The Old Dog and the Doorstep

by JP Wright

By the time the gentlemen from Scotland Yard arrived, there were more mysteries to solve. Which is neither a Yard nor in Scotland; but they were neither really policemen. One was not even really a man. The short, round one with rosy cheeks, Police Comfortable Easy, looked a lot like our friend Lottie the Maid (Rest in Peace). I have talked to Mummy about recycling: my message must have got through. But recycling actors? The long thin one with the plié and plummy “Good mornin' modom,” had a shock of sandy hair under his cap. “Detective Sergeant Able, ma’am, of the Yard, here to investigate some very Rum goings-on.” Sherry rather than Rum, I thought.

  Of which mystery were they here to bungle an investigation? (grammar). In the spirit of cooperation between detectives, I listed them for the officers. To wit:

  1. yesterday's crushed cake

  2. terrible murders or even 3.

  4. last night's Incident of the Unbalanced Butler, through there was little mystery there

  5. the sorry tale of the Dog with the Bad Name – which I shall get to in a minute be patient

  6. and who knows what other suspicious goings-on: had any of the guests in fact survived the night?

  The Butler, by the way, had made an amazing recovery; or so I had thought when I made my way with blears in my eyes down for breakfast, to see a dark-suited figure hunched over the table sticking on grey whiskers with one hand and slurping down coffee with the other and his mouth. Within moments, the Detective's subtle brain, nourished by toast, honey and milky tea, had penetrated his disguise: it was the Wet, looking reasonably butler-ish in borrowed costume. Hopefully only my trained eye would detect the hastily tacked right leg: apparently Butler no.1 had been cut out of his trousers after all – I wondered what he had been left to wear in the hospital.

  “Splendid!” exclaimed Mummy, turning away from her baking to pat the Wet's whiskers and straighten his tie.

  “Please, modom,” he protested, standing up with a stifling yawn, “I must lay out the silver for breakfast.” I made a surrupspicious note: 7a.m. – Butler expresses interest in silver.

  So when they arrived in the kitchen I updated the officers on my investigations so far. They struggled to see the significance of the Cake, pretended to be interested in the horrible murders that had been perpetuated so far (even though they were only pretend, but I did add some details and remembered to say how terribly well acted it had been though that was not exactly what I had heard from V). “Are you getting all this down, Easy?” asked Able.

  “Just barely, Sarge,” she replied.

  They promised not to arrest Marcus, made sad faces when I related the tale of the downfall of the Butler (Oscars all round for Best Smothered Giggle), made cross ones when I told them Simon had stepped into his breeches. “It seems it's amateur night, Easy.”

  “Whiskers maketh not the butler, Sarge.”

  When I warned them that the Kraken might soon rise and scoff the lot, they sat down for breakfast without so much as a “By your leave ma’am.”

  Having earlier had my own breakfast, I had taken a thoughtful stroll and a last piece of toast out through the salon to find Marcus in the orangery, lying across the open doorway, apparently prepared to wait all morning for the sun to come round. I gave him his breakfast, which he sucked up in a moment, followed by the rest of my toast. Then he flopped down, sighed, and went to sleep: not the behaviour of a beast planning the destruction of a cake, you would have thought. In any case, I did not stop to interrogate him, because a flutter of bright fabric had caught my eye: coming up the hill, picking her way squeamishly between sheep and sheep unmentionables (ie poo), was the Actress Belle.

  There are people who are inclined to take a walk before breakfast. Good for the constitution. Gets the blood circulating. Best part of the day, etc. They are generally old, ruddy-faced and unbearable. And then there are those (such as the sleeping beast upstairs for e.g.) who would not be seen striding out in tweeds and gaiters if an earthquake shook them from their beds. The Actress Belle, in this detective's opinion, should have fitted comfortably into the non-walking group. I could imagine her reclining on silken pillows, sipping delicately at a glass of something restorative. Surprising to see her striding across a sheep field. Well, not really striding. More a series of little hop-skip-jumps, accompanied by little squeaks-yips-and-yelps. The gold ankle-boots were less bright than they had been; she also had on the leggings and yellow t-shirt of yesterday. Evidence of hasty packing. Wrapped around her, to keep off the morning chill, was a denim jacket too short and tight to really do the job.

  I shuffled across the grass in my slippers, and intercepted her at the stile. Busy as she was dancing around the miniature cairns left by the sheep, she did not notice me standing there until she was halfway over it, when “Wow!” she exclaimed, which is a fair enough response to suddenly coming across a Detective in her dressing gown, and then “Ow!”, which is a fair enough response to slipping on a damp stile and sitting down on it rather quickly.

