The World's Finest Mystery Part 29

"Oh yeah," I said. "Thing is, they're not really used to company."

"No?"

"Not really. I tend to ignore them, myself."

"Okay! Look, do you think you could get them, sort of, all together in one place? You know, so I can do the old clickety-click?"

"Well," I said. "It's like you said yourself: They're pretty wild cats."

"Maybe if you fed them?"

"Brilliant!" I said. "That's a brilliant idea. Um... you got any mice or anything?"

The photographer laughed- rather meaninglessly, I thought. "Might be easier if you just, you know, opened a can or something."

"Oh yeah," I said. "Good thinking." So I opened a few cans, emptied the contents into a plastic washing-up bowl, and put the bowl on the kitchen floor. Sure enough, the cats came running.

"That is amazing," said Carl.

"Must've been hungry," I said.

"Yeah, but- chili con carne? I never knew cats ate chili con carne."

"Oh yeah," I explained. "Your cat, you see, your average cat is a big meat-eater."

He laughed again and started setting up his lights. "Well, they obviously love it. And I can see you love your cats, too. That tinned chili costs a lot more than cat food."

Cat food, I thought. d.a.m.n.

An hour later, he'd gone ("Listen, if you ever decide you've got too many cats," he said on the doorstep, "my little girl..." -"Don't worry," I said, "you'll be the first to hear") and it was over. Just call me Mr. Resourceful.

It wasn't over.

Once the photographer's car had disappeared around the corner, I loaded up the old sack again, and set off once more for the allotments. I whistled as I walked, light of heart though heavily burdened.

I didn't meet anyone on my short journey, except a comedian in a milkman's tunic, who told me: "You want to change your butcher, pal. That meat's wriggling."

Back amongst the beans and squashes, I shook out the sack, and out tumbled the cats. They sat there on the ground, looking at me, but they didn't look for long. They couldn't, because I wasn't there for long.

Late that night, a crashing sound woke me. By the time I got downstairs, there were three cats sitting in my hallway, making cat noises. Even as I stood there, another two appeared through a small, flapped hole in the door (which I'd previously supposed was there for the benefit of short-sighted postmen).

I hastily gathered up a couple of cats and opened the door. That was a mistake. The cats in my arms screeched, scratched, and then leapt back into the house. A cat which had been in the process of using the hole when I opened the door, and which was now swinging there like a magician's a.s.sistant interrupted in the middle of a sawing-the-lady-in-half trick, just screeched. And all the cats outside, who had been queuing patiently for the hole, dashed past me with the odd chirrup of appreciation at my good manners.

Right, I thought. Deep breaths. Go about this logically.

I found a bit of stiff cardboard and sellotaped it over the hole. I retrieved my trusty sack and carried it up to my bedroom. There I found three cats: one under the bed, one already asleep inside the bed, and another squatting vulgarly on top of the wardrobe. Not without some difficulty, and a few minor wounds, I achieved their ensackment.

Then I left the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind me, and emptied the captured cats out onto the street. There was no way I was visiting the allotments at this time of night, dressed only in boxer shorts and a pair of mock-leather slippers.

I repeated this operation in each room, methodically, and then, exhausted and slightly bleeding, went back to my bedroom.

Which now contained four cats.

It was a hot night, and I'd left most of the windows in the house open. Not open enough for burglars, but evidently open enough for cats.

I started over.

I have a vague memory of myself, at some stage in that eternal furry night, standing in the hall with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a box of Elastoplast in the other, singing, "Close the doors, they're coming in the windows! Close the windows, they're coming in the doors!"

I don't know if you've ever been in one of those situations where you're trying to shove a number of small jellies up a wide drain-pipe? I know I haven't. I don't suppose anybody ever has, actually, but if by some extraordinarily unlikely chance you know what I'm talking about, then you'll know exactly how I felt.

Late morning, crusty on the sofa, I awoke to discover I still had the vodka, I still had the sticking plaster, and I still had a house full of cats. Twelve of the little b.u.g.g.e.rs.

Obviously, clearing them out one by one, or even sack by sack, wasn't going to do it. They'd probably just hang around the front door, and I'd never be able to go outside again for fear of inviting reinfestation. No; what I needed here was a permanent solution.

So I called my Aunty Cissie.

Aunty Cissie is eighty-seven, and to my certain knowledge she's been dead three years. I should know: I was at her funeral.

"Jim, my dear! You good boy, you've just rung up to see how I am."

"Now then, Aunty. You know I only ring when I want something." Incapable of hearing harsh truth without disbelieving it, my Aunty Cissie; podgy, breathless, sagging, permanently on the homeward leg of a return trip to doolallyland. Or do I mean a jolly, rotund, chuckle-faced, happy-go-lucky senior citizen? No, I don't.

"Do you know, I haven't seen you for three years?" she said, as delightedly as she said everything. "Not since your Great-Uncle Norman's funeral."

"Oh, right," I said. Now I come to think of it, it might not have been her funeral. Might have been somebody else's. I don't remember; I didn't stay long. "So you're still alive, then?"

She chuckled. "Just about, dear. You are sweet. I know how you worry about me."

"Mmm-mmm," I said. I don't like to commit myself too strongly over the phone; you never know who's listening. "Look, Aunty. You know about cats. You ever heard of cats... adopting people?"

"Oh yes, they'll do that, dear. If their old owners have got a new baby, or a new kitten, or a new computer game. Cats demand attention, and they won't tolerate rivals. Or if they've been mistreated, or living rough, or they're not getting the kind of food they like. I had a cat once that wouldn't eat anything but Chinese stir-fried mushrooms."

