The Case of the Jewel Covered Cat Statues

by Cindy Vincent

  Holy Catnip!

  CHAPTER 11

  _____________________________

  Holy Mackerel! It seemed like forever before we finished our first surveillance rounds that night. Thankfully, we found all the doors and windows closed and locked. And we didn’t pick up on any suspicious sights or sounds coming from the outside.

  When we were almost done, Bogey flew off to the home office to get the computer booted up. And I took the upstairs run by myself. The Wise One even woke up and smiled at me when I checked out the sunroom. After I finished, I bowed and backed out of the room and headed for the bedrooms. Our Mom and Dad were sound asleep when I tiptoed around their room. And Lil gave me a silent salute when I quietly checked out Gracie’s room. Lil spent most of her nights on Gracie’s bed, keeping watch over her.

  Finally, after what felt like hours, I trotted down the stairs and joined Bogey in the office on the first floor.

  He glanced up when I jumped onto our Mom’s desk. “Everything check out okay, kid?”

  “Everything is just fine.” I tried to salute him, but I kind of missed and hit the top of my ear. I probably looked more like I was swatting a bug than saluting my brother.

  But thankfully he’d already turned back to the computer and he didn’t see me.

  He nodded to an article that filled the screen. “Take a look at this, kid.”

  I glanced at the computer, and my eyes practically popped out of my head. Because, right there, bigger than life, was a photo of the same painting we had seen at the Museum. The one that had been sitting in the empty display case. It showed the two missing cat statues, the ones Mr. Daunton had titled, “Best Friends.” But this time I got a better look at them. The cats in the painting probably weren’t as sparkly as the real statues. But I could still tell they were really, really beautiful.

  A smile slid across my face and I couldn’t stop staring at them. I remembered how shiny and sparkly all the statues had been at the Museum. I could even see them in my mind’s eye. It was almost like I was right there. That’s when I sort of floated off for a second.

  Holy Catnip!

  I guess you could say I got dazzled all over again.

  But then I caught myself. And I remembered what the Wise One had told me. To look deeper. And to look past the shine and the outer beauty to see what was underneath.

  So I shook my head and closed my eyes for a second. Just to get those images out of my mind. Boy, it sure was easy to get taken in by those pretty, shiny statues. Even when I only looked at them in my memory!

  I opened my eyes again and studied the picture a little better. And sure enough, this time I saw some tiny symbols at the bottom of the statues. They were different from all the other symbols we had seen. These looked like outlines of little cats.

  I put my paw up to the computer screen. “Do you see those? The cat symbols?”

  To tell you the truth, at that moment, I felt kind of proud of myself. I’d spotted those symbols before Bogey had even shown them to me!

  Bogey grinned. “Good job, kid. And yup, I saw them, all right.”

  I scooted closer to the screen to take a better look. “I wonder why he used different symbols for these statues?”

  Bogey grabbed a bag of cat treats he had hidden in a vase on the desk. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, kid.”

  I think my chin almost hit the desk. “You were? You mean, I thought of something right when you did?”

  Bogey passed me a treat and took one for himself. “You got it, kid. Like I told you, you’re really getting the hang of this business. Now read the article. You’re gonna find it interesting.”

  So I did. I munched on the cat treat while I read the title, “Lost Artifacts in History.” Then I moved down to read the story out loud. “To this day, many treasure hunters still search for the joint cat statues, created by Danby Daunton about a century and a half ago. The works were said to have been Mr. Daunton’s crowning achievement. Not only did he use the most expensive metal — platinum — for his statues, but he also covered them in the most expensive gems he could find.”

  I kind of gasped and turned to my brother. “Wow,” was all I could say.

  Bogey nodded at the computer screen. “Keep reading, kid. There’s more.”

  I turned back to the article again and started reading out loud. “Though the materials in the cat statues alone are worth a fortune, that’s not what make them priceless. It was said that Danby Daunton truly put his heart and soul into this work. That’s because he loved his two cats, Tobias and Tessa, like they were members of his own family. And his love for his cats shows in the stunning artistry of these statues.”

