The Case of the Jewel Covered Cat Statues

by Cindy Vincent

  But I should have known better. After all, I knew my brother. And well, Bogey sure wouldn’t hesitate to go into any secret passages. No matter how much scary stuff was in there.

  The Princess leaned closer to the wall. “I’ve seen something like this before. There’s probably a lever here.”

  “A lever?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh,” the Princess answered. “Push on the cat symbol, Buckley.”

  So I did. I pushed with all my strength. And as I did, I noticed something kind of strange happened. Instead of stopping when I pushed it against the stone, my paw just kept on going forward. Farther and farther and farther. Beside me, Bogey cheered me on and the Princess gasped.

  “It’s a secret door,” the Princess said, looking up.

  Bogey and I looked up, too. That’s when we saw a stone-covered door in the wall start to creak open. Funny, but I sure hadn’t noticed that door before.

  Now the breeze was a little bit stronger. It came out in a big whoosh and then it sort of stopped. That’s when the door stopped opening, too.

  And sure enough, there was a secret passage. Right smack dab in front of us. Judging by all the cobwebs and dust, I figured that door hadn’t been opened in a long, long time.

  The three of us stood and stared at each other with wide eyes. Before we could say another word, Bogey turned and stepped right into that secret passage. Then he trotted down that dark, dusty hallway. The Princess and I followed him.

  The floor stones were much cooler here, and the whole place smelled kind of musty. The walls were made of stone just like the rest of the church. In a weird way, I felt like I had just stepped back in time. Because obviously no one had set foot or paw into this place in a while.

  We ran on and on, until we were quite a way from the entrance. And that’s when we saw it. A little wooden chest. A very, very old chest. Covered in dust and sitting close to a wall.

  But we could still make out the initials D.D. on the front.

  “Danby Daunton,” the Princess whispered as she touched it.

  Let me tell you, my heart was racing as Bogey and I paused for a moment in front of that little chest.

  “Daylight’s burning,” Bogey said quietly.

  I wiped the dust off with my paw and he pulled the latch open. Then he nodded to me and I knew exactly what he was telling me to do. I jumped over to one side of the chest while he jumped to the other. Together we lifted the lid.

  But it didn’t exactly open up easily. The hinges squeaked and stuck as we tried to pull it up. It was so stiff that it felt like nobody had moved that lid in about a million years. It took all the strength we had to get it open. The Princess even helped out by pushing from the front.

  Finally, we had that lid up and resting back against the stone wall.

  What we found inside amazed us all. And it took my breath away. Brilliant colors of blue, red, green, gold, and silver sparkled and blinked up at us. Together we stood back and stared with wide eyes.

  “Could this be . . .?” I sort of choked out.

  “Yup, kid. I think it is,” Bogey whispered.

  “I think so, too,” the Princess said in her soft voice.

  “It’s the treasure,” I managed to say. “Danby Daunton’s treasure.”

  Holy Catnip!

  CHAPTER 22

  _____________________________

  Holy Mackerel! When I decided to become a cat detective, I sure never dreamed I’d have a day like today! I never, ever thought I’d be staring at a treasure chest full of treasure.

  Now the three of us couldn’t stop staring at all the stuff inside that little chest. Everything sparkled and shined like nothing I’d ever seen before. It practically glowed with a life of its own, even in the dim light of the secret passage.

  There were little containers of diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and rubies. On the sides were little bars of gold and silver, too. All stuff that Mr. Daunton would’ve used to make more statues.

  The only thing was, he quit making those statues after the Tobias statue was stolen and the Tessa statue went missing. He loved those two statues the most, since he modeled them after his own cats. And he was so upset about the theft, that he never made another statue again.

  As I thought about it, I felt sad all over again. If he hadn’t been robbed, Mr. Daunton probably would’ve made a lot more statues. He sure had enough stuff to make them with. And I guessed any new statues would’ve been just as pretty as all the other ones he’d made.