"How about twelve at once? Ma.s.s defection- you ever hear of a case like that?"

"Oh, dear! Is that what you've got? Twelve of the little b.u.g.g.e.rs! Well, I'm not surprised. You always were a gentle boy. They must all be in love with you!"

Just my luck, I thought. In a world full of seventeen-year-old nymphos...

"Still," said Aunty Cissie. "They're company, aren't they? And we all need company, don't we, now and then?"

Oh, G.o.d...

"Which reminds me, dear. When are you coming to see me? How about next week?"

"No, sorry, I'm pretty busy next week. And the week after. But you're right, we must make a definite date. Tell you what, I'll come round one day next year."

"Oh, that is kind of you, dear. I shall count the hours! Oh, but Jim?" she added as I began the long process of hanging up. "Don't make it a Thursday."

"Not a Thursday, Aunty. Right you are."

"No, dear. You see, Thursday's my night for going to the lavatory."

So, there you are. Cat psychology is pretty simple really, once you know what you're doing. And what I did was this: I didn't feed them, and I removed the cardboard from the hole. And after twenty-four hours of involuntary hunger-striking, they forgot the taste of chili con carne, began to wonder what they were doing here, and one by one slipped off back to the allotments- having first peed on every available surface and in every imaginable crevice. I could have rented out the house as a rehabilitation centre for the nasally-disadvantaged.

Anyway, it was over.

Until Jenni rang again.

"Jim- the pics are totally fabulous! What we thought was, we'd like to blow one of your cats up."

"Blow them all up if you like," I said, pleased to hear so sensible a suggestion from so unexpected a source.

"For the cover," she said. "That gingery one with the kinky tail- you know which one I mean?"

Was there a gingery one? "Oh yeah," I said.

"Great! So, like, what do you call her?"

"Stinking rat," I said.

"Stinking what?"

"Er- no, no. Not stinking. Slinking. Slinking Cat."

"Oh, that's sweet."

"Slinky for short."

"Oh, that is so sweet!"

"Oh yeah," I said. "Well, she's a sweet cat. Glad you like her."

"Love her," said Jenni. "In fact, what we were thinking was, you know, why don't we send Carl over again, get him to do some more pics? Just of Slinky, you know, make a bit of a feature of her."

"Great," I said. "Some more pics. Great idea."

"Well, you know, we're talking about maybe even a calendar. You know, like a spin-off. She's really a special little puss. My publisher's own personal idea, actually. First one he's had for ages! Whoops, no, he's, you know, smashing, actually. Anyway, if it works out, we could actually pay you some, you know, truly decent money for once. I mean, the publisher's just given me this cheque with, like, a signature at the bottom and nothing else! So, what do you think, Jim?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "Totally fabulous."

A flashlight. A writer on the edge of madness. The allotments by night.

"Slinky... Slinky... C'mere, Slinky..."

What the h.e.l.l was I calling her Slinky for, for G.o.d's sake?

Yup, that was Slinky all right. Sitting on my bed, eating chili con carne from a plastic washing-up bowl. I could tell by comparing her with the big photo Jenni had faxed me. Good old Slinky, my sweet little, special little golden goose.

There was a knock on the door.

The man now standing in my hall was angry. He was also fiftyish, well-dressed, greyly bald, and the same boney bloke who'd doubted my tortoises on the allotments the other day. But mostly he was angry.

"It's my cat, Mr. Potter. You have stolen my cat, and I demand its return. Without any further argument. Understand?"

"Must be some mistake, Dr. Lane. My little Slinky and me, we-"

"Look! I saw you take the d.a.m.n cat. From the allotments. I was down there looking for her- because she was missing, right? And I saw you take her, and I followed you home. Now hand her over, please."

"Ah," I said. "I think I can solve this misunderstanding." I dragged a crumpled twenty-pound note from my back pocket. "I'll keep Slinky, my beloved pet of long-standing, and you take this and get another cat."

"Twenty pounds?" he yelled.

"Hey, if you're proud, I can respect that. We'll go halves. A tenner each."

Sounded fair to me, but what I hadn't counted on was that the phrase get another cat turned out to mean "Why don't you stick this in your ear and twist it?" in Dr. Lane-language. Must have done, I reckoned, because Lane was really horrified.

"Get another cat?" he gasped.

I don't know if you've ever been to one of those weddings where everybody keeps throwing up on the bride's mother? But if you have, then picture in your mind the expression the bride's mother was wearing by the end of a long day, and you'll know just how much disgust one face can be made to contain.

"You obviously know nothing of cats, Mr. Potter, or you would realise that when one loses one's cat one doesn't just go out and buy another one."

"Sure," I said. "I can understand that. I'll tell you what, how about a dozen cats? Hey, think about it: If dry-cleaners took compensation that seriously, they'd all go out of business, right?"

He looked at me as if I'd just escaped the noose on an insanity plea, and marched out of the house, down the street, without another word.

"Seriously, Dr. Lane," I called after him. "I'm not kidding! I know where I can lay my hands on more cats than a faith-healer in a violin factory!"

So, okay: When I got home from the pub two days later to find one of my ground-floor windows broken open, and the house doing a neat imitation of a Slinky-Free Zone, it wasn't exactly a three-pipe puzzle.

But, honestly. All that fuss over a cat? After all, Lane didn't know how much Slinky was worth.