23-The Tenth Life

by Lockridge, Richard

  “Here’s Bella,” Mrs, Cummins said, and stopped in front of one of the pens.

  Lady Bella had been resting in her bed, but apparently not asleep. When Mrs. Cummins said her call name, the little cat got out of bed and came to the front of the pen. She said something which sounded like “Mow-ow?” in a not loud, but inquiring voice. Mrs. Cummins said, “Pretty girl,” and spoke in a softer voice than Heimrich had heard her use before.

  Her small ladyship did, as Mrs. Cummins had assured them she would, look like a seal-point Siamese cat—looked like the cats in the pens on either side of hers. She was slender, and rather long for her size; her crisply pointed ears were dark brown, as was part of her face. Tracings of brown ran from her mask to the ears. Her brown tail was longer than one would have expected and rather like a whip. Her body was a pale cream color, except for brown leggings on all four legs.

  Her eyes, slitted against the light, were vividly blue.

  “So there you are,” said Mrs. Cummins. “You can tell Miss Arnold she’s all right, can’t you? Imagine her being so worried!”

  “She’s a very pretty cat,” Heimrich said. “Lady Bella, that is. Yes, Miss Arnold will be relieved.”

  Relieved that he had seen a dainty young Siamese female who had been identified to him as Lady Bella, and who had, for what it was worth, answered to her call name. And who, as she had turned her back to them and walked toward her bed, had proven herself female. So—Lady Bella was home safe and evidently enjoying being there. How she got there was, of course, another matter. Been brought home, in a carrying box with another cat, as her owner said? Or had somehow got out of another case in a damaged car and trotted the quarter of a mile to the cattery? And, at the door, spoken to be let in?

  Probably, of course, the former. Cat boxes are not designed to be opened from inside by their occupants.

  “She’s very good,” Mrs. Cummins said. “More than just pretty, Inspector. We’re going to win us a lot of ribbons, aren’t we, Bella?”

  Lady Bella did not respond to this, probably thinking it too obvious to need rejoinder.

  “So there you are,” Mrs. Cummins said again. “Is there something else you want, Inspector?”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “I don’t think so, do you, Charley?”

  Charley Forniss said, “Mmm,” not knowing which way the cat—or the inspector—was going to jump.

  “While we’re here,” Heimrich said, “I’d rather like to see this famous cat of yours, Mrs. Cummins. This best cat of last year. Prince Tau Ling, isn’t it?”

  “Ling Tau,” Mrs. Cummins said. “All right. But he’ll just look like another Siamese cat to you, probably. Only judges would know the difference. And us breeders, of course. Come along, then.”

  She walked down the room. At the end of it were two much larger pens, side by side. Each of these had a contraption at the wall which Heimrich recognized as a cat door. They were like the one Mite had at home and used when he chose, although he much preferred to have people open doors for him. Cats expect service from their captive humans.

  Only one of the big pens was occupied. It was also hung with ribbons, which were topped by a rosette of ribbon. There were a dozen such ribbons, most of them blue, but one golden.

  The cat whose dwelling was thus adorned looked, from in front, very much like Lady Bella. But he was much larger. He was, Heimrich thought and said, a very handsome cat.

  “That’s putting it mildly, isn’t it, Princy?” Mrs. Cummins said.

  Prince Ling Tau, who had come to the front of his residence to inspect visitors, made no comment. He looked up at Heimrich through slitted and very blue eyes, set slanting in his head. An Oriental slant, most evident with the pupils narrowed. And evident, too, was the fact that Prince Ling Tau was, although only slightly, cross-eyed.

  Hence, if Carol Arnold was to be believed, which Heimrich had no special reason to doubt, not likely to be adjudged the best Siamese cat of last year, or of any year. Hence, not Prince Ling Tau, as advertised—as rather extensively advertised.

  “He looks very healthy,” Heimrich said. “Quite recovered from whatever was the matter with him last January.”

  “January, Inspector?”

  “When he was in Dr. Barton’s hospital. Being treated for whatever was the matter with him.”

  “Oh, that,” Mrs. Cummins said. “It wasn’t anything, really. Barton thought he might have lung congestion, which they get sometimes. But he didn’t have, fortunately. Just a slight cold. He was only there a couple of days. He’s been fine ever since.”

