who did this?” she demanded.

  Mr. Pettyjohn stared at her, looking a little shell-shocked. Mary, for her part, seemed suspiciously, well, perky.

  “It all happened so quickly,” she said, “it’s hard to explain.”

  “Well, try,” Jeanette growled.

  “I can tell you,” Mr. Pettyjohn piped up, suddenly coming to life. “I came, of course, at Miss MacDougall’s request and—“

 
“No, Mr. Pettyjohn, let me tell the tale,” Mary interrupted, shooting the man a meaningful look. “You see, Jeanette, I took your advice and had myself a nice long walk after you and the detective left. By the way, how did the Timmons affair go? I’m just dying to know.”

  Something smelled pretty fishy and Jeanette was not about to let Mary change the subject. “There’s time for that later. Tell me about my Remington.”

  Mary sighed. “Well, I was killing time reading the Vidocq memoir I told you about. Waiting, you know, for someone to show up. You, Mr. Pettyjohn, anyone. At all events, I was reading my book. Gripping stuff, I can tell you. I was quite lost in it. And suddenly I heard men’s voices in the front office. I jumped up and ran out here. And what should I see but Mr. Pettyjohn threatening a shady-looking fellow with his umbrella. The sneak thief had hold of your Remington. Aimed to filch it, evidently. And he would have, if our friend here hadn’t come along.”

  Jeanette noted that Mr. Pettyjohn seemed as riveted by this account of his heroism as she was. He started to say something but Mary hushed him.

  “I don’t doubt that Mr. Pettyjohn would have whacked the fellow a good one, but the culprit kept backing away, toward my office door. Unfortunately for him, he was holding onto the machine with both arms—the thing’s heavy, after all—and he couldn’t really defend himself. He kept cursing Mr. Pettyjohn in the most offensive way, until he finally knew he was cornered. He dumped the Remington on the floor. You can see the mark right over there.”

  Mary pointed at the floor just outside her door. And indeed, there was a noticeable gouge in the wood. Just to Jeanette’s right lay a rolled-up umbrella, still soaked with rain, with a heavy, burly wooden handle. Mr. Pettyjohn’s, no doubt.

  “He bolted right by Mr. Pettyjohn, but not without getting a good whack to the backside. Right, Mr. Pettyjohn?”

  Smiling nervously, the cat-napper nodded. Jeanette had a sneaking suspicion all was not as it seemed. “You’ve called the police then?”

  Mary shook her head. “No, I’d rather not. I don’t want to be any more of a nuisance to them than I already am. No one was hurt, other than the Remington.” She turned to their guest. “You’re all right, aren’t you, Mr. Pettyjohn?”

  “Oh, yes indeed,” he said nervously. “Fit as a fiddle.”

  More suspicious yet, thought Jeanette. But she was in no mood to joust with Mary. “It doesn’t look repairable,” she said, shaking her head. “How am I supposed to get any work done without it?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get you a new one,” Mary reassured her. “Now, though, we need to clear the air with Mr. Pettyjohn about his, umm, little guests.”

  Jeanette suddenly remembered what had been at the top of her mind, just before she’d walked into the office. “I have a cabbie waiting downstairs. I thought there might be a chance you had talked to Mr. Pettyjohn already, and we could head home without needing to take the streetcar in the rain.”

  Mary turned to Mr. Pettyjohn. “Why don’t we all take the cab home and we’ll talk along the way. We can drop you off on Wallace Avenue.”

  Five minutes later they were trundling east on Second Street, crowded three abreast in the cab—the rain plopping loudly away on the cover above them.

  “I have an idea why you took Pixie and Princess and Romeo,” Mary said, from the center seat. “But I’d like to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

  The bookkeeper frowned and looked up at the carriage cover. “Oh, dear. How to explain to someone who may not understand a matter of faith.”

  Mary narrowed her eyes. “Please do your best.”

  He took a deep breath. “I have been a student of ancient Egypt since I was a young man. I read books voraciously. As you’ve seen, I collect Egyptian art and artifacts. And I have been a cat lover all my life. What I’m about to tell you may sound peculiar, I suppose. But it’s the truth. Well, at least the truth as I experienced it.”

  “We’re all ears,” Mary said. “Aren’t we, Jeanette?”

  “Indeed,” Jeanette said. “All ears.” After the day she’d had, she didn’t think anything could sound peculiar.

  “Last year I was suffering from terrible insomnia,” Mr. Pettyjohn said. “Barely caught a wink for weeks on end. Don’t know what the problem was. One night I finally fell into a deep slumber. I was transported to a temple in a lush, beautiful desert oasis. Possibly outside Thebes, around the reign of Senuseret the First is my best guess. And there I met Bastet.”

  Well, I was wrong about “peculiar,” thought Jeanette. Delusional was more like it.

  “The cat goddess,” said Mary.

