Only the Cat Knows

by Marian Babson

  ‘Possibly … occasionally … if necessary …’ He sent me a melting look. ‘You’re one of my notable successes, you know. In more ways than one.’

  ‘Really?’ I ignored the insinuation. ‘Where did you hire me from?’

  ‘Quite an important firm of financial advisers — the name would mean nothing to you … the way you are now.’

  And obviously the way I was expected to remain — if he thought he could get away with that. Nessa’s last job had been designing costumes for a new production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. How she had moved from there to here, I didn’t know, but I was quite sure that Ivor had had nothing to do with it.

  ‘We grew close as I mentored you into your new position here.’ The lies continued as he rose and came towards me. ‘Very close …’

  The abrupt pounding on the door knocked him offstride. He halted, throwing a confused look at the door and then at me. ‘Are you expecting anyone?’

  I shrugged. So far as I was concerned, it was the cavalry appearing on the horizon, the Marines storming over the hill with all bugles blowing — rescue! I dashed to open the door.

  ‘Come in!’ I welcomed. Nina was a bit of an anticlimax, but I was delighted to see her. Anyone would do.

  ‘Come in!’ I caught her arm and pulled her into the room.

  ‘Oh —’ Her face fell as she saw Ivor. ‘It’s you. Isn’t anyone else here? I was looking for —’

  ‘I haven’t seen Petruchio all day,’ I lied firmly. ‘He certainly isn’t here.’

  ‘Petruchio? Who said anything about Petruchio?’ She looked around wildly. I can’t find Kiki!’

  Chapter Twenty

  Why was I not surprised?

  ‘Kiki is having one of her migraine attacks,’ Ivor said soothingly. ‘She’s been in bed with it for days. That’s where you’ll find her.’

  ‘No! She isn’t there!’ Nina cried. ‘She’s not in her rooms. Her bed hasn’t been slept in! I can’t find her anywhere!’

  ‘Then she must be feeling better and has gone out.’ Ivor shrugged. ‘Taking a bit of fresh air perhaps, after being cooped up in a darkened room feeling miserable.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Nina looked so desperate that I felt sorry for her. Especially as I had a pretty good idea of what had happened to Kiki.

  Young, female, blonde — and not seen in public for the past few days. Kiki fulfilled all the requirements to match the body I had discovered in the anchorite’s cell. The body everyone had assured me had not existed. My own private hallucination.

  Now Nina had discovered Kiki was missing — and was prepared to make a fuss about it. Would they try to persuade her that the absence of a body was her hallucination?

  ‘We’ve got to find Kiki!’ Nina looked wildly from me to Ivor. ‘She isn’t in the house — she must be somewhere in the grounds. Come and help me look!’

  ‘Now?’ Ivor shrank back. ‘It’s pitch black night out there. You’ll never find her in the darkness. Wait until morning.’

  ‘Morning could be too late! It’s getting colder by the minute — and it’s raining again. She could die of hypothermia before morning.’ Nina turned to me. ‘Make him understand! Make him do something!’

  A cold gust of wind hurled rain against the outer wall. The temperature seemed to plummet.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve looked everywhere she might be?’ I temporized. ‘Even places where you wouldn’t ordinarily expect to find her?’ For the first time, I was in accord with Ivor, no more anxious to go outside than he was. Especially with what I knew — or suspected.

  ‘Perhaps she’s eloped.’ Ivor offered an explanation Nina had accepted before. ‘She wouldn’t be the first one. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘Who with?’ Nina demanded scornfully. ‘There haven’t been any worthwhile visitors in months. That makes no sense!’

  ‘But why should she be outside wandering around the grounds in this weather?’ Ivor kept trying.

  ‘Why not? Perhaps she’s got amnesia.’ Nina whirled and pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘Nessa got it!’

  She made it sound as though I were a role model. And an unsatisfactory one, at that.

  ‘Amnesia wasn’t anything I could help,’ I protested. ‘It was because of what happened to me — whatever that was.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Her triumphant tone said I had just proved her point. ‘And who knows what’s happened to Kiki? We’ve got to find her!’