  The article continued and said, “Of course, Mr. Daunton didn’t intend to sell these statues, since he wanted to keep them for himself. But he did agree to put them on display, and a thief tried to steal them the very first night they were being shown. Yet even though Mr. Daunton caught the burglar in the act, the thief got away with Tobias, the statue covered in Kashmir sapphires. But Mr. Daunton was able to grab Tessa, the statue covered in diamonds. Sadly, the thief disappeared and so did the Tobias statue. This was especially hard on Mr. Daunton, since the statues were not meant to stand alone. The two were a pair, and they fit together. Not long after the robbery, Mr. Daunton reported the Tessa statue as missing, too. Mr. Daunton was so heartbroken that he never made another statue from that day forward.”

  I glanced at my brother and then kept on reading. “Throughout the years, people have claimed they’ve seen the Tobias statue at different places around the world. It’s believed to have been sold time and again on the black market. The last known sighting was in Istanbul. As for the Tessa statue, some wonder if it ever really left the town of St. Gertrude.”

  I shook my head slowly. “That’s some story. It sounds like Mr. Daunton was pretty sad about it all. Especially since he never made another statue again.”

  Bogey passed me another cat treat. “That would be my guess, too, kid.”

  “What do you think happened to those statues?” I put the cat treat in my mouth and munched away.

  Bogey took another treat for himself. “Don’t know, kid. But I do know where to start looking.”

  “You do?” I asked him.

  Bogey nodded. “Yup, kid. Let’s start by finding out what’s in that package at our Mom’s store.”

  That’s when I almost fell over. “You don’t think . . .”

  Bogey just grinned at me. “You never know, kid. It’s about the right size.”

  Suddenly my heart started to pound really loud. And for some reason, I couldn’t seem to say another word. Instead I just stared at my brother.

  Holy Mackerel! Could it be . . .?

  Now Bogey waved a paw in front of my eyes. “We’d better get some shut-eye, kid. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Somehow I had that feeling, too. But I had a feeling it was also going to be a long night. In fact, it would probably seem like an eternity before we got to open that package.

  Bogey and I trotted off to our cat beds in the family room. And just like I thought, I had a really hard time falling asleep. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had happened today. And I couldn’t stop thinking about all those cat statues. And most of all, I kept wondering what was wrapped up in that brown paper bundle beneath Bogey’s bed.

  But I must have dozed off at some point. Because the next thing I knew, Bogey was shaking my shoulder.

  “Wake up, kid,” he said. “Look alive. Our Mom is almost finished with her breakfast.”

  I curled up into a ball and dug my nose into the fur on my arm. “Just five more minutes . . .”

  Bogey shook me again. “No can do, kid. Today’s a big day. We’ve gotta see what’s in that package at our Mom’s store.”

  That was enough to make my eyes fly wide open. Minutes later, I’d had a bite of breakfast, a good drink of water and I was ready to roll.

>   I gave Gracie a kiss goodbye before she walked out the door to catch her school bus. Then I ran to join Bogey in the kitchen. I found him sitting on the counter, right on top of our Mom’s purse.

  He waved at me. “Come on up and join me, kid. We can’t let our Mom go to work without us.”

  Normally, I would have stayed right there on the floor. That’s because we weren’t exactly supposed to go on the kitchen counter. And I sure didn’t want to get a time-out. Not today.

  But like Bogey had once told me, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” And this was one of those times when I guess you might say we were sort of desperate. We had to get to our Mom’s store! No matter what.

  So I leaped up to join Bogey. Then I grabbed the strap of our Mom’s purse and wrapped it around my arm. Our Mom couldn’t leave without her purse and that purse wasn’t leaving without me.

  Beside me, I noticed a copy of the St. Gertrude Times sitting on the counter. The headline read, “First Annual ‘Take Your Cat to the Museum Day’ is Complete Disaster.”