  Now I wondered how all his statue-making stuff ended up right here. Hidden in the church. In a passageway that nobody knew about.

  But somebody must have known about this secret passage. The people who built the church would have known.

  That’s when something sort of dawned on me.

  “Didn’t Mr. Daunton help found St. Gertrude?” I asked Bogey.

  He nodded. “Yup, kid. You’re on the right track. From what we read about the guy, we know he helped to settle this town. I’ll bet he even designed this church. Probably because he was a member here. Did you see that chalice and those crosses yesterday? And those candlestick holders?”

  I’m sure my eyes went really wide. “Uh-huh. They looked just like the kind of stuff Mr. Daunton made. And Luke told us they’d been made by one of the founders of this church.”

  Now the Princess jumped in. “And this church was built when St. Gertrude was founded.”

  I glanced up at the ceiling of the stone passageway. “So maybe Mr. Daunton built this secret passage. And when he decided to hide his stuff, he put it right here. Where nobody would find it.”

  Bogey grinned at us both. “That’d be my guess. This stuff probably hasn’t seen daylight in almost a hundred and fifty years.”

  “Wow,” the Princess and I both whispered.

  It was kind of weird to think that we were the first ones looking at it, since the time when Mr. Daunton decided to hide it.

  The Princess scooted closer to the chest and ran her paw over the jewels. They were so dazzling they were almost blinding. It reminded me of the day when Bogey and I saw the Daunton Exhibit at the Museum.

  And suddenly the words of the Wise One came back to me.

  Always look deeper.

  So I did. I dug my big paw into the chest and through all those jewels and other stuff. Once I hit bottom, I kind of poked around a little. That’s when I felt something wrapped up in cloth. I latched my claws onto it and pulled. It took me a few seconds to drag that object to the top. But sure enough, out came something about the same size as the Tobias statue we had at home.

  Let me tell you, I already had a pretty good idea what was wrapped up in that cloth. My jaw practically fell to the stone floor.

  The Princess gasped. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Bogey grinned. “Yup, I’d say so.”

  Then together we unwrapped it just enough to make sure. And we were right. Under that cloth was the second missing statue.

  The Tessa statue.

  It was covered with lots and lots of little white diamonds. It had eyes made out of emeralds and a ruby for a nose. And I could tell the tail was curved so it would connect perfectly with the Tobias statue.

  It was the other half of the Best Friends set.

  Now the Princess laughed. “Danby Daunton had it all the time.”

  I just kept staring at that statue. “So he did hide it. That way the people who stole the Tobias statue couldn’t steal Tessa, too.”

  Bogey nodded. “You got it, kid.”

  The Princess sighed. “Tessa has been without her best friend all these years.”

  All of a sudden, I really wanted to see the two jeweled cats together again. Just like Danby Daunton had wanted them to be.

  Bogey seemed to be reading my mind. “A hundred and fifty years is too long for these best friends to be apart. What do you say we get them back together?”

  I turned to my brother. “But how?”

  Bogey tugged the cloth back ar
ound the statue. “At the end of the piano recital, kid. We’ll get some of the humans back here and show them what we found. Then we’ll show our Mom the Tobias statue when we get home. We’ve gotta get this stuff into the right hands.”

  I helped him pull the cloth tight, and we scooted the statue to the side of the chest.

  “Before Delilah and Byron and Evaline and Murwood get their hands on it?” I asked him.

  Bogey glanced at me. “That’s right, kid. As well as the mastermind behind all the stuff that’s been going on.”

  I sort of gasped. “Um . . . mastermind? What do you mean?”

  Bogey put his paw on my shoulder. “Think about it, kid. You already started to put the pieces of this puzzle together. When you figured out the part about the alarm code.”

  I’m sure my eyes went extra wide right about then. “I did?”

  Bogey nodded. “Yup, kid. You’ve almost got this case cracked.”

  “I do?” I choked out.

  Bogey squinted his eyes and sniffed the air. “Something’s fishy here, kid.”

  He tiptoed toward the back of the chest.