  “Earning his board and keep, I gather,” Heimrich

  said.

  Grace Cummins raised heavy eyebrows.

  “At two hundred dollars a mating,” Heimrich said. “A servicing. Whatever you call it. Quite capable of that, evidently. How many times since last January, Mrs. Cummins? Just roughly?”

  “I’d have to look at my records to tell you that. My certifications to the owners of the queens. To be part of the papers when they registered the kittens with the CFA. The Cat Fanciers Association, that is. Where the Prince is registered.”

  “Rather like the Jockey Club for horses, I gather,” Heimrich said. “Or the Kennel Club for dogs.”

  “Pretty much, Inspector. But there are other associations which register cats. Sponsor shows, you know. Or their member clubs do.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I’m beginning to understand. You know what a ringer is, Mrs. Cummins?”

  She repeated the word, with a rising inflection.

  “In racing terminology,” Heimrich said, “a horse running under another horse’s registered name. When something happens to the entered horse. Or his trainer decides he isn’t running well. A substitute horse, who looks enough like the entered horse to pass. It’s fraud, of course. Unpopular with the Jockey Club. And with the law. How many times has Prince served at stud, Mrs. Cummins? From January on? Once a week? Or oftener?”

  “I told you I’d have to look—”

  “Yes, Mrs. Cummins. You said you’d have to look it up. At two hundred dollars a time. A very high stud fee, I’m told.”

  “For the grand champion of grand champions? I don’t think so. And other breeders apparently don’t. We get more applications than we can handle, Inspector. And we select the females very carefully. The owners have to send me copies of the papers, of course. To breed potential grand champions, like Princy here.”

  Princy continued to look up at Heimrich rather than at his owner, although she had used his call name.

  “To be mated with the best cat of last year. The all-American cat. Although this cat isn’t he. Prince Ling Tau died last January at the animal hospital, didn’t he? Although you’ve been advertising him as at stud ever since. Did you think Dr. Barton killed Ling Tau, Mrs. Cummins? Is that why you killed Barton? An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Mrs. Cummins? Or—a man for a cat?”

  “I don’t—” she said and her voice was strangled. “What are you talking about? You must have gone—” She did not finish. Heimrich finished for her. “No,” he said, “I’ve not gone mad, Mrs. Cummins. Because, you see, this very handsome cat is cross-eyed. It’s a recessive trait in Siamese cats, I’m told. But it keeps them from winning at cat shows. Even as slightly cross-eyed as this cat is, Mrs. Cummins. What is his real name, Mrs. Cummins?”

  “Beauty, Inspector. Because he is, isn’t he? Aren’t you, Beauty?”

  The seal point looked at her then. He said, “Wow-ow.”

  14

  It was after seven when Merton Heimrich drove the Buick between the boulders and up the steep drive to the house above the Hudson. It was not quite as hot as it had been. It was only 89 by the door-side thermometer. The sun was getting lower in the west, but its rays still flooded the terrace. Susan, who had been warned by telephone from the barracks, was at the door to welcome him, and to be kissed in return. And to tell her husband that he looked tired.

  “But it is wrapped up, isn’t it?”
Susan Heimrich said. “And it is Mrs. Cummins?”

  “Not tired,” Heimrich said. “Nothing a shower won’t take care of. Yes, dear. Grace Cummins, R.N. The terrace?”

  “It’s cooler inside,” Susan said. “And less glary. But we can wear sunglasses.”

  Heimrich showered while Susan set up the martinis. He was wearing a sports shirt—a tennis shirt, really—when she brought the tray to the table on the terrace. He didn’t bulge under the shirt. He wasn’t, thank heavens, getting breasty, as some big men do. He wore light gray summer slacks, and sunglasses. She put the tray down.

  “You smell clean,” she said. “As the TV ads assert one ought to. Do all TV commercials have to be vulgar, dear?”

  “Apparently it helps,” Heimrich said. “Or Madison Avenue thinks it does. Where are our animals?”

  “Mite’s out somewhere. Colonel’s in front of an air-conditioning outlet. But he ate his dinner.”