  Below the headline was a picture of our friend Ranger. He was sitting way, way up on top of that gigantic dinosaur skeleton. Far below him was Hector, with his mouth wide open. There was another picture that showed Amelia. She looked very pretty as she posed on top of the smaller, rubber dinosaur.

  Holy Catnip!

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Did you see our friends?” I asked my brother.

  Bogey grinned. “Yup, kid. Great pictures.”

  Now we heard our Mom walking down the stairs to the first floor of our house.

  “Okay, kid,” Bogey said. “It’s showtime. Look as cute as you can. Our Mom can’t resist us when we look cute.”

  Seconds later, our Mom rushed into the kitchen, ready to grab her purse and run out the door. But she stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted us. Of course, we weren’t exactly hard to spot, since we were sitting right on top of her purse.

  At first she kind of gasped.

  Then she laughed. “I’m guessing you boys want to go to the store with me today.”

  We both purred up at her, just as loud as we could.

  She put a hand to her chin. “I’m not sure if I should take you, though. Not after what happened the other night. Not after you snuck to the store like you did.”

  That’s when I knew we had to be cuter than ever before. It was our only hope of convincing her to take us with her. So I tilted my head to one side. It was a move that Lil had taught me when I had to enter a cat show once. As part of our undercover operation.

  Our Mom sort of sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know, boys . . . I wasn’t happy when I found out you’d jumped in the truck and I didn’t even know it. You could have been hurt, you know. You could have been slammed in the door.”

  I tilted my head to the other side. Beside me, Bogey gave her his biggest and brightest grin.

  “Then again . . .” she said softly. “You two really encouraged Gracie with her piano practice.”

  And with those words, I knew it was time to go in for the big finish. So I reached up and gave her a kiss on the nose. Bogey stood up and leaned his body right into her shoulder.

  Our Mom chuckled. “All right, boys. I give up. I can see I am no match for your charm.”

  A few minutes later, we were both in our pet carriers and off to her store.

  It only took about fifteen minutes to get there. We saw the big “Abigail’s Antiques” sign on the top of the building as we drove past and around into the alley. A few minutes later, our Mom unlocked the back door. She set our pet carriers down while she punched the alarm code onto the keypad. It turned off the alarm system while her store was open for business. At the end of the day, when the last person left the store, they would punch in the same numbers, to arm the system for the night.

  Our Mom carried us in and let us out of our pet carriers in the back room. Her two employees, Millicent and Merryweather, came in the back door a few minutes later. Millicent had short, curly gray hair and dark-framed glasses that she wore on the end of her nose. Merryweather was dressed in a blue dress from the 1950s. Her dress went really well with her red hair and her pink, pointy glasses. Our Mom always called them cat-eye glasses, and Bogey and I sure liked them a lot.

  Millicent picked up Bogey the second he walked out of his carrier. “You’re looking very sleek and handsome today,” she told him. “You do your namesake justice.”

  He did? To tell you the truth, I had no idea what that meant. But Bogey seemed to understand it, since he purred and meowed up to her.

  “I sure wish I could find a man who was like you, Bogey,” she sighed.

  Beside her, Merryweather laughed. “You wouldn’t want a man like Bogey. Or Buckley. They may be very charming, but they’re also very sneaky.” She leaned down to pet me.

  That’s when I decided to give her a kiss on the nose.

  This made her laugh even more. “See what I mean? I have a feeling they’re up to something today. I already heard you boys sneaked down to the store on Saturday night.”

  Millicent kissed Bogey on the top of his head. “Maybe they just wanted to protect their Mom.”

  Boy, she had that right. Not to mention, we also ended up with a whole new case for the Buckley and Bogey Cat Detective Agency!

  Our Mom shook her head. “I don’t know what they were up to the other night. Then again, I always wonder what the boys are up to. It’s almost like they’re . . .”

  Without finishing her sentence, she just turned and looked at us.

  “You were going to say ‘investigating,’ weren’t you?” Merryweather said.