  I pointed my ears in his direction. “Is it the mastermind?”

  Bogey shook his head. “Nope, kid.”

  He leaned on his side and reached one of his long, slim arms behind the chest. The next thing I knew, he was pulling out a little burlap bag.

  Now what had he found? More treasure?

  Before I could say a word, Bogey used his sharp claws to tear open the bag. Out fell some really old feather cat toys and a few . . . really old cat treats?

  They looked and smelled like hard little squares of fish. I could hardly believe my eyes. Or my nose, for that matter.

  Bogey sniffed them over. “These seem to be okay, kid. Well preserved. Salt cured fish.”

  He passed one to me and the Princess before he took one for himself. The treats were a little hard and a little salty. But other than that, they tasted pretty good.

  “This’ll help you think, kid,” he told me.

  The Princess smiled at me. “You can do it, Buckley. I just know you can figure it out.”

  I was careful not to look into her beautiful green eyes. Because one thing I knew for sure — if I looked into her eyes, I wouldn’t be able to think at all! So I just stared at the stone wall of the secret passage instead. Then I munched on the treat and tried to think as hard as I could. But no matter how hard I tried, the answers wouldn’t come into my mind.

  Thankfully, Bogey jumped in to help. “Remember the note from the sea captain’s pocket, kid? It had the name of a store on it. We thought it was our Mom’s store.”

  I nodded my head. “Uh-huh.”

  Bogey passed us all another treat. “Plus that paper had some numbers on it. And thanks to your good detective work, kid, we now believe those numbers were an alarm code. But if they were, they weren’t even close to the numbers our Mom uses for her alarm code.”

  “Um, right. They weren’t,” I said before I ate my next treat.

  Bogey finished his second treat. “So maybe the name and the alarm code weren’t for our Mom’s store, kid. Maybe they were for a different store. Don’t forget, that paper had gotten wet. The ink ran and it smeared the writing.”

  I crinkled my forehead. “But why would someone have the name of a store and the alarm code on a paper? Our Mom never gives out her alarm code.”

  The Princess raised her paw. “I know this one, boys. It’s so someone can go into a store and drop off some things that were stolen. Without anyone ever seeing them. The person making the drop goes in late at night. The store owner usually hides a key outside for them somewhere. Then the delivery person uses the key, goes in, and turns off the alarm with the alarm code. They stash the stuff in the place where they were told. When they’re done, they set the alarm again and leave. And they lock the door and replace the key on the way out. No one ever knows it happened. The store owner finds the stolen things the next day.”

  I turned and sort of stared at the Princess. Sometimes I forgot about the life she’d been forced to live before we rescued her. And right about then, I sure was glad we had rescued her.

  But I had to say, the stuff she told us was really helping to solve this case!

  I put my paw to my head. “So if the sea captain had that note, was he the one delivering something? To a store that sounds a lot like our Mom’s store?”

  Bogey grinned at me. “You got it, kid. I’d say someone made arrangements for the sea captain to deliver the Tobias statue. He’s the one who hid it in our Mom’s store.”

  Now I was the one nodding. “But that was the wrong store.”

  Bogey passed out another round of treats. “You nailed it, kid. Because he’d already been to the right store.”

  I blinked a couple of times. “The right store?”

  “Yup, kid,” Bogey said. “He’d already been to the store he was supposed to go to. The store that was really written down on that piece of paper.”

  I munched on my cat treat. “But the alarm code didn’t work at the right store. Because the paper was wet and the numbers ran. And he got the wrong numbers.”

  Bogey nodded. “Exactly, kid. And because he didn’t have the right numbers for the code, the alarm went off. So that’s when he locked the door and went to our Mom’s store. He must have thought he’d just gotten the wrong store in the first place.”

  I shook my head. “But he didn’t have a key for our Mom’s store. So he had to break in. He probably looked for a key, but just thought he couldn’t find it. Since it was so foggy that night.”

