“Dear me, yes.” Madame Despau-Davy nodded. “That would be an excellent idea. Much better than letting this young scoundrel go wandering about uncaged.”
All at once, a wintry smile broke through the wrinkles. “At least, I shall be able to clear my Selim’s name. Now those ridiculous policemen can hear the truth, that he died a hero’s death, trying to protect our dear friend Rosie. If only he had jumped sooner!”
She eyed the young criminal so ferociously that he made a sudden desperate leap, wrenched free of Alex’s grasp, and plunged toward the door.
“Stop him!” screamed Corin.
“Sheba! Sheeta! Betty Lou! Houp!”
Instantly, at the old animal trainer’s command, Jack Banks was surrounded by a ring of leaping, whirling ocelots. He spun around, bewildered, searching in vain for a way out of his living prison.
“Stand still or they’ll tear you to pieces,” shrilled his landlady. Her sequinned sleeves flashed in command. The fire of youth burned in her eyes. At that moment, Daring Dina Despau was back in the ring, giving the performance of a lifetime.
“Good work, pusses!” Her voice rang clear and strong. “Keep it up. Houp!”
Not for a second did the big cats slow their action until a prowl car drew up in front of the house and two policemen stood open-mouthed in the doorway.
“All right, sweeties, that’s enough.” She turned to Corin and Alex. “Would you mind?”
“We’d be delighted.”
The policemen looked on, scratching their heads, while the girl and the painter applauded the four panting ocelots until their palms smarted and their arms ached.
The remarkable old woman bestowed impartial caresses on her ferocious-looking pets. “Of course they wouldn’t hurt a baby, really,” she remarked casually. “Would you, angels?”
Betty Lou snatched one of Corin’s bedraggled white gloves in her fangs and ran off with it down the hall. The others raced after her, scuffling like gigantic kittens.
“Can you beat that?” gasped one of the policemen. “It looks to me as though the force ought to stop fooling around with that K-9 Corps and get some police cats. Come on, handsome. Let’s see how cute you look in these nice, shiny handcuffs.”
Chapter 20
“He seemed such a nice boy,” said Madame Despau-Davy for something like the forty-seventh time. She shook her elaborately frizzed head until her rhinestone earrings waved like tiny, glittering banners. “But as I told you, my dears, I don’t understand people.”
“Who could figure out an oddball like Jack?” consoled Alex. “I still can’t. A kid like him, with everything handed to him on a silver platter, turning crook just to get more.”
“And it was all stuff that didn’t even make sense,” said Corin. “Expensive food that didn’t taste good, clothes he never wore, cameras and tape recorders he didn’t know how to use.”
“Reminds me of a chimp we had in the show one year,” said Leo. “Remember, Dina, the one that used to go on with old Rollo the clown, pushing a little baby-doll carriage? Always tried to copy everything the humans did. If he saw you enjoying something, he’d wait his chance and swipe it from you. Then once he got it, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. We had to send him to a zoo, finally. He was a cute thing, but you couldn’t trust him an inch.”
“Exactly like Jack Banks,” nodded the girl. “More coffee, anybody?”
By that time, it was almost morning. Will McDermott had finally dragged himself off to bed, exhausted from all his night watches. The rest were still lingering around the kitchen table, nibbling on the last of Corin’s ginger cookies. They had all helped the police ransack the house for Jack’s loot; and they had turned up not only the diamond bracelet and the opal brooch, but two brand-new rings from which Jack had forgotten to remove the tags showing the name of the store where he had stolen them.
The ruby necklace had gone. However, the police had identified it from Corin’s description as one that had been daringly snatched from around a woman’s neck as she dined in a fashionable restaurant.
“No wonder he was always going to those fancy places,” Corin remarked. “It was good for business. Oh, my gosh, I wonder if he ever stole anything when I was with him?”
“If he didn’t, he probably would have, sooner or later.” Alex shrugged. “You made a perfect cover for him. Anybody seeing a good-looking, well-dressed guy out with a girl like you would never suspect him of having anything but you on his mind.”
“When I think of how I let him use me like that, I could just boil!” The girl slammed down the pink coffee cup that had once been Rosie Garside’s. “He’d have married me if he could, but he didn’t care one bit about me. Remember how glad he acted when he found out I was going to share your studio, and how surprised you were that he didn’t seem to care? I suppose he was delighted because he thought it would keep me out of the kitchen.”