  Heimrich poured and stirred and poured again into chilled glasses. They had raised their glasses to click when, softly and with reproach, Colonel woofed from behind the screen door, perversely closed against a dog who wanted to join his family. “He would,” Susan said, and went to let the big dog out. Colonel came to Merton to be scratched behind the ears. Then he found a partly shaded area of terrace and thumped down in it. He did not thump any more loudly than usual.

  “Does she admit it, Merton?”

  “Only in bits and pieces,” Heimrich told her. “She knows she’s entitled to a lawyer, and she’s getting one up from town.” (To those who live near the city of New York there is only one “town.”) “She denies killing Barton. Arranging for Carol Arnold to have an accident; drugging Carol Sunday night. She says why on earth should she? But she doesn’t deny, not specifically, that she’s been using a stand-in for Prince Ling Tau. At two hundred a—well, a stand. Knows she can’t because any cat show judge would spot the difference. The stand-in, whom she calls Beauty, is cross-eyed. Only a little, but enough to disbar him, apparently. Siamese cats are not allowed to have crossed eyes. Now and then they ignore the rules. As Beauty does. He’s a half brother of the Prince, incidentally. Registered with the CFA, as Prince Ling Tau was. Not as Beauty, of course. Some name that’s supposed to sound Siamese. Got it down somewhere.”

  “All right, dear. But you’re losing me a little. And we didn’t really click. Because of Colonel.”

  They clicked glasses. They sipped. Briefly, they looked down at the Hudson River, with the sun sparkling on it. Sparkling into their eyes, come to that. But dark glasses helped.

  “Why did she kill Dr. Barton?” Susan asked. “And can you prove she did?”

  “Because she thinks he killed her prize cat, dear. Who didn’t have nine lives. And because Holy Writ approves an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. She’s a very religious woman, Susan.”

  “The Bible also says thou shalt not kill.”

  “A rule often breached. By nations, by states which prescribe capital punishment. Also by individuals, which leads to the employment of homicide detectives. And, as I said, she thinks Barton killed. Apparently he didn’t. Any more than he killed Blake’s dog. Not intentionally, anyway. I stopped by the hospital coming down and talked to Miss Arnold.”

  “She’s going to be all right?”

  “They’re keeping her overnight. But, yes. To be released tomorrow. In Latham Rorke’s custody, if he has anything to say about it, and I suspect he will. Anyway, I talked to her on the way home. Dr. Barton had talked to her, as Mrs. Cummins thought he might have. Given her various facts about treating animals, which was part of the reason she was working for him. One of the facts was one I’d never heard of, although he said he could verify it by personal experience—an experience of last winter, he told her. He wasn’t much more specific, apparently. But—”

  But, Barton had told the pretty girl who was, in a sense, serving as an intern under him, one thing you had to watch out for was an adverse reaction of some animals to barbiturates. In, he had said, one animal in a hundred. Perhaps in two hundred. Barbiturates are used as anesthetics in treating animals. For operations, and for X rays.

  “You can’t,” Heimrich said, “tell a cat or a dog to take a deep breath and hold it, and lie perfectly still. So you give a mild shot of a barbiturate to calm the animal. A quick-acting one like sodium pentothal, usually. In a minute dose.”

  The chances are a hundred to one, or two hundred or more to one, that the result will be the one wanted. Brief but complete unconsciousness, suitable for the taking of an X-ray photograph.

  But, in a tiny number of cases, the reaction may be precisely the opposite. Instead of passing out peacefully, the animal may be stimulated to uncontrollable activity. Even to convulsions. And, if that happens, there’s not much to be done about it and the animal may die.

  It had happened to Dr. Barton the winter before. He had been about to take chest X rays of a cat who appeared to have congested lungs. The cat had gone into convulsions and died. He had not identified the cat to Carol Arnold. He had also said that similar reactions at rare intervals occurred with humans who were stimulated rather than sedated by barbiturates. Not, so far as Barton knew, thrown into convulsions, but kept alarmingly awake and active.

  “This cat who died? It was Mrs. Cummins’s prize cat?”