  Mr. Pettyjohn’s face was practically glowing with the recollection. “Actually, the goddess of cats and many other things. I cannot begin to tell you how lovely she was. She spoke to me, telling me that she required a priest to worship her—so many having fallen away over the centuries. That I was to build her a temple and, when the time was right, collect felines that embodied her.”

  Pure lunacy, thought Jeanette. What the poor man needed was an alienist.

  “So you erected your temple in a spare bedroom and abducted your trusting friends’ little kitties,” Mary summed up.

  Her accusation caused him to squirm. “But I only chose the cats in whom I could perceive the goddess. They deserve more than tins of tuna fish and scratches behind the ears. They deserve to be worshipped.”

  “Well,” Mary said firmly, “the three that aren’t yours are all going home, back to their rightful owners. Tomorrow, if possible.”

  He cringed, looking equally contrite and miserable. “But Mrs. Fesler and the others will be rather angry, I should think. They would be well within their rights to report me to the police.”

  “That they would,” Mary agreed. “And more likely than not, Bastet will not rescue you. I suggest that we first tell Mrs. Fesler who the culprit is.”

  Mr. Pettyjohn groaned. “Must you? Couldn’t we just return the cats anonymously?”

  “No, Mrs. Fesler is my client and I represent her interests. I expect you to be at home tomorrow at noon. Mrs. Harrison and I will collect the animals and deliver them to Mrs. Fesler. Then it’s up to her and the others to decide your fate. Now do you promise to make no fuss? Abide by their decision?”

  Looking thoroughly remorseful, he nodded.

  “I’ll try to persuade Mrs. Fesler to forgive and forget. But you have to promise me you’ll never do such an irresponsible thing ever again.”

  Mr. Pettyjohn held up his right hand, like a witness taking the oath. “I swear, on the sacred heart of Bastet herself.”

  As soon as the chastened gentleman stepped out of the cab, dashing up his sidewalk in the rain, Mary turned to Jeanette.

  “Now tell me everything that happened with Ranko Kovac.”

  Jeanette did just that. It gratified her when Mary winced, upon hearing that Detective Sauer may have sustained a broken rib or two, and a bloody nose. The girl actually seemed fond of him and concerned about any injury. No doubt about it, Robert Sauer was a fine fellow. Jeanette looked forward to working with him again soon.

  “Sounds like you two did a splendid job for the Timmonses,” Mary said, as they pulled up the MacDougall driveway. “Another scoundrel off the street and an innocent young lady saved from a dreadful misadventure.”

  Jeanette gave her a sideways glance. “Yes, apparently two young ladies dodged the bullet today. But I think, in your case, there’s more to the story than you’re letting on.”

  Mary gave her a sweet, guileless smile. “I wonder, Jeanette, when this damnable rain will stop. I’m starting to feel like a duck in a downpour.” And she hopped out of the cab and darted inside.

  * * *

  “Quentin Pettyjohn took our cats?”

  Mrs. Fesler stood there in her parlor early the next afternoon, pondering Mary’s amazing revelation. It was beautiful and sunny outside, a nice change from Thursday’s damp and cold.

  “Really? Mr. Pettyjohn? I can’t imagine
him having the gumption to do such a thing.”

  As the conversation ensued, Pixie and Romeo were having a fine old time exploring Mrs. Fesler’s parlor. Princess seemed glad to be home, hovering close to her mistress’s ankles. Meanwhile, one of the woman’s other resident felines, Blackie, had perched himself on the back of the sofa, observing the proceedings with some interest.

  “Well, he said he didn’t do it on his own,” Mary said. “He acted on orders from a higher authority.”

  “Higher authority?”

  Jeanette almost laughed at Mrs. Fesler’s befuddlement. The whole motive for the cat-napping affair seemed positively preposterous.

  “Mr. Pettyjohn has an affinity for all things Egyptian,” Mary explained, “including its ancient religion. In fact, he is a worshipper of the old cat goddess Bastet.”

  Mrs. Fesler frowned. “And I thought he was a Methodist.”

  “So when the goddess and he had a little rendezvous off in dreamland,” Mary continued, “she commanded him to gather up felines that manifested her own divinity, so to speak. He saw that sacred spark in Princess, Pixie, and Romeo, in addition to his own cat.”

  “But, but…” Mrs. Fesler said, struggling to take it in. “That’s just silly.”

  “No argument here,” Mary agreed.

  “I think the world of Princess, but she’s no goddess, I can tell you. Sometimes a very naughty little girl.” Mrs. Fesler bent over and scratched Princess behind the ears, provoking a low, vibrating purrrr. “If you ask me, poor Mr. Pettyjohn needs a stint with a brain doctor. Deities don’t go around Duluth willy-nilly, you know, commanding people to kidnap other people’s cats.”

  “I should hope not,” Mary said. “But in spite of everything, please consider forgiving him. Mr. Pettyjohn is at your mercy. He swore on the sacred heart of Bastet herself that he’d never do anything like this again. He knows he’s made a terrible mess of things and regrets it deeply.”