  “Mind, it's slippery,” I warned her. When she realised who I was, she smiled a rather tight-lipped smile. What I meant to say next was “Ah-hah!” as if I had discovered a secret; or “Pray what, madam, might I conclude from your early morning perambulatoriness?”; or “From traces adhering to your otherwise glamorous shoes, I deduce that you were not expecting to be walking in a sheep-poo-ey field.” What I said instead was, “Mummy says you can't have big boobs and not have a big bum, but you have. Or I mean haven't. A big bum.” Which at least turned the thin smile into her usual teeth-filling flashing open-throated laugh.

  “Well black leggings must be slimming,” she chuckled, trying to button up her jacket, and then winced as she slid down from the stile. “In fact, it's a bruised bum now.”

  “Did you have a nice walk?” I asked disingeniusly, “Apparently it's the best part of the day. Good for your constitution and so on.” In fact I had no suspicions that morning that any further foul play might even be on the horizon, let alone hoving to at the quayside and throwing down ropes to make fast, but the Great Detective's brain never stops working.

  “Not really,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the stains on her shoes. “I thought it would be quicker than coming back up the driveway. I went down there … looking for clues. I thought there might be clues. Get the jump on the other guests, you know.”

  I nodded wisely. In fact, I knew there were no clues anywhere down the hill – only in the house and the garden. But though she was my friend, I ought not to spoil the game by telling her what I knew. Perhaps just a little one. “The Master of the House was found in the Study,” I told her.

  “Really?” she exclaimed, green eyes wide with interest. She grabbed me by the dressing gown. “When was this? Just now?”

  I shook my head, “Yesterday.”

  “But he didn't … no-one told me,” she said

  “You might have read your folder.” I told her, “The Master of the House was found in the study with the letter-knife in his back.”

  “Letter-knife?”

  “Yep.”

  “It's in the folder … it's part of the game?”

  “Yep,” I nodded. She laughed again, leaning on me for support.

  “Ah, Detective, I am taking the game too seriously perhaps.”

  “Perhaps you are,” I allowed, and gave her no more clues, not wishing to panic her further, poor thing.

  “Oh, a kitty,” she cried. She was right – the cat had slunk out of the woods and now stopped just ahead of us to perform its ablutions. No doubt it had killed countless small creatures over night; after that, it would feel it deserved a thorough wash, and not to be interrupted by Belle making kissing noises and here-kitty-kitty-ing. There are many reasons to dislike cats: for me, it is mainly that people call them by my name.

  “The cat is not to be trusted,” I told her stiffly as it stalked off indignantly, slipping through the orangery door. It hopped right over Marcus, perhaps mistaking him for a rug. The smell of half-washed cat must have penetrated Ma
rcus's dream. What would he have been dreaming about? The old cat-chasing days of his prime maybe, when no mangy feline would have dared to jump over him. He woke all at once and, confused by the dream, decided to re-live those fine old days. The cat had sauntered into the salon, where it paused to lick a tricky spot. As Marcus crashed through the doorway towards it – a great shaggy mountain on the move – it looked up, one back leg still sticking straight up into the air, with an expression of disdain that quickly changed to confusion, shock and finally terror as it realised the avalanche was going to crush it. It just about got its legs back in the right place in order to spring backwards as Marcus collapsed towards it, then twisted in mid-air and started running before it hit the ground, bounced off two chairs before pinging out into the hallway.

  Encouraged if anything by the near miss, Marcus heaved himself back onto his feet and stumbled towards the door. I had only reached the door into the salon, slowed as I was by dragging Belle behind me. “The chase is on foot!” I cried, to urge her on, but she was clearly not cut out for side-kick duties. I left her behind in the salon.

  There are one or two bits of objayed art in the hallway, standing on unsteady tables of the kind small children prefer as launching pads and stop-overs in early walking expeditions. Both cat and Marcus avoided them all. There is one called a 'Ming' vase, because of the noise it makes when you flick it: the noise it might make when it hit a tiled floor, we were not to find out that day – to my relief, because usually I get blamed when things fall over and I am nearby. In my experience, all vases are 'Crash' vases in the end.

  Worse was to come, though. The cat took a left, leaving claws in the door frame, into the kitchen. It made two circuits as Marcus watched, wheezing, passing behind the astonished Cook who was tucked in at the table tucking into breakfast, leaving paw-prints as it passed in the dust of flour that was the normal fallout of Mummy's baking. At the third go round, it spotted an escape route and, just as Marcus had got his breath back and decided that if the thing was going to whiz in circles the best thing would be just to pounce into the middle of the room, and duly did, and just as I arrived in the doorway, the cat leapt for the open window.