  ‘In the morning,’ Ivor was unusually firm. ‘It will be daylight then. And we can mobilize the guards to help search. If she hasn’t come back by then.’

  ‘You don’t believe me!’ She turned and appealed to me. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘I believe you can’t find Kiki …’ I said cautiously. ‘But I’m not so sure she’s wandering around somewhere outside. The grounds are patrolled. Surely the guards would have found her before this. They found me.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Ivor agreed. ‘The guards are on constant alert to prevent trespassers —’

  ‘Kiki isn’t a trespasser — she lives here!’

  They didn’t notice that I went silent. If I mentally revised the tense Nina had used, I was not prepared to voice the correction. Looking at Ivor, I wondered if his reluctance to search for Kiki was due solely to the weather. Or did he, too, know that it would be a waste of effort?

  ‘You’re not going to help me — either of you!’ The message had finally got through to Nina. ‘All right, then, I’ll find her myself!’ She started for the door.

  ‘Don’t be a silly girl!’ Ivor caught at her. ‘You can’t go running around in the rain and dark. You’ll catch pneumonia. Or break an ankle. Or both …’

  ‘Let go of me!’ She twisted free and wrenched the door open. ‘You can’t stop me!’

  Perhaps he couldn’t, but there was an outbreak of sharp barks and growls outside. Nina shrieked and stumbled back into the room, followed by Bud and Brutus.

  ‘Anything wrong here?’ Bud asked.

  Bud again. Had he taken up residence just beyond my door? If so, why? Did he feel especially protective towards Nessa because he had been the one to save her life? Perhaps the feeling had been there before that? Or was there a more sinister explanation: did he know what was going on around here?

  ‘Nina’s a bit overtired and upset,’ Ivor told Bud, with a suggestive wriggle of his eyebrows that semaphored: Tiresome hysterical female.

  ‘Oh, right,’ Bud said. ‘No real trouble then.’

  ‘It is trouble!’ Nina protested. ‘The worst kind!’ It was unfortunate that her voice was rising to a shriek, thereby reinforcing Ivor’s message. ‘Kiki is missing!’

  ‘Is that so?’ Bud was unmoved.

  ‘It is!’ Nina insisted. ‘It is! We’ve got to find her! She could be lying in the moat — or a ditch somewhere — the way Nessa was.’

  ‘There’s no one in any moat, ditch, or under bushes on this property.’ Bud’s eyes snapped; she was impugning his competence. ‘We check all those places all the time. Especially after Miss Nessa —’

  ‘I’ve told her that,’ Ivor said. ‘Perhaps she’ll believe you.’

  ‘Then where is she?’

  The question hung there. I wasn’t going to venture an opinion. This was Nina’s show, let her get on with it. If she could.

  The two men exchanged glances, while Nina glared at them accusingly, and reached the same conclusion: they were going to humour her. For the moment.

  ‘There, there,’ Ivor actually said, patting her shoulder. ‘Everything will look better in the morning. You’ll see …’

  ‘We can do another check of the outbuildings when it’s light,’ Bud said. ‘But we won’t find anything.’

  ‘Talk to Monica in the morning,’ Ivor advised. ‘Perhaps Kiki’s migraine got worse and Monica packed her off to hospital with Dr Anderson.’

  ‘No!’ Nina wrenched away from Ivor’s hand, which had patted its way down to her waist and was still heading south. ‘I�
�d have known. She’d have sent a message.’

  ‘Not necessarily. She may have been feeling too ill to think about that.’ Ivor looked around for confirmation, but only Bud nodded.

  I sank into a chair and closed my eyes to remind them that I was not a shining example of good health myself.

  ‘We ought to let Miss Nessa get some rest.’ Again, only Bud responded. ‘She’s not up to all this commotion right now.’