  “I’m pretty sure of it. The doctor’s records show the cat capital ‘D.’ I supposed at first the ‘D’ meant ‘discharged.’ But it may have meant—probably did mean—‘deceased.’”

  “And she killed just for revenge? To avenge her prize cat?”

  “The emphasis is on ‘prize,’ dear. On the pride of the Linwood Cattery. And a cat with a very high stud fee. Probably the financial mainstay of the cattery. And she kept on advertising him as available, although he was dead. And Barton read The American Cat Fancy. Saw her advertisements. Saved the copies and—well, brought them to her attention.”

  “Threatened to expose her?”

  “Possibly. Told her to stop her advertising, at the least. Of which the CFA would take a very dim view. As the law might. Using the mails to defraud, I’d imagine. Since The American Cat Fancy is distributed by mail. And since her advertisements were, of course, fraudulent.”

  “And Miss Arnold?”

  “Probably Mrs. Cummins thought it likely that Barton had told her more than he did. That she might be a danger to be eliminated. The devout Mrs. Cummins is not long on scruples, I think. In fact, it is quite possible she was responsible for the death of her husband.”

  He told Susan about Randolph Cummins and the stipulation on which he had been released from medical supervision.

  “No sexual activity,” Susan said. “And our Mrs. Cummins knew about that?”

  “She had been his nurse. Cummins was generally thought to be very wealthy. Which, of course, is nothing the District Attorney of our county can bring up now.”

  “The cat in the car with Carol?”

  “Mrs. Cummins didn’t go to church Sunday. She waited at home for the sound of the crash she hoped she had arranged. She went down—it’s only a few hundred yards—and rescued her cat.”

  “And thought the girl was dead?”

  “Hoped so, anyway. Might have made sure, but a trooper came along. And maybe had another try Sunday evening, when she gave Carol a drink with a heavy dose of barbiturate in it. Also, I think, was trying to make up her mind to finish the job—and Carol —off this morning while I was telephoning the hospital. At least, it looked as though she was about to give the girl a lethal injection when I showed up. Carried a hypodermic around in her smock pocket, apparently just in case it might come in handy. I’ve no proof of that. In fact, I have some reservations. But it’s Barton who’s dead, of course.”

  “You mean you’ve got her there? On killing Barton?”

  “We have plenty to hold her on suspicion of homicide,” Heimrich said. “And we’ll find more. When we know what to look for, we generally find it.”

  “And w
hat was that you said about having reservations, dear?”

  “Because why was she taking so long to kill Carol? She had her there two nights, all of Monday and into today, when I showed up. It looks to me as if she was vacillating. I’d guess that on Monday—while Carol was drugged—she drove Mrs. Evans’s Volks down to White Plains and took a cab back. Was that only so the Volks would have no connection with her? Or to provide us with a false lead while she—while she what? Maybe she found it’s an entirely different problem to kill someone in your own house. Carol had presented herself there, and it could be Mrs. Cummins wasn’t sure just what to do with her, once she had her. As an R.N. she must have known that all her talk of concussion—if Carol’s body was in her house—was no guarantee against a postmortem. Oh, well, we may never know. Perhaps she just couldn’t bring herself to kill Carol because Carol was so concerned about the little cat. Something she said gave me the impression that the girl’s worry rather touched her. She does love her cats, I think.”

  “What about her cats, by the way?”

  “Roger King. That’s been arranged. He’s a—well, a trained cat-sitter.”

  They finished their drinks. Susan picked up the tray and then put it down again.

  “Speaking of cats,” she said, “here comes ours.”

  Mite was coming toward the terrace, sauntering toward the terrace. A few yards from it he stopped to consider something. Then he came on. But on the terrace he began to retch. “Not another animal to another vet,” Susan said. “Surely not.”

  “Just been eating grass, probably,” Heimrich said. But there was concern in his voice.

  Mite completed throwing up. It was grass, which cats use as an emetic.

  Mite regarded the result without enthusiasism. He looked up at Susan. “You didn’t have to wait until you got to the terrace, cat,” Susan told him.

  But Mite was not listening to her. He was listening, pointing toward, a more distant sound. Somewhere, at a considerable distance, a cat was screaming, in apparent agony.