  Mummy had been baking. She is a stubborn woman and does not like to be beaten. She had baked a second enormous coffee-chocolate cake: admirable persistence. She had left it to cool beside the sink – on the work-surface in front of the wide-open window: sad evidence of age-related deterioration in the capacity to learn. To lose one cake is unfortunate, to lose two, bloody silly – the sort of thing Daddy would say at the wrong moment that always helped make a bad situation worse.

  A cat paw-print or so could be iced over, a few hairs picked off. But as the cat's tail disappeared Marcus gathered himself for one last effort. First untangled himself from around the Cook's feet where he had landed, scrambled out from under the table, then launched himself like a fat hairy missile at where the cat had been seconds before. Big hairy foot hit plate: plate crashed into window-sill and flipped up. Cake started to lift – looked for a moment like it might not go over – until a second paw nudged the bottom of the plate, catapulting the baked goods clear over the sill. It completed one full somersault before falling out of view. Marcus, staring out of the window after the cat, which had decided to return to the safety of the woods, seemed to notice something amiss. He raised his eyebrows. Perhaps this was the new way of things – that every morning, cake was to be found scattered amongst the herbs. He sighed, having the feeling that even so, it would be off-limits for him. When cats strolled into the house, even stepping over him to do it, and cakes were baked for the birds, well, life was not what it once had been.

  After a few seconds gazing out at the morning, Marcus shuffled awkwardly backwards and flopped down on the floor. Perhaps he realised he was in trouble. Maybe because I was running at him waving my arms shouting “Jeezus Marcus what did you do that was Mummy's cake it already got broken once” though of course you cannot break the same cake twice “you better get out quick go on get out get out!” It was partly shock that made me drop my professional mask; partly I wanted to make sure people knew it was Marcus and not me who had catapulted the cake. Though why would I have? I felt bad as Marcus puffed away. Really the cat was to blame – but it was out of reach, so I chased Marcus out of the kitchen. He paused in the orangery, thought about lying back in his favourite spot, but another idea seemed to come to him just as he was settling down. Busy day in the old dog's life. He hauled himself up, pushed through the door and wandered off down the hill.

  I thought I should tell Mummy. If I told her, I would be the messenger you cannot shoot. Also, I could paint Marcus from a heroic angle – defending the house. Manslaughter rather than premeditated murder. The cake was just an innocent bystander. Collateral damage in the eternal battle between dogs and cats. It was instinct. It was reflex.

  If it seems strange that the Great Detective should spend so much of her concern on a mere dog, you should know that he came into this house before I could walk (which was early, by the way, compared to my sluggish old sister). He has taken the rap for me more than once: this time, my professional reputation and skills were at his disposal. I had an idea that there might be clues here in the kitchen that would narrow the list of suspects for the first assassination. First I admollified Cook not to touch anything until my return: she was still sat looking shocked, motionless except for her mouth and the hand that was feeding it toast. Then I scooted off to find Mummy and spin her the sad tidings.

  I found Belle first. Half-way up the lady stairs; or half-way down. She had a folder tucked under her arm – taking my advice and studying those clues. “Just going upstairs to change for breakfast,” she said, though I had not asked. She may have been a little shocked by my sudden appearance at full gallop.

  “Better eat plenty there's no cake later,” I warned her as I whizzed past. Then I slid to a halt at the drawing room door and looked back up at her. “Sorry – I can't help you with your hair this morning. Duty calls.”

  “Of course dear,” she replied, edging away up the stairs, “Nevermind. Maybe before lunch. After all … just breakfast …” and she was gone. ‘Just breakfast’ indeed! Anyway, I did not have time to chat: I had to ruin Mummy's day.

  They were eating breakfast in the dining room. We never do – not even at Christmas or my birthday. I mean the guests. The old Colonel and Mrs Colonel Rooting-Compound were there, tucking into scrambled eggs. The Doctors were there: she asked him for the jam, he nearly finished all of it up before he passed it. Very Bad Manners. Not a problem if you have the whole jar but the jam today was in tiny little pots like egg-cups, to be elegant. The Choirboy was not dressed as a Choirboy any more, neither were the Colonel or his wife. As a Colonel and a wife. The Doctors had their periscope, and the Vicar had her collar on still. She was smiling around the table with that smirk that Vicars and car salesmen have that so irritates all right-thinking people, but she smiled a proper smile for Roger.