  ‘Oh, yes … Yes, of course.’ Ivor abandoned Nina and started towards me. ‘You take Nina back to her quarters and I’ll —’

  ‘Actually —’ I opened my eyes and met Bud’s — ‘they were both on the point of leaving.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ The look Bud gave me made me wonder whether Anderson might not be my only candidate for brother-in-law. Quickly, I reappraised Bud: he was smarter than he first appeared. He seemed to be Chief Guard. I had seen him giving instructions to the other guards and I would not be surprised to learn that he was really Oversall’s Head of Security. There was more to him than met the casual eye.

  ‘Right.’ Meanwhile, he was ably herding my unwanted visitors towards the door, Brutus enthusiastically assisting him. ‘See you in the morning,’ he told me, closing the door behind them.

  I took several deep breaths, enjoying the silence, then acknowledged that I still was not alone.

  ‘You can come in now,’ I told the waiting cat. ‘They’ve gone.’

  She strolled into the room, tail twitching, and gave me an accusing look.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ I said. ‘I didn’t invite them. It just happened.’

  Not good enough. She prowled around the room, nose wrinkling at the disgusting smells. That dog again! In her territory! She was not happy.

  Neither was I, but I had more to think about than an easily offended Dowager Duchess of a cat. Things were beginning to move.

  Kiki’s absence was finally attracting attention. If Nina made enough of a nuisance of herself about it, would they do something to explain it? Or would Anderson be called in again, with his useful little medicine kit and instant amnesia in his hypodermic?

  It was getting late — but not that late. Perhaps this would be a good time to have a quiet word with Everett Oversall — now that I knew where he hid himself away I was fairly certain I could find my way there again.

  I threw on my shawl and went to the door. It wouldn’t open. Another lock-in. For everyone — or just for me? And possibly Nina.

  ‘So that’s that!’ I ripped off the shawl and hurled it at the sofa, addressing the cat. ‘It looks like it’s just you and me tonight.’

  She stared at me enigmatically, then with a sort of urgency. I had the feeling that there was some message she was trying to convey, but it was beyond my understanding.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry — but I just don’t get it.’

  She gave me a disgusted look, retreated to a far corner, sat down and began to wash her face.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In the morning, Her Highness was still in an odd mood. She prowled restlessly, pausing every once in a while to glare at me. I was obviously deeply guilty of something.

  But I had my own concerns. I wanted to get out of here before anyone could reach me to tell me I wasn’t wanted in the PR office today either. Cautiously, I tried the outside door and was relieved when it opened smoothly. House arrest was over — for the time being.

  The breakfast tray was sitting on the flagstones outside. I brought it in for a quick check: scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. Nice, but too easily tampered with. I’d give breakfast a miss this morning.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, as the cat spoke sharply. ‘I’m not going to test the stuff on you, no matter how much you volunteer.’ She followed me, complaining loudly, as I went into the bathroom and flushed the food away.

  That was the last straw for her. She stalked away, muttering imprecations. I had the feeling that ‘Off with his head!’ was the least of them. Oh, well, I’d try to make peace with her later.

  Right now, I had to leave. The phone had begun to ring and I had no intention of answering it. The cat realized this and sat down glaring at me.

  ‘Just don’t answer it and it will stop ringing before long,’ I told her, closing the door behind me and locking her in.

  The answering yowl made me very glad that I couldn’t translate it.

  Ready to duck out of sight if I encountered anyone along the way, I reached the office block without any problems. Even as I walked along the corridor to my waiting desk, I saw no one but the town staff, who nodded pleasantly, but were unsurprised to see me. They had probably been told I wasn’t well yesterday.

  Candy’s desk was unoccupied and there was no one else around from the senior staff.

  The action was obviously taking place elsewhere — and I was pretty sure that Nina was in the middle of it. In fact, I would bet on it. Someone who was so single-minded in her pursuit of the peacocks and their feathers was not going to give up and go away quietly when her best friend had disappeared.

  How far would Nina go with her concerns? And what would Everett Oversall do about them?

  I settled down at my desk, pulled a stack of blank envelopes towards me and began work, keeping alert to any undercurrents that might be swirling below the surface.

  It wasn’t long before my fingers began to cramp, my throat felt so dry I could barely swallow and terminal boredom set in. I wondered how soon I could make some excuse to leave my desk. Or even if an excuse was necessary. No one appeared to be paying any attention to me.