“And all those hot dogs and hamburgers he used to buy for the pusses,” sighed Madame Despau-Davy. “I realize now that there was deception in every bun. Well, my dear, Jack Banks certainly fooled us all. But I’ll tell you one thing. I may not understand people; but I’m not too blind to see who really does care for you.”
“Me neither.” Leo’s one good eye twinkled benignly. “Somethin’ tells me you won’t be keepin’ your favorite boarder much longer, Dina.”
“That’s the way of the world,” said the old animal trainer. “The pusses and I will miss you, my dear. You, too, Alex; though not so much, of course.”
“I’ll miss you, Al,” said his loyal buddy, the ex-elephant boy.
“Thanks, pal,” the tall artist laughed, turning rather red. “But we’re not going anywhere for a while yet. I’ve got to paint us the price of an apartment and some furniture first.”
Corin cleared her throat diffidently. “Er—I don’t suppose that some day,” she blushed. “I mean, after we sort of get used to the idea, well, do you think maybe Leo might consider moving up to Alex’s room? Then we—Alex and I—” she blushed even deeper, “we could turn Leo’s room and the kitchen into a basement apartment. We’d love to go on living here. I’d even feed the cats for you, Madame Despau-Davy.”
“What a stupendously colossal idea,” cried the former circus queen. “I can’t think of anything more delightful. Don’t you agree, Leo?”
“Depends on what other folks think,” said the old man gruffly. “I don’t want to go around scarin’ off all your boarders with this Hallowe’en mask o’ mine. I don’t say I wouldn’t enjoy a change, if nobody minds me bein’ around.”
“Will would love to have you,” said Corin. “You and he have got to be great pals standing guard over that opal brooch. And Steve wouldn’t even know you were there. He never pays any attention to anything that can be seen with the naked eye.”
“And if you want to impress the girls, we can always go up to Daddy and Jack’s and buy you a real mask, one of those rubber jobs that makes you look like Rock Hudson,” laughed Alex.
“After what has happened in this house, I don’t believe any of us will care to be deceived by a handsome face,” said Madame Despau-Davy. “As I have tried many times to tell you, Leo, and as this dear girl has so charmingly proved, my boarders will accept and admire you for what you are, not for what you look like.”
She turned to Corin and Alex. “Yes, my dears, you may have the basement rooms for as long as you care to stay in them. And when you move to a home of your own, as you will some day, Leo and I will sit here and be happy with our memories. Now that our dear friend Rosie’s ghost has been laid to rest, we shall feel free to enjoy her kitchen again. I am so grateful to you, my dear, for not running away. I knew that if someone only had the courage to stay here and face her, she would lead us to the truth.”
“But—” Corin started to protest, then stopped.
What if the Fat Lady’s ghost had been only Jack Banks dressed up in two pillows and a bedsheet? Hadn’t it led them at last to the solution of the myster
y that haunted the kitchen?
Corin looked around at the friends she had found in the Fat Lady’s house: Madame Despau-Davy, now presiding like a contented dowager queen over her cozy little realm; Leo, who had emerged from his dark hiding place to bask in the warmth of friendship and appreciation; Alex, who had come to realize his great talent and to share with her the greatest gift of all, loving, and being loved in return.
Had Rosie Garside helped in some way to bring about their happiness? Did some of the Fat Lady’s goodness still linger in this room, even though she and her old friend the black leopard had died for the whims of a selfish boy? Perhaps, even now, her gentle influence could reach those who had eyes to see and hearts to feel.
The young woman’s face, under its crown of flame-colored hair, was never more beautiful as she raised her pink coffee cup in final salute.
“To Rosie Garside, the friend I never knew and shall never forget.”
About the Author
Charlotte MacLeod (1922–2005) was an international-bestselling author of cozy mysteries. Born in Canada, she moved to Boston as a child, and lived in New England most of her life. After graduating from college, she made a career in advertising, writing copy for the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company before moving on to Boston firm N. H. Miller & Co., where she rose to the rank of vice president. In her spare time, MacLeod wrote short stories, and in 1964 published her first novel, a children’s book called Mystery of the White Knight.
In Rest You Merry (1978), MacLeod introduced Professor Peter Shandy, a horticulturist and amateur sleuth whose adventures she would chronicle for two decades. The Family Vault (1979) marked the first appearance of her other best-known characters: the husband and wife sleuthing team Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn, whom she followed until her last novel, The Balloon Man, in 1998.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1968 by the Estate of Charlotte MacLeod
Cover design by Amanda Shaffer
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5821-6
This 2019 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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CHARLOTTE MACLEOD
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