  In summer, if it is fine and we have Company we mostly eat sur la terrace which means outside with wasps, so we only see the dining room usually in the winter and at night. Then, it is pretty gloomy. This morning, it was bright and about half full of sun. The Wet was there, in his butler costume (rather, the Butler's butler costume). I whipped out my notebook: no evidence so far of whisky-watering or silver snaffling. In fact he was being grilled by the Cutter-Plains like a lamb chop in a tailcoat. They whipped out their notebooks too.

  “What were you doing in the pantry yesterday afternoon?” (Pinching sherry I should think).

  “From the window of the study, can one see the lake?” (If you mean the pond, then yes, if you lean out of the window a little bit you just about can, but do not get mud on the otter-man).

  “Can silverware go in the dishwasher?” (Not really, but a much more useful question for a butler). I skimmed through my own notes, wondering whether any of the party here could be guilty. A Choirboy, for example, could have an unnatural lu
st for cake. A Vicar could have unnatural lusts too. I remembered that The Choirboy was caught in the kitchen washing his hands. The I.T. geeks are too dull to be suspected. One day, perhaps one of them will kill the other. Not now – when they are very old and after all those years he finally gets up the courage. Or she does. The old crocks, the Colonel and his Wife, might be more than just old dribblers. She must be pretty tough after years cooking in the African sun. More than ever this morning she looked like a prune who had just had bad news about a beloved old aunt, unsure whether to mourn; wondering when the Will would be read. He clearly has a yen for the gin, and we know he has a blunderbust. Perhaps an early-morning tremor could have made him blow apart the cake while trying to shoot pink elephants.

  No. We would have heard the noise, even above the beast's snoring.

  Note: must get a look at the folders Mummy has prepared for the guests, so at least I know what they know. It is difficult to remember who is whom and whom was where. I will ask Belle what was in her file.

  Mummy was floating around the end of the table in a long loose gown, more-tea-vicaring and taking orders for seconds of scrambled egg. She looked like an angel. The sun, September-rich and sparkling with dust, poured through the open window behind her, giving her a halo, making her hands shoot fire from between the fingers, lifting her feet to float above the golden floor. How could I tell her?

  “It will bind you up, Cyril,” Mrs R-C was warning the Colonel when there came a blood-gurgling scream from outside. The guests dropped their breakfasts and rushed past me into the drawing room. The Colonel brought a butter knife. Cook staggered in from the terrace and fell down dead. She was careful as she fell to let a little bottle roll from her hand onto the floor. Mr Cutter tried to find a pulse, then shook his head and said dramatically “This one is in your territory now, Vicar.”

  “Arsenic,” announced Dr Plain, sniffing at the bottle, “An agonising death but quick.”

  Having sloped off, apparently to re-fill the teapot, the Butler drifted back in. Mummy stepped down from her cloud and strolled out after the guests to examine the corpse. I tugged at her sleeve, but she shook me off. “Go and wake your sister would you I have to talk to the guests now Butler! Would you telephone for the police? Tell them to send their best or their soberest oh dear Colonel do be careful with that knife ... ” and so on.

  Doubly rejected, daughter and Detective, I slouched off. I got half-way back to the kitchen to take a statement from Cook, the prime witness to the latest cake catastrophe, before I remembered she was lying dead at the centre of a gaggle of guests. Dammit. But instead of her, the police were there who I mentioned already. I pointed out to them the vital clues: cat and dog prints still fresh on the floured floor; two big floury feet on the work-surface; one small set of prints in the parsley bed outside.

  Mummy came in with plates. I told her, “Mummy, the new cake is out the window too. You mustn’t blame Marcus too much because it was the cat's fault really the Cook can tell you and Belle saw the beginning I am just writing down the clues ...” And I paused then, expecting to get blamed but instead Mummy went to the window and looked out for a long time, then she sat down and just cried, properly with a hanky and with tears dripping off her nose and everything.

  Comfortable Easy and DS Able shuffled out of the kitchen, still chewing, to begin bungling the investigation into Cook's murder. “Break a neck,” I called after them, then went off upstairs to get dressed according to the System, wake up V to deal with Mummy, find out whether Belle was ready for breakfast yet in case there was no more left, and then to interrogate staff and guests. I wanted to ask the police sergeant about the victims – had there been a post-mortem? Did they check Sandy's throat and could he have choked on a morsel of cake? There must be a clue to be discovered that would unlock the last piece of the puzzle.

  Chapter 14