  Nor did they pay any attention to the telephone on Candy’s desk when it rang several times before obviously being picked up on another line. Indifferent … or well-trained?

  Probably the latter. If my experience was anything to go by, curiosity was discouraged around here. It was even quite probable that the day staff were deliberately brought in from outside so that no one knew too much about what went on here.

  ‘There you are!’ Candy appeared in the doorway, frowning at me. ‘Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you!’

  ‘Right here.’ I widened my eyes. ‘Where else would I be?’

  ‘We never know. Never mind —’ She gestured imperiously. ‘Come along. You might be able to help.’

  She led me to the real headquarters by a different route from the one I had discovered, but we were soon in a corridor I recognized — and I heard again the piano music coming from Yvonne’s suite.

  I could also hear the familiar shrieking when we were halfway down the hall. Nina in full flow. Not a sound for sore ears. The incoherent shrieks were punctuated by sobs and wails.

  ‘It sounds as though Dr Anderson would be more help than me.’

  ‘He’s on the way,’ Candy said tersely, not looking at me.

  Was he, indeed? With his happy hypodermic? Perhaps two, one for Nina — and one for me, if I showed any signs of connecting the missing Kiki with the body I didn’t quite remember finding in the anchorite’s cell.

  Keeping my face carefully blank, I followed Candy into what appeared to be Amanda’s office. An enormous cork-board covered the wall behind a large desk. Invitations, newspaper clippings, press releases and an occasional postcard were pinned around the edges of the corkboard forming a thick border while the centre was given over to the pages of a month-at-a-glance calendar for last month, this month and next month, with various notations on most of the dates. A bookshelf contained copies of Who’s Who, Debrett’s, the Almanach de Gotha and other publications vital to the work of a social secretary.

  ‘Nessa! You’re here!’ I flinched and stepped back as Nina hurled herself at me. I caught her arms before she could throw them around me and held her at a distance.

  ‘Nessa!’ she sobbed. ‘Nessa! They don’t believe me!’ Implying that I did. We were off to a great start.

  ‘Sit down.’ It seemed the safest thing to say. ‘Take it easy.’ That wasn’t bad, either. ‘What’s the m
atter?’ I hoped would distance me a bit more.

  I told you!’ She stepped back and looked at me incredulously. ‘I told you last night!’

  ‘You were so upset last night,’ I murmured, with a craven shrug towards the others. ‘Did you get any sleep at all?’

  ‘Not much.’ Answering the unexpected question, she was momentarily coherent, but it didn’t last. ‘How could I when —?’

  ‘She’s hysterical.’ Yvonne was also keeping her distance, eyeing Nina with distaste. ‘Again.’

  ‘As usual,’ Amanda agreed wearily. So that was the way they were going to play it.

  ‘Dr Anderson will be here soon,’ Candy said. ‘He’ll be able to give her something —’

  ‘I don’t want anything! I want to know where Kiki is!’ Nina’s voice began rising again. ‘We’ve got to find her! She could be lying somewhere — hurt — unconscious —’

  ‘Keep it down, will you!’ Shadow appeared in the doorway, glaring at us, with an especially vicious look towards me. ‘How do you expect Mr Oversall to concentrate on business when you’re screaming the place down?’

  ‘Tell him the situation is under control,’ Yvonne said smoothly. ‘There is nothing for him to concern himself with.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there is!’ Nina made a dash for the door, but Shadow blocked her way.

  ‘Let me through! I’ve got to tell him! He’ll help me! He has to!’ Eyebrows were raised and grimly amused looks exchanged. Everett Oversall didn’t have to do anything.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ Catching Nina by the shoulders, Shadow moved her across the room and into a chair with the expertise of a professional nurse — or bodyguard.

  ‘She is unable to find Kiki,’ Yvonne answered after a short pause. ‘She believes Kiki has … gone missing.’

  ‘And has she?’

  ‘Who’s keeping track?’ Candy shrugged. ‘We’ve all got better things to do.’