  “If I didn’t know better . . .” our Mom started to say.

  Then the three of them laughed. They were still laughing when Millicent and Merryweather put us in our cat beds. But minutes later, they were already talking about the day as they walked through the entrance to the main part of the store. I knew they would officially open things up and get right to work.

  And they would be out of our fur, you might say. For a little while anyway.

  That meant we were finally free to open up our package!

  Holy Mackerel!

  Suddenly my heart started to go thunk, thunk, thunk, really hard inside my chest. At long last, we were about to see what was inside that bundle!

  Now I had to wonder, would it be something rare and valuable, like Bogey thought? Or would it be nothing important? What if the thing wrapped up in that brown paper didn’t turn out to be anything special? Would I be really, really disappointed?

  It was funny, but we hadn’t even seen the package since the night we found it. Yet we sure had been thinking and talking about it a lot. Especially after we’d learned about those missing cat statues.

  Then, like a bolt of lightning, something else crossed my mind. What if our package was gone? What if someone had been in the store and taken it?

  Now I started to get really dizzy. I leaned against the side of my cat bed. Sometimes finding clues and evidence and mysterious packages could sure make a guy a nervous wreck!

  My brother waved at me. “You okay, kid?”

  I took some really deep breaths. “Um . . . Yes . . . Well, no . . . Um, maybe.”

  He grinned at me. “Rookie mistake, kid. Never let the suspense get to you.”

  I wanted to ask him how I was supposed to do that, but I figured I’d save that for another time.

  He handed me a couple of cat treats from his secret stash. “Here you go, kid. This’ll get you going.”

  I downed my treats in a hurry and started feeling a little better.

  Bogey jumped out of his bed. “You ready to get this show on the road, kid?”

  I nodded really fast. “Uh-huh.”

  Bogey pulled the curtain back from the wall and I got out of my own bed. I hooked the edge of his bed with one of my big paws and pulled it out of the way. And there, exactly where I’d left it, was the package wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.r />
  Right before our very eyes.

  The first thing I noticed was that it was about the same size as the little statues we had seen yesterday.

  Boy, oh boy, if I thought my heart was thunking away before, well, it was nothing compared to what it was doing right now! Still, I tried not to let the suspense get to me, just like Bogey had told me.

  “Okay, kid,” Bogey said. “Let’s get this thing out where we can open it.”

  So I grabbed the knot in my teeth, and lifted the whole package up off the floor. I carried it over to my bed and set it down. It was a lot heavier than I’d remembered.

  “Can we open it now?” I whispered to my brother.

  Bogey grinned. “Knock yourself out, kid.”

  I started to tug at the huge knot on the front that held the string together.

  That was, until Bogey held up his paw. He turned his ears toward the entrance to the store and froze in place. That’s when I stopped what I was doing. I stood still and just listened.

  Sounds of a commotion in the main part of the store echoed back to us.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, kid,” he told me. “Quick, hide the package.”

  I gulped. “What should we do with it?”

  He pulled the front door of my soft-sided pet carrier open. “Put it in here, kid. Under the floor pad.”

  And I did exactly what he told me to. I stashed the package clear in the back, right under the fluffy bottom mat. Then we closed the door of the pet carrier and pushed it back against the wall.

  Just seconds before I heard footsteps heading our way. And the smell of fish filled the air.

  Holy Catnip!

  CHAPTER 12

  _____________________________

  Holy Mackerel! And for once, I meant it for real. Because I really did smell mackerel! Or, at least, I smelled some kind of fish.

  My eyes went wide and I looked at my brother. “I think something’s fishy here.”

  Bogey nodded. “Oh yeah, kid. You can say that again.”

  We both turned toward the entrance to the main part of the store. From where we stood, we could hear three voices, just past the doorway. We recognized our Mom’s voice and Millicent’s voice right away. But we’d never heard the third voice before. It belonged to a man. And his voice sounded very gruff and kind of scratchy.