  “So he broke in instead, kid,” Bogey went on. “And that set off the alarm. Then he punched in the numbers from the paper, trying to turn off the alarm. But it didn’t work. By then he was probably so confused he didn’t know what store he was supposed to be in. So he just stashed the package with the statue and ran.”

  I raised my paw. “Later, he figured out that he’d been to the wrong store. Especially when the person who was supposed to get the package didn’t get it. And wanted to know where it was. So he showed up at our Mom’s store first thing Monday morning. Looking for the package.”

  Bogey gave me a paw bump. “Bingo, kid.”

  Holy Catnip. This really was our most confusing case ever!

  “Then what was the right store?” the Princess asked.

  And that’s when the answer practically hit me like a thunderbolt.

  All of a sudden, I had a hard time speaking. I just sort of sputtered, “Uh, uh, uh . . .”

  Bogey grinned at me. And I knew that he knew that I knew the answer. And I knew that he knew, too.

  Finally, we both blurted out together, “Abascal’s Antiquities!”

  “The store owned by Abe Abascal,” Bogey added.

  “That means Abe . . .” I started to say.

  And Bogey finished with, “. . . set it up to bring Tobias over from Istanbul.”

  I’m sure my eyes practically popped out of my head right about then. “So Abe is the mastermind. He’s the one behind it all!”

  Bogey nodded. “You got it, kid.”

  “Wow,” the Princess kind of breathed. “So who does the Tobias statue really belong to now? Since it was stolen all those years ago?”

  Bogey passed out the last of the treats. “Probably the Daunton family. But one thing’s for sure, it doesn’t belong to Abe. Or any of the rest of the crooks who’ve been after it.”

  I munched on my last cat treat and shook my head. I could hardly believe it. Abe Abascal. He’d been so nice to Bogey and me when we’d seen him at our Mom’s store. And even after he’d found us at his store.

  We were all silent for a few seconds, and that’s when we heard piano music. It sounded like it was far, far away. Gracie would be playing her piano piece pretty soon. Hers was at the end of the show, and I wanted to be there when she played it.

  But what would we do about the treasure?

  I was about to say something to Bogey
when we heard sort of a scuffling sound. It was coming from the entrance to the secret passage. We all turned to look. Just in time to hear a click and see a bright light shined right into our eyes.

  “Well, hello there, kitties,” a man said in a musical voice. “My, but I do like a good treasure hunt. And I can see that you do, too. Though I must say, for your part, it is rather a shame. Because this is one treasure hunt that will prove to be your undoing. Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, ‘curiosity killed the cat?’ If not, you’ll soon find out what it means.”

  The man switched off his flashlight, and we could now see his face.

  Abe Abascal.

  The mastermind behind our most complicated case ever. Standing right in front of the entrance to the secret passage.

  Suddenly my whole body started to shake.

  Holy Catnip!

  CHAPTER 23

  _____________________________

  Holy Mackerel! There we were. Face to face with the man behind all the shady dealings going on in St. Gertrude lately. And I had to say, I sure didn’t like what he said about curiosity killing any cats. Then again, I didn’t really like the way he was talking to us either. He sounded kind of nice, and at the same time, he sounded pretty scary.

  Though to tell you the truth, I could barely hear him. That’s because my heart was pounding really, really hard. And loud.

  I gulped and glanced at my brother. I tried my best to figure out what he was thinking. Without moving his head, he looked up and down the secret passage. So I figured he probably wanted us cats to zoom out. Before Abe had a chance to catch us.

  But if we did that, I knew Abe would take off with the treasure. And the Tessa statue. Then no one would ever know we’d found it, and it would probably disappear for good. I wasn’t really crazy about that idea.

  The Princess scooted over next to me. I could tell she was scared, too. She was shaking even more than I was.

  But I didn’t want the Princess to be scared. That’s when I decided to try to be a little more brave. Like Bogey. So she wouldn’t be so afraid.

  A few inches away, Bogey sat up nice and tall. He stared at Abe beneath eyelids that